So far, I was doing with RAID-5 on a Icy Box DAS, attached to a Dell miniPC, running Ubuntu for my home storage but decided to move to TrueNAS and the first obvious thing was to look for a suitable hardware. I have been reading about all the Don’ts about using ICY BOX type of things with Sata Multiplier etc. and in the end I decided to go with HP MicroServer. These are my planned usages:
Dedicated TrueNAS server - no VMs or or any other Usedapps
4x 4TB HDD (upgrading to 6 or 8TB soon) in RAID5 equivalent storage config
2x 64GB SSD as the root/boot drive (M.2 Sata??)
2x 1G NIC bonded interface to UniFi Switch
it will be used for a) local file-server, b) DLNA (Hi-Res 24-bit audio) and c) 4k media server for CoreELCE
Based on the above, my question is:
Should I use Core or Scale?
Is HP MicroServer (Gen8 or Gen10) be a good fit?
If yes, what’s the minimum spec I should go for?
Can I also do RAID1 (or some sort of mirroring) for boot drive?
If yes, what are the option I have to add two additional drives (M.2 or SSD) as the boot drive?
re. Link aggression, does it support LACP?
Sorry for for all of those questions. Just trying to get the right H/W ASAP to start the build. Thanks in advance.
These are previous editions and both are suitable. Today, there is only “Community edition”, so go for this (there are also enterprise solutions, but this is not for home use).
Is HP MicroServer (Gen8 or Gen10) be a good fit?
For your case (home use) - yes! In fact, I personally would not choose Micro server due to its small case. I would recommend normal case, because it has more space for air flow and, depending on configuraion, room for additional drives, that you can add later.
I also have HP Server, but standard case (HP ProLiant, Gen8).
If yes, what’s the minimum spec I should go for?
Minimum 16GB RAM, the more, the better. As a brand server, it should already have ECC RAM installed.
Can I also do RAID1 (or some sort of mirroring) for boot drive?
For home use, there’s no need. Just save the configuration after install on another drive.
IF you do, RAID should be avoided, as ZFS already protects data better than RAID, so they should not be used both. Therefore “some sort of mirroring” refers to ZFS mirror boot pool.
If yes, what are the option I have to add two additional drives (M.2 or SSD) as the boot drive?
Add two SSD and create a mirror pool (boot pool).
Then, add other drives and create other pool(s) for data, backup etc.
Long time Microserver Gen8 user here, so weighing in with experience on that model and it’s hardware.
First up, the big advantage of the Gen8 is a proper iLO, so you can run it headless. The Gen10 dropped this incredibly useful feature for some bizarre reason.
The Gen8 can only support 16GB of RAM (2x8GB), this is a hard limitation of the chipset.
They shipped with a rather anemic Celeron G1610T CPU, but can be easily upgraded to a quad core Xeon E3-1265L (2.5GHz). It’ll run hotter and consume more power, though, as a consequence.
The unit has a four drive SATA bay (not SAS!). It offers software RAID (which you really don’t want to use for TrueNAS/ZFS), but can be configured to run in JBOD mode quite easily. Just be aware that only bays 1 and 2 run at 6Gb/s, bays 3 and 4 are limited to 3Gb/s.
What many people do to improve the storage subsystem is install a SAS card (SAS is backwards compatible with SATA) in the PCIe slot, and connect the drive cage to the SAS card. Running the SAS card in IT mode you’ll get reliable, fast access to all your 3.5" drives. You can then also get a SATA splitter cable to attach to the motherboard’s SATA controller, and continue to use that for other storage. My machine has a pair of small SSDs for the boot device connected to SATA ports 1 and 2, and 4 big spinning SATA disks in the drive cage, connected to the SAS HBA. These 2.5" SSDs sit on top of the drive cage where the optical drive would sit, and use the 5V molex with a splitter to power them
The only problem with the above is that adding in a PCIe SAS card will often cause the BIOS to run the fans at full speed, which is noisy! Those SAS cards get hot, and data corruption is a real problem if they overheat.
Looking at the age of Gen8 and 16GB memory limitation, I have decided to go with Gen10 Plus instead. Trying to figure out if I should go for Gen10 Plus or Genq0 Plus v2, for me purpose. The main differences seem to be:
Gen10 Plus | Gen10 Plus v2
================|================
Intel C242 | Intel C252
32GB max Memory | 64GB max Memory
Optional TPM | Embedded TPM
Of course, V2 has better/faster CPU support with more core but V1 can take a 6-Cores E-2236, as reported by some other users.
32 GB of RAM will be fine for your use case. If you were increasing storage a lot (maybe filling it with 20 TB disks rather than 4 TB), you might be a little thin on ARC, but that shouldn’t really be a problem for you.
I don’t know about the G10+v2 (HPE’s model numbering here is just bizarre), but the G10+ needs a daughtercard to enable iLO. It isn’t very expensive, and it’s worthwhile. You’ll also need a license for full iLO; you can get these cheaply on eBay.
The G11 Microservers finally add an onboard NVMe slot, so might be worth looking for–not sure what the cost delta is though.
More RAM is always good for ZFS, as it means more caching and everything works faster.
CPU-wise, though: ask yourself what do you need it for? Most modern CPUs are more than fast enough for running a NAS on. It’s only if you start adding in multimedia processing (Immich, PhotoPrism, Plex, that sort of thing) that you need think about much CPU power you’ve got.
I’d not come across the Gen10 Plus before. It’s good to see that the iLO is now an optional extra, and one that I’d strongly recommend you purchase.
Just passing through to say that I’m running a TrueNAS box with 32GB of RAM and a 10-wide RAIDz2 with 24TB drives (and a 4-wide RAIDz2 with 1TB SSDs). It’s worth noting I don’t run any VMs, and just two light Apps (Docker). Under heavy loads I’ll sometimes be pushing 20GB+ in ARC. Worth considering if you’ll be running VMs.
Thanks all!!
I won’t be running any VMs but the only external thing that I need is to run DLNA.
atm, I’musing miniDLNA on an Ubuntu server, where my ICY BOX storage is directly attached. Is it possible to enable/install that on the community edition?
Depends what you want to do with miniDLNA, but I’m running an AirConnect docker container that bridges Apple devices and chrome cast/DLNA speakers, and Plex can do DLNA out of a container if you want. So as technology it definitely works.
