Home Server - Guidance Please

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freebuser

Hi All,

This is my first post in the forum, I have a headless HP ML350 G3 with 4 GB RAM and 642 GB SmartRAID (2x 146 GB + 2x 78 GB + 1x 36GB) running Debian Wheezy with the following services:
  • Apache2
  • PHP5
  • MySQL
  • OpenKM
  • OpenJDK
  • Mediatomb
  • PHPFileNavigator

I like to install FreeBSD specially with ZFS RAID1 (Mirrored HDD i.e. 146/146 + 78/78 to make data storage of 225 GB with system on 36 GB HDD).

Can you please guide me on selecting the right way of doing this. i.e:
  • Do I need to remove the raid card and make disks as JBOD to increase reliability?
  • Are all of the software available for FreeBSD?
  • and any other advice which will help me in building the server from scratch.

Thanks in advance.
 
Does the RAID controller allow configuring the disks to be used as separate disks? That would be an optimal setup for ZFS.

The controller should be supported by the ciss(4) driver.
 
Thanks kpa,

I don't think the RAID controller will allow JBOD, however I don't mind removing the card if required.

The card is currently supported by cciss on Debian Wheezy.

Cheers,
 
Nice electric heating unit. The RAID Card in my old ML350 G4 was recognized as simple HW RAID card by FreeBSD 8.2 and 9.0. You had to configure the disks from the Option ROM at boot time. You can configure single disks in the ROM dialog. If the card contains a working BBU ZFS will take advantage from the NV RAM Cache.

Unless someone else pays your power bill I would recommend against 24/7 operation. Get a cheap low power box e.g. HP N40L (ECC RAM, optional KVM card, 4 x SATA2, < 50W under load).
 
freebuser said:
Can you please guide me on selecting the right way of doing this. i.e:
  • Do I need to remove the raid card and make disks as JBOD to increase reliability?
  • Are all of the software available for FreeBSD?
  • and any other advice which will help me in building the server from scratch.
Click to expand...

Welcome, we have the same server (mine without the RAID card), I use it for my SOHO environment mainly as a storage server.

My advice would be to set up all disks as JBOD and then create your ZFS pools on top.
You can use the 36GB disk to install the OS in UFS+J assuming that you will be using FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE.
You can use the rest of the disks to create a stripped mirror pool or two different mirror pools.

I would personally go for the second option.
 
Nice electric heating unit. The RAID Card in my old ML350 G4 was recognized as simple HW RAID card by FreeBSD 8.2 and 9.0. You had to configure the disks from the Option ROM at boot time. You can configure single disks in the ROM dialog. If the card contains a working BBU ZFS will take advantage from the NV RAM Cache.

Unless someone else pays your power bill I would recommend against 24/7 operation. Get a cheap low power box e.g. HP N40L (ECC RAM, optional KVM card, 4 x SATA2, < 50W under load).
Click to expand...

Yes it is running at around 300W at the moment. It is not running 24/7 though.

I will have a look at the HP N40L.

gkontos said:
Welcome, we have the same server (mine without the RAID card), I use it for my SOHO environment mainly as a storage server.

My advice would be to set up all disks as JBOD and then create your ZFS pools on top.
You can use the 36GB disk to install the OS in UFS+J assuming that you will be using FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE.
You can use the rest of the disks to create a stripped mirror pool or two different mirror pools.

I would personally go for the second option.
Click to expand...

gkontos, mine is running as a storage and multimedia server, (OpenKM for documents, Piwigo for photos and videos, Mediatomb as multimedia server)

As you mentioned I am planning to use as two seperate mirrored disks setup (146/146 + 78/78).

Currently I am in the process of transfering all my data from the server to my desktop, so there won't be any down time, until I finish off the server setup.

Cheers,
 
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