Storage Project - Dell 2950 + MD1000 or MD3000, need advice

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Guldan

Weaksauce
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Jan 16, 2013
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Hey Guys,

I've viewed many a network/storage porn threads on this forum but finally I have my own project! I have a 6 TB Freenas currently but I just bought a home recently which has a garage. My first thought? Buy a half rack and fill it full of nerdy goodness! yay freedom :). The purpose is mostly to store media but I also intend to setup a ESXI server and testbed.

I ended up purchasing 14 (older) Dell Servers, an MD3000, MD1000 full of drives and some other doodads to resell but of course i'm going to keep some stuff. I'll keep one 2950 + one of the arrays.

My 2950 comes with a Perc5e, was thinking of ebaying a Perc6e and keep the MD1000 but I could also keep the MD3000 and buy an HBA right? Both would give me Raid6, both would cost around the same money (HBA Card vs perc6e).. Which way should I go?

All thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks
 
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The easy solution is to use the dell pe2950 and either the perc5e or perc6e wit hthe md1000.

The more complex but flexable solution could be to use the md3000 instead, it has build in raid, and can connect to upto 4 different computers. So if you wanted to use those disks in multible systems instead of all on one like you will be doing with the md1000.

You can use the perc5e/6e with the md3000, but yes, it will be overkill, and likely be better to sell them, and buy normal hba's instead.

If you wanted to do a freenas type thing on them, then you would want to use the md1000 and a normal hba, and not the perc cards.
 
MD1000 can only service one device at a time? Hmm, It's meant to be a network storage device, albeit shared/managed through the 2950 server.

Also you say get an HBA and run it to the MD1000, but the MD1000 doesn't have raid on it, the HBA's don't have raid right? so where would that functionality come from.

Basically I want Freenas ZFS Z2 or Raid6, I just think Freenas would be more simplistic(and free) rather then dumping in a windows OS just to manage media storage.
 
The MD3000 is meant to be a shared storage device.

The MD1000 is an expantion unit for the MD3000.

Technically you can connect multible computers to the md1000, though this gets ugly fast, and if you access the same disk using multible computers, you will trash your data.

Hmm, freenas zfs is raid? why would you want to use a raid card, when it will never use the raid on the raid card, and when the raid on the raid card limits the usefullness of zfs.

So you need to first figure out, do you want to use raid6, or use zfs. If zfs, then hba + md1000.

If you want raid6, you can use either perc cards + md1000, or the perc/hba + md3000.
 
I won't be expanding, i'll probably never come close to maxing out an MD1000 and I probably don't need to share it with multiple servers.

Sounds like Perc + MD1000 suits my needs / $$ best, also I forgot ZFS wasn't hardware raid.. but im not sure if I can use Freenas/ZFS w/ the MD1000/Dell 2950
 
I use zfs on a dell 2950 without any issues, and the md1000 itself doesn't matter. So if freenas will boot on the dell pe2950, and the hba you select is supported (don't use the perc for it, as it will require the raid0 workaround, and you won't be able to swap disks), you should be completely fine with that setup.

I haven't tried running freebsd on the pe2950, but I imagine lots of people have, as it's very common hardware.
 
Keep in mind that the MD3000 also requires Dell branded enterprise drives or it may not function correctly in RAID. They are locked to certain HD BIOS revisions.

At the time our MD3000 was what we could afford, but it's been a big PITA when we needed some cheap bulk storage for backups and such. When the floods occurred we were paying out the nose for storage.
 
Ok so it sounds like my best option is to buy an SAS HBA for the 2950 and direct connect it to the MD1000 which will pass through all the disks to Freenas

But which is better? Freenas RAIDz2 (software) or a Perc6e Raid6 (hardware)

And when I say better this is for media storage/streaming so my main focus is not losing all my data. I don't really need a lot of throughput / IOPS

For Freenas i'd have to buy an HBA
For Raid6 i'd have to upgrade and buy an perc6

Just curious which way you guys think I should go
 
It's just more of the same. The only real difference will be the read speeds on the raid6 will be faster.

The reason I wouldn't go for the perc6, is if the perc6 fails, your pretty much locked into getting another perc6 to recover your data. Where with the hba, you just need to connect the drives somehow, another hba, or normal sata ports on the motherboard if you have enough.
 
patrickdk said:
It's just more of the same. The only real difference will be the read speeds on the raid6 will be faster.

The reason I wouldn't go for the perc6, is if the perc6 fails, your pretty much locked into getting another perc6 to recover your data. Where with the hba, you just need to connect the drives somehow, another hba, or normal sata ports on the motherboard if you have enough.
Click to expand...

Very good point, with Freenas/ZFS if the drive fails, you can just reinstall Freenas and autoimport all your data.

Last question I guess, what HBA would you suggest? I'd need an external one that can connect to the MD1000
 
Not sure I can answer that, as I am not sure of freebsd driver compatability.

If you have cables now, the best fit without you needing to get a cx4 to sff8088 cable would be the:
LSI SAS3442E-R though you will likely need the pcie version, check the 2950 server you have, it could have pcix or pcie slots riser in it.

But double check that for freebsd compatability though. I'm sure drivers exist, but might want to see if people have issues or not.
 
Update:

Turns out they aren't Perc5 cards but SAS 5E HBA's, Perfect! I ended up installing Freenas on a 1950 because I don't really need a 2950 running a home media server, could save some amperage / space

Booted up Freenas and voila 15 drives waiting for me, Just need to decide what to replace these 750GB HDD's with and what my config will be.
 
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