Ok, time for an update. Lots of lessons learned. Some new hardware, and getting up to speed. For many this will probably seem elementary, but for me, this is a log of discovery.
First... crud... I bought 8GB (2 x 4GB) of DIMM off eBay that won’t work with the Dell T310. Seems the T310 is very particular about the type and density of the RAM chips used. Lesson learned, get and read the server manual. Will resell or use the memory elsewhere. But it also means I have to replace the current 8GB in order to go above 12GB on the T310. Moving to 12GB might be a good option, because I have a hard time coming up with reasons to need a VM with more than 8GB of memory. (4GB for unRAID is still huge from what I can read, and Windows 10 should play well with 8GB). And hey, I’m not Linus Media Group... (thank goodness! Sorry Linus!)
Hardware wise, I got two additional drives on rails (450MB SAS, 10K) that I installed in the T310 and started to play with. The PERC 6iR SAS controller needs an update flash, and I was befuddled by the RAID configuration, as RAID 0 & 1 needed drive pairs to enable the virtual drives. So I set up two RAID 0 drives (600+450) ending up with 2 x ~990MB drives. Performance on my network still seemed very snappy and quick. Soooo...
Well “Duh.” I didn’t realize that you could also eliminate the virtual (RAID) drives on the 6ir and just address each drive from within unRAID individually. So that will be my next logical step. (watch for next update) But I was able to run drive checks on everything and got zero errors. (Yea!)
The SAS 6ir is limited to 3Gb/sec SAS and a individual HD max size of about 2.2TB (I think, I still need to confirm that). The 3Gb/sec speed alone is probably why most would move to a Dell H200 or H700 controller, as they run SAS or SATA at 6Gb/sec, and also allows for drives greater than 2.2TB. Also it looks like they have an option for a battery onboard to maintain their on-card cache memory in case of power failures.
So (academically speaking) having 2 drives in RAID 1 could provide the equivalent of 6GB throughputs (on reads) and redundancy. That “might” be a nearterm “good enough” for a cache drive for a home server system, and just keeping the 6ir. Plus potential replacements on eBay are cheap ($20-30) and plentiful. But the max on the 4 drive rails would be limited to 4TB of storage in RAID 1 (4x 2TB, @50% for RAID1 @ 6Gb/sec) Great for reliability and speed, but cruddy in capacity.
Yeah, I think I will need more than that.
And while newer SSDs would be faster, especially with a faster controller... that will have to be a down the road “learn and burn” exercise, much like the RAM memory experience. (Maybe when 4TB SDDs become super cheap in 10 years... or quantum computing for Windows arrives!)
Even so, with just the 6ir, I should still be able to replace all the current drives with 2TB drives on unRAID and reach 6TB, (with one 2TB acting as parity) without needing to buy anything more. That 6ir limits me to 2TB at the “top end” on the 6ir controller, and moving to the H200 or H700 (I think) would allow me to use the 2x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf drives that I have in my current NAS - on the Dell’s T310 rail hot swap system. (And yes, I have to migrate that data! )
For me, as this is a home server, I wanted to dig a little further into the T310, as it also as 6x SATA connectors on the motherboard. These are also rated at 3Gb/sec throughput (I think this is a hardware limit on the motherboard, but I need to flash upgrade the BIOS here too, including the integrated motherboard SATA drive controller).
Currently, I have one into the DVD/RW drive, and one into the RD1000 drive. So, I “could” also put up to 5x SATA drives (keeping the DVD/RW), and just sell the RD1000 drive. The catridges on the RD1000, even on eBay are not cheap, at $250 each (None came with the system) - and I am thinking a hot swappable “generic” drive tray with a SATA drive will be a better use of money for offsite (safe deposit box) storage of critical home & photo library files. (A good 8TB drive is less than $170!) Plus if it takes a couple of days to make a backup... I am ok with that.
(Reminder: I need to get a UPS.)
So I am going to *think* about my options, and look at the H700 ($40 on ebay) as a near term option to let me use the current Dell HDD rails and ultimately go to a 4x4TB hot swappable 12TB NAS “on rails” configuration at 6GB/sec -with offsite disk storage... without having to make up weird power cables.
I might need a cache SSD ultimately... but there again... with unRAID, even if I start editing and creating home video (probably only HD 1080p) on the server... I might have enough throughput for most tasks, including VMs. (Have I mentioned I have an 8 or 2x4 core xeon Mac Pro 5.1, that will likely have that dedicated task as well as any audio work I need!) And if I did need SSDs for cache, I have PCIe slots to hang the newer m.2 SSDs off a single PCIe card. And I think... with no need for another power cable. (win-win!)
Now, I’ve typed enough for tonight... questions and comments welcomed!
