[OpenIndiana-discuss] Building a machine

Wed Mar 9 14:44:22 UTC 2011

Scott,

As for additional PCIe SATA cards, there are a few proven SATA cards mentioned in the Openindiana Community HCL. Companies like LSI sell them as well as a few more - but make sure you have driver support.

Like the Fractal Design Array R2 Mini ITX NAS unit, you put the OS on something like the SSD and the data on the storage pool.

A bunch of SATA-II hard drives is good enough for file serving and the cost is down to even get the fancier ones for video streaming and such.

~ Ken Mays

--- On Wed, 3/9/11, Gabriel de la Cruz <gabriel.delacruz at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Gabriel de la Cruz <gabriel.delacruz at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [OpenIndiana-discuss] Building a machine
> To: "Discussion list for OpenIndiana" <openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org>
> Date: Wednesday, March 9, 2011, 4:58 AM
> DH67CF is mini-itx, DH67GD is
> micro-itx...
> The product guides for both boards say non-ECC
> 
> I dont really know of any mini-itx suporting ECC...
> AMD Micro ITX boards do support ECC...
> 
> But i5 and i7 processors are very nice anyway, even without
> ECC.
> 
> I need to read a bit. Probably there is something out
> there...
> 
> Complicated question...
> :D
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 11:29 AM, Scott O'Brien <king.scott.2 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Howdy Gabriel,
> >
> > That's a pretty awesome guide.  I dare say you've
> sold me on the ECC memory
> > (once I can find it in suppliers around AU) but it's a
> shame I'm limited in
> > the space I've got and need to stick with the mini-itx
> form factor and for
> > the life of me don't think a motherboard supports ECC
> with LGA1155 in the
> > mini-itx form factor.  Please feel free to prove me
> wrong though.
> >
> > On 9/03/2011 7:38 PM, Gabriel de la Cruz wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi, with ZFS you dont need a raid card, ZFS will
> handle the drives on
> >> its own. However, if you are mirroring, the
> performance improves if
> >> both drives are on different controllers. Any
> controller supported by
> >> OI will do well for that purpose. I guess any
> PCI-E will do the job. A
> >> setup could be like this:
> >> Sata port 1 on the controller 1 and Sata port 1 on
> the controller 2
> >> will be a mirrored pool used for the system
> "rpool: c1d0s0-c2d0s0".
> >> The rest of the ports could make another pool for
> the data, either
> >> using another type of raid configurations, or
> keeping the mirroring
> >> concept; a single data pool made by 3 mirrors
> (DATApool:
> >> c1d1s0-c2d1s0, c1d2s0-c2d2s0, c1d3s0-c2d3s0).
> >>
> >> You should always make a memory test after
> purchasing memory, this
> >> will point out any hardware defects in the memory
> or you could even
> >> point out underlying problems with the
> motherboard. The same goes with
> >> hardrives, you should always take a look at SMART
> output messages and
> >> make sure if the drives are storing the data at
> the speed they are
> >> suppose to store the data. That way you can bring
> the faulty stuff
> >> back to the store before it is too late.
> >>
> >> Lets consider this situation: You are writing a
> file to a mirrored ZFS
> >> pool, the data is stored on both sides of the pool
> A and B. The drive
> >> A was faulty so it corrupted some bits. But next
> time you retrieve the
> >> data, ZFS is smart enough to know that A was
> corrupted so it reads the
> >> info from B and fixes A with the correct data.
> (Maybe drive A was not
> >> broken, but your faulty PSU was doing tricks.. but
> it was fixed)
> >> Super. But, lets imagine that you are storing
> another file, this time
> >> the memory does something funny (it doesn't need
> to be a faulty memory
> >> in order to do something funny, it could be
> produced by the
> >> motherboard as well) and some corrupted bits are
> written in both sides
> >> of the pool. Those bits will never be corrected. I
> dont think it will
> >> make any difference to back up the corrupted bits
> to CD once a week.
> >> Anyway, this is not as critical as it might sound,
> they are just a few
> >> bits, it all depends in what is the probability of
> corrupting those
> >> bits you really need :P The probability could be
> extremely small
> >> depending what kind of data you are handling.
> >>
> >> The point of failure would be the time when the
> bits are written to
> >> disk. You will anyway have ZFS snapshots, to roll
> back to earlier
> >> versions, and so on.
> >> If you are not running the system 24/7, maybe you
> can make a memory
> >> check from time to time, memory wont go wrong so
> easily over time but
> >> who knows, I have seen how some broken capacitors
> were affecting a
> >> memory check! (once upon a time, at the university
> we had to fix by
> >> hand about 30 DELL office workstations, once we
> replaced the
> >> capacitors memchecks came clean again!... low
> budget life! :D ).
> >>
> >> I personally dislike CDs, no phisical copy will
> last forever, and the
> >> ability of replicating the data is more powerful,
> specially when you
> >> can monitor hardrive failures as ZFS does. But
> thats a different story
> >> with no ECC (In that case replication could be a
> point of failure).
> >>
> >> There are many backup options out there, it all
> depends how
> >> complicated do you want your life to be; running
> amanda on a separate
> >> backup pool? e-sata drives as backup tape?  You
> can allways keep an
> >> external drive unplugged in your wardrobe...
> >>
> >> Anyway, taking risks is very necessary in order to
> move on, otherwise
> >> we would never go anywhere!.
> >>
> >> Remember that ZFS has amazing compression
> capabilities, consider ZFS
> >> in the backup media as well. And remember
> compressing the data uses
> >> processing power but it stores faster on the
> hardrive (less data to
> >> write), so if you are dedicating an processor just
> to the storage
> >> machine, remember to compress :D
> >>
> >> Cheers!
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 8:43 AM, Scott
> O'Brien<king.scott.2 at gmail.com>
> >>  wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Wow thanks for all the replies.  The DH67CF
> looks perfect.  A few more
> >>> silly questions though, if I do a memory test
> before installing am I
> >>> right to use this considering it's non-ecc?
>  I'd still be backing my
> >>> important data up to cd once a month.  Second
> question is about
> >>> installing, is it considered bad practice to
> install the os on the
> >>> same raid pool as your data?  If so is there
> any pci-e sata
> >>> controllers anyone can recommend?
> >>>
> >>> Thanks once again,
> >>>
> >>> Scott o
> >>>
> >>> On 08/03/2011, at 11:42 PM, ken mays<maybird1776 at yahoo.com>
>  wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Hi Scott&  Deano,
> >>>>
> >>>> You can use the Intel DH67CF motherboard.
> Everything is detected and
> >>>> works well for file server usage.
> >>>>
> >>>> ~ Ken Mays
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --- On Tue, 3/8/11, Deano<deano at rattie.demon.co.uk>
>  wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> From: Deano<deano at rattie.demon.co.uk>
> >>>>> Subject: Re: [OpenIndiana-discuss]
> Building a machine
> >>>>> To: "'Discussion list for
> >>>>> OpenIndiana'"<openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org>
> >>>>> Date: Tuesday, March 8, 2011, 6:31 AM
> >>>>> Hi Scott,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> There is a HCL at http://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/Community+HCL that
> >>>>> might
> >>>>> have some suggestions, though don't
> think there are
> >>>>> any/many mini-itx boards
> >>>>> on there.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Most boards seems to work well with
> OpenIndiana, especially
> >>>>> if on Intel
> >>>>> chipsets.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Bye,
> >>>>> Deano
> >>>>>
> >>>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>>> From: Scott O'Brien [mailto:king.scott.2 at gmail.com]
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Sent: 08 March 2011 10:26
> >>>>> To: openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org
> >>>>> Subject: [OpenIndiana-discuss]
> Building a machine
> >>>>>
> >>>>> G'Day Everyone,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> First post on the mailing list.  I've
> just got a few
> >>>>> quick questions.
> >>>>> I've found a case I want to build a
> file server with (just
> >>>>> for home)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=25_1055&pro
> >>>>> ducts_id=14503
> >>>>>
> >>>>> <http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=25_1055&pr
> >>>>> oducts_id=14503>
> >>>>> now I'm at a loss as to what mini-itx
> motherboard I should
> >>>>> put in it.  I
> >>>>> was kind of hoping for one of the new
> low power Sandy
> >>>>> Bridge CPU's but
> >>>>> can't find any on pccasegear.com.
>  Any advice on
> >>>>> motherboard and HD's to
> >>>>> get?  Any idea about how to tell with
> OpenIndiana
> >>>>> compatibility?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thanks,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Scott
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> _______________________________________________
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> >>>>> OpenIndiana-discuss at openindiana.org
> >>>>> http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
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> >>>>> http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> _______________________________________________
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> >>>
> >>>
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