zfs discuss - Feb 2010 - Recommendations required for home file server config

Hi all,

(Posting via email due to my forum account being marked inactive!)


So i''m re-visiting OpenSolaris and ZFS. Context is my old file server
died (Windows 2008 with 4 drives on an Intel Matrix ICH9 controller in
RAID 5) and i''m moving into a new house and want to build something
new and flashy. I want to use up the old hardware I have laying about
rather than sell it all for a loss and buy new (relating mainly to
disks here).


I have the following hardware laying about:

Intel 3200SH Server board + E7200 CPU. 4GB RAM.
2 x SuperMicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 SATA controllers (so 16 ports in total,
plus 6 on the motherboard)
Disks: 3x40GB, 1x250GB, 4x500GB, 4x1TB and looking to buy some 2TB
disks to fill the gap (unless advised against here)


My storage requirement is as follows:

Personal/Business Documents - 100GB+ - Medium performance - High resiliency
VMWare storage (for virtual disks) - 200GB+ - High performance - High resiliency
Various Media - 2TB+ - Medium performance - Medium resiliency


So with the hardware I have available to me, this is first-glance
config I see viable:

2x40GB Mirror for boot/OS
4x500GB RaidZ2 (or higher?) for Docs + VMWare images
Remaining disks configured RaidZ2 for all other storage
Not sure what to do with the other disks, other than have a spare perhaps for OS


I would appreciate any thoughts/opinions/configurations anyone would
like to recommend for me. I am not adverse to buying some other disks
if there are big advantages to adding say another 500 or something as
a spare. I''m fairly open on this.

I may have missed out some relevant information, so let me know if I
need to fill in any gaps.


Thanks in advance:

On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 10:57:08AM +0000, lists at di.cx
wrote:
> 2 x SuperMicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 SATA controllers (so 16 ports in total,
> plus 6 on the motherboard)
What about case space for the disks?
> Disks: 3x40GB
rpool mirror and spare on shelf.  3 way mirror if you really want and have the
space.
> 1x250GB
single pool, scratch space and adhoc backups, or hurl it at the
invading barbarian horde, as you prefer.  
> 4x500GB
2+2 mirror, one mirror side on each AOC card, for vm images and documents.
> 4x1TB 
buy 2 more, 6-way raidz2 for misc media, 3 ports each per AOC.  do
automated regular send|recv of the 4x500 pool onto this one as backup.
> and looking to buy some 2TB disks to fill the gap (unless advised against
here)
hold off on these.  when you need future expansion, get 6 of whatever
disk makes sense at the time.  you have 6 ports left on your AOCs, so
you can add a second 6-way raidz2 vdev to the above pool, or
upgrade-in-place the 1Tb drives in that pool.

This leaves you 3 or 4 motherboard ports (depending what you do with
the 250) to use for zil or l2arc ssd''s.  This, or more RAM if the m/b
will take it, is a better use of your cash now.

--
Dan.
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