High-speed Cache Drive

[riveradavid]

Does XigmaNAS support a (ie. NVMe) cache drive?

[ms49434]

Does XigmaNAS support a (ie. NVMe) cache drive?

nvme and nvd drivers are included in XigmaNAS, along with nvmecontrol.

[was-armandh]

the question is, does the hardware and BIOS support NVME
in the case of inexpensive expansion cards, usually NO.
[been there-tried that]
however an expansion card with enough smarts to be recognized as storage on booting might work
I went with just a SSD, one could surmise 1/4 the speed of NVME but not as fast as a RAM drive
one of the reasons my Xi run embedded from a SSD [where the swap file stands]

nothing at all USB connected

[riveradavid]

Thanks so much for your quick responses.
I guess my question should have had considerably more clarity - I apologize.
My system fully support an M.2 NVMe drive, and I would like to use it as a Level 2 Cache. I am fairly certain that establishing it as a ZFS L2ARC should do the trick, and I've found articles on the Ubuntu forums that show how to do that. What I was hoping was that there was a relatively simple method available for doing the same thing on XigmaNAS (i.e. through the remote administrative screens), or would I have to get onto the FreeBSD console in order to get that to work. Thanks again, and this time in advance.

[ms49434]

Thanks so much for your quick responses.
I guess my question should have had considerably more clarity - I apologize.
My system fully support an M.2 NVMe drive, and I would like to use it as a Level 2 Cache. I am fairly certain that establishing it as a ZFS L2ARC should do the trick, and I've found articles on the Ubuntu forums that show how to do that. What I was hoping was that there was a relatively simple method available for doing the same thing on XigmaNAS (i.e. through the remote administrative screens), or would I have to get onto the FreeBSD console in order to get that to work. Thanks again, and this time in advance.

Usually it is not required to issue console commands to get it to work.

There are a few steps you need to perform to get your NVMe added as a cache device.

The first step is to add and detect your NVMe device:
- install the device.
- Boot XigmaNAS.
- If the device is detected, continue with step two. Otherwise, add the driver to loader.conf in System > Advanced > loader.conf and reboot. To confirm, you can run 'camcontrol devlist' from Tools > Command > Top Command Section.

The second step is to synchronize the WebGUI with your actual configuration :
Goto Disks > Management > HDD management, import disks with 'Clear configuration information before importing disks' checked.
Goto Disks > ZFS > Configuration > Synchronize and click on synchronize with all checkboxes ticked.

The third step is to prepare your device:
Goto Disks > Management > HDD format and format your NVMe device as 'ZFS storage pool'.

The fourth step is to configure your device as a cache device:
Goto Disks > ZFS > Pools > Tools and run the 'Add a cache device to a pool' wizard.

The final step is to synchronize ZFS settings:
Goto Disks > ZFS > Configuration > Synchronize and click on synchronize with all checkboxes ticked.

Disks > ZFS > Pools > Information will give you an overview of your pool configuration.

[riveradavid]

Thank you - that is 'Exactly' what I was looking to see.

[riveradavid]

Thanks again ms49434. I installed yesterday and following you step-by-step instructions it worked perfectly. By the way, I see you've done the same thing I plan on going soon to my Server - enabling SAMBA AD. Do you have any step-by-step help for getting that done as successfully? (I know, I know, get an inch and ask for a mile). Thanks in advance though.