Brian wrote:
Hello I recently purchased some hardware which I plan on turning into a data
server.
I purchased the following:
4 gigs of registered ECC ram 667
SuperMicro X7DCA motherboard (found it for really cheap and figured it couldn't
be too bad)
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5100/X7DCA-3.cfm
An Intel Xeon 2.5 Ghz Quadcore E5420
4 WD 750 gig desktop hard drives
Does this setup seem ok for using opensolaris and particularly ZFS? I am aware of the Time Limited Recover on WD drives when you choose desktop models instead of the Raid editions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Limited_Error_Recovery
I plan on changing the desktop models to include this fact thus turning them
into the Raid editions.
So based off the motherboard and hard drives would this configuration work for ZFS?
If so how should I go about setting up ZFS? For instance in Raid configuration I would set all the hard drives to master and hook them up to my Raid controller. Do I set all the hard drives to master here for ZFS? Also do you recommend getting a smaller hard drive to store the OS and merely use the ZFS drives as my data backup?
Thank you for your time
Overall, that MB looks file. The 1068E is a well-supported SAS/SATA
controller in OpenSolaris, so you won't have any problems using it.
Likewise, the ICH9R SATA controller. The NICs are supported as well,
though I don't know about the audio chipset (which is less of a
concern). You will need to get a video card, as there is no on-board
video controller, and the add-on IPMI card for this board is sub-par.
The board supports console redirection to COM1, but I've never tried it
with these boards.
You haven't said what you plan to use the server for, which will drive
how you want to configure the drives (i.e. RAIDZ or mirror/striped)
A couple of notes:
(1) If you have space in your chassis, I'd get two smaller SATA drives
and use them as the (mirrored) boot drives. Attach them to the ICHR9
controller (via the black SATA connectors). You can use ZFS to mirror
your boot drives, too. Which is good, since ZFS doesn't support using
stripes or RAIDZ for root volumes.
(2) I'd connect your data drives to the 1068E controller, via the two
multi-lane connectors. You'll need a break-out cable to use them. The
multi-lanes connectors are in the lower left hand corner (the two silver
squares pointing forward, not up).
(3) make sure all controllers are operating in non-RAID (i.e. JBOD) mode.
(4) if you can, spring for more RAM. 4GB is a bit skimpy. 8GB would
likely be much better. (also, there are problems with the memory
allocation if you only install 4GB - it's a chipset thing, and it
reduces the amount of RAM usable by almost 40%. This /only/ happens when
there is 4GB, so don't install 4GB. See section 2-3 of the MB manual
for more info)
(5) depending on use, you might want to invest in a SSD (flash hard
drive). See a couple of the other threads on which SSD makes the most
sense for you.
(6) If you are just doing file-serving, a quad-core CPU is likely
overkill. I suspect that even with compression turned on, the CPU will
be only modestly loaded.
(7) For SAS and SATA drives, there is no Master or Slave. They're all
Master. No setting required.
--
Erik Trimble
Java System Support
Mailstop: usca22-123
Phone: x17195
Santa Clara, CA
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