Large Nas project 30TB

[Beezie]

Hi everyone
I have been planing to build a large NAS for almost a year now and have come so far in the research and budget wise that it makes sence to make a final thread.

• 
  The plan are to get a platform up were i can store my media/files/music and at the same time my ever growing VM ESXi5 storage and backup need`s.
  In most cases, losing an occasional file or two due to corruption, bit rot, etc., wouldn't be the end of the world, but I'd like to try to avoid it, or at least become promptly aware of it.
  The most frequent usage will be VM storage followed by watching video and saving documents.
  It will usually be accessed by Four devices, 2 user`s over the LAN.
  Downtime isn't a big concern, i can handle 1-2day`s.
  Power usage are not a big deal.
  
  My plans are to build a 20disk NAS that are placed in two array`s. One for VM`s, And one for media.
  as i see it my options are (1) FreeNAS (2) OpenIndiana with Napp-It appliance installed (3) Amahi Home Server.
  one of the things i are looking for is ZFS for the file-system.
  My first choise would be to go for FreeNas because of the overall feel. ZFS, support fairly pain free administration but after have been researching it over the past year,
  one issue i have encountered with it is the seemingly very por hardware compatability since it is based upon BSD 8. i just keep having issues and concerns about out of the box support.
  I can handle Linux commands and Linux in general, but not nearly an excpert so my second choise have been Amahi on the Fedora 14 platform untill i started bumping into OpenIndiana and Napp-it.
  Amahi just does not feel "right" and i haven`t had the time to try out amahi on fedora as a VM yet. And i have found the documantation for it lacking at some points, i however like fedora
  OpenIndiana with Napp-it seems like a very good alternative to Amahi, it got a lot of options and got a quite nice feeling, napp-it is awesome and relativly easy to set up and is fully ZFS ready.
  I would like some feedback/tip`s about it

Parts i have
NORCO RPC-4220 4U 20bay

HP SAS Expander

HP NC364T PCI Express Quad Port Gigabit


Parts to buy:
SUPERMICRO MBD-X8SIA-F-O LGA 1156
I have been looking at this Supermciro motherboard, it got the PCI slotts i need.
these boards are so picky on ram its not funny to think about. i could only get hold of 16GB ram for this board,
i have`nt decided if i want to bump it up to a 2processor board from supermicro and be able to get over 32GB ram of that (help?)

KINGSTON 4GB 1333MHZ DDR3 ECC CL9 x4 16GB ECC
these are the highest density i found to deffininitly work with the X8SIA-F but 16GB for ZFS is a bit to small "1GB ram per Terabyte ZFS storage"

Intel Xeon Quad-Core - X3450 2.66GHz
proccesor for the X8SIA-f

CORSAIR HX 750W
i would probably need a little more power if i would end up with a dual socket board?
750W would seem ok for one socket and 20drives

NOCTUA NH-U9B
small cooler that works on the LGA-1156

LSI SAS 9211-8i 8-port 6Gbps SAS/SATA
this part have been the hardest of them all to get one that is supported.
It`s supported by OpenIndiana and Napp-it have it listed on their front page
FreeNas and BSD 8 does not support this card that i have been able to digg up. FreeNas is just so dam picky in hardware
with the SAS expander i think this would be a good combo?

Hitachi 5k3000 2TB drives
it seems this is a good choise of what i have read so far, for a raid array
because of the very high hardrive price i will not buy any drives for a wile, have to wait for it to settle down


The plan is to have this in my rack and plug it into my network. make 2 volumes, 1 raidz2 on 14-15drives for media and one raidz1 for VM`s
I don`t have any gear for fiber and i dont know much about it, so it is out of the question for this build.
I will go for eather FreeNas 8 or OpenIndiana and napp-it, what do you guys think?
any commends are wellcome

 

[GregN]

Dude, you've been doing your reading and research.....very cool.

Have you found a source for cheap drives?

 

[Beezie]

No, the prices are three times higher then what it used to be.
Won`t be buying a large amount of drives before the price drops a bit

 

[cpotter638]

LSI SAS 9211-8i 8-port 6Gbps SAS/SATA
this part have been the hardest of them all to get one that is supported.
It`s supported by OpenIndiana and Napp-it have it listed on their front page
FreeNas and BSD 8 does not support this card that i have been able to digg up. FreeNas is just so dam picky in hardware
with the SAS expander i think this would be a good combo?

LSI SAS 9211-8i is supported by FreeNAS 0.8 with ZFS. See below references:

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?818-Hardware-Compatability-List-Tell-us-what-you-have

(Above link - User "Millhouse" is using this card)

http://forums.freenas.org/showthrea...-or-is-recommended&p=6757&viewfull=1#post6757

Hope this helps.

 

[Beezie]

LSI SAS 9211-8i is supported by FreeNAS 0.8 with ZFS. See below references:

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?818-Hardware-Compatability-List-Tell-us-what-you-have

(Above link - User "Millhouse" is using this card)

http://forums.freenas.org/showthrea...-or-is-recommended&p=6757&viewfull=1#post6757

Hope this helps.

Now, that`s interesting... i have been googling and cheching those controllers for weeks but those posts on the FreeNas forum have slipped it seems, i was fearly sure that card would not go well with FeeNas.
it however need to be flashed to work, maby that`s why i mistook it for not being compitable

thanks

 

[Beezie]

Any toughts about going 2 socket Motherboard vs the one socket i have now?

 

[Generic George]

Any toughts about going 2 socket Motherboard vs the one socket i have now?

Given that you are running Free NAS on it, I'm guessing you will only be using it as a NAS. So a second processor is unlikely to be of any use. Pretty much anything you stick in is way more powerful than most NAS. If you think you need more horsepower, then I would spend my money on a faster or more powerful chip.

Dual processor MB do tend to have waaaaaaayyyyyyy more memory slots than the kind of board you currently have FWIW.

If however you plan on using it for other things. Then it depends on what that is.

 

[Beezie]

Given that you are running Free NAS on it, I'm guessing you will only be using it as a NAS. So a second processor is unlikely to be of any use. Pretty much anything you stick in is way more powerful than most NAS. If you think you need more horsepower, then I would spend my money on a faster or more powerful chip.

Dual processor MB do tend to have waaaaaaayyyyyyy more memory slots than the kind of board you currently have FWIW.

If however you plan on using it for other things. Then it depends on what that is.

I have other servers to handle other task`s this will only be a storage box.
you are abselutly right about the second processor, was just thinking about t he mem slots and didn`t take FreeNas into account. will have a closer look at the proccesor options
thanks george

 

[Beezie]

After a few day`s of thinking i have decided that 16GB ram will do just fine.
I`m going to stick with FreeNas and the parts as it looks now and start building it after new-year and keep a close eye on the hardrive prices the next few month`s.
may just start with the smaller storage pool for the ESXi Vm`s and get the rest of the hardrives over the summer as i hope the prices will be lower then what they are now

 

[eon]

Give EON a look

Give EON a look. Runs on a USB key, saves one disk port, eliminates OS disk failure and based on the latest enterprise source of illumos/openindiana

http://eonstorage.blogspot.com/