From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Feb 27 22:48:06 2012 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 3FF141065672 for ; Mon, 27 Feb 2012 22:48:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fjwcash@gmail.com) Received: from mail-vw0-f54.google.com (mail-vw0-f54.google.com [209.85.212.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E2E378FC14 for ; Mon, 27 Feb 2012 22:48:05 +0000 (UTC) Received: by vbmv11 with SMTP id v11so1499492vbm.13 for ; Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:48:05 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of fjwcash@gmail.com designates 10.52.176.130 as permitted sender) client-ip=10.52.176.130; Authentication-Results: mr.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of fjwcash@gmail.com designates 10.52.176.130 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=fjwcash@gmail.com; dkim=pass header.i=fjwcash@gmail.com Received: from mr.google.com ([10.52.176.130]) by 10.52.176.130 with SMTP id ci2mr9086090vdc.33.1330382885406 (num_hops = 1); Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:48:05 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; bh=MqMl5XUPxRAEHpSHpoj0YkBYayhc6KJUucimiZti1wE=; b=pJso2Xnjqc//U7J2q6FTI/fCSCBIEIn3mqaO1xqjZY6gjjbzFdZcEsaeQozEIV4Mp6 W7Cvpgnf754ZI1TNe5P68VpBJ5+/NC3LlFv/PApPG6QQ7W6t1nBAoeDWaNAOoiZeoRWY O+9eCAYavc+aMWoO6gpbC98oqN8XSPGctE2MU= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.52.176.130 with SMTP id ci2mr7451478vdc.33.1330382885100; Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:48:05 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.220.178.74 with HTTP; Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:48:05 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <977febd5710ecac8cd9ea374ca0193f4.squirrel@109.169.62.232> References: <4F4B0F83.4090600@norma.perm.ru> <977febd5710ecac8cd9ea374ca0193f4.squirrel@109.169.62.232> Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:48:05 -0800 Message-ID: From: Freddie Cash To: Nenhum_de_Nos Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Cc: "freebsd-stable@freebsd.org" Subject: Re: zfs, 1 gig of RAM and periodic weekly 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, 27 Feb 2012 22:48:06 -0000 On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Nenhum_de_Nos wrote: > On Mon, February 27, 2012 15:33, Chuck Swiger wrote: >> On Feb 26, 2012, at 9:07 PM, Eugene M. Zheganin wrote: >> [ ... ] >>> all with zfs and one gig of RAM. >> >> This isn't a sensible combination; I wouldn't try to run ZFS on anything less than 4GB... > > regardless of the pool size ? > > I was planning on making an atom board a file server for my home, and I have two options: soekris > net6501 2GB RAM and intel board powered by the 330 atom (says 2GB limited as well). My plans are > to use from 4 up to 8 disks, and they should be 2TB at least. > > As its for home use, some p2p software and mostly music listening and sometimes movie streaming. > > should 2GB be that bad, that I should drop it and use UFS instead ? > > I may run any version of FreeBSD on it, was planning on 9-STABLE or 9.1. You can get away with 2 GB of RAM, if you spend a lot of time manually tuning things to prevent kmem exhaustion and prevent ZFS ARC from starving the rest of the system (especially on the network side of things). Definitely go with a 64-bit install. Even with less than 4 GB of RAM, you'll benefit from the large kmem size and better auto-tuning. Do not, under any circumstances, enable dedupe on a system with less than 16 GB of RAM. :) If at all possible, find a motherboard that will let you use more RAM. 2 GB is usable. But 4 GB is the sweet spot for a simple file server. And 16 GB is best for a system with over 10 TB of storage in the pool. My home media server is a 32-bit install of FreeBSD 8-STABLE (Dec 2011 vintage) with only 2 GB of RAM, using 4x 500 GB SATA drives in 2 mirror vdevs (boot off USB stick). Every couple of weeks it'll lock up, usually under heavy torrent load. Prior to doing a bunch of "tune loader.conf; reboot; crash; repeat" cycles, the box was very unstable. 2 GB is barely enough for ZFS + NFS + Samba + torrents + whatever. -- Freddie Cash fjwcash@gmail.com