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Xenner

n00b
Joined
Dec 23, 2011
Messages
12
After researching for a while on where I should migrate my storage to here is what I am thinking of. I am looking to go with _Gea's guide of the BSD, ESXi combo.

Old box - HP Mediaserv EX470 w/ a total of 2tb storage.

Purchased so far.
Xeon E3-1230
Tyan S5512WGM2NR (Onboard LSI 2008)
8GB ECC DDR3

I was able to pick up 3x2TB Seagate 5900rpm drives tonight that are still in warranty on craiglist for $210. I would REALLY like to find a 4th, but I don't know if that will happen, I am really not willing to pay more than $100 for it.

Am I good to just run a RaidZ1 with 3 drives...would be ideal to have 4, but honestly this should be plenty of room for another 6-9 months.

As far as the main "boot" drive where ESXi and the BSD (probably openindiana) reside, what a good CHEAP small SSD?? Cheaper the better in my mind...probably 32gb or less??

Still need a case, but I might rock some kind of full tower until the day comes i need something like a norco 4220 (if I ever need that many drives). I will be running 2+ VM's ontop of this machine as well, hence the reason for going with the e3 xeon.

any feedback for this build??
 
The raidz1 sounds fine. I wouldn't waste money on an ssd for esxi+OI. Neither OS do much reading from their boot drives - any cheapo HD is fine for that.
 
Just was looking for something with a higher MTBF than a platter hard drive...thought about doing it from a CF card or USB key...
 
I'm using one of these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CF-Compact-...385?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43a3cab3f9

With my FreeNAS FreeBSD based box and a 8GB CF card with no issues, boot time is dependent on the quality of the CF card you purchase and its' rated speed. My boot time with a middle of the road CF card is negligible, and I've been running it for about a year and a half. I'd recommend one, its' silent decent MTBF and stable.

As far as the NAS software goes I'd reccomend the latest stable build of FreeNAS 7.x. I don't like FreeNAS 8.x due to the fact that it is geared more towards an enterprise environment and doesn't fully support modular plugins or additional features that I was using with the 7.x release set.

I have FreeNAS 7.x, running:

Subsonic (audio/video streaming through flash soon to be HTML5)
Transmission (bit-torrent client)
Couch Potato
SABnzbd
SickBeard
Wordpress
HTTP
SSH
FTP
Rsync
TFTP
SMB

With a little configuration it is a quite robust solution for home use, and it is stable as a rock. IMHO.
 
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