Planning a server revamp

[dalekphalm]

Hey everyone,

 

I've been thinking about doing a revamp of my server - hardware wise there will be no changes. Just OS/organization changes.

 

Currently my server is:

Dell T410

w/ dual 4c/8t CPU's

12GB ECC RAM (6x 2GB sticks - I have 2x 4GB sticks on the way, but will have to swap out 2x 2GB sticks for 4GB sticks, as the modules are all in use - this will boost to 16GB - I may decide to fully swap out the 2GB sticks for 4GB or 8GB sticks in the future)

two HBA's (LSI ones, I forget the specific models) - one internal for the 6x 3.5" bays in the front, and one external for a 12-bay SAS expander bay (not actually using this yet)

6x 3TB HDD's (2x Seagate ST3000MD001's and 4x Toshiba's)

 

OS is running FreeNAS 9.3 stable (latest version). I have a jail running Plex, and another running Transmission. FreeNAS 9.x doesn't natively support VM's, but this is coming in FreeNAS 10 - no idea of the capabilities.

 

Anyway, I like FreeNAS, but it has some limitations.

 

Proposed solution:

Windows Server 2016 host OS for Hyper-V

Use VM's for everything:

Plex

Storage Spaces File Server (w/ direct pass through of the HBA + ReFS)

Transmission

 

Possible other VM's:

DC + DNS

OwnCloud or other "home cloud storage" solution

Other Linux OS's for testing and possible use

 

Windows Server licensing is not a problem so don't worry about cost.

 

How does this sound? What can I adjust or change, planning wise? I currently have around 1.5TB of data on the FreeNAS array, but I have a couple of 2TB drives to use as temp storage.

 

Also, how many resources should I be giving to each VM? Presumably for Transmission + all the "possible" ones can be given 1 core + 2GB (or should I bump this to 4GB) of RAM? Plex should get as many cores as possible for transcoding. How many cores should Storage Spaces get? Does it benefit from additional CPU power, or will a single core be fine?

 

I haven't settled on what OS to run transmission on either. I could either go Linux (Ubuntu most likely - but w/ a Desktop - not gonna deal with headless) or Server 2016. I assume Server 2016 will run a bit heavier.

[tt2468]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

Hey everyone,

 

I've been thinking about doing a revamp of my server - hardware wise there will be no changes. Just OS/organization changes.

 

Currently my server is:

Dell T410

w/ dual 4c/8t CPU's

12GB ECC RAM (6x 2GB sticks - I have 2x 4GB sticks on the way, but will have to swap out 2x 2GB sticks for 4GB sticks, as the modules are all in use - this will boost to 16GB - I may decide to fully swap out the 2GB sticks for 4GB or 8GB sticks in the future)

two HBA's (LSI ones, I forget the specific models) - one internal for the 6x 3.5" bays in the front, and one external for a 12-bay SAS expander bay (not actually using this yet)

6x 3TB HDD's (2x Seagate ST3000MD001's and 4x Toshiba's)

 

OS is running FreeNAS 9.3 stable (latest version). I have a jail running Plex, and another running Transmission. FreeNAS 9.x doesn't natively support VM's, but this is coming in FreeNAS 10 - no idea of the capabilities.

 

Anyway, I like FreeNAS, but it has some limitations.

 

Proposed solution:

Windows Server 2016 host OS for Hyper-V

Use VM's for everything:

Plex

Storage Spaces File Server (w/ direct pass through of the HBA + ReFS)

Transmission

 

Possible other VM's:

DC + DNS

OwnCloud or other "home cloud storage" solution

Other Linux OS's for testing and possible use

 

Windows Server licensing is not a problem so don't worry about cost.

 

How does this sound? What can I adjust or change, planning wise? I currently have around 1.5TB of data on the FreeNAS array, but I have a couple of 2TB drives to use as temp storage.

 

Also, how many resources should I be giving to each VM? Presumably for Transmission + all the "possible" ones can be given 1 core + 2GB (or should I bump this to 4GB) of RAM? Plex should get as many cores as possible for transcoding. How many cores should Storage Spaces get? Does it benefit from additional CPU power, or will a single core be fine?

 

I haven't settled on what OS to run transmission on either. I could either go Linux (Ubuntu most likely - but w/ a Desktop - not gonna deal with headless) or Server 2016. I assume Server 2016 will run a bit heavier.

I would say go for Proxmox. It is better for virtualization performance wise, and has a linux base, which is lighter. Not to mention it's free and has a very nice webUI. I understand you can get licenses, but that doesn't mean that the software you have licenses for is better.

[dalekphalm]

Just now, tt2468 said:

I would say go for Proxmox. It is better for virtualization performance wise, and has a linux base, which is lighter. Not to mention it's free and has a very nice webUI. I understand you can get licenses, but that doesn't mean that the software you have licenses for is better.

I will look into it, but understand that running Hyper-V or Windows Server in general is a personal choice, not a performance choice. My hardware is beefy enough that I'm really not concerned about whatever performances differences the two might have.

 

Dealing with the idiosyncrasies (and trying to troubleshoot them and finding the details/commands, etc) of FreeNAS is one of the reasons I'm considering switching over the Win Server - I'm very familiar with the platform and ecosystem and admin a dozen Windows Servers at work.

[flibberdipper]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

 

Proposed solution:

Windows Server 2016 host OS for Hyper-V

Use VM's for everything:

Plex

Storage Spaces File Server (w/ direct pass through of the HBA + ReFS)

Transmission

 

Possible other VM's:

DC + DNS

OwnCloud or other "home cloud storage" solution

Other Linux OS's for testing and possible use

 

Windows Server licensing is not a problem so don't worry about cost.

 

How does this sound? What can I adjust or change, planning wise? I currently have around 1.5TB of data on the FreeNAS array, but I have a couple of 2TB drives to use as temp storage.

 

Also, how many resources should I be giving to each VM? Presumably for Transmission + all the "possible" ones can be given 1 core + 2GB (or should I bump this to 4GB) of RAM? Plex should get as many cores as possible for transcoding. How many cores should Storage Spaces get? Does it benefit from additional CPU power, or will a single core be fine?

 

I haven't settled on what OS to run transmission on either. I could either go Linux (Ubuntu most likely - but w/ a Desktop - not gonna deal with headless) or Server 2016. I assume Server 2016 will run a bit heavier.

Just my two cents on this, IMO Transmission should be fine with just a single gig of RAM (personally recommend Xubuntu if at all possible because you can run that on a gig of ram+1G swap flawlessly especially just for Transmission), and as I recall, Storage Spaces can benefit from more CPU depending on what it is you're doing, but I'd recommend skimming through this to see if it has anything useful (it looks like it might). https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/15200.storage-spaces-designing-for-performance.aspx

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, tmcclelland455 said:

Just my two cents on this, IMO Transmission should be fine with just a single gig of RAM (personally recommend Xubuntu if at all possible because you can run that on a gig of ram+1G swap flawlessly especially just for Transmission), and as I recall, Storage Spaces can benefit from more CPU depending on what it is you're doing, but I'd recommend skimming through this to see if it has anything useful (it looks like it might). https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/15200.storage-spaces-designing-for-performance.aspx

Excellent info on Transmission - indeed I might run some form of Linux, so Xubuntu might be an option. Can you point to any significant differences between Xubuntu and regular Ubuntu? 1 Core + 1GB RAM + 1GB of swap space is what you recommend?

 

I'll read that doc on storage spaces. I might give it 4 cores - which I would think is enough for just about anything. I would be running the 6x 3TB drives in a single parity disk formation (RAID 5 equiv). If my storage needs exceed this, I may eventually expand this into a larger dual parity pool, utilizing the additional 12-bays of capacity on the SAS Expander.

[flibberdipper]

4 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Excellent info on Transmission - indeed I might run some form of Linux, so Xubuntu might be an option. Can you point to any significant differences between Xubuntu and regular Ubuntu? 1 Core + 1GB RAM + 1GB of swap space is what you recommend?

 

I'll read that doc on storage spaces. I might give it 4 cores - which I would think is enough for just about anything. I would be running the 6x 3TB drives in a single parity disk formation (RAID 5 equiv). If my storage needs exceed this, I may eventually expand this into a larger dual parity pool, utilizing the additional 12-bays of capacity on the SAS Expander.

Only real notable things about Xubuntu is that it uses Xfce over Unity, and it runs really well on a potato (I have it on my OptiPlex 170L with a 2.4GHz P4 HT and it runs fantastic for being a shitbox). So ideally you could get away with single core + a gig of ram + a gig of swap space in the VM. Honestly you might not even really get that deep into swap unless you use Chrome (or if they added something RAM-whorey since 16.04).

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, tmcclelland455 said:

Only real notable things about Xubuntu is that it uses Xfce over Unity, and it runs really well on a potato (I have it on my OptiPlex 170L with a 2.4GHz P4 HT and it runs fantastic for being a shitbox). So ideally you could get away with single core + a gig of ram + a gig of swap space in the VM. Honestly you might not even really get that deep into swap unless you use Chrome (or if they added something RAM-whorey since 16.04).

Interesting - aside from logging in to the VM to configure and do troubleshooting, basically all interaction will be from another computer onto the Transmission WebGUI. Chrome will probably not even be installed onto that VM (unless it comes preinstalled in the OS image).

[flibberdipper]

4 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Interesting - aside from logging in to the VM to configure and do troubleshooting, basically all interaction will be from another computer onto the Transmission WebGUI. Chrome will probably not even be installed onto that VM (unless it comes preinstalled in the OS image).

I'm almost certain that the only notable things included in Xubuntu still are Firefox, then the LibreOffice versions of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, and then the Ubuntu Software Center.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, tmcclelland455 said:

I'm almost certain that the only notable things included in Xubuntu still are Firefox, then the LibreOffice versions of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, and then the Ubuntu Software Center.

Fair enough - I'd probably end up uninstalling LibreOffice anyway. FF + Transmission + USC is pretty much all I'd have need for. I do prefer having a GUI though rather than going completely headless.

[flibberdipper]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Fair enough - I'd probably end up uninstalling LibreOffice anyway. FF + Transmission + USC is pretty much all I'd have need for. I do prefer having a GUI though rather than going completely headless.

Hey at least you'd have that. Hell if you got super bored you could sit there and mess with the "taskbar" or whatever it's called and make it take up a retarded portion of the screen.

[leadeater]

Just keep in mind Storage Spaces Parity performance is garbage so you'll either need to do SSD caching or use Mirror which from a usable space perspective is terrible.

[leadeater]

Oh and there is no need to pass through the disks to a file server VM, create the storage pool on the Hyper-V host OS then just use that storage pool to create your VMs on. You can still create a storage VM to host shares but just use a VHDX hosted on the storage pool.

 

There isn't a need to do it the ESXi way as Hyper-V has a different set of capabilities and can do things ESXi can't, same goes for ESXi vs Hyper-V for other features.

[dalekphalm]

29 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Just keep in mind Storage Spaces Parity performance is garbage so you'll either need to do SSD caching or use Mirror which from a usable space perspective is terrible.

I've heard that but it slipped my mind. I do have an SSD in my old custom-built server that I can eventually pull and use as an SSD cache. I'd prefer not to do mirroring just because I don't need the additional redundancy and I don't want to lose the capacity.

26 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Oh and there is no need to pass through the disks to a file server VM, create the storage pool on the Hyper-V host OS then just use that storage pool to create your VMs on. You can still create a storage VM to host shares but just use a VHDX hosted on the storage pool.

 

There isn't a need to do it the ESXi way as Hyper-V has a different set of capabilities and can do things ESXi can't, same goes for ESXi vs Hyper-V for other features.

Ah good to know. We don't use storage spaces at work, so my knowledge there is very limited (We use a Dell SAN appliance). If I'm creating the storage space on the Host OS, I don't really see any reason to create a storage VM to host the shares. Can you see any benefit to doing that?

 

For the VM's, storing the VHD for the OS's on the Storage Spaces pool is fine? I may find an extra SSD specifically for the Plex VM (I've heard it can help transcoding speed - specifically the amount of buffering time when loading a video that needs to be transcoded) - but the rest of the VM's, I can't really see any need for SSD storage.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

If I'm creating the storage space on the Host OS, I don't really see any reason to create a storage VM to host the shares. Can you see any benefit to doing that?

Not really no, more of just in case you want to do it that way for some reason you have. It's the way I do it but I run a AD for my base infrastructure and another one for my home network so the file server hosting VMs is on a different domain than the file server hosting my home drive etc.

[brwainer]

3 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

OS is running FreeNAS 9.3 stable (latest version). I have a jail running Plex, and another running Transmission. FreeNAS 9.x doesn't natively support VM's, but this is coming in FreeNAS 10 - no idea of the capabilities.

 

Anyway, I like FreeNAS, but it has some limitations.

I think that Hyper-V Server is great, and use that with Storage Spaces, in the same way that Leadeater has been giving you details about. But I wanted to let you know - FreeNAS 10 has been released, the renamed it FreeNAS Corral. It seems like it would fulfill your needs/desires, and it really is tempting me to try it out on a spare server. Just wanted to make sure you took at look at it since it was released (left Beta) a few days ago.

[dalekphalm]

28 minutes ago, brwainer said:

I think that Hyper-V Server is great, and use that with Storage Spaces, in the same way that Leadeater has been giving you details about. But I wanted to let you know - FreeNAS 10 has been released, the renamed it FreeNAS Corral. It seems like it would fulfill your needs/desires, and it really is tempting me to try it out on a spare server. Just wanted to make sure you took at look at it since it was released (left Beta) a few days ago.

It's in Stable stream now? Official release? I may have to take a look at some point.

[brwainer]

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

It's in Stable stream now? Official release? I may have to take a look at some point.

I think so? I haven't looked too closely but I thought they named it Stable.

[CptCarbonat]

On 21.3.2017 at 0:40 AM, tt2468 said:

I understand you can get licenses, but that doesn't mean that the software you have licenses for is better.

Well just to use Hyper-V you wouldn't even have to get the license, but I also think that Hyper-V is not the best solution out there.