ZFSguru NAS fileserver project

Not sharing it yet. I want to roll out the new 0.1.8, but samba and nfs aren't there yet (I am lazy and don't feel like hacking the CLI right now.) Besides which, I'm going to be backing up several windows 7 workstations and laptops using the builtin backup software. W7 home edition doesn't allow backing up to network shares, so I am going to use the builtin iscsi initiator in W7. I already know that will work fine, since I tried it with 0.1.7.
 
Latest release works great for me.

I plugged it into my desktop (of which most of the guts will be part of my next server) and when copying to and from the tmpfs share I would get a "msk0: watchdog timeout" error then the network would drop and I need to restart to get it back.

Nic is an onboard Marvell 88E8053; easy thing to fix? If not I will find an intel nic to slot in instead.
Paul
 
@barbz: you may need to disable hardware checksum/TSO (ifconfig msk0 -rxcsum). If that does not work i would just simply get an Intel NIC. PRO/1000 CT PCIe x1 seems fine and rather cheap.

@justin2net: this should be implemented in recently released 0.1.8-preview3 version. There is no separate setting, but the remote files get cached and if there's no internet access it will continue to use the (oudated) information. This should give you a much better experience if the box has no internet or only sometimes. It also speeds up the loading time of some pages that rely on remote data. So this should already be working out-of-the-box.
 
Mossy Lawn said:
I have literally JUST finished an installation of ZFSGuru on PC-BSD.

Everything works fine, just be aware that the lighttpd instructions aren't up to date. The .conf file isn't where the instructions on the ZFSGuru site says they are.
Click to expand...

Where is it?

At sub.mesa, awesome work! Very much appreciated.
 
Any idea if FreeBSD (and the current ZFSGuru) support the new Sandy Bridge Xeons / C202/204/206 server chipsets?
 
Hello Sub.Mesa,

I am following your project for a few months now.
And i know this is not the best place to ask. But when i register on your forum i don't recieve any email. So i can't finish registration.
 
Hello,

First of all congrats for the fantastic work !

I am considering building a NAS using ZFS and I found this project while searching the Web to educate myself on ZFS. It looks like you have created a very appealing alternative to Freenas among others.

I am confused though and did not manage yet a clear answer despite lots of searching the Web and reading fora: What I understood so far is that neither Windows nor Linux OSes (the latter with few exceptions like FUSE) can handle ZFS at the moment. But clients based on these OSes can access (read) data from NASes that use ZFS, thanks to communication protocols (NFS, Samba...).

What is still not clear to me is: Can the same clients using the same protocols do write-related operations on a NAS that uses ZFS? I did not find it said clearly anywhere though that would sound logical to me: the client sends orders, the communication protocol transmits them, and the NFS-capable OS on the NAS executes them. So the client does not have to actually be able to manage ZFS itself.

What makes me doubt that my above reasoning is right is that in various places (even in the very informative FAQ of this thread, p1) it is said at the same time that running a virtualized ZFS capable OS box is needed under windows. So i am lost :)

For info, I intend my NAS to:
-serve files to a Linux-based media player (TViX) through NFS or possibly Samba. However due to the way it works the player may at any moment try to get data written on the NAS.
- centrally store and serve files to a few Windows based PCs
- backup the same PCs (with rsync for example)
- provide some level of protection for the data

Cheers,
 
Yes, any client that can do nfs / samba can read and write to the filesystem.. its invisible to the clients. Windows can't read ZFS directly at all, but linux can with ZFS-fuse, but its not built into the kernel, so its much much slower than native ZFS.

for your needs, it should work just fine. I'm using ZFS at home to serve up files to Mac OSX, Windows 7, and Linux machines
 
Hi

I have an HP Proliant Microserver N36L (x64 based, 4GB RAM) with Intel PRO/1000 NIC and LSI 9240-8i HBA configured for JBODs connected to 8 disks (4x3.5" caddies plus 4x2.5" IcyDock in the 5.25" bay). I will most likely configure the system as four 2-disk mirrored vdevs in a single pool, booting from USB flash memory key.

My question is: What version of ZFSGuru will natively support the LSI 9240-8i? I've tried 0.1.7 and 0.1.8 without any success.

Any assistance much appreciated!

PS. I would have posted this query to the ZFSGuru forum but the registration process doesn't appear to be sending the password that is required to login! :)
 
zfsguru isn't the issue, but the underlying version of freebsd. the current platform is, iirc, 8.2.
 
danswartz said:
zfsguru isn't the issue, but the underlying version of freebsd. the current platform is, iirc, 8.2.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dan.

I believe LSI provide drivers for FreeBSD v8.2, so perhaps the question becomes whether it is possible for the 9240-8i driver to be included by default as part of the ZFSGuru distribution?
 
If you can get an 8.2 driver, maybe you can stuff it into the right directory on the root FS and etc...
 
MilhouseVH said:
Thanks Dan.

I believe LSI provide drivers for FreeBSD v8.2, so perhaps the question becomes whether it is possible for the 9240-8i driver to be included by default as part of the ZFSGuru distribution?
Click to expand...

As far as I understand it ZFSGuru should just be FreeBSD with some icing on top, if it refuses to work you may try running vanilla FreeBSD and, if necessary, compiling it yourself with the required drivers.
 
danswartz said:
If you can get an 8.2 driver, maybe you can stuff it into the right directory on the root FS and etc...
Click to expand...

No1451 said:
As far as I understand it ZFSGuru should just be FreeBSD with some icing on top, if it refuses to work you may try running vanilla FreeBSD and, if necessary, compiling it yourself with the required drivers.
Click to expand...

Thanks both.

I guess that's the only option, however since these controllers (9240, M1015 etc.) seem to crop up in conversation a fair bit it would have been great if they were supported out of the box, particularly on the embedded build as compiling the driver and installing separately tends to defeat the purpose.

As it happens I've just managed to build the driver for FreeNAS 7.2 and hacked the embedded build to load it and, amazingly for me, it seems to be working! :) I also think the FreeNAS guys are looking to support the 9240 out-of-the-box with FreeNAS 8 (eventually). Perhaps I'll do the same for zfsguru, but like I say it would be great if it could be supported as standard.
 
The LSI 6Gbps adapters do work with ZFSguru, out-of-the-box, but not if they are running in IR (Integrated RAID) firmware. If you're using IT firmware then it should work, though the driver is still slightly experimental. It has improved in 8.2-002 system image, though.

The IBM M1015 cannot be flashed to IT mode firmware if i understand correctly, so this controller would not work with FreeBSD or ZFSguru. It is possible LSI provides binary drivers, if you can get them for 8.2 you could simply copy them to /boot/kernel/ directory and do a "kldload <name>" command to load that kernel module, and see if that means your disks/arrays get detected.
 
Thanks for replying sub.mesa.

Is it possible to flash the LSI 9240-8i with IT firmware? I was under the impression the 9240 "passed through" when in a JBOD configuration (as mine is). I did search for IT firmware for the 9240, but gave up thinking it wasn't available or necessary due to the way the 9240 operates. As things stand though, when using the latest available firmware - v20.10.1-0029, date 04-MAR-11 - from LSI the 9240 is not detected by ZFSguru (or FreeBSD 8.2).

LSI do provide FreeBSD 6.x/7.x/8.x drivers for the 9240 in source code format, would it be possible to add this support as standard in ZFSguru if the demand is there (maybe until official FreeBSD arrives?)
 
MilhouseVH, when I asked sub.mesa, this was his response:

sub.mesa said:
Your chip is supported (LSI SAS2008) but not your RAID layer (IR firmware) and your controller cannot be flashed to IT firmware sadly. So support for your controller may take a long while. When it is available i can patch existing release so no need to wait for new FreeBSD release.

But i cannot give any ETA on this, sorry.
Click to expand...
 
unclerunkle said:
MilhouseVH, when I asked sub.mesa, this was his response:
Click to expand...

Cheers uncle, that sounds a bit grim - I do hope I haven't bought a lemon. :)

Since the drivers are available (FreeBSD 6.x/7.x/8.x 32-bit and 64-bit, v3.98, 17-DEC-10) maybe now ZFSguru can be patched?

I have managed to get the 9240-8i working without problems in FreeNAS 0.7.2 using these same LSI drivers, but I'm less familiar with ZFSguru and to be quite honest would like to avoid having to personally patch each release of each OS/distribution if I can help it! I know I may come across as sounding lazy but it's not meant that way, as building these drivers only for myself benefits only me and not other 9240 owners... :)
 
MilhouseVH,

I believe the support that sub.mesa is referring to is the HBA aka IT firmware support. Yes, currently the MegaRAID driver is there but that's not the one we want ideally. Essentially, the firmware on the 9240 is more bloated than simple IT firmware. For ZFS, we want something that doesn't touch the disk, and leaves the administration soley to the OS and not the RAID firmware. When the firmware gets in-between, odd things can start happening. Fairly recently (last November or so), however, the 9240 firmware was updated so that all new drives added are put into a JBOD and treated just how a HBA would treat them. Of course, this cannot be done exactly as the bloated firmware is still running, but testing with ZFS has proven some good results with no issues. It is a risk, however, and one that you should be aware of. If you have the money and want something for sure that works, best is the 9211-8i which allows the IT firmware...
 
Thanks again Uncle, and there's me thinking I'd done my research! :( Fortunately I'm still in the process of building the new NAS as I've got my data on a ReadyNAS NV, but I doubt I will be able to return the 9240-8i (will check though).

Hopefully support will come sooner than later, but for now the 9240 seems to be running OK in JBOD mode with FreeNAS 0.7.2 and the drivers I built myself from LSI sources, but I hear your warnings... I can stay on the ReadyNAS for several more months yet so happy to tinker with new builds as and when they become available, particularly if there's any sniff of controller support! :)
 
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I bought two of the IBM ServeRAID M1015 (OEM LSI 9240-8i) due to their low cost. Caveats however, are that I will have to do some reliability testing. The pro was definitely the cost factor though. By buying two, I no longer needed to pick up a SAS Expander for ~$250 either. All in all, I managed to pick up both cards up for a cool $75. Can't beat that with a stick.

Additionally, controller support is there (albeit through the RAID driver), you just have to manually load the drivers from that link that you gave. ZFSguru isn't set up to do that for us at this point. I haven't played with it yet, but I'm guessing with some googling you could figure it out...
 
I am quickly tiring of the time it takes to copy movies from a USB HDD, over samba, to my fathers movie server. So, I would sure appreciate any help on the easiest way to mount (connected direct to server) an esata HDD enclosure and copy its entire contents to the server? If this is even possible.

Note I have zero experience with Linux outside of installing zfsguru on 2 identical servers, and setting up a xbmcfreak htpc :(
 
You still have zero experience, since zfsguru is based on freebsd, not linux :) What filesystem is the esata using?
 
danswartz said:
You still have zero experience, since zfsguru is based on freebsd, not linux :) What filesystem is the esata using?
Click to expand...

perhaps I should have said "non windows" :eek:

Currently it's NTFS, but thats only so I can drag/drop from my home pc.
 
Hi,

@Sub.Mesa or any1 else.

I have a WD EADS disk that is failing. I will send it in today/tomorrow to get a new one.
But I'll probably end up getting a "fake" 4KB drive. Is it possible to add it to my current virtualdevice/pool that only consists of real 512byte drives without performance penalty? Is it recommended to do a 4KB alignment on the new disk when formatting it in freenas/zfsguru(if harddrives fail in the future when I've went over to zfsguru) or should I just leave it alone?

Best Regards
 
Hi!

It's my first post on [H]ard|Forum, but I was lurking in the shadows for quite a while now.
I'm building a nas/storage/backup out of a HP Microserver and 6 Samsung F4 2TB drives.
My plan is to use them in a 2x3 drive raidz1 or a 6drive raidz2, but I'm not sure which would be the better option. AFAIK the 2x3drive raidz1 would have twice the iops but, you can only loose one disk/pool.

I would like your input if its possible, and if someone tried this setup I would appreciate it if you could share your experience.

Thanks in advance,
zsozso
 
How are you getting 6 3.5 inch drives in the HP? I though there was room only for 5? 4+1 in the the ODM bay.
 
zsozso said:
With a little bit of hacking and an lsi 9240 :)
Click to expand...

Interesting, I had a 9240-8i but gave up on it as a bad job (too little support in almost all distributions, RAID-only firmware, so just not worth the hassle) and swapped it for a 9211-8i flashed with IT firmware.

The 9211 is well supported by distributions and running very nicely in an HP Microserver N36L with 8 drives (4x3.5" 2TB plus 4x 2.5" 500GB in an IcyDock MB994SP-4S located in the optical slot). With the on-board NIC disabled in favour of an Intel PRO/1000 NIC, the N36L Network and HDD activity LED's were effectively redundant so I chopped those, added new longer cabling from a pair of temperature sensors and connected them to the Array 0 and Array 1 activity outputs on the 9211.

The 9211 is also easier to fit in the N36L with the SFF8087 connectors at the front near the door, and a 50cm cable is a perfect length. Having the SFF connectors at the other end as they are on 9240 means it's a much tighter squeeze and requires a flexible cable in order to fit under the power supply, although then you would only need a short 10cm-20cm cable, however connecting/disconnecting and removal of the controller or system board then becomes a bit of nightmare (granted, not something you will do often). All in all, the 9240 is definitely not an ideal choice for the N36L but if it's all you got then fair enough! :)

Picture of my 9211-8i setup...

20110422_006a.jpg


booting off a Verbatim 2GB Store'n'Go MicroUSB drive (bottom left using the internal USB socket just behind the power cable).

The ZFS array is currently configured as two RAIDZ1 vdevs in a single pool, but I'm still testing distributions and haven't yet decided on a final configuration.

I'm leaning towards combining two of the 2.5" drives with the 4x 3.5" drives to create a single 6-drive RAIDZ2 vdev, eventually expanding those 2.5" drives to 2TB once such capacities become available/cheap, and then to use the remaining two 2.5" drives as a mirrored ZIL (most likely replacing them with SSDs in future).
 
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What are the advantages to using Mirrors? Also I am going to playing with ZFS today. What would you recommend for a config for 4 1TB drives and I want to expand to 3TB drives as they become cheaper. I was thinking 2 raidz pooled together.
 
Vengance_01 said:
What are the advantages to using Mirrors?
Click to expand...

Apparently with pre-v19 ZFS you can lose the whole ZFS pool if the ZIL goes offline, hence mirroring the ZIL mitigates that risk. Although in a small home server, it's unlikely the performance benefit of a separate ZIL will be that significant, so I'm still not sure what route to take.

My writes on a 2x4-disk RAIDZ1 pool are not that great under FreeNAS 8 RC5 - in fact, pretty rubbish - but that could well be down to FreeNAS 8 so I'm doing further tests with ZFSGuru (unfortunately the benchmarking doesn't seem to work too well in v01.8 - the Web GUI seems to hang - so I'm testing with ZFSGuru v0.1.7).

EDIT: With zfsguru 0.1.7p3, the simple 64GB sequential benchmark test returned 91MB/s for read and 205MB/s for writes, which isn't quite what I was expecting (it's much better than what I routinely see in FreeNAS 8 RC5 though). The test was for a pool of two RAIDZ1 vdevs, 4x3.5" 2TB each, and 4x2.5" 500GB each.

Vengance_01 said:
Also I am going to playing with ZFS today. What would you recommend for a config for 4 1TB drives and I want to expand to 3TB drives as they become cheaper. I was thinking 2 raidz pooled together.
Click to expand...

There's a post somewhere that recommends optimum sizes for various redundancy levels - 4 isn't one of them though... if memory serves 3, 5 and 9 is the optimum for RAIDZ1, and 6 and 10 for RAIDZ2 (or maybe this only applies if 4K disks are used...). With four disks, RAIDZ1 might be the best choice. Expanding would simply be a case of swapping each 1TB disk in turn for a new 3TB disk, continuing with the next disk once the resilver (rebuild/resync) process has completed on the current disk.
 
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I am gonna look up a guide to see whats the best. This is for home use and thus I want to use a balance of space, speed, and data protection. ;)

BTW I am impressed with the build quality on this little HP Box. I threw the 160GB drive in the ODM and it will be used for my Solaris build. In-tend to run a minecraft through virtual box off of this box as it will not be serving 24/7. Might try a few other things as well. Really looking forward to seeing what I can do with this box and how far I can push the box. Just wish I could O/C it. ;)
 
Hmm did anyone have any information. My pool consists of raidz1 6st 2TB WD EADS and one of them has now broken down and will be replaced with a 2TB EARS, because the store doesnt have any other WD drives in stock.

Should I format this drive with 4KB sector override and then use the replace command to begin resilvering or is the 4kb sector override only applicable for a new pool with no data on it?
 
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