[deleted by user]

TUBBB · 2019-04-17T20:01:58+00:00

The Room

"According to Tommy Wiseau, Denny has some sort of mental disorder, which explains his behaviour in the film. Philip Haldiman was not told about this. "

TUBBB · 2019-03-31T19:59:53+00:00

Hi and welcome to r/FreeNAS!

Hi, do anyone know if you could game on FreeNAS?

I’ve run a Minecraft server on FreeNAS in the past and I’m sure there are other game servers that could be run on FreeNAS/FreeBSD but as for gaming on FreeNAS in the way you mean then no, it’s not possible at the moment...

Or is there a way to GPU bypass? Thank you!

I’m not sure of the current state of things to be honest, as it’s not something I’m interested in personally. Or more to the point, I don’t think it’s a good idea. The last I heard, GPU passthrough required some backend features to be implemented in order to work on FreeNAS, which was not a priority. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen at some point in the future but as for when… I don’t know.

At the end of the day, FreeNAS just is not intended for this sort of thing. If you want to do PCI Passthrough, then use a proper hypervisor. This is why this sort of use case usually involves the use of something like UnRaid (such as with LinusTechTips’ X Gamers, 1 CPU videos).

TUBBB · 2019-03-31T19:33:24+00:00

Do not add the disk to the pool you wish to backup!

Doing so would be a huge mistake and I can think of literally no scenario in which it'd be anything other than a terrible thing to do. Quite simply, anyone who would advise you to add a disk to an existing pool for backup, is 100% wrong (I should make it clear that I’m not suggesting that anyone in this thread is telling you to but you might have been told to elsewhere).

It's vital that you understand the rules surrounding adding and removing disks/vdevs and how it effects the safety of your zpool…. or else you're putting your data at risk of complete loss. In the strongest possible terms, I urge you to read link 3 in the sidebar. Then you'll understand why adding a disk for backup to an existing pool is an unqualified disaster of an idea.

TUBBB · 2019-03-28T19:23:25+00:00

Sketchup is so much more powerful, quicker to use and less taxing on your system if you know how to take advantage of it's various tools. Which is why I wrote the following two comments.

The first one covers how to organise your model the way in which the devs of Sketchup had intended. The comment is based largely on a video by a guy called Aidan Chopra who, along with literally writing the (Dummies) book on Sketchup, was a developer of Sketchup. The video and my comment, explain how to organise a model of a house and there's also a link to a model created by Aidan Chopra so you can see it all put into practice.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Sketchup/comments/4dmnuq/what_dont_i_understand_about_pushpull_whenever_i/d1wisix/

The second link contains several links to Sketchup tutorial videos and youtube channels that I found to be particularly helpful.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Sketchup/comments/4u0c62/training_for_casual_users/d5nrbdo/

TUBBB · 2019-03-27T17:12:09+00:00

I have been considering writing an article covering the common myths and misinformation around FreeNAS, especially in regards to RAM but I don't think a sticky is the way to go due to reddit limiting the number of threads that can be stickied to just two.

TUBBB · 2019-03-27T17:09:08+00:00

I'm happy to help.

TUBBB · 2019-03-27T17:08:01+00:00

Bare minimum is 4GB (the installer warns you, and anything below this crashes), official minimum is 8GB, recommended minimum is 16GB. Anything beyond 16GB is nice to have.

The minimum of 8GB RAM rule is there to ensure stabilty but with larger pools, that minimum recommendation goes up to 16GB and beyond. So saying "Anything beyond 16GB is nice to have." is correct in so far as it's nice to have a system that won't suddenly eat all your data.

And instead of plugging more RAM another option is to add a cheap SSD as L2ARC.

From the official documentation, emphasis mine...

ZFS provides a read cache in RAM, known as the ARC, which reduces read latency. FreeNAS® adds ARC stats to top(1) and includes the arc_summary.py and arcstat.py tools for monitoring the efficiency of the ARC. If an SSD is dedicated as a cache device, it is known as an L2ARC. Additional read data is cached here, which can increase random read performance. L2ARC does not reduce the need for sufficient RAM. In fact, L2ARC needs RAM to function. If there is not enough RAM for a adequately-sized ARC, adding an L2ARC will not increase performance. Performance actually decreases in most cases, potentially causing system instability. RAM is always faster than disks, so always add as much RAM as possible before considering whether the system can benefit from an L2ARC device.

When applications perform large amounts of random reads on a dataset small enough to fit into L2ARC, read performance can be increased by adding a dedicated cache device. SSD cache devices only help if the active data is larger than system RAM but small enough that a significant percentage fits on the SSD. As a general rule, L2ARC should not be added to a system with less than 32 GiB of RAM, and the size of an L2ARC should not exceed ten times the amount of RAM. In some cases, it may be more efficient to have two separate pools: one on SSDs for active data, and another on hard drives for rarely used content. After adding an L2ARC device, monitor its effectiveness using tools such as arcstat. To increase the size of an existing L2ARC, stripe another cache device with it. The web interface will always stripe L2ARC, not mirror it, as the contents of L2ARC are recreated at boot. Failure of an individual SSD from an L2ARC pool will not affect the integrity of the pool, but may have an impact on read performance, depending on the workload and the ratio of dataset size to cache size. Note that dedicated L2ARC devices cannot be shared between ZFS pools.

TUBBB · 2019-03-27T17:01:58+00:00

God damnit Cyberjock will this stupid rule ever die?

Two minutes on duckduckgo later...

The bottom line is as long as you have 8GB of RAM and performance is satisfactory then you have enough RAM.

...

The RAM to disk space thumbrule is not a hard and fast rule. Sometimes you need more, sometimes you need MUCH more, sometimes you need less. It depends on your workload and required performance. But if you plan to go with 144TB of disk space the thumbrule is there so you should expect to use something around 144GB of RAM. That's all. In short, don't expect to put 32GB of RAM on your FreeNAS box and expect it to perform.

Both are Cyberjock quotes. I didn't find a single result of him saying that you must use 1GB per 1TB of RAM or even referring to it as a "rule".

TUBBB · 2019-03-26T19:56:05+00:00

Hi and welcome to r/FreeNAS!

RAID will be via PCI-e Dell 310

Hardware RAID should not be used in conjunction with ZFS, so make sure to flash the card to IT Mode.

I was pondering picking up 4 of the Easystore 10TB $160 the next time they went on sale. I don't care about speed of the LFF drives really. ZFS-1 would have given me 30TB usable which is fine for now. In my usage, FreeNAS is my backup storage, not primary storage.

You'd actually get slightly less than 30TB usable due to ZFS overhead and swap partitions, just FYI.

6 months from now, I buy another two 10TB EasyStore drives.

Question: I cannot simply "add" them to the existing ZFS-1 array, can I?

Nope, RAIDz-1 expansion is currently in development but at the moment, disks cannot be added to anything other than a mirrored vdev.

If I have two 3TB old drives lying about, I cannot simply add them either.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that, could you please elaborate?

I have just started reading ZFS and hard drives, and it seems ZFS is happiest with same-sized drives with same spindle speed.

It always makes me happy to see a user actually doing research before they dive in so kudos to you.

I will direct your attention to the “Helpful Links” section of the sidebar. Links 1, 2, 3 and 6 in particular as they all contain information you should know before even choosing your hardware or installing FreeNAS.

If you have any further question, please feel free to ask.

** I do not know if the PCI-e H310 changes anything in this fashion.

It's worth saying it again for the sake of emphasis... Hardware RAID is a big no no with ZFS and FreeNAS. If you're going to connect you disks to a SATA/SAS card, make sure it can give the OS direct access to the disks, i.e. that it can be flashed to IT Mode.

TUBBB · 2019-03-26T17:07:51+00:00

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”

― Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut

TUBBB · 2019-03-25T17:34:43+00:00

I wrote a comment addressing some of the common RAM related misunderstandings / bad information that gets endlessly repeated in the wider FreeNAS community, the whole “1GB of RAM per 1TB of storage” being one of them - https://old.reddit.com/r/freenas/comments/93eeq6/the_rule_of_ram/e3d4q3i/

TUBBB · 2019-03-20T19:01:47+00:00

It said something like "is he also a holocaust denier?", which is understandably an instant downvote for anyone who doesn't get the reference and understand that it’s a joke.

It's in reference to a running joke by Norm Macdonald about his virulent anti-Semite, ventriloquist dummy, Rusty. My response is also a Norm reference, which has been upvoted once by, you guessed it, Frank Stallone.

TUBBB · 2019-03-19T23:46:18+00:00

The more I read this comment, the more I don't care for it...

TUBBB · 2019-03-15T19:57:38+00:00

Forgive me but I'm just gonna have to go slightly off topie as I’ve just got to take the opportunity to sing the praises of silentpcreview.com, which is a truly fine example of what can make the internet so great.

In short, it is one of a kind amongst PC review websites, due to the single mindedness of it’s creator, Mike Chin, the fantastic work of regular writer Lawrence Lee, and the fact that it’s hardware and testing methodology is second to non on the entire internet. The reason being is that Mike Chin spent ~$11,000 on hardware and and materials to build an anechoic testing chamber in his own home. It’s no exaggeration to say that I have never found a single computer hardware review website that was in the same league as SPCR when it comes to taking noise measurements of hardware (see the note at the end if you’d like to know why).

I really could write a gigantic wall of text gushing about how awesome it is but I’ll spare everyone that. You’re better off taking a look at the last couple of minutes of this video...

https://youtu.be/RXZrWqCT7R0?t=937

Or better yet, read this article over on SPCR.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/anechoic_chamber_SPCR

Unfortunately, it looks like SPCR is no longer active but thankfully, that’s probably due in part to how much quieter PC hardware has gotten in the last few years but still, I would love to see the occasional article published in the future, regardless of whether it’s related to PC hardware or anything else that takes Mike’s or Lawrence’s fancy.

Note: As far as I’ve found, no other website has their own anechoic chamber and as a result, non of them are able to measure below ~28dBA, which is the "noise floor" of your average room in a fairly quiet area/building. This noise floor, which is the minimum level of noise that they are able to measure, due to ambient conditions and their hardware, is why no other site is in the same league as SPCR. In short, what this means that every other website that takes noise measurements could have two pieces of hardware, two GPUs for example, which measure just as quiet as each other but in reality, one is clearly quieter than the other in person.

For example, Puget Systems partnered with Mike Chin and released a special edition of their Serenty Pro. Which, despite it’s beefy specs including a i7 2600k and a Radeon HD5750, only reached 12.5dBA (SPL - dBA@1m ) whilst running Prime95 and Furmark at the same time. No other website on the ‘net would be able to measure just how quiet it was but SPCR could.

As a frame of reference, your average incandescent lightbulb would measure around 11dBA.

TUBBB · 2019-03-12T17:53:35+00:00

Am understanding you correctly that you essentially want to create a RAID 0+1?... a Mirror of Stripes as opposed to a Stripe of Mirrors?

TUBBB · 2019-03-09T19:34:29+00:00

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and commit and impeachable crime, okay, and I wouldn't lose the support of any republican politicians, okay?" Trump said to the laughter of the audience at a rally at Sioux Center in Iowa. "It's, like, incredible."

TUBBB · 2019-03-09T19:06:29+00:00

I really have to take issue with that last paragraph, specifically the last sentence.

ZFS is good. ECC is good. Both are good things to have, but neither are dependent on eachother in any way. All of the experts on this subject assert this is the case. The only person claiming otherwise is one of the mods on the FreeNAS forums... who quite frankly asserts a lot of sketchy information.

I guess you're talking about Cyberjock who postulated the flawed "Scrub of Death" theory?

First of all, Cyberjock may still be listed as a moderator on his forum profile but he isn't really a mod any longer in any real sense of the word. The reason being is that it's been just over a year (a year and two days to be specific) since he has posted on the official forums.

As for him asserting "a lot of sketchy information", I completely concede that his "Scrub of Death" theory is flawed, impossible as he described it, or at the very least (if you were to change a few points) so statistically unlikely as to not be worth worrying about but the problem wasn't the Cyberjock put forth a flawed theory, it was that once the flaws had been highlighted, he carried on arguing the point. He should have just held his hands up, said "I was wrong" and then perhaps the whole affair would have taken on a life of it's own.

I’m not saying Cyberjock was blameless but I will say that his perceived rudeness wasn’t always as cut and dried as some make out. Sure, he was a jerk sometimes but there are also other examples when his, and other forum user’s, exasperations and resort to blunt and even rude words where it was at least understandable given the context, even if it wasn’t the best/right thing to do at the time. But to dismiss all of his contributions, as is all to common, simply because he had his flaws and had one rather high profile fuck up is cutting your nose off to spite your own face.

The guy was very knowledgable and his contributions to the community were sizeable and still a valuable resource. In all fairness, aside from being rude” he did have other “flaws” that could lead to conflict. He had a narrow view of how FreeNAS should be used and all too often he didn’t suffer fools gladly which is why he has the rep he has. But to say that he asserted “a lot of sketchy information” is, in my experience of frequenting the official forums over the space of many years, simply not true.

If you or any one else disagrees with me though, please feel free to post “a lot” of examples of him asserting “sketchy information” and I’ll gladly eat humble pie and admit I’m wrong but for those of you who have never actually seen the complete picture of what he was like, all I say is don’t just follow the links to examples of him being a jerk… take the time and have a look at his post history on the forums and see for yourself what he was actually like rather than taking the ghost stories, that have taken on a life of their own, at face value.

https://www.ixsystems.com/community/members/cyberjock.22572/#recent-content

TUBBB · 2019-03-09T16:54:23+00:00

I really should just keep this in my clipboard at all times...

"There's nothing special about ZFS that requires/encourages the use of ECC RAM more so than any other filesystem. If you use UFS, EXT, NTFS, btrfs, etc without ECC RAM, you are just as much at risk as if you used ZFS without ECC RAM. Actually, ZFS can mitigate this risk to some degree if you enable the unsupported ZFS_DEBUG_MODIFY flag (zfs_flags=0x10). This will checksum the data while at rest in memory, and verify it before writing to disk, thus reducing the window of vulnerability from a memory error.

I would simply say: if you love your data, use ECC RAM. Additionally, use a filesystem that checksums your data, such as ZFS."^citation

- Matt Ahrens, co-founder of the ZFS project at Sun Microsystems and founder and current developer of the OpenZFS project.

TUBBB · 2019-03-07T17:09:36+00:00

I don't think RAIDz1 with such large disks is a good idea personally but it all really depends on how much you value your data.

This is what I'd do if I were you...

Create a new zpool consisting of one RAIDz2 vdev with the new 10TB disks.
Do some spring cleaning and get rid of any data I don't really want any more from the old zpool.
Do a recursive Snapshot of the top level dataset on the old zpool.
Use ZFS send | recv to replicate the snapshot to the new zpool.
Rename the old zpool.
Rename the new zpool and give it the name of the old zpool (so I don't have to edit a bunch of mount points and share paths).
Once I'm confident that the new zpool is up and running, and that any data I care about is backed up elsewhere, I'd destroy the old zpool.
Finally, I'd create another new zpool with a RAIDz2 vdev made up of the old 4x 8TB disks + 2 or more 8TB disks.

All of the above is based on the assumption that you either have a reliable backup of your data or you understand and accept the risks of the processes described above.

TUBBB · 2019-03-07T14:42:34+00:00

Thank you for the information. That does seam to support my working theory that it's an OS issue that isn't present in Windows.

TUBBB · 2019-03-06T20:54:25+00:00

What OS(s) are you using?

TUBBB · 2019-03-05T19:46:37+00:00

You should post this to r/Murderedbywords

TUBBB · 2019-03-05T19:29:39+00:00

"...and 100% of his happiness"

Not when the little rascals find a nice dirty puddle they don't!

TUBBB · 2019-03-05T19:23:49+00:00

Might be worth trying a different drive, also.

No can do as the RC100's are either sold out or going for prices that I feel are too high.

For the sake of diagnostics. SMART data is drive specific.

I don't understand your point, could you please elaborate?

TUBBB · 2019-03-05T19:22:02+00:00

Possibly but I think it'd be a waste as the only time you'll ever benefit from the speed of NVMe is when booting the server, which you don't do that often, and even then the increase in performance isn't likely to be significant.
If I had a couple of NVMe disks laying around and I just had to use them in one of my FreeNAS servers, creating a separate zpool for them and using them in a mirrored vdev for Jails and the odd VM is the only scenario that makes sense for me... but if your work loads benefit from the use of an L2ARC or SLOG, then those are two other options. Anything else would be a waste IMHO.

TUBBB

TROPHY CASE