ZFS Build Questions

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SadTelevision8558

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 4, 2008
Messages
133
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You can migrate ZFS pools in between any system but there is one caveat: the OS must support the version of ZFS you are using. Versions are backwards compatible but not forward compatible.

Quick example:
A ZFS pool created under FreeBSD 8-STABLE (v14) will work with Solaris 11 (supports up to v 31)
A ZFS pool created under Solaris 11 (v31) will NOT WORK with FreeBSD 8-STABLE (v14)

edit: Also, don't go doing any stupid non-standard ZFS stuff that FreeBSD allows like formatting half a disk for ZFS, and things like that.
 
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What OS would you recommend to start out with?

I'm not 100% comfortable with CLI, and I know while it's daunting, it's actually NOT that hard.

FreeNAS? ZFSGuru? FreeBSD? Solaris Express? OpenIndiana?

Also since my board has 6 SATA slots only I'd kinda like to max that out. Would it be good to install any of these OSes on a USB stick (I got a 8GB Patriot Xporter XT, so its decently fast)?

Then shooting for 6x2TB Samsung F4s. Raidz2 most likely? This is mainly for my photos and movies/videos/TV shows.
 
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That build is way overspecced for a nas box, the zacate boards work fine if not well and 4 gigs is ample ram. I think you'll find bsd's samba performance less than satisfactory (freenas, freebsd, ...) even with tuning. Having done a similar thing myself, I settled on solaris. You need so little command-fu to configure a zpool and turn on sharing via cifs my grandmother could do it.

I was seeing 10 Mbyte/s sequential read rates via samba on freenas with 4xF4EG and (i'm not kidding) < 3 iops. My experience is not unique. You'll find freebsd shares similarly abysmal performance via samba. If you use exclusively/primarily non windows boxen this won't be an issue.

CIFS on Solaris 11 works much better, I see ~ 80 Mbyte/sec sequential reads from the pool with no tuning. If you're not into shells, napp-it may help you out a bit.
 
gu13 said:
That build is way overspecced for a nas box, the zacate boards work fine if not well and 4 gigs is ample ram
Click to expand...

you're totally right. i was thinking of an AMD Athlon X2 system earlier, but too late. My calculated tax refund kinda solidified this rig. Maybe I'll look for something cheaper and ship off these components to my parents for their Windows rig. It's actually darn powerful :D
 
it'd make a great HTPC, but the ram could still find a better home.
 
Ok, so the board has 6 SATA slots.

I spent today playing with Open Indiana and Napp-it. Would it be wise to install this on a USB stick (8gb) or should I look at using an old HD?

My concern is I'd like to use all 6 SATA slots for 6x2TB HDs and put them in raidz2. If I need an old HD to install the OS onto (not a problem), how would I interface this with the board? Would I go buy a cheap PCI-e SATA controller card or something to plug the OS drive into?
 
Ok, slowly picking up these OSes. I tried out FreeNAS 8 RC5 and I created a raidz1 array for fun. 3x2TB array. I decided to export it and then install OpenIndiana. Somehow it can't find my pool when i do:

zpool import

but if I reboot back into FreeNAS I can see my pool still

Does this have to do with the fact that when I do zpool status in FreeNAS I see like gpt/ad9, gpt/ad7, gpt/ad12, but the devices are named differently in OpenIndiana?
 
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