Spot Check my build please

[BLUEDOG314]

Hi. I was wondering if anyone wouldn't mind spot checking a system I plan building. Use case is a machine that will ingest various types of scans in a lab setting along with storing long (12-24hr) video files. There is probably about 15-20TB of historical scans that need to be imported, but after that the rate at which they will be generated new is not a lot, probably 1-2TB/year at most. There are no historical video files to be imported, but once they start being generated we are talking probably 50GB per day intake but after quick review roughly half of that will be deleted same day. The rest will stay for further review and medium term storage of maybe a year at most. This system will back up to another file server to be archived and doesn't need to hold this data "forever". The goal is to basically have any "recent" data, say anything less than 2 years old, be available very quickly to machines in the lab. It won't be uncommon to need to pull 50-70GB of data from the server to a workstation for analysis/review each day.

I can try to add a diagram later if this isn't clear, but the lab will have this system, an analysis workstation, and an offline laptop connected to a clinical scanner. The laptop will not be on the internet but needs to get scans quickly to the server. The workstation will do most of the data juggling from and to the server as it has to analyze scans and initially download the video recordings and push/pull them from the server as needed. The server must also be available on the broader network (university setting) via SMB, and I may try out NextCloud if it can satisfy the needs for light file transfers for collaborators.

My thought was the laptop would get an adapter (still looking into these for quality) to do thunderbolt 3 to SPF+ and direct connect to the server. The workstation would also direct connect to the server via SFP+ and also have a regular 1Gbe internet connection. The server connects to both lab computers with SFP+ and has its own 1Gbe internet connection.

After reading the hardware guides here and the iXSystems ZFS storage pool layout guide I thought I would do the following and track down some older hardware built around a consumer CPU:
Supermicro X11SCH-F
Seasonic Focus SGX-650 Watt
Fractal Node 804
2x 32GB Samsung DDR4-2666 ECC RAM
6 Seagate IronWolf Pro 20TB drives in one RAIDZ2 vdev
A 4-pack of 10GTek SFP+ tranceivers (not much thought into these, but seemed to be highly compatible and work well)
2x Chelsio T520-CR adapters
2x Samsung 970Evo mirrored for boot
Will need to find a TB3 to SFP+ adapter
Have plenty of OM3 and OM4 cables laying around so shouldn't need to buy.

One question I had was will I need to/should I (I think I saw that it is possible but could totally be making this up) change the transaction group size or timeout time to correspond to the estimated write speed of the pool considering if the laptop adapter pans out both it and the workstation will feed the server from a fast SSD?

Sorry for the long post but thank you, and thoughts very much appreciated!

 

[sretalla]

One question I had was will I need to/should I (I think I saw that it is possible but could totally be making this up) change the transaction group size or timeout time to correspond to the estimated write speed of the pool considering if the laptop adapter pans out both it and the workstation will feed the server from a fast SSD?

Some folks have discussed and messed around with it, but if you're asking for build validation, you're certainly not qualified to be in the group of people doing that (and it's usually a mess of trouble that you probably don't want anyway).

What you may want to do is force sync to disabled for some or all of the workloads in order to get maximum speed out of the system.

2x Chelsio T520-CR adapters

These should be fine.

A 4-pack of 10GTek SFP+ tranceivers

These should work OK in the chelsio adapters

Will need to find a TB3 to SFP+ adapter

Sounds problematic, but OK... if you can find something.

2x Samsung 970Evo mirrored for boot

I don't think this would usually be necessary unless you're hoping to survive a boot drive failure and stay running for some reason.

SSD boot drives won't usually be failing, so you're possibly covering a case that will never arrive.


Generally, the network stuff you'll need to do for all this to work is going to need some thought as you'll be dual-homing multiple systems and there will likely be routing issues to be resolved.

 

[BLUEDOG314]

@sretalla thank you for your time. Regarding the boot drives, I figured this wouldn't be an issue since the boot drive won't get any real amount of writes, but at that price and since the 2 m.2 slots are there I figured why not.

As far as the TB3/SFP+ adapter, I have reservations but have gotten a number of them to work outside of a TrueNAS environment and they have come a long way in the past 5 years or so as far as being viable, so I'm just going to give it a shot. If it doesn't work we will keep using the Samsung T7 we use now, this would just save a step and perhaps even allow the scanner's software to target the TrueNAS box as its output location.

For the proposed networking, I'm not opposed to getting something like the Mikrotik CRS305-1G-4S+IN, though I've heard mixed reviews and have had no clear winners through my research on comparable alternatives. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks again.

 

[sretalla]

Mikrotik CRS305-1G-4S+IN

Those come recommended by @jgreco (and ServeTheHome https://www.servethehome.com/mikrotik-crs305-1g-4sin-review-4-port-must-have-10gbe-switch/)

 

[jgreco]

For the proposed networking, I'm not opposed to getting something like the Mikrotik CRS305-1G-4S+IN, though I've heard mixed reviews and have had no clear winners through my research on comparable alternatives. Do you have any suggestions?

Also the 8 port version. If you have ever purchased a Netgear 1Gbps GS308T-100 switch (metal case, "smart" web managed) it is in that category of product, budget minded but a reasonable feature set, just at 10Gbps SFP+ instead of 1Gbps copper. If you are expecting a fully managed enterprise grade featureful switch like a high end Cisco, you might be disappointed.

There are not a lot of "comparable alternatives" at the price point. That's the Mikrotik gimmick. Unifi has the USW-AGGREGATION 8-port SFP+ managed switch, which I haven't laid hands on.

If you shop around on eBay, you can find stuff like the Dell PowerConnect 8024F for a few hundred dollars, which is a fully featured enterprise grade switch.

 

[sretalla]

Unifi has the USW-AGGREGATION 8-port SFP+ managed switch, which I haven't laid hands on

I have one of those...

If you're bought into their ecosystem already, it might make some sense to have the management view all in one console, but otherwise, I would say it just seems to complicate things that aren't (or don't need to be) complicated.

 

[jgreco]

If you're bought into their ecosystem already, it might make some sense to have the management view all in one console, but otherwise, I would say it just seems to complicate things that aren't (or don't need to be) complicated.

So it desperately wants to be adopted by a Unifi controller, then? I like the Unifi SPoG solution from a certain point of view, but it doesn't feel like they are particularly committed to their own ecosystem. Stuff is usually out of stock or being sold at premium prices by scalpers. Firmware bugs go unaddressed for years.

 

[sretalla]

So it desperately wants to be adopted by a Unifi controller, then? I like the Unifi SPoG solution from a certain point of view, but it doesn't feel like they are particularly committed to their own ecosystem.

I didn't try, but maybe it would just work as a dumb switch right out of the box... the fancy little touch-screen on the front probably would keep complaining about not being connected though.

I think the AR view is a nice feature, but probably a little pointless on a switch with only 8 ports.

I like what their system does for WiFi, but have been underwhelmed by their switch integration into the control system... seems like anything not WiFi is just an afterthought/poor cousin.

I'm also not very impressed with their update cycle and the way they seem to just remove features which people were using for no reason and maybe put them back a year or more later (like access point locking for devices), or not (like Topology maps).