Single disk zfs, UPS, and NIC advices needed. Thank you.

[dpeng678]

NAS4Free 9.1.0.1 (revision 573) x64-embedded
IntelR AWRDACPI Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5200 @ 2.50GHz 4608MiB RAM

Intel 82801I (ICH9) USB controller Intel 82801I (ICH9) USB 2.0
controller JMicron JMB368 UDMA133 controller bus=1 hubaddr=4 port=3
devaddr=2 interface=0

---

Newcomer less than 3 months. Setup a zfs mirror and very happy.

HDD 2x WD30EFRX 3T

Motherboard DFI P35-T2RS

Intel E5200 Dual core 2.5 GHz

4GB RAM

Onboard NIC Marvell 88E8053

CIFS/Samba share

set ashift=12 for 4k HDDs

Initial cmd "sleep 5; /etc/rc.d/samba restart" for Windows share

Am thinking about a long term solution: 6x WD30EFRX 3T configured as RaidZ-2 for
home/personal use. Traffic is low. Data security the higher priority.

Your comment very welcomed:

1. NAS4Free compatible Line Interactive UPS. Any recommendation?

2. Write 95~100 MB/s, Read 60~65 MB/s. Marvell 88E8053 seems doing OK, correct?

Why is Reading slower? If higher Read desired, what's the bottleneck: CPU or NIC
or RAM size?

3. Is there a better solution to the samba restart issue?

4. Other than the RaidZ-2 array, can I add two more size-different disks (through PCI-E SATA
add-on card) configured as Single disk ZFS? Is this a bad idea? Single UFS better or
worse?

Thanks for your time. I'd like to know more before taking the plunge.

[raulfg3]

3. Is there a better solution to the samba restart issue?

what is the SAMBA restart issue?

why do you restart SAMBA after 5 sec ?

[dpeng678]

All my 7 Windows boxes share files with each other with no issue, so I was expecting this NAS4Free NAS can be seen on my Windows WORKGROUP network. But it could not. Managed to a point that whenever I restart CIFS/SMB Service, I can see it right away from Windows.

There was one forum member having this exact same situation and he shared this post startup scripts. It worked, even though I never figured out what went wrong.

Hope this information a bit helpful. Thanks.

[raulfg3]

I see my NAS shares in my workgroup without problem, please revise and post your config in the NAS side and in the W7 side, there are no reason to restart SAMBA.

Revise that do no have enable "Local master browser" in NAS, that perhaps is your problem.

[armandh]

I've had no end of troubles with vista and 7 but none with Ubuntu 12.04 or 10.04.
without a lot of fiddling with the home lan connection options,
the N4F box is not seen unless it is in the same workgroup.

once the right boxes are checked and circles dotted ALL the work groups show in the Win file explorer.
it is another WIN-PITA. Ubuntu just works. it is not a problem with NAS4Free.

for a single non redundant disk I use UFS.
one never knows how specific hardware will operate until it is tested

for example this test was done on a MOBO my son found a little too unsteady for his overclocked gaming
normal clocking produced good running results despite failing memory tests
what I found as an outlying result was it ran N4F better with 2Gb ram than with 4 Gb ram.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcfeRPWCBWM to see a quick boot up.
despite it's high through put speeds I felt that using hardware that failed memory tests unwise.
this, a replacement board, had the same issues as the original.

[dpeng678]

Thanks for your help.

I was such a newbie that I didn't know how to set the gateway address in LAN config. It was left blank. Re-read FAQs says gateway must be set correctly for proper functioning. Tried with my router's address 192.168.1.1 and now no problem seeing this baby without Samba Restart command.

Glad I asked. Been lurking for months. Thank You!

[fsbruva]

1. NAS4Free compatible Line Interactive UPS. Any recommendation?

Nas4Free uses NUT (Network UPS Tools). By line interactive, you mean some sort of automatic voltage regulation, right? Check out the compatibility list. One of the manufacturers that is VERY well supported is Eaton. This is because they are an active supporter/contributor to the open source community. This includes:

• providing extensive technical documents (Eaton protocols library),
• providing units to developers of NUT and related projects,
• hosting the networkupstools.org webserver,
• providing artwork,
• promoting NUT in general.

With the continued acceptance of open-source software in servers, handheld devices, mainframes, infrastructures and appliances, the importance of open-source software availability for power devices becomes critical. Eaton understands this. Our company is a 10-year contributor to the open-source community and we are constantly working with partners like RedHat, Ubuntu/Canonical, Citrix, Network UPS Tools and Debian to generate greater compatibility between IT devices and our power devices.

In my mind, there would be no need for a "UPS" section of this forum if all manufacturers followed Eaton's lead.

2. Write 95~100 MB/s, Read 60~65 MB/s. Marvell 88E8053 seems doing OK, correct?
Why is Reading slower? If higher Read desired, what's the bottleneck: CPU or NIC
or RAM size?

Did you just finish installing this? Is this using a Windows machine for testing, perchance?

4. Other than the RaidZ-2 array, can I add two more size-different disks (through PCI-E SATA
add-on card) configured as Single disk ZFS? Is this a bad idea? Single UFS better or
worse?

You can always make them a ZFS mirror, which will use the smaller disk's capacity as the limit. Then, you can upgrade the smaller disk and maintain data integrity.

[dpeng678]

fsbruba,

Thanks for taking care of us rookies.

1. Will read more about Eaton UPS.

2. Read/Write speed. Yes, just finish installing this. Test using Windows 7/8 by copying 6GB from/to the N4F box. An Intel 1000M Pro GT is on the way for further testing.

3. Next question in mind is if I could add more HDDs configured as a Single Disk zfs or ufs to existing zfs mirror/RaidZ-2? Like I said all drives for zfs mirror/raidz2 are 3TBs, yet I have one 1TB and one 640GB looking to be hooked up on this N4F box. No data redundancy needed on these smaller size HDDs. It'd be great if you could shed some light to the use like this.

[raulfg3]

Next question in mind is if I could add more HDDs configured as a Single Disk zfs or ufs to existing zfs mirror/RaidZ-2? Like I said all drives for zfs mirror/raidz2 are 3TBs, yet I have one 1TB and one 640GB looking to be hooked up on this N4F box. No data redundancy needed on these smaller size HDDs. It'd be great if you could shed some light to the use like this.

You can, but you don't may ( not good decission), read ppt about this:

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.ph ... hlight=ppt

[fsbruva]

Re: Read/write speeds. This is a documented phenomena. It is a Windows-ism. If you test the samba share with Ubuntu, you'll see normal read/write. Give the Windows system some time to index the share. Mapping it as a network drive might help.

As for adding the simple drives to the pool - this is a bad idea. You have no way of controlling what data zfs will write to the raidz vdev (protected) or do the single drive (unprotected). If that one drive is lost, so is the pool.

[fsbruva]

Also, I should put a disclaimer on my previous statement regarding Eaton. Eaton should be well supported in theory. However, the UPS section of this forum has a few people with Eaton units that have issues with usb devices being lost and UPS connections lost. Keep the receipt, and return it if it doesn't work.

[dpeng678]

Thanks for the heas up.