Re: [zfs-discuss] [?] - What is the recommended number of disks for a consumer PC with ZFS
References: Thread: ZFS effective short-stroking and connection to thin provisioning? http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=127608 Confused about consumer drives and zfs can someone help? http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=132253 Recommended RAM for ZFS on various platforms http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=132072 Performance advantages of spool with 2x raidz2 vdevs vs. Single vdev - Spindles http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=132127 -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
Re: [zfs-discuss] [?] - What is the recommended number of disks for a consumer PC with ZFS
I'm building my new storage server, all the parts should come in this week. ... Another answer is here: http://eonstorage.blogspot.com/2010/03/whats-best-pool-to-build-with-3-or-4.html Rob -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
Re: [zfs-discuss] [?] - What is the recommended number of disks for a consumer PC with ZFS
You haven't stated what you intend to use your pc for and what your requirements are. Without that I don't see how anyone can come up with an optimal configuration. So... what do you plan to do with your pc? Do you want the fastest performance and don't care about anything else? use all SSDs and add them as single vdevs without redundancy but make sure you have a good external backup. Do you want really faster performance and care about uptime? Use all SSDs and add them in mirrored pairs. Do you need a lot of storage space and don't want to spend thousands on SSDs? use the included ssd for your boot drive and set up a data pool of 2x2 mirror. I could go on and on. because there are many different uses for consumer pcs. For most people, a single ssd and a single data drive will be good as long as they have external backup. Today's consumer level HDDs are pretty fast. They get slow as they fill up. If the drive is only half filled and defraged it will perform faster than if it was 90% full. Unfortunately zfs doesn't have a defrag utility yet so if performance is really a concern maybe short stroking it to half size might be good. Using the other half as a hot spare as you suggested seems interesting if the drive is in a redundant configuration. If you really need performance so bad that you're considering short stroking your drives just get more SSDs. The gateway pc you linked to comes with 1 80 GB SSD and 1 1TB HDD. In most configurations you'd install the OS on the SSD and use the HDD for data and that configuration will be good for most applications. I don't see the point of dual booting any more. If you want OpenSolaris to be your main OS but want to be able to run windows there are other options like Wine and virtualization like VirtualBox. ___ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
Re: [zfs-discuss] [?] - What is the recommended number of disks for a consumer PC with ZFS
I'm building my new storage server, all the parts should come in this week... How did it turn out ? Did 8x1TB Drives seem to be the correct number or a couple too many (based on the assumption that you did not run out of space; I mean solely from a performance / 'ZFS usability' standpoint - as opposed to over three dozen tiny Drives). Thanks for your reply, Rob -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
Re: [zfs-discuss] [?] - What is the recommended number of disks for a consumer PC with ZFS
- Original Message - I'm building my new storage server, all the parts should come in this week... How did it turn out ? Did 8x1TB Drives seem to be the correct number or a couple too many (based on the assumption that you did not run out of space; I mean solely from a performance / 'ZFS usability' standpoint - as opposed to over three dozen tiny Drives). It's quite possible to stack up hundreds of drives for ZFS, just don't put them all in the same vdev. Say, you have 32 2TB drives, split that into 4 RAIDz2 vdevs in the same pool, and both speed and safety will be good. Also, add a couple of fast SSDs for the SLOG if you expect lots of sync writes (NFS, iSCSI etc) and some other (cheaper?) SSDs for L2ARC to help out reads. This is particularly important if you want your server to work well during scrub (osol does NOT work well during scrub performance-wice unless you use SLOG and perhaps L2ARC). Vennlige hilsener / Best regards roy -- Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk (+47) 97542685 r...@karlsbakk.net http://blogg.karlsbakk.net/ -- I all pedagogikk er det essensielt at pensum presenteres intelligibelt. Det er et elementært imperativ for alle pedagoger å unngå eksessiv anvendelse av idiomer med fremmed opprinnelse. I de fleste tilfeller eksisterer adekvate og relevante synonymer på norsk. ___ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
Re: [zfs-discuss] [?] - What is the recommended number of disks for a consumer PC with ZFS
I'm building my new storage server, all the parts should come in this week. Intel XEON W3520 quad-core 12G DDR3-1333 ECC ram 2*74G 15K rpm SAS for OS 8*1T SATA disks in raiz2 or stripe 2 sets of 4-disk raidz 32G Intel X25-E SSD (may mirror it later) 2*Intel 82574L NIC Qlogic 4Gb QLE2460 FC HBA I have 8 SAS ports plus 6 SATA ports on motherboard, with the above config, I still have 2 SAS ports free to expand, I'm thinking of adding Supermicro 2.5in mobile rack with SAS expander later using the 2 SAS ports or add another SAS HBA. You may want to replace i7-940 with XEON version and use ECC memory. ZFS doesn't like RAID controller, at least my old SCSI raid with BBU cache. I had LSI megaraid 320-4x with onboard 128M BBU cache, the performance is horrible no matter how I tweak it. I replaced the raid controller with LSI 21320 SCSI card, everything flies. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org ___ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
