Question about FreeNAS & RAID-Z

[Phantomaniac]

I'm planning on repurposing a Gigabyte Atom D510 board to run as a FreeNAS server. The board has 4 SATA ports, however, 2 SATA belong to the Intel chipset and 2 to the Gigabyte chipset. Since RAID-Z is software based, am I able to set it up to work across disks on different chipsets/controllers? Or will I need a to buy a separate RAID controller?

 

[alizee]

It is software base and will work on whichever ports. Make sure you get enough RAM, at least 4GB.

 

[Phantomaniac]

It is software base and will work on whichever ports. Make sure you get enough RAM, at least 4GB.

I was hoping 2GB would be enough for FreeNAS 7. Using that instead of 8 for Bittorrent support.

 

[Yellowbeard]

If you use ZFS, give it all the RAM you can. It will use it. My FreeNAS server running ver 8.* and ZFS has 16GB of RAM and it uses it all.

 

[nanaki333]

my personal freeNAS server has 2GB and uses about 500MB of it.

 

[Yellowbeard]

my personal freeNAS server has 2GB and uses about 500MB of it.

Are you using ZFS?

 

[nanaki333]

Are you using ZFS?

yes. 4x1.5TB. 38% of 394MB of memory used. i've never seen it come close to full. i'm not doing anything special on it though. it's one of the old intel NAS' (512MB ram, s775 single core celeron) they don't make anymore that had the DOM you could put freeNAS on. it also doesn't have jumbo frame, which would probably play a huge role too

 

[Yellowbeard]

yes. 4x1.5TB. 38% of 394MB of memory used. i've never seen it come close to full. i'm not doing anything special on it though. it's one of the old intel NAS' (512MB ram, s775 single core celeron) they don't make anymore that had the DOM you could put freeNAS on. it also doesn't have jumbo frame, which would probably play a huge role too

I took an interesting screenshot the other day. This is my FreeNAS server running a ZFS Z-RAID array. The MOBO has 16GB of RAM in it and when using the FreeNAS OS and ZFS, it uses it all. My network is all gigabit so I get blazing transfer speeds.

16GB FTW

That's with an old Pentium 3.73GHz in an ASUS P45 P5Q SomethingorOther. From what I have seen, the more RAM you give it, the more it will use.