High performance ZFS SSD Storage/ Napp-in-One (napp-it based All-In-One)

high

Storage for high IO use cases (several thousands IOPS) like databases, VDI or ESXi Storage
A reference setup: http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/2U/2028/SSG-2028R-ACR24L.cfm
Add PCI-e NVMe's as ZIL or L2Arc like Intel P750 or better

Use a 19" Storagecase with 2,5" backplanes like a 24bay SuperMicro SC216BA-R920LPB or SC216BA-R1K28LPB with up to 24 TB Raw (24 x 1TB SSD). It supports expanderless operation with HBA controller and offers a redundant power supply + 2 x external Bootdisk at rear side.

Add a serverclass mainboard (socket 1150 with max 32 GB ECC RAM or socket 2011 with up to 128 GB ECC RAM), 1 to 6 LSI HBA controller in IT mode and best a 10GbE Intel nic.

The price of a working 24bay system without disks is possible up from about 1000 USD (Norco) to over 5000 USD (Chenbro 50bay case). To improve performance of slow Sata disks, add as much RAM as Read cache as possible (use max 128GB) otherwise use SSDs as readcache (hybridstorage).

A professional storageserver based on a SuperMicro SC 847 with a mainboards from the SuperMicro X10 line with 32 GB ECC RAM and 48 TB RAW-capacity and HBAs from LSI (9207) or IBM (M1015) costs up from about 5000 USD. Usable capacity depends on selected raid-configuration.

If you plan to build a Napp-In-One system you should pass-through your storage controller with SSDs to your ZFS SAN-VM and assign enough RAM as readcache (4-128 GB)

Checklist:

Servercase 24 x 2,5" + 2 x Bootdisk, redundant PSU, example
http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/2U/216/SC216BA-R920LP.cfm
Single or Dual Socket 2011 servermainboard with Xeon, vt-d and ECC RAM
Example (NAIO): http://www.supermicro.nl/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/#2011

If you use a mainboard like a SuperMicro X9-SRH-7TF you might attach onboard Sata (bootdisks) and onboard SAS (storage) with a reverse breakout cable to a miniSAS backplane or use the above case with two extra hots swap bays for bootsidks at the rear.
Intel Nic 1/ 10 GbE (example Intel X540-T1 or T2 for 10Gbase-T)
opt 10 GbE Switch ex Netgear XS708E
LSI HBA ex. LSI 9207 or IBM 1015 (reflashed 9211-IT mode)
SSDs at best use Enterprise class SSDs like Intel S730, S3500, S3610, S3700 with powerloss protection
http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA6-1470ENW.pdf
http://www.micron.com/~/media/documents/products/technical-marketing-brief/ssd performance tech brief.pdf

read http://www.anandtech.com/show/6489/playing-with-op
tools: http://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/SSD Over-provisioning using hdparm
or http://www.hdat2.com/files/cookbook v11.pdf

Google: Enhancing the Write Performance of SSDs

napp-it 14.10.2024