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As a side note, I have wanted to do a project like this for a while. What hardware did you end up using?

by akama 13y ago

StavrosK 13y ago
I do the same and use an HP ProLiant microserver (it was dirt cheap). ZFSOnLinux just worked out of the box and has kept working ever since. Word to the wise: Read about the block size of your disks, mine are newer and needed a block size different than the default but I didn't know about it, and now they are slower than they could be. I don't remember details, but you will definitely find it in a cursory search.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- hhw 13y ago
  Newer disks use 4K instead of 512 byte sectors like older drives, so when you partition your disks you need to take care to align them accordingly.
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    Exactly. ZFS has a parameter for this, which you need to set manually.
fsckin 13y ago
Same as StavrosK -- HP Micro Server. The 16TB box is an N40L. I bought it awhile ago, but haven't needed extra storage until recently. I also have an N36L running FreeNAS/ZFS on 4x2TB disks which I've used for about 1.5 years. It finally filled up (SO has data intensive profession) so I was forced to pony up. It's still being used every day and has no signs of failing. They're both great home servers. I sometimes wish they had more CPU, but for the money, HP is basically giving them away.
NamTaf 13y ago
As another point of reference, I have a ProLiant Microserver running FreeBSD with 4x3TB drives in RAID-Z. I installed a custom BIOS that removes the limitations on the optical SATA port and run a small single drive for the OS off that. It's a dream to use and gives me 8TB of usable storage. I can easily hit saturation of the NIC and it's nice and small and quiet, fitting in the bottom corner of my bookshelf.
Ecio78 13y ago
As a side-side note, the HP Microservers (N54L[]) are currently under cashback promotion afaik in UK ('til end of sep) and Italy ('til end of oct). In Italy it's typically 199€, with a 40€ cashback (so 159€), in UK i think it's 190£ with 90£ cashbash so around 100£ final. I don't know if there's something similar in other countries. [] there are 3 HP microserver versions afaik, the old N40L, the N54L and the new just released Gen8 that is way more expensive (500$ vs 200$)

As a side note, I have wanted to do a project like this for a while. What hardware did you end up using?

by akama 13y ago

As a side note, I have wanted to do a project like this for a while. What hardware did you end up using?

I do the same and use an HP ProLiant microserver (it was dirt cheap). ZFSOnLinux just worked out of the box and has kept working ever since. Word to the wise: Read about the block size of your disks, mine are newer and needed a block size different than the default but I didn't know about it, and now they are slower than they could be. I don't remember details, but you will definitely find it in a cursory search.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
hhw 13y ago
Newer disks use 4K instead of 512 byte sectors like older drives, so when you partition your disks you need to take care to align them accordingly.
- StavrosK 13y ago
  Exactly. ZFS has a parameter for this, which you need to set manually.

fsckin 13y ago

Same as StavrosK -- HP Micro Server. The 16TB box is an N40L. I bought it awhile ago, but haven't needed extra storage until recently. I also have an N36L running FreeNAS/ZFS on 4x2TB disks which I've used for about 1.5 years. It finally filled up (SO has data intensive profession) so I was forced to pony up. It's still being used every day and has no signs of failing. They're both great home servers. I sometimes wish they had more CPU, but for the money, HP is basically giving them away.

NamTaf 13y ago

As another point of reference, I have a ProLiant Microserver running FreeBSD with 4x3TB drives in RAID-Z. I installed a custom BIOS that removes the limitations on the optical SATA port and run a small single drive for the OS off that. It's a dream to use and gives me 8TB of usable storage. I can easily hit saturation of the NIC and it's nice and small and quiet, fitting in the bottom corner of my bookshelf.

Ecio78 13y ago

As a side-side note, the HP Microservers (N54L[]) are currently under cashback promotion afaik in UK ('til end of sep) and Italy ('til end of oct). In Italy it's typically 199€, with a 40€ cashback (so 159€), in UK i think it's 190£ with 90£ cashbash so around 100£ final. I don't know if there's something similar in other countries. [] there are 3 HP microserver versions afaik, the old N40L, the N54L and the new just released Gen8 that is way more expensive (500$ vs 200$)