Should I install more memory?

[oRAirwolf]

I just got my hands on some very cheap 16GB DDR3 ECC memory sticks and I am wondering if it is worthwhile to upgrade the memory in my NAS. My specs are listed in my signature. I currently have 24GB of RAM in a 6 x 4GB configuration. I could upgrade to 96GB in the same slots with these new sticks. My current use case is as an SD/HD/4K storage and streaming server, application and ISO storage, along with Plex and SabNZBD duties. I rarely use Plex and tend to just stream media directly over my network using Windows filesharing and MPC-HC. I use SabNZBD several times a day. I am not sure if this is relevant, but I have a 10Gbe connection to the server from my desktop for faster file sharing. It's not really getting pounded too often and I assume 24GB is more than enough for my use case, but I was curious what you guys think. Would I see any benefits moving to 96GB?

 

[nojohnny101]

Are you asking this question because you could use this memory elsewhere?

The general rule of thumb on here is to have 1GB of ram per 1TB of storage. This is intentionally vague and is not intended to be strict. If you find your server is doing fine with what you currently have, then why add it? On the other hand, if you have no other use for it, and you already have it, then why not add it? Certainly isn't going to cost you anything extra in terms of power draw and certainly won't hurt performance.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Arwen]

Check your CPU and motherboard. Make sure they support 16GB DIMMs.

Looking at Intel ARK, it appears your Xeon E5-2407 supports 16GB DIMMs. But what do I know?

 

[oRAirwolf]

Check your CPU and motherboard. Make sure they support 16GB DIMMs.

Looking at Intel ARK, it appears your Xeon E5-2407 supports 16GB DIMMs. But what do I know?

This is not something I had considered. Thank you for that. I did some additional research and the Dell documentation states that it supports 16GB dual rank RDIMMs. Still trying to decide if I want to do this...

 

[Ericloewe]

Xeon E5-2407 supports 16GB DIMMs.

And certainly 32GB, probably 64GB, too.

 

[oRAirwolf]

And certainly 32GB, probably 64GB, too.

Not that it really matters, but according to the documentation on the Dell site, it supports up to 32GB modules. Not sure if this is a Dell limitation or a processor limitation. I'm guessing the former.

http://www.dell.com/support/manuals...bdfcc6-3ab0-4ca0-ae9b-d1c76a959dcc&lang=en-us

 

[oRAirwolf]

So I decided to just put in the 96GB of RAM. It was just collecting dust.

Now my question is: Do I need to change any settings for FreeNAS to cache recently accessed files in the system memory or does it do this by default? I have seen videos where people with 10Gbe links see much faster speeds the second time they transfer a file because it is stored in memory, rather than being accessed directly from the HDD's. Is this the default scenario?

 

[Stux]

It should be automatic.

There are tuning parameters for lots of things, but ZFS ARC will automatically use all available ram

 

[ddaenen1]

Not wanting to start a new thread if i understand this correctly, i do not need to do anything if i upgrade from 16Gb ECC RDIMM to 32Gb ECC RDIMM on my supermicro X8SIL-F board, right? FreeNAS will recognise the extra RAM and adjust the usage?

 

[G8One2]

Its not FreeNas, your BIOS is what needs to see it. Your situation may be different, but when i went from 32Gb to 192Gb of RAM, i had to set my BIOS to system default for some reason so that it would see all the RAM. Prior to doing that, BIOS was only reporting about half of it for some reason.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Generally speaking, if the old thread is more than a few months old, you're okay to make a new one - bringing up threads from years ago is often called "necroposting" and might lead to people responding to the OP without realizing the dates.

FreeNAS should recognize the additional RAM on reboot, but you'll want to check to ensure that it's reflected in the UI as well as in the "Maximum" - if you open a shell (preferably via SSH rather than the UI itself) to your unit and run arc_summary.py you'll get a huge raft of information about the ARC sizing. Or you could just run sysctl vfs.zfs.arc_max and convert the result from bytes to MB/GB and make sure it's reasonable. With 32GB I'd expect you'll be around 28GB for arc_max, I think the FreeNAS defaults are 7/8 of your physical RAM.

 

[ddaenen1]

Generally speaking, if the old thread is more than a few months old, you're okay to make a new one - bringing up threads from years ago is often called "necroposting" and might lead to people responding to the OP without realizing the dates.

Sorry for that. Mostly, experienced forum members always point out to search the forum before creating a new thread. Didn't know this was time-bound :)

 

[HoneyBadger]

Sorry for that. Mostly, experienced forum members always point out to search the forum before creating a new thread. Didn't know this was time-bound :)

Neither of them is a hard rule, really, it's one of those fuzzy lines between "bumping an old post that shows up as a top search result, so that others might also find a solution" versus "bumping an old post that's quite solved and the OP will wonder why it spawns a whole new discussion."

No harm done, I'm not one of the Keyboard Warriors that is a stickler for rules. But if there's more issues, go ahead and make a fresh thread (and feel free to @ me in it if you need specific help that I've offered before) lest we both go off on a tangent. :)

 

[ddaenen1]

Neither of them is a hard rule, really, it's one of those fuzzy lines between "bumping an old post that shows up as a top search result, so that others might also find a solution" versus "bumping an old post that's quite solved and the OP will wonder why it spawns a whole new discussion."

No harm done, I'm not one of the Keyboard Warriors that is a stickler for rules. But if there's more issues, go ahead and make a fresh thread (and feel free to @ me in it if you need specific help that I've offered before) lest we both go off on a tangent. :)

OK, many thanks. I will report back once i get my hands on 4 x 8GB quad-ranked RDIMM's which apparently are not easy to find and when found, still ridiculously expensive.

 

[Dan Tudora]

hello
I have a Dell server like yours
anytime is recomanded to update firmware first
with this T320 connected to the internet, at POST, press F10 if I remember the good key and update the firmware and bios
after that add the RDIMM module RAM
after that run a MemtestX86 to see all is good
sorry for english
succes

 

[ddaenen1]

Generally speaking, if the old thread is more than a few months old, you're okay to make a new one - bringing up threads from years ago is often called "necroposting" and might lead to people responding to the OP without realizing the dates.

FreeNAS should recognize the additional RAM on reboot, but you'll want to check to ensure that it's reflected in the UI as well as in the "Maximum" - if you open a shell (preferably via SSH rather than the UI itself) to your unit and run arc_summary.py you'll get a huge raft of information about the ARC sizing. Or you could just run sysctl vfs.zfs.arc_max and convert the result from bytes to MB/GB and make sure it's reasonable. With 32GB I'd expect you'll be around 28GB for arc_max, I think the FreeNAS defaults are 7/8 of your physical RAM.

Well, i found the correct RDIMM modules and installed them today. Seems like everything went flawless. Correct amount of RAM in the BIOS and also in the GUI. I also had the impression that FreeNAS did boot way faster than before. Not sure if this is an objective observation though.

This is what arc-summary.py displays on arc max. Seems ok, right?

Anything i missed?

 

[HoneyBadger]

Looks right to me (30.13GiB out of 32GiB) - enjoy the additional headroom.