Raevyn
Cadet
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2019
- Messages
- 6
Hello,
I have been studing ZFS for a FreeNAS system I am looking at building, and I was hoping to get a few questions answered and some thoughts on this build I have in mind.
First, I would be using AMD Ryzen, probably 7 3700X although if its considered a better idea, I could go to Ryzen 9 3900X instead. Im a bit confused which is best as I hear ZFS is resource intensive, but what that actually means in hardware gets a bit subjective I think. I did read in one article it is better to use Intel, though I dont know why, and if it really is I do have an Xeon 1650-v4 sitting around I could use instead. Its performance is not on par with Ryzen 7 or 9 but, if it will do the job its an option.
So what I have looking at is a MicroATX board. I know not to use RAID controllers so I would need to get some SATA drive to PCI adapters as I want to have 10 drives. That brings my first question; according to the information in the FreeNAS guide, once I add drives to a pool, thats it. I can remove a drive with a larger one without data loss but I wont gain any additional space until all the drives in that pool are the same size is that correct? I am also seeing that I can setup multiple pools so rather than installing all 10 drives in a machine, I could do 5, and when I purchase the next 5, I can create another pool which then my question is, would it still appear on the network as a singular volume or as 2? Also that would be a bit of redundancy if I made the 2nd set a mirror wouldn it?
As for the rest of the configuration, I read it is best to boot from USB, and having 2 USB mirrored is best. I would like to use encryption but its only able to work on BSD? I use Linux so that may be an issue. That brings me to the ZIL. I was thinking of getting a couple of SSD and mirroring them but in reading the guide I found on the forum, it says RAM can do that. I would be getting a UPS on it, and I would have 64GB of ECC.. is that more than enough where I dont need the SSDs? I am also reading that L2ARC is probably not needed the more RAM you have, which it happens to mention 64GB of RAM so I am thinking getting SSDs for read or write caching would be uncessary and yield no advantages?
I read that I can make another system that freenas can mirror so I have my data in two different locations, but I was wondering if anyone would choose to use ext4 or some other file system in case ZFS has an issue and gets corrupted?
I have been studing ZFS for a FreeNAS system I am looking at building, and I was hoping to get a few questions answered and some thoughts on this build I have in mind.
First, I would be using AMD Ryzen, probably 7 3700X although if its considered a better idea, I could go to Ryzen 9 3900X instead. Im a bit confused which is best as I hear ZFS is resource intensive, but what that actually means in hardware gets a bit subjective I think. I did read in one article it is better to use Intel, though I dont know why, and if it really is I do have an Xeon 1650-v4 sitting around I could use instead. Its performance is not on par with Ryzen 7 or 9 but, if it will do the job its an option.
So what I have looking at is a MicroATX board. I know not to use RAID controllers so I would need to get some SATA drive to PCI adapters as I want to have 10 drives. That brings my first question; according to the information in the FreeNAS guide, once I add drives to a pool, thats it. I can remove a drive with a larger one without data loss but I wont gain any additional space until all the drives in that pool are the same size is that correct? I am also seeing that I can setup multiple pools so rather than installing all 10 drives in a machine, I could do 5, and when I purchase the next 5, I can create another pool which then my question is, would it still appear on the network as a singular volume or as 2? Also that would be a bit of redundancy if I made the 2nd set a mirror wouldn it?
As for the rest of the configuration, I read it is best to boot from USB, and having 2 USB mirrored is best. I would like to use encryption but its only able to work on BSD? I use Linux so that may be an issue. That brings me to the ZIL. I was thinking of getting a couple of SSD and mirroring them but in reading the guide I found on the forum, it says RAM can do that. I would be getting a UPS on it, and I would have 64GB of ECC.. is that more than enough where I dont need the SSDs? I am also reading that L2ARC is probably not needed the more RAM you have, which it happens to mention 64GB of RAM so I am thinking getting SSDs for read or write caching would be uncessary and yield no advantages?
I read that I can make another system that freenas can mirror so I have my data in two different locations, but I was wondering if anyone would choose to use ext4 or some other file system in case ZFS has an issue and gets corrupted?