Some Questions

[Dunuin]

Hello,

I have some questions and it would be great, if someone knows the answers.

1.) Does a Phenom II 955 (4x 3,2GHZ without AES-NI) have enough computing power to use the full gbit lan bandwidth with a RaidZ1 and 5 SATA disks? I've read something 20% performace loss per HDD without AES-NI.

2.) My target is an encrypted RaidZ1 running five WD Red 3TB. I also own four USB3-3TB-HDDs able to read and write with 170 MB/s. It is possible to directly backup the NAS data to the USB3-HDDs using the USB3 ports of the NAS?

3.) If that is possible, will I be able to encrypt that USB3-HDDs?

4.) Is it possible to run any freeBSD compatible Software in a jail? I have BOINC and XBMC in mind.

5.) Moving the ZIL to a SSD does increase the performance if there are many synchronous operations. If I'm using the NAS mainly for streaming, saving Desktop data and backups, would I benefit from the SSDs or is it just for DB accesses and so on?

6.) Can I use the same SSD for ZIL and jails?

7.) Can I mirror the two SSDs so I'm not loosing my ZIL if a SSD breaks?

8.) Is it possible to run a headless freeNAS sever without any graphiccard? (Xeon E3-1230v2)

9.) Does freeNAS support the P4000 gpu of the Xeon E3-1245v2?

 

[cyberjock]

My answers are in bold:



I have some questions and it would be great, if someone knows the answers.

1.) Does a Phenom II 955 (4x 3,2GHZ without AES-NI) have enough computing power to use the full gbit lan bandwidth with a RaidZ1 and 5 SATA disks? I've read something 20% performace loss per HDD without AES-NI.

Not sure. I'm and Intel guy and not into AMDs personally so I'd prefer someone with AMD knowledge provide that opinion.

2.) My target is an encrypted RaidZ1 running five WD Red 3TB. I also own four USB3-3TB-HDDs able to read and write with 170 MB/s. It is possible to directly backup the NAS data to the USB3-HDDs using the USB3 ports of the NAS?

I'd highly recommend RAIDZ2 with 5 drives. If 1 disk fails and another had even 1 bad sector you will lose data. This has happened more frequently than you'll want to know.

As for USB3, it is disabled by default in FreeNAS(consult the manual to enable it). Personally, I don't recommend USB for anything except the boot drive. Too many issues with accidentally unplugging a hard drive's power cable/power strip/usb cable/usb hub/usb power hub/etc. If you go with USB and you can't get USB3 to work with the drives I think you'd be crazy. Scrubs will take forever over USB2.

3.) If that is possible, will I be able to encrypt that USB3-HDDs?

If you want to, yes.

4.) Is it possible to run any freeBSD compatible Software in a jail? I have BOINC and XBMC in mind.

For the most part, yes. If it can run with FreeBSD 8.3, then it should be able to run in the jail.

5.) Moving the ZIL to a SSD does increase the performance if there are many synchronous operations. If I'm using the NAS mainly for streaming, saving Desktop data and backups, would I benefit from the SSDs or is it just for DB accesses and so on?

I'd say no SSD for the ZIL or L2ARC. Unless you know you're going to be doing alot of sync writes at regular intervals all the time a ZIL a waste. For L2ARC, any server that won't have extremely high load all the time is a waste.

6.) Can I use the same SSD for ZIL and jails?

If you partition it as such, yes.

7.) Can I mirror the two SSDs so I'm not loosing my ZIL if a SSD breaks?

If you want, but its not necessary with the current version of ZFS that is included with FreeNAS.

8.) Is it possible to run a headless freeNAS sever without any graphiccard? (Xeon E3-1230v2)

Depends on the motherboard. Some will boot without a video card, some won't. You'd have to see if your motherboard supports it.

9.) Does freeNAS support the P4000 gpu of the Xeon E3-1245v2?

Define "support". FreeNAS is text-based video modes only, so as long as the GPU supports text mode(hint: they all do) then there shouldn't be any problems.