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AMD Setup for ZFS NAS

M

magz

n00b
Joined
Oct 27, 2011
Messages
7
Hello, looking for some advice on a ZFS NAS that I hope to build. Posted a similar thread some time back (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1656931), but that build was not feasible. So now I'm considering a stand-alone machine that can act as my NAS at home to serve movies and stream music from. There will be a maximum of 3 people connecting to it. Will the following config work with OpenIndiana?:
  • Mainboard: MSI A75A-G35
  • CPU: AMD A4 X2 3300 (2500MHZ), 1MB Cache 65W
  • Memory: Kingston ValueRam KVR16N11K2/16, 8Gb x2 kit ddr3-1600
  • PSU: Gigabyte ODIN 370W
  • Drives: Western Digital Red WD30EFRX, 3Tb ( x 5)
  • OS Drive: Patriot Supersonic Boost XT 16GB USB3.0

...Or is this an overkill?

The MSI board has 6 SATA3 ports onboard, and thus saves me from having to get a dedicated controller card. I'm going with 5 WD 3TB Red drives (RaidZ2) so I'll get 9TB usable storage. Is an odd number like 5 drives okay? IIRC, I've read somewhere that ZFS performance is better with an even number of drives.

Also I was going to boot the OS from the Patriot flash drive, but was wondering whether it would be more feasible to use the remaining SATA3 port to connect an SSD. I have a Corsair 30GB Nova2 SATA3G SSD that came out of my old (no longer working) Core-i3 machine.

I would really appreciate your thoughts/opinions! Thanks
 
Do you absolutely need the cheapest solution ?

Because by going AMD you can get ECC for cheaper than with Intel, but not with an APU.
 
I was just about to say that. If you are going AMD drop the APU and get any CPU that's not Zacate or Semprons (some do some don't). They all support ECC. You will want that. Asus MB's are usually good for ECC support (check the specs).
 
Thanks for the responses. No, I'm not going out of my way to build the cheapest solution. I was looking for a M/B with 6 or more on-board SATA6G ports. I'll look up some more options and post back here. AM3 socket? Any suggestions?
 
M5A99X EVO
M5A97 PRO

These two ASIS boards support ECC. There's more you just need to google ECC AM3+ (whatever brand).
 
how about the ASUS M5A97 with either AMD Sempron 145 (2800MHZ) 45W, or an AMD Athlon II x2 Dual-Core 255 AM3 3.1GHz?
 
I would go for the Sempron over the Athlon II X2 Dual-Core because the Sempron is cheaper, lower wattage, and you don't need that much horsepower for ZFS NAS. I have a 610e on my main ZFS NAS and it pretty much never goes above 27% CPU usage, which would translate to about 90% usage on a Sempron 145.

I also have the ASUS M5A97 but you don't need the PRO version, and in fact most or all ASUS AMD mobos made in the last few years support ECC. Use unbuffered ECC RAM. To see a somewhat informal list of what kinds of mobos support ECC RAM, click on the Click Here button at: http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/con...t=&LinkBack=&ktcpartno=KVR1333D3E9SK2/8G&id=2

Mobos not on that list may also support ECC... it's an incomplete list.

Btw it's a mostly waste of money to get a USB 3.0 boot-up stick if the mobo does not support booting up via USB 3.0. And most mobos do not support it. Plus how often will you actually boot up the NAS? If not often it's even more of a waste to get a fast USB stick.

Lastly, try to get the smallest wattage and most efficient PSU you can get, as it will pay for itself over time... 24/7 usage will eat more power than you might think, so it's better to go small and efficient... small because idle power is what you're drawing most of the time, and big-wattage PSUs don't do as well with such low wattages.
 
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@Blastingcap: Thanks for your response! I hear you. Would the Sempron be okay for dedup?
 
You know, I'm not completely sure because I can't remember how ZFS dedup is implemented (multi threaded or not), but why on earth would you use dedup given the drawbacks? For dedup you want more RAM, like 5GB of RAM per TB of storage, plus another 2GB of RAM just for the OS. Some people claim you only need 2GB/TB but I think I read somewhere that actual testing found 2GB/TB to be way insufficient to keep it all in RAM--which is where you want it, not on far-slower disks!

Edit to add:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/servers-storage-admin/o11-113-size-zfs-dedup-1354231.html

http://constantin.glez.de/blog/2011/07/zfs-dedupe-or-not-dedupe

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1677485

Edit to add: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1726709 is a CPU ZFS discussion. I was surprised to hear that with 6 disks in RAIDZ1/2 it may be necessary to upgrade the CPU after all.
 
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I went with an AMD setup for my ZFS box a little over a year and a half ago.
My main were ECC support, a few pcie slots for more drives, and cheap. I got the x4 because it was only like 10 bucks more than an x2 in a combo deal... figured it would allow some extra breathing room for VM's or whatever I wanted to do. The only thing I would like to have is IOMMU for a possible pvr vm in the future.

My machine idles around 70w. I've never had the interest in dedup so can't comment there. With Realtek nics on both the server and my desktop I get 100MB/s with large files in my rather scientific Activity Monitor testing so I'm pretty happy with it for my uses. ;)
 
1.) You are probably going to want more CPU power than that. ON an AMD system with more than 4 drives in RAIDz2 I'd definitely go with 4 cores.

2.) They tend to recommend you use even numbers of drives (4,6,8, etc.) with RAIDz2 and odd numbers of drives (3,5,7, etc.) with RAIDz1

I would boot the system from a USB flash drive and use all 6 sata ports for drives in RAIDz2.

Also,

While it isn't a bad idea, you don't really NEED TLER for ZFS arrays. They patiently wait for the drive to finish and don't drop drives like hardware RAID does. It can cause some performance bumps, but Greens ARE a bit cheaper.

I would stay away from deduplication and compression. These things are just major performance sucks, and not worth it.
 
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Alternatively, go with mirrored pairs and stripe across all of them for more performance and less need for CPU power. You lose a little on reliability but it's simple to set up and expand via larger-capacity drives, over time.
 
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