So yeah. I have a pretty beefy storage server I built 2 years ago.
CURRENT SPECS:
Case: Norco RPC-4224
Mobo: ASUS P8B-E/4L ATX
CPU: Xeon E3-1220v2
RAM: 2x4GB Kingston ECC
RAID Controller: LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i
Expander: HP SAS Expander
OS Drive: Mushkin 60GB SSD
Data Drives: 7x2TB (RAID6), 2x3TB (RAID1)
Currently I'm running Windows Server 2012, but I am doing some hardware refresh with this server.
So yeah, I have a hardware RAID controller (LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i) and will be replacing my HP SAS Expander with a Chenbro. I want to use hardware RAID, and I'm not really interested in using ZFS at this time. With this refresh, I am considering switching OS, and have pretty well come to terms that it will either be a vanilla CentOS 6.6/7 install, or FreeNAS 9.3. I like FreeNAS for the web UI, easy out of the box config, quick ROI, and a few of the Plugins (CrashPlan, mainly). I have a Windows 8 VM running with the LSI MegaRAID Storage Manager that would be able to connect to the controller remotely to manage it, so that's not a problem. Also, this is for a home environment. I have 3 Dell R610's running Proxmox, but use Ceph on those nodes as primary storage (with Crucial MX100 512GB SSD's), but do also use NFS storage from this server for a few lower priority VM's.
So yeah...I know with 9.3 they did away with UFS, and only have ZFS. I would configure the RAID controller to only have 2 array's...a RAID 1 with the 2 60GB SSDs, and a RAID10 with the 6TB drives. FreeNAS would only see those two volumes, and I would want FreeNAS installed on the RAID1. So essentially (I would think) FreeNAS would think there was only 1 drive in the server.
Would this work? Would this cause any problems?
Again, I'm not interested in using ZFS, but I am very interested in all the other features that FreeNAS brings to the table.
Thanks!
CURRENT SPECS:
Case: Norco RPC-4224
Mobo: ASUS P8B-E/4L ATX
CPU: Xeon E3-1220v2
RAM: 2x4GB Kingston ECC
RAID Controller: LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i
Expander: HP SAS Expander
OS Drive: Mushkin 60GB SSD
Data Drives: 7x2TB (RAID6), 2x3TB (RAID1)
Currently I'm running Windows Server 2012, but I am doing some hardware refresh with this server.
- replace HP SAS Expander with Chenbro CK23601
- Add ASMB5-iKVM (iKVM for ASUS motherboard)
- Add second Mushkin 60GB SSD (hardware RAID, for OS)
- 6x6TB drives (RAID10) for data volume (expand as needed in the future) (HGST Deskstar NAS or WD Red)
So yeah, I have a hardware RAID controller (LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i) and will be replacing my HP SAS Expander with a Chenbro. I want to use hardware RAID, and I'm not really interested in using ZFS at this time. With this refresh, I am considering switching OS, and have pretty well come to terms that it will either be a vanilla CentOS 6.6/7 install, or FreeNAS 9.3. I like FreeNAS for the web UI, easy out of the box config, quick ROI, and a few of the Plugins (CrashPlan, mainly). I have a Windows 8 VM running with the LSI MegaRAID Storage Manager that would be able to connect to the controller remotely to manage it, so that's not a problem. Also, this is for a home environment. I have 3 Dell R610's running Proxmox, but use Ceph on those nodes as primary storage (with Crucial MX100 512GB SSD's), but do also use NFS storage from this server for a few lower priority VM's.
So yeah...I know with 9.3 they did away with UFS, and only have ZFS. I would configure the RAID controller to only have 2 array's...a RAID 1 with the 2 60GB SSDs, and a RAID10 with the 6TB drives. FreeNAS would only see those two volumes, and I would want FreeNAS installed on the RAID1. So essentially (I would think) FreeNAS would think there was only 1 drive in the server.
Would this work? Would this cause any problems?
Again, I'm not interested in using ZFS, but I am very interested in all the other features that FreeNAS brings to the table.
Thanks!