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criccio

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You may remember my thread from a few days ago where I was inquiring about a 4-bay NAS to replace my old WHS v1 box. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1633587

That thread got me researching OpenIndiana, ZFS and napp-it pretty heavily. At the moment I've got OpenIndiana installed in a VM with a 6 VHD's. One for the OS, 4 data and a single SSD (obviously they're all the same in VMware but thats what I'm imagining them as).

I've set it up like the following:

trFtl.jpg


I'm trying to emulate what I plan to do with my actual system once I get all the parts.

Here are the parts I have planned and I would really appreciate a once over and make sure i'm not going to run into any problems (i'm NOT getting that ProLiant, Newegg doesn't have the latest model with the N40L CPU. I'll buy that direct from HP):

x7Ixi.jpg



I do have some questions about the SSD as a cache. If i'm reading correctly, the ProLiant only has 4 SATA ports for the four drive bays and a single SATA port for whatever you put in the 5 1/4 bay. I'll use the lone SATA port for the OS on the included 3.5" HDD and put that in the 5 1/4" bay but then where would I plug in an SSD? Can I even? I would love to take advantage of the read caching features of ZFS.

Anyway, thoughts? I want to do this right!
 
I'm also quite curious about getting this machine hooked up to my main desktop with iSCSI. From what I'm reading it will be much quicker then just straight Gigabit Ethernet. There is no hardware differences with iSCSI right? Just software?

Would I gain anything by going with NexentaStor Community over OpenIndiana?
 
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Wait, I'm confused. Is this an 'all in one'? If so, you need more like 16GB ram, not 8GB. If it isn't an all in one, why do you think iscsi will be faster than straight ethernet? iSCSI goes over the gigabit enet...
 
Now I'm confused. What do you mean "all in one"? The HP MicroServer only supports 8GB of RAM.

I understand iSCSI runs over the same physical medium, although if its no faster, what is the point? (Genuinely curious)
 
An all in one (google this forum) is a system where a NAS/SAN is virtualized and provides storage to other VMs. That said, iSCSI is a storage protocol built on top of ethernet, not a replacement for it. No offense, but you really need to google and do some reading...
 
No this is not an all in one. Bare metal install of OpenIndiana.

I take it you don't know the advantages of iSCSI over SMB with Windows clients? I've already done a ton of reading thank you very much. :)

Google tells me it will perform better but is this really the case? Hence why i'm asking an actual person (you).

iSCSI in general will perform better because there will not be as many layers of abstraction in the way - the SMB protocol in this case. Also, since it is a block-level protocol, some software that will not work when installed to a network share will work with iSCSI.
Click to expand...
 
Personally, I still think the microserver is over-priced. Just get a similiarly performing AMD Fusion e-350, a case and power-supply and you are set.
 
Umm, when you asked "what is the advantage over straight ethernet", I read it as written. You never said (or even hinted) you were referring to SMB. I don't know you from adam, so when you post questions that sound ignorant (not meaning that pejoratively), how am I supposed to know?
 
s0rce said:
Personally, I still think the microserver is over-priced. Just get a similiarly performing AMD Fusion e-350, a case and power-supply and you are set.
Click to expand...
Several retailers in Europe had the MicroServer for about 150€ in the last few weeks. At that price it is a steal. It has the advantage of supporting ECC-RAM when compared to the AMD E-350 series, but depending on your use case one makes more sense than the other.

-TLB
 
I am quite knowledgeable about ZFS, and I suggest you skip the SSD as cache. You most probably have no use for it. There are two different kinds of SSD caches: L2ARC and ZIL. L2ARC helps reads, but it takes hours to warm up the cache. Most probably, your work load is not helped by a L2ARC. I suggest you try without cache, and see if the performance suffices. If not, try to add a cache. But do plan your build around a cache, most probably you will not need it.

ZIL helps faster writes.
 
Ok, after messing around on Newegg I think i've decided to build my own box around an E-350 mobo. I'll have more SATA ports, more HDD bays and more CPU horsepower.

Build so far:

see screenshot below...

The 320GB drive will be the OS drive.
 
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No. If you are dealing with mostly media files, then a cached SSD will not make a big difference as far as throughput speeds.
 
I realized the link I posted above is bad. Here is a screenshot of the build:

r1Z3b.jpg
 
Thanks for everyone who did help. I'm playing with both OpenIndiana w/ napp-it and NexentaStor in Vmware with a bunch of virtual HDD's each to simulate physical disks. So far I've gotten the hang of OI + napp-it but NexentaStor is a little more daunting.

I'll update this once I get all the hardware and put the server together.
 
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