Hello,
I'm working for a visual effects company and I'm designing our new file server. We are planning to use zfs on linux. I would kindly ask your advice or suggestions on our setup.
Task:
-----
Replacing our Fedora 24 bay sata system with something that has more punch. Currently we use a 4 x 10GB Bond in a HP switch and a Hardware Raid + xfs.
Requirements:
-------------
- 50 TB usable space
- saturating 1GB Ethernet for file transfer to at least 10 -15 workstations simultaneously via SMB (~ 115MB/s) - image sequences of files normally around 5-20 MB each.
- keep it simple: No cluster file system, 1 Machine and 1 Storage Domain Space, No active fail over we can live with some downtime - backups are rsynced to a backup system
Problems in the past:
---------------------
- Fedora
- Machines IO would max out at 4 streams although we never quite nailed it down who's fault it was. I suspect Hardware raid and old samba version that wouldn't scale properly.
- When 16 Render Nodes where doing constantly small r/w operations we could easily bring the machine to its IO max.
New Setup
---------
Hardware:
Dual Xeon XXX
Super Micro 24 bay enclosure
> 256 GB RAM
4 x 10GB
MegaRAID SAS 9361-8i
24 x 4GB SATA 7200/24-7 disks
1 x System disk
Raid Setup:
6 Vdevs à 4 Disks Raid 1+0 = 48TB
ZIL:
2x OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD 240 GB mirrored
L2ARC:
2x OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD 960 GB striped
Software:
Ubuntu 14.04
Zfsonlinux
Sernet Samba 4
Questions:
----------
I would like to have your opinion on following Questions:
1. Is this Raid Setup "OK"
2. Do I need Hot Spares if this is not critical - Server Room is 2 doors away to swap disks if failing - we would need to have some spare drives laying around of course.
3. Is the Revodrive a good idea as ZIL/L2ARc
4. Do I really need to throw so much hardware on cache if I'm planing to have plenty of Ram
5. Good proven alternatives on Hardware setup especially ZIL/L2ARC
6. Do you think I can fulfill my requirements with this setup
7. Which Xeons are suitable - other than ZFS compression and file services nothing else will be running on this machine
I would love to hear your opinion.
Thank you
Joe
I'm working for a visual effects company and I'm designing our new file server. We are planning to use zfs on linux. I would kindly ask your advice or suggestions on our setup.
Task:
-----
Replacing our Fedora 24 bay sata system with something that has more punch. Currently we use a 4 x 10GB Bond in a HP switch and a Hardware Raid + xfs.
Requirements:
-------------
- 50 TB usable space
- saturating 1GB Ethernet for file transfer to at least 10 -15 workstations simultaneously via SMB (~ 115MB/s) - image sequences of files normally around 5-20 MB each.
- keep it simple: No cluster file system, 1 Machine and 1 Storage Domain Space, No active fail over we can live with some downtime - backups are rsynced to a backup system
Problems in the past:
---------------------
- Fedora
- Machines IO would max out at 4 streams although we never quite nailed it down who's fault it was. I suspect Hardware raid and old samba version that wouldn't scale properly.
- When 16 Render Nodes where doing constantly small r/w operations we could easily bring the machine to its IO max.
New Setup
---------
Hardware:
Dual Xeon XXX
Super Micro 24 bay enclosure
> 256 GB RAM
4 x 10GB
MegaRAID SAS 9361-8i
24 x 4GB SATA 7200/24-7 disks
1 x System disk
Raid Setup:
6 Vdevs à 4 Disks Raid 1+0 = 48TB
ZIL:
2x OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD 240 GB mirrored
L2ARC:
2x OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD 960 GB striped
Software:
Ubuntu 14.04
Zfsonlinux
Sernet Samba 4
Questions:
----------
I would like to have your opinion on following Questions:
1. Is this Raid Setup "OK"
2. Do I need Hot Spares if this is not critical - Server Room is 2 doors away to swap disks if failing - we would need to have some spare drives laying around of course.
3. Is the Revodrive a good idea as ZIL/L2ARc
4. Do I really need to throw so much hardware on cache if I'm planing to have plenty of Ram
5. Good proven alternatives on Hardware setup especially ZIL/L2ARC
6. Do you think I can fulfill my requirements with this setup
7. Which Xeons are suitable - other than ZFS compression and file services nothing else will be running on this machine
I would love to hear your opinion.
Thank you
Joe
Last edited: