New (HP?) home server running Linux / XFS

steveeng · 10 Mar 2015 at 15:17

I am presently looking at a HP Proliant Microserver G8 G1610T for a home media and PC-backup server. I would like to use the ZFS file system, but to do this I believe I would need around 16GB ECC RAM for 4 x 4TB HDDs in RAID-Z1 configuration.

I would also like to install a small SSD on the DVD SATA interface for the OS, allowing all four HDD bays to be assigned to storage.

Running Linux server (Ubuntu 14.04) would offer many useful features, such as NFS, Samba, VPN, remote SSH, Apache, Webmin etc.

Any comments regarding which cost-effective compatible ECC RAM I should buy and any pitfalls I may encounter when booting from an SSD (in place of the DVD) would be welcome. Perhaps a totally different (low-cost) approach is the answer? Thank you.

Buffalo2102 · 12 Mar 2015 at 14:41

The 1GB RAM per terrabyte of storage requirement is a myth I believe. You will likely find that zfs will be fine on 8GB RAM. Having said that, you may find the performance and latency better with 16GB, depending on the load and application. Can't really recommend any RAM as I don't use ECC RAM.

There are no pitfalls that I am aware of with using a SSD boot drive - I do it myself. I have set up almost exactly what you describe, except I use zfs for simple drive pooling, rather than RAID-Z1 (I have backups), and I use Debian Wheezy rather than Ubuntu.

steveeng · 12 Mar 2015 at 16:54

Buffalo2102 said:
The 1GB RAM per terrabyte of storage requirement is a myth I believe. You will likely find that zfs will be fine on 8GB RAM. Having said that, you may find the performance and latency better with 16GB, depending on the load and application. Can't really recommend any RAM as I don't use ECC RAM.

Thanks for your reply. As I don't have any experience of ZFS, I can only go by what I have read. Presumably the pool scrubbing / resilvering activities would also take longer in a smaller memory footprint, but as this would normally occur overnight, I doubt it would be an issue.

There are no pitfalls that I am aware of with using a SSD boot drive - I do it myself. I have set up almost exactly what you describe, except I use zfs for simple drive pooling, rather than RAID-Z1 (I have backups), and I use Debian Wheezy rather than Ubuntu.

Sounds good. I may yet opt for Debian over Ubuntu Server as they are functionally similar. So, other than power cabling to the SSD with a suitable adaptor, are there any BIOS issues I need to be aware of? Thanks.

Buffalo2102 · 12 Mar 2015 at 17:16

Shouldn't be any issues with a modern BIOS. I would make sure that the SSD is the only drive present during the install. Install Ubuntu/Debian from a USB stick onto the SSD. Then make sure that you install GRUB to the SSD when prompted during install. Connect the other drives after install, then install zfs and create and mount your pool/RAID set.

I used Ubuntu originally but moved to Debian after a couple of updates screwed up my system. Debian seems to be more stable (less updates) but you find less up-to-date packages in the standard repositories. Not a problem if you want to put some effort into installing them manually or adding other repos.

steveeng · 12 Mar 2015 at 17:51

Buffalo2102 said:
Shouldn't be any issues with a modern BIOS. I would make sure that the SSD is the only drive present during the install. Install Ubuntu/Debian from a USB stick onto the SSD. Then make sure that you install GRUB to the SSD when prompted during install. Connect the other drives after install, then install zfs and create and mount your pool/RAID set.

That installation sequence makes perfect sense and agrees with my intentions.

I used Ubuntu originally but moved to Debian after a couple of updates screwed up my system. Debian seems to be more stable (less updates) but you find less up-to-date packages in the standard repositories. Not a problem if you want to put some effort into installing them manually or adding other repos.

The applications I'll be using are all pretty much standard, so other than the ZFS components, Debian/Ubuntu's normal repository packages should suffice. This solution to a home system is looking quite positive...

Buffalo2102 · 13 Mar 2015 at 07:27

Yea, it's great but be careful as it tends to spiral. Once I had my server how I wanted it, I decided I wanted to do more. File transfers were too slow so I had to upgrade my networking. I then had to create my own website. Then I had to run my own mail server. The mail server needs a fixed ip to run properly, so now I have to /I] change my ISP. It's a pain because I'm never really finished with it.

At the same time, I don't want to finish with it as its all great fun!

PS If you're a tinkerer like me, make sure you devise a good backup strategy as you will accidentally break a perfectly working system at some point.

Frozennova · 13 Mar 2015 at 09:08

I wouldn't be too hung up on the RAM recommendations

You'll still get perfectly good enough performance to max gigabit.

If you intend on doing anything Disk I/O heavy then the more RAM the better.

I see better IO figures running a virtual machine on my ZFS pool than I do on a Kingston V300 SSD

steveeng · 13 Mar 2015 at 09:34

Buffalo2102 said:
Yea, it's great but be careful as it tends to spiral. Once I had my server how I wanted it, I decided I wanted to do more. File transfers were too slow so I had to upgrade my networking. I then had to create my own website. Then I had to run my own mail server. The mail server needs a fixed ip to run properly, so now I have to /I] change my ISP. It's a pain because I'm never really finished with it.

At the same time, I don't want to finish with it as its all great fun!

PS If you're a tinkerer like me, make sure you devise a good backup strategy as you will accidentally break a perfectly working system at some point.

As the saying goes: "Just because you can (do something), doesn't mean you should!"

Experimentation and exploration is one of the beauties of computing and yes, I love to tinker too. Fortunately, I have learnt to confine these experiments to non-critical hardware and I have a couple of old linux boxes lying around just for this purpose. As for backups, Clonezilla has been a life-saver!

Can you not use a dynamic DNS service for your mail server (e.g. Duck DNS)? This works well for my VPN and allows remote SSH'ing into all configurable machines. At some point, I will have to implement a mail server for my business and a gateway... the list goes on.

steveeng · 13 Mar 2015 at 10:05

Frozennova said:
I wouldn't be too hung up on the RAM recommendations

You'll still get perfectly good enough performance to max gigabit.

If you intend on doing anything Disk I/O heavy then the more RAM the better.

I see better IO figures running a virtual machine on my ZFS pool than I do on a Kingston V300 SSD

I don't envisage particularly heavy disk I/O on this home server as it will normally be used for music and video streaming to one other device. Occasionally, other PC backups will be performed, but these can be scheduled overnight. My current thoughts are to start with the 2GB stock RAM plus 8GB initially and see how that performs.

Frozennova · 13 Mar 2015 at 10:39

In that case for the likes of media streaming you're unlikely to see much of a difference in performance,they aren't the of workloads that needs massive bandwidth or can particularly utilise the ARC cache. Likewise for backups and depending on size you should need to schedule them overnight.

With ZFS on Debian I can completely saturate Gigabit ethernet

Buffalo2102 · 13 Mar 2015 at 13:23

steveeng said:
As the saying goes: "Just because you can (do something), doesn't mean you should!"

Experimentation and exploration is one of the beauties of computing and yes, I love to tinker too. Fortunately, I have learnt to confine these experiments to non-critical hardware and I have a couple of old linux boxes lying around just for this purpose. As for backups, Clonezilla has been a life-saver!

Can you not use a dynamic DNS service for your mail server (e.g. Duck DNS)? This works well for my VPN and allows remote SSH'ing into all configurable machines. At some point, I will have to implement a mail server for my business and a gateway... the list goes on.

Absolutely agree. I have never really considered my server as critical anyway so it's not too much of an issue if I break it. I have good backups of system and critical data.

The mail server works mostly with dynamic dns but there is still the problem with reverse dns. Some mail servers try and verify whether your mail server is genuine by checking to see whether your IP does actually translate back to your domain. If it doesn't, they assume you are a spammer and your mail doesn't get delivered. Unfortunately, a reverse DNS on my IP address does not refer back to my domain, it refers to my ISP. Most ISPs that provide static IPs allow you to edit or specify your own reverse DNS entry. Mine doesn't as it doesn't provide static addresses for consumers.

I could relay my outgoing mail through my domain provider's servers but I have heard that they aren't that reliable. My contract is up anyway so I may aswell just go for a ISP that will give me a fixed IP.

steveeng said:
With ZFS on Debian I can completely saturate Gigabit ethernet

I get a steady 113MB/s transfer speed between my windows PC and my server samba share on the zfs pool.

steveeng · 13 Mar 2015 at 14:21

Before I forget, is the G1610T fan noisy? I've read that without the optional Smart Array P222 SAS/SATA RAID card installed, the speed will not settle at a low level. Thanks to everyone for your input.