From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Feb 8 05:01:02 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C9C5A106566B for ; Mon, 8 Feb 2010 05:01:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dan@langille.org) Received: from nyi.unixathome.org (nyi.unixathome.org [64.147.113.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A0E578FC17 for ; Mon, 8 Feb 2010 05:01:02 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by nyi.unixathome.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DC2B7508A8 for ; Mon, 8 Feb 2010 05:01:01 +0000 (GMT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at unixathome.org Received: from nyi.unixathome.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (nyi.unixathome.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id nB2+adEfKxkl for ; Mon, 8 Feb 2010 05:01:00 +0000 (GMT) Received: from smtp-auth.unixathome.org (smtp-auth.unixathome.org [10.4.7.7]) (Authenticated sender: hidden) by nyi.unixathome.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id E21D050830 for ; Mon, 8 Feb 2010 05:01:00 +0000 (GMT) Message-ID: <4B6F9A8D.4050907@langille.org> Date: Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:01:01 -0500 From: Dan Langille User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: FreeBSD Stable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: hardware for home use large storage X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:01:02 -0000 Hi, I'm looking at creating a large home use storage machine. Budget is a concern, but size and reliability are also a priority. Noise is also a concern, since this will be at home, in the basement. That, and cost, pretty much rules out a commercial case, such as a 3U case. It would be nice, but it greatly inflates the budget. This pretty much restricts me to a tower case. The primary use of this machine will be a backup server[1]. It will do other secondary use will include minor tasks such as samba, CIFS, cvsup, etc. I'm thinking of 8x1TB (or larger) SATA drives. I've found a case[2] with hot-swap bays[3], that seems interesting. I haven't looked at power supplies, but given that number of drives, I expect something beefy with a decent reputation is called for. Whether I use hardware or software RAID is undecided. I I think I am leaning towards software RAID, probably ZFS under FreeBSD 8.x but I'm open to hardware RAID but I think the cost won't justify it given ZFS. Given that, what motherboard and RAM configuration would you recommend to work with FreeBSD [and probably ZFS]. The lists seems to indicate that more RAM is better with ZFS. Thanks. [1] - FYI running Bacula, but that's out of scope for this question [2] - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811192058 [3] - nice to have, especially for a failure.