freebsd stable - Aug 2017 - recommendations for file server based zfs appliance

Patrick M. Hausen wrote:
>Hi, all,
>
>> Am 18.08.2017 um 11:19 schrieb Pete French <petefrench at
ingresso.co.uk>:
>> The HP micro servers work very well, and you can pick them up remakably
cheaply [...]
>> Not sure about ECC memory support there though.
>
>They do support ECC, no problem.
>
>They are available with different CPU configurations from
>as Pete said remarkably cheap Celeron D based systems
>up to Xeon CPUs.
>
>If you want something that conserves power but still features
>8 cores, Supermicro has got a small 8-core Atom based
>system:
>https://www.supermicro.nl/products/system/midtower/5028/SYS-5028A-TN4.cfm
>
>I run this at home and I am really satisfied with it. ECC too, of course.
>Capable of running VMs in bhyve ...
>
>I'd suggest just using FreeNAS if you intend to build a file server.
>And of course you can always order a preconfigured FreeNAS
>mini from iX Systems.
I can't help with specific hardware recommendations (fortunately others
already have),
but I will mention that "If you are going to get bit, it usually is related
to the network
interface(s) on the machine.", due to net driver issues.

This shouldn't be a problem with an iX Systems box, since they test it with
FreeNAS
(based on FreeBSD).

Maybe the folk that made hardware suggestions can post which net interface(s)
they are using and whether they are seeing driver issues?

Good luck with it, rick

> Maybe the folk that made hardware suggestions can post which net
> interface(s) they are using and whether they are seeing driver issues?
The HP boxes have Broadcom ethernet controllers driven with the 'bge'
driver, and thatw orks fine. I stick to Intel or Broadcom controllers for
gigabit ether where I have a choice. The only 10 gig cards we have are
some 2nd hand Mellanox ConnectX-2 cards because they are dirt cheap on
eBay. They work fine in FreeBSD using the mlxen driver (add MK_OFED=yes 
to tour /etc/src.conf) but we have had a lot of problems getting them to talk
to anthing other than other identical cards - a set of Qlogic (I think)
HP cards would work very occasionally, but most of the time would not
find a carrier. We are using twinax copper SFF+ for the 10 gig, maybe
I would have got better luck with optical, but it wasnt importnat enough
to do any serious testing on.

-pete.