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Craigk_c19

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Posts posted by Craigk_c19

  1. That's a smart option, my only complaint is that it'll add another point of failure. Also, buying four of those will be up to $35, the same price as the switch. Nice thinking outside the box, though, and I don't see why this isn't a viable or good solution if there isn't a Type C switch that someone knows about because my Google-fu is coming up short.

  2. With working from home and in a hybrid world now. I have always gotten away with sharing my USB A peripherals just fine using a UGreen USB 3.0 Switch from Amazon. With a lot of peripherals now going to USB C these days, I have far more type C than type A now. After upgrading my webcam and adding a ring light, and recently got into the world of the custom mechanical world that also uses type c. I now find I need a USB switcher/KVM for type c more than type A, but for the life of me can't find anything that will work. Does anyone have any suggestions? 

  3. 6 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

    Given your use case there's no differences so long as it passes the drives directly to the O/S (IT mode). There are other features these cards offer that makes one better than the other in terms of RAID performance, but you will be using FreeNAS so it isn't pertinent. Doesn't hurt to make sure it's SATA 3 / 6gbps as well (in case you throw some SSDs on there).

    That does matter I planned on having at least 1 SSD for catching and keep seeing write times for FreeNas and ESXi needs a sloth drive or something like that to make it not hurt the performance of writes. So ill look a little more into them and see what i can find but thank you again for the input!

  4. 1 hour ago, Mikensan said:

    Just wanted to add that a lot of ebay sellers now pre-flash their LSI varients without any added cost. I actually just bought a m1015 cheaper than what I paid years ago and it updated and flashed to IT mode.

    May I ask what the difference is between a few of these HBA, the LSI 9205-8i, 9207-8i, M1015? In the FreeNAS forum, I was linked a 9205-8i for an excellent cheap option? I can only find it on eBay though, and no info on google searches about it. The 9207-8i seems like a popular easy option to go, and I can get around $45 on eBay, that is about what I'm budgeting for this component. I've seen the M1015 floating around in a lot of topics as well though. Currently, I planned to spend $45 on a 9207-8i that is already in IT mode and update to latest firmware once I got it. Is there any reason to chose one over the other?

  5. 20 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

    I'd just like to chime in re: FreeNAS VM.

     

    The main reason people "discourage" FreeNAS VM's is because ZFS (the file system and it's associated RAID-like capabilities) likes to have direct access to your storage devices (HDD/SSD, etc).

     

    However, assuming your hardware supports it, this is actually easy enough to do. To solve the problem, you simply need to pass your storage controller (usually an HBA, but could be something as simple as a few SATA expansion cards) directly to the VM. This is called PCI Passthrough (though I refer to it as PCIe Passthrough most of the time, due to.. well... no one uses PCI anymore).

     

    I use ESXi in my Home Server, and have an LSI 9207-8e HBA Card (Normally people would use the 8i version, but I have a Dell MD1200 DAS (Direct Attach Storage) Disk Shelf). This HBA is passed directly to the FreeNAS VM via PCI Passthrough (6x Toshiba 3TB SATA HDD's).

     

    FreeNAS then sees the drives directly, just as if I had installed FreeNAS directly onto the system.

     

    It works fantastic. I also have experienced no RAM related issues.

     

    Another note on FreeNAS: You see EVERYWHERE on the web that people recommend 1GB of RAM per 1TB of storage. Ignore this. It's entirely wrong advice. That "rule of thumb" was specifically for use of Deduplication (a technique that scans the storage array for identical files, keeps only one of them, and then uses pointers for the other copies). Dedupe doesn't work great on FreeNAS anyway, and I would never advocate anyone using it here.

     

    So in terms of RAM, 4GB is good, 8GB is better. It'll run on less than 4GB of RAM though, but performance might suffer below 4GB.

     

    Anything above 8GB on FreeNAS usually isn't warranted, unless you're doing advanced features or non-standard things.

    Dang If I would have found/ saw this a few days ago would have been lovely haha because I'm currently building a FreeNAS box now too. My spear i7-6700 is on sale right now on eBay, and I planned on buying an old Xeon and old super micro MB and 16 GB or ECC ddr3 ram all for around 200ish and LSI 9207-8i for 55 and just have a FreeNAS box and an ESXi box and maybe mess with ISCSI to get them to talk. Now debating do I make a proper FreeNAS box or just get the 9207-8i and passthrough and pocket the extra cash... hmmm

  6. 13 hours ago, leadeater said:

    That will work fine though you'll have to pass through the entire SATA controller and SAS HBA to the FreeNAS VM, that means using a USB drive for the ESXi install which I recommend anyway.

     

    Once FreeNAS is setup you'll need to create an NFS share then mount that on the ESXi host so you can create VMs, because until now you have no storage you can use for ESXi at all. This also means you need to use one of the HDDs for FreeNAS OS itself or, and personally I'd do it this way, not pass through the motherboard SATA controller and use a small SSD or HDD for an ESXi datastore. You'll need a SAS HBA with enough ports for all the HDDs that FreeNAS will use that will get passed through to the VM.

     

    Basically you need some kind of storage for ESXi to use to store the VM configuration files as well as any potential virtual disks, chicken and egg problem. You never want to put virtual disks on a USB drive, way too slow, which is why I'm recommending not to pass through the motherboard SATA controller.

     

    Another important note is if you do create an NFS share on the FreeNAS server and mount it on the ESXi server any VMs stored on that cannot boot until the FreeNAS server is booted and the ESXi server has remounted the NFS share (will happen automatically).

    Thank you, that's some seriously detailed information! After some more digging yesterday I found that running FreeNas on a VM might not work that great. So currently looking into building that out then just having an ESXi box with the listed hardware minus the drives, does that seem like a better idea to you? Then as you suggested, I can slap a 250GB SSD into the ESXi box and that should be enough correct? I

     

    If I go this route I won't have to worry about passing through any SATA controllers and the HBA can just be in the FreeNAS box. The only reason I'm able to do a FreeNAS build now is I came across a free i7-6700 recently and I'm selling it on eBay for 240 and with that, I'm able to get an Ivy bridge Xeon with the motherboard and 16 GBs of ECC ram along with 1 HBA  LSI 9207-8i. Will just have to get another PSU out of pocket which I can swing. 

     

    Seems this is the direction a lot of people have suggested to me in the past just didn't think it was possible until now.

  7. 33 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

    FreeNAS's VM software (Bhyve) is garbage and to install a hypervisor inside a VM (a bad one at that) would spell catastrophe for everything. Hypervisor on the hardware, everything else on the hypervisor.

     

    Assuming the FreeNAS box isn't going to do anything seriously workload intensive besides a file share, maybe SSH/SFTP and some light media for plex you won't need a strong/expensive system. You could build it compact with a Micro-ATX or Mini-ITX motherboard, mainstream CPU socket (Xeon), and maybe 8GB of ECC RAM. It'd work a treat.

    You hit the nail on the head, that's all I'm looking to do with it and have it be a daily/weekly backup on all machines in the house in case something happens. Does it need to be a Xeon and have ECC Ram though? that seems overkill I feel like the box won't be getting hard I wouldn't think other than maybe to stream a movie to the living room tv and maybe 1 other room at the same time. Would a newer chip work like the ryzen 1700 8 cores 16 threads can get those for under 100 now.
     

  8. 8 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

    I bought my three 16 port cards off eBay of which eBay links go against the forums Community Standards so I can't give you a URL. I can tell you though that they are the LSI 9201-16i. For my setup they have been plug'n'play. No issues. I think I paid like ~$130 each and hey $95 is significantly better than the Newegg price right now.

     

    I don't know what file system ESXi uses but maybe @leadeater can comment here. I can say ZFS doesn't care what controller the drives are plugged into. It'll RAID them together. All it cares about is direct access so you could have some running off the motherboard South Bridge/PCH, some running off a unconfigured marvel controller, some off an dedicated HBA, ZFS doesn't care. I'd like to imagine it's a similar situation with ESXi...*looks at leadeater*...

    I'll wait until leadeater chimes in but Ebay looks to be the way to go the LSI 9201-16i is $120ish and LSI 9207-8i is $40-60 ish can't see any reason not to just get 2 9207-8is i have the PCIE slots for them. But if it is like you said I would only need one then use the onboard 2 Intel and 2 AsMedia Sata 3 ports.

    Would it work if I used the Bare bone to put FreeNas on then put ESXi on top of that? Or just stick strictly to have a dedicated FreeNas box? 

    sorry, I'm so new to this.

  9. 8 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

    I've been using three LSI 9207-8i's. They use the SFF-8087 connector. It gives you eight SATAIII ports.

     

    I have to say do NOT buy it from what I just linked. That's where I bought it from a few years back but they cost me $82/each. That listed price is a rip-off so definitely search elsewhere if that HBA interests you.

     

    If you need 16 ports I know of another card that has been working well for me thus far.

    would you mind linking the 16 port one as well? 8 ports would only work if i use 8 on the HBA and then 2 through the Motherboard. even on Amazon that LSI 9207-8is still run roughly  $95ish

  10. 1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

    I would argue you to put pfSense on it's own box. You will have to take this server offline for maintenance periodically or if something goes wrong and you don't want it taking out the whole home(site).

     

    Although FreeNAS can run in a VM (though not recommended) you'll have degraded performance as a result. ZFS (The file system FreeNAS uses) likes direct access to the drives and problems can arise when passed them though to the VM, or worse if you don't pass them through at all. ZFS also utilizes RAM as a read cache of which native access would be better.

     

    Everything else I don't have an argument for. I think you could virtualize them.

     

    If you plan to use software RAID you'll need an HBA if the motherboard doesn't have enough ports.

    That's all extremely helpful!! Okay so PfSense off the box entirely got it, and It will not be a good idea to VM FreeNas that is also really good to know. So, for now, I should just use Storage in the pool maybe make a file share on the Windows machine might be my best bet currently until I get more hardware to implement it correctly.   

     

    As for the HBA do you have any suggestions? I've tried looking into them last night and got lost very quickly 

  11. 9 minutes ago, Dennis Miller said:

    Are you trying to create all 4+ machines as separate VMs running simultaneously on the same physical system?  If so, then I believe you're really going to be constrained by that CPU.  It only has four cores and single core VMs really crawl.

     

    If it's for purely learning purposes, I would suggest only keeping the domain controller running and spin up the others one at a time to play with.

    The 3770k is a 4 core 8 threads, and my plan is currently run ESXi as the hypervisor, and to start have if possible have FreeNas spun up and Plex server. Then plan on learning/trying/playing the other of boxes like PfSense / windows for active directory/test boxes if my set up cant handle that then it will stay as a FreeNas for backups for our PCs. but I'm not sure I can get all my drives up and going to raid them or not? so seeing what options I have today my power supply comes in and ill find out if the onboard 8 stat ports I have will even be seen or usable in ESXi, but even then I need to find a way to add the other 2 drives. 

  12. The 3770k is a 4 core 8 threads, and my plan is currently run ESXi as the hypervisor, and to start have if possible have FreeNas spun up and Plex server. Then plan on learning/trying/playing the other of boxes like PfSense / windows for active directory/test boxes if my set up cant handle that then it will stay as a FreeNas for backups for our PCs. but I'm not sure i can get all my drives up and going to raid them or not? so seeing what options i have today my power supply comes in and ill find out if the on board 8 stat ports i have will even be seen or usable in ESXi, but even then i need to find a way to add the other 2 drives. 

  13. Ultimately I'm looking to build the following servers: 1) Windows 2012 R2 Server (Active Directory) 2) FreeNAS (Storage) 3) pfSense (Firewall/Router) 4) Plex Media Server 5+) Various other VMs to refresh and/or learn Windows Server/AD/Linux/etc training as needed.

     

    I had my old gaming PC sitting in the closet and came into some free store and a NIC from work and want to make a home lab. Hardware is a follows

     

    CPU: i7 3770k RAM: 24 GBs 1600mhz Motherboard: ASUS Z77 Sabertooth PSU: Evga 750w Gold certified Nic: Intel Pro/1000 Pt Quad Port Store: 6 Seagate 2TB 7200rpm & 4 WD 2TB 7200rpm

    I have it in a Fractal Design r6 case so it all fits and I have ESXi 6.5 running off a USB.

     

    Now, onto why I'm making this post will what I want to do work? Or is there a better way to set it up? I'm fairly new to this side of everything and looking for any advice/direction. The FreeNAS will be used for shared storage and backups of all our devices. Currently, have roughly 2TBs of movies. Would at some point like to set up a home VPN so we can access our files from anywhere. And since this is all being housed in a Fractal r6 Case my MB only had 8 Stat ports how do I go about attaching all 10 drives correctly? 

     

    Any help would be greatly appreciated.

  14. Switched from an Samsung s7 to pixel xl 2. First week on new phone could watch floatplane no issues. Now video plays fine but no audio. If I download the video audio works fine. It's just floatplane videos too. On both the forums and floatplane directly. If I go to Facebook or your though Chrome browser they work fine too. So far I have cleared cookies, Uninstalled chrome reinstall problem continues, checked audio settings In Chrome. Would like to get fixed before floatplane goes live I noticed I've resorted to waiting for videos to come out on YouTube lately. Please help 

     
  15. The new Razer Blade why because it's amazingly small and powerful and slim,  looks sexy too!  Lady luck is usally not my friend hopefully that changes today. Looking to make a career change and this would be great to help me study for my CCNA exam.  Wish me luck! 

  16. First time i ever built a PC back in 2009 i found your channel and have checked almost daily for a new video on any of your channels. i even went to the field of Computer Science because of just how much i enjoyed technology! and anytime i dont fully understand something i seem to remember Linus doing a video over and and search it out and you explain it so simply and fast! Im Glad you made such an impressive mile stone! glade ive been able to watch along the way i dont really look at the Fourms much but i do watch just about every video ever posted! lol Thank you Linus and Crew yall are Awesome and Congradulations!! 

  17. This Phone is so sexy and i already have a nexus 5 but im so wanting this phone!! only reason i didnt get the M7 was because it was 7 months old i knew the m8 would be out soon so i got a nexus 5 to get me off my dang iphone now that the M8 is here i cant wait to get one!!!!! i would love to win this amazing contest by HTC being so awesome too!! I love the look the speakers and the speed!!

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