ZFS with iSCSI and Network Shares

[dkusek]

I post this assuming all hardware requirements are met running FreeNAS 9.3.

I have read that the iSCSI pool should be kept under 50% for adequate performance. In theory, if I had 50TB of usable space and then created two separate pools on a system (1 for iSCSI with 25TB and the other for SMB with the other 25TB) would that allow the iSCSI user to utilize all 25TB of storage and maintain performance and have the other 25TB SMB share for other data or as an archive location.

The context is that some editing programs don't work well with SMB or network shares in general. So current projects would be over iSCSI with the SMB dataset used for archive.

Thank you. If more information is needed, please let me know.

 

[Nick2253]

If you only have 25TB available to iSCSI, and you want to avoid a performance hit by keeping it below 50% utilization, then you get 50% * 25TB = 12.5 TB to work with. If you utilize the space for something else, then you're not keeping it un-utilized.

 

[jgreco]

I post this assuming all hardware requirements are met running FreeNAS 9.3.

I have read that the iSCSI pool should be kept under 50% for adequate performance. In theory, if I had 50TB of usable space and then created two separate pools on a system (1 for iSCSI with 25TB and the other for SMB with the other 25TB) would that allow the iSCSI user to utilize all 25TB of storage and maintain performance

No. If it's a separate pool, it's a /separate pool/. You have to keep pool occupancy relatively low for good performance with iSCSI. You could create a single pool and might have better luck. However, if you're doing large file archival storage, you'd be better off with CIFS and RAIDZ2 for the second pool, and iSCSI doesn't work well with RAIDZ, so .... conundrum.

 

[dkusek]

All of this is extremely helpful in solidifying my understanding. Thank you both for your help.

-Devin