Asrock x99 WS/E-10G build

[Chris Moore]

This seems to be needed. Drives don't seem to be acknowledged by the system (BIOS/UEFI), never mind FreeNAS.

https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAD635R22714

The system boots reliably off my USB keys. I do get alerts when it wants to display network info. Bug in FreeNAS?

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That is not the right card. Don't get that.

 

[Chris Moore]

If you wanted a slightly more modern card that I suggested in the other thread, you could go with one like this:
HP H220 6Gbps SAS PCI-E 3.0 HBA LSI 9207-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID
https://www.ebay.com/itm/162862201664

It has a PCIe 3.0 bus interface and being a bit newer chipset, it makes less heat.

The one on eBay is used, and that makes it much less money, only about $70. If you must have new, here it is on NewEgg for $245.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118182

 

[Chris Moore]

Something I've noticed.. I dunno if I did something, but my cables go from SATA to MiniSAS on a hotswap backplane. Would that stop FreeNAS from discovering my drives?

We need to know what kind of backplane this is. That makes a difference. I just scanned through the thread quickly, but I don't see where you said.

 

[Chris Moore]

If you are going from the controller on the system board to a backplane with an integrated SAS expander chip, that would explain why it isn't working. So you probably need to have the SAS controller card to give you the capability to connect. This is the kind of cable to go between the SAS card and the backplane:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-32-Inc...ernal-Mini-SAS-36-Pin-RAID-Cable/152299010792

 

[Scrat_]

We need to know what kind of backplane this is. That makes a difference. I just scanned through the thread quickly, but I don't see where you said.

The case with the backplane is a Silverstone RM-208. Pictures should be at the top.

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[Chris Moore]

The case with the backplane is a Silverstone RM-208. Pictures should be at the top.

The documentation says: "SFF8087 x 2"

https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=541&area=en

So you need two of the cables I mentioned in the post above:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/asrock-x99-ws-e-10g-build.63526/page-2#post-473707

One cable to each port on the SAS card I mentioned in the post:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/asrock-x99-ws-e-10g-build.63526/page-2#post-473705

 

[Scrat_]

I recently added 2 Crucial "250GB" SSDs to my system for caching. They don't seem to be utilized though.. or my network is just so pokey that it just uses the memory (64GB).

FreeNAS 11.2 beta 2 seems to call cache drives "Cache VDevs"

One is, from what I understand by looking around online, suppose to apply them by extending a pool.

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[kdragon75]

One is, from what I understand by looking around online, suppose to apply them by extending a pool.

That's not extending the pool. The are cache and do not contribute to the capacity of the pool. As cache drives they consume ARC memory that would otherwise be used for cache. The benefit of adding L2ARC cache drives is strongly dependent on your "working set size" as applied to your storage. Some people refer to this as your hot data. The amount of data that is read on a regular basis. this is normally much smaller than your total consumed space. We would need an intimate and detailed description of everything your NAS is used for and all or your VMs to even make a guess. RAM is ALWAYS faster than SSD and therefore unless you have an extreme need for IOPS on a large working set adding a L2ARC will use RAM that would otherwise be used for cache.

 

[kdragon75]

Your best bet may to be using the SSDs as a second pool (mirrored) and using them as a separate datastore for "hot" data.

 

[kdragon75]

On a related note, you can partition the SSDs and only use a small part for L2ARC. Again this depends on your working set size. I have seen people take an SSD and make a 100GB slice (BSD parlance for partition) and use only that. Even then you need to do the math and find out if the SSD is faster that your entire pool. If not, your shooting yourself in both feet.

 

[Chris Moore]

I recently added 2 Crucial "250GB" SSDs to my system for caching. They don't seem to be utilized though.. or my network is just so pokey that it just uses the memory (64GB).

Why? What made you think this would provide any benefit?

 

[Scrat_]

On a related note, you can partition the SSDs and only use a small part for L2ARC. Again this depends on your working set size. I have seen people take an SSD and make a 100GB slice (BSD parlance for partition) and use only that. Even then you need to do the math and find out if the SSD is faster that your entire pool. If not, your shooting yourself in both feet.

They are 3rd generation 6Gbps SATA drives. The main pool is 4x4TB Seagate Ironwolf NAS drives in Raid-z1 - about 12 to 13TB of usable space.

I've emptied off a bunch of my random drives onto my personal space. I was hoping that the SSDs would help speed up the data intake. Fail. My intention is to have NextCloud and Plex on there for sure.

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[Scrat_]

Why? What made you think this would provide any benefit?

I thought it would partially help speed up data intake

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[Stux]

Also, depending on your pool activity it can take a long time for a large l2

I thought it would partially help speed up data intake

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Cache drives are only used for reading.

L2ARC

Level 2 Adaptive Read Replacement Cache.

Disable sync on the dataset may speed things up.

 

[Chris Moore]

Level 2 Adaptive Read Cache.

I think you made a mistake, unless it has changed...
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26765_01/html/E26397/analytics__statistics__cache_l2arc_accesses.html

 

[Chris Moore]

I thought it would partially help speed up data intake

SLOG (Separate LOG) which would be on a fast (NVMe PCIe) SSD, could speed write under the correct circumstances, but not for everyone. It depends entirely on the workload.

 

[Stux]

I think you made a mistake, unless it has changed...
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26765_01/html/E26397/analytics__statistics__cache_l2arc_accesses.html

Still only use for reads. Reads and Writes are cached, but only to speed up reads.

 

[Scrat_]

SLOG (Separate LOG) which would be on a fast (NVMe PCIe) SSD, could speed write under the correct circumstances, but not for everyone. It depends entirely on the workload.

Use an M.2 drive..?

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[Ericloewe]

M.2 is a form factor, not an interface.

And you need to understand that you cannot just add an SSD to magically make your server faster.

 

[Scrat_]

Seems it'll only benefit NextCloud and maybe Plex once they are up n running.

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