NAS - ITX okay?

[phongle123]

I have a micro ATX case and want to get an ITX motherboard rather than a MATX motherboard because maybe in the future I want to move it into a smaller case. 

 

I am using this as a gaming server and a FREENAS Server. Do you guys know if any reason why I would need the extra PCIE Lanes?

I will not be using a dGPU will be using the iGPU inside of the 8100.

 

The 2 motherboards I am looking at are Asrock Z370m Pro4 and Asrock Z370m-ITX.

 

There' not many to choose from in the 300 series, 6 SATA, and Raid 5 compatible. Theres actually only 4.

[PineyCreek]

You say NAS, I ask what quantities and types of drives, etc.  FreeNAS discourages hardware RAID, so that implies you're using direct connections to the motherboard and/or addon cards.

 

In either configuration, I can't really think of a scenario where you're needing the PCIE capacity.

[phongle123]

6 hours ago, PineyCreek said:

You say NAS, I ask what quantities and types of drives, etc.  FreeNAS discourages hardware RAID, so that implies you're using direct connections to the motherboard and/or addon cards.

 

In either configuration, I can't really think of a scenario where you're needing the PCIE capacity.

6 drives. 1 300GB drive for OS and 5 8TB NAS Drives in raid 5.

 

When you say discourages hardware raid what do you mean? So you mean that software raid would be better? Please elaborate as I don't really get this. According to this hardware raid seems much better then OS Software Raid. https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/raid-hardware-vs-raid-software.html

[79wjd]

2 minutes ago, phongle123 said:

6 drives. 1 300GB drive for OS and 5 8TB NAS Drives in raid 5.

 

When you say discourages hardware raid what do you mean? So you mean that software raid would be better? Please elaborate as I don't really get this. According to this hardware raid seems much better then OS Software Raid. https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/raid-hardware-vs-raid-software.html

FreeNAS doesn't like to be in a VM and it wants to directly see and manage all the drives. You can also just put FreeNAS on a USB. As for your RAID 5, I would personally recommend RAID 6. Going by the (conservative) metrics from HDD manufacturers, you're basically guaranteed to encounter a URE and thus fail to rebuild an array when you're using >=4tb drives. RAID 6 also two drives to fail and thus this issue is much less likely to be a problem.

[phongle123]

9 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

FreeNAS doesn't like to be in a VM and it wants to directly see and manage all the drives. You can also just put FreeNAS on a USB. As for your RAID 5, I would personally recommend RAID 6. Going by the (conservative) metrics from HDD manufacturers, you're basically guaranteed to encounter a URE and thus fail to rebuild an array when you're using >=4tb drives. RAID 6 also two drives to fail and thus this issue is much less likely to be a problem.

So the problem with FREENAS and hardware raid is with VM? So if FREENAS was it own OS, freenas and hardware raid would be fine?

 

So if I were to VM it I would need to use software raid? And thus also wouldn't need to buy a raid 5 compatible motherboard since I won't be using hardware raid? Windoes 10 supports software raid out of the box?

 

I don't think it's possible to boot up Win10/Server on my 300GB and FREENAS on a USB stick together at the same time right?

 

Edit: It looks like Windows server can also be set up as a NAS alongside all the stuff it does without the need to VM FreeNAS is this right?

[79wjd]

6 minutes ago, phongle123 said:

So the problem with FREENAS and hardware raid is with VM? So if FREENAS was it own OS, freenas and hardware raid would be fine?

 

So if I were to VM it I would need to use software raid? And thus also wouldn't need to buy a raid 5 compatible motherboard since I won't be using hardware raid? Windoes 10 supports software raid out of the box?

 

I don't think it's possible to boot up Win10/Server on my 300GB and FREENAS on a USB stick together at the same time right?

No, that was a separate (but related) point in regards to you also wanting a game server -- you have to make sure FreeNAS isn't in a VM. 

 

FreeNAS itself uses ZFS and software RAID. Period. You don't want any form of hardware RAID with FreeNAS (Full stop). You'll plug all the drives into the NAS and then handle the RAID arrays from within the FreeNAS GUI (also, motherboard hardware RAID is pretty shit due to reliability and replacement issues).

 

What you'd want to do is install FreeNAS on a USB, and then create a VM through FreeNAS on which your Windows game server will live. 

[phongle123]

12 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

No, that was a separate (but related) point in regards to you also wanting a game server -- you have to make sure FreeNAS isn't in a VM. 

 

FreeNAS itself uses ZFS and software RAID. Period. You don't want any form of hardware RAID with FreeNAS (Full stop). You'll plug all the drives into the NAS and then handle the RAID arrays from within the FreeNAS GUI (also, motherboard hardware RAID is pretty shit due to reliability and replacement issues).

 

What you'd want to do is install FreeNAS on a USB, and then create a VM through FreeNAS on which your Windows game server will live. 

So just like windows can VM FreeNAS. FreeNAS can also VM windows?

 

I havn't had the opportunity to check out FREENAS yet just know that I will be using it. 

 

So whichever way it happens to go. FreeNAS VMing windows is better than Windows Bling FreeNAS? Does this create any problems? 

[79wjd]

1 minute ago, phongle123 said:

So whichever way it happens to go. FreeNAS VMing windows is better than Windows Bling FreeNAS? Does this create any problems? 

Yes. In theory it can cause problems just like running anything in a VM could, but it's much better to have those problems with a game server than with your important data.  

[phongle123]

3 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Yes. In theory it can cause problems just like running anything in a VM could, but it's much better to have those problems with a game server than with your important data.  

With windows server. Can I just skip VMing and FreeNAS altogether and use windows server as the NAS and gaming server just from windows server alone?

 

I read something about windows storage server being integrated in windows server. http://www.overclock.net/t/1343617/which-server-os-to-use-for-nas

[79wjd]

You could use Windows 10 and then run the NAS with storage spaces and the game server all in Windows 10/Server 2016.

[phongle123]

19 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

You could use Windows 10 and then run the NAS with storage spaces and the game server all in Windows 10/Server 2016.

So if I went this route with server16 to do both gaming Server and NAS without VMing. Then hardware motherboard raid would be better than software raid?

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, phongle123 said:

So if I went this route with server16 to do both gaming Server and NAS without VMing. Then hardware motherboard raid would be better than software raid?

No, storage spaces would still be better. Hardware RAID isn't a particularly good option unless you're using an actual RAID card with a ECC memory and a battery backup. 

[phongle123]

43 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

No, storage spaces would still be better. Hardware RAID isn't a particularly good option unless you're using an actual RAID card with a ECC memory and a battery backup. 

Storages Spaces was what I meant to mean when I said to use Server16 as both the Server and the NAS. So this would work as good as FreeNAS VMing Windows10/Server?

 

Software Raid works out of the box in Windows10/Server?

[GDRRiley]

2 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

you have to make sure FreeNAS isn't in a VM. 

FreeNAS itself uses ZFS and software RAID. Period. You don't want any form of hardware RAID with FreeNAS (Full stop). You'll plug all the drives into the NAS and then handle the RAID arrays from within the FreeNAS GUI (also, motherboard hardware RAID is pretty shit due to reliability and replacement issues).

 

What you'd want to do is install FreeNAS on a USB, and then create a VM through FreeNAS on which your Windows game server will live. 

you can put freeNAS in a VM you just have to have a HBA or Raid card in IT mode to pass through

@dalekphalm

[dalekphalm]

6 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

you can put freeNAS in a VM you just have to have a HBA or Raid card in IT mode to pass through

@dalekphalm

Correct. I have FreeNAS running inside a VM on ESXi. I have an LSI 9207-8e HBA (Host Bus Adapter), and it works perfectly with PCIe Passthrough. FreeNAS sees it exactly the same as if FreeNAS was the base OS. All HDD SMART Data is passed through correctly, and FreeNAS is properly able to scrub, detect failures, rebuild the array, etc.

9 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

FreeNAS doesn't like to be in a VM and it wants to directly see and manage all the drives. You can also just put FreeNAS on a USB. As for your RAID 5, I would personally recommend RAID 6. Going by the (conservative) metrics from HDD manufacturers, you're basically guaranteed to encounter a URE and thus fail to rebuild an array when you're using >=4tb drives. RAID 6 also two drives to fail and thus this issue is much less likely to be a problem.

You're wrong about VM's. In the past (Version 8 and before) they recommended you not to run FreeNAS as a VM, simply because the devs didn't test that environment. Also, historically, support for PCIe Passthrough on hardware wasn't as wide spread, especially consumer hardware.

 

Hardware RAID is a totally different problem, and exists whether FreeNAS is a VM or not. The issues of Hardware RAID that you talk about, however, are correct.

 

As for RAID5 (RAIDZ1 in ZFS) vs RAID6 (RAIDZ2 in ZFS), it's possible to encounter an URE during a RAID5 rebuild, but it's by no means guaranteed. I had to do a full rebuild of my 6x 3TB RAIDZ1 array, and it went smoothly.

 

That's why it's important to always backup any important data. RAID does not equal backup. RAID is to protect against downtime and as a convenience factor. Even a RAID6 array can fail. It is true however, that the risk grows as the drive size grows. I wouldn't out 6x 10TB HDD's in a RAID5 array, for example.

 

@phongle123

Running FreeNAS as your OS is totally fine with the hardware you've chosen. As others have noted, you don't need to use a dedicated HDD for the OS if you don't want. Using a small USB Drive is sufficient. However, there's certainly no harm in using an SSD or small HDD.

 

For your hardware choices, I'd recommend against using the built-in motherboard RAID. Instead, you should plug all the drives directly into the motherboard and then configure ZFS inside FreeNAS. It will provide better protection against something called Bit Rot.

 

Bit Rot is a normal process that happens on mechanical HDD's. Basically Bit Rot is when a bit on a mechanical HDD randomly flips it's state (turns from a 0 to a 1, or vice versa. This is usually caused by cosmic background radiation, but can be caused by any sufficiently powerful magnetic or electric field.

 

Bit flips are pretty rare, but if they happen, the data is corrupted.

 

The problem with Bit Rot is that when a bit flips, motherboard RAID (and Hardware RAID that don't perform scrubs automatically), the OS can't tell which file is correct, the flipped bit, or the parity calculation.

 

Bit Rot can also cause rebuild failures in the case of a flipped bit being read during a rebuild. Parity rebuild calculations rely on the rest of the data being good, because you're already down one HDD.

 

ZFS automatically scrubs the array, looking for flipped bits. If it detects corrupted data, it'll rebuild the file from parity.

 

Some hardware RAID cards do this as well, but ZFS typically is very good at it. Especially when used with ECC RAM (although not strictly necessary).

[79wjd]

24 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

You're wrong about VM's. In the past (Version 8 and before) they recommended you not to run FreeNAS as a VM, simply because the devs didn't test that environment. Also, historically, support for PCIe Passthrough on hardware wasn't as wide spread, especially consumer hardware.

I thought running FreeNAS in a VM was still problematic in 9.x (not that that necessarily has any implications on FreeNAS 11.x).

24 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

As for RAID5 (RAIDZ1 in ZFS) vs RAID6 (RAIDZ2 in ZFS), it's possible to encounter an URE during a RAID5 rebuild, but it's by no means guaranteed. I had to do a full rebuild of my 6x 3TB RAIDZ1 array, and it went smoothly.

That's why I mentioned it in reference to the conservative manufacturer spec. Most consumer drives are rated to encounter a URE every <10^14 bits (12tb~). So if you go by the manufacturers "guaranteed" spec sheet, you have a problem. However, in reality it seems to be less common than that and higher end enterprise/server grade drives are rated for 10^15 bits (125tb~) usually. So in reality RAID 5 should be perfectly fine, although I tend to prefer to err on the side of caution and lean towards the manufacturer's spec.

[dalekphalm]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

I thought running FreeNAS in a VM was still problematic in 9.x (not that that necessarily has any implications on FreeNAS 11.x).

That's why I mentioned it in reference to the conservative manufacturer spec. Most consumer drives are rated to encounter a URE every <10^14 bits (12tb~). So if you go by the manufacturers "guaranteed" spec sheet, you have a problem. However, in reality it seems to be less common than that and higher end enterprise/server grade drives are rated for 10^15 bits (125tb~) usually. So in reality RAID 5 should be perfectly fine, although I tend to prefer to err on the side of caution and lean towards the manufacturer's spec.

There are many instances of people running FreeNAS 9.x as a VM. I myself ran it for a while, before trying FreeNAS 10 (hated it) - I ended up going back to FreeNAS 9.x (latest version) until FreeNAS 11 came out.

 

Both 9.x and 11 worked flawlessly for me under a VM.

 

Indeed, erring on the side of caution for the URE's is not a bad thing, so long as all the information is given and each person makes their own informed decision on risk level.

 

I do have plans of eventually switching to RAIDZ2, but that won't be until I need to upgrade my drives to bigger ones.