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new guy just joined, need help & suggestion


gem.cafe

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Hi guys

 

I’m new to XPEnology, and I hope that I can seek your help to built a new server with XPEnology.

 

I’m planning to re-built my old microserver gen8, which is running 2012r2 for few years, and I want to try XPEnology now.

 

Here is my new dream built...

 

SD slot

- 8G micro SD (if go for VM, then the SD for ESXi with XPEnology and/or windows 10)

 

B120i

- AHCI - 1 x old SSD 120GB (for VM OSs)

 

P420

- port00-00 & port00-01 basic - 2 x old 120GB SSD (for DSM's SSD caching)

- port00-02 & port00-03 RAID0 - 2 x old 2.5” 1T HDD (for BT download, temporary storage)

- port01-00 & port01-03 RAID5 - 4 x new 3.5” 4T HDD (for DSM’s photo, music, movie, tv shows, and shared files)

 

 

I have 2 ideas for the new built, 1) bare metal, XPEnology only, 2) ESXi, XPEnology +win10

 

I have searched Google/YouTube for tutorial in the past 2 weeks, but got no luck with any similar setup like mine from web, and I don't know my HDDs arrangement is valid or not

 

my questions are...

 

bare metal

1) should I set all the HDDs to RAID0 under P420 then let DSM to manage?

2) does DSM able to let me set the HHDs as my wish?

3) from one of the Synology KB article, which is said DSM's SSD cache for ONE volume only, does it mean that it work for either my RAID0 or RAID5 volume?

 

ESXi (I'm new to ESXi too)

1) should I set up my HDD groups as I wish before install ESXi & XPEnology, and then passthru (I'm learning) to DSM VM later?

 

do you guys have any comment or suggestion for me? any input/comment/suggestion are welcome! THANKS!!

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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  • Polanskiman changed the title to new guy just joined, need help & suggestion
15 hours ago, gem.cafe said:

bare metal

1) should I set all the HDDs to RAID0 under P420 then let DSM to manage?

2) does DSM able to let me set the HHDs as my wish?

3) from one of the Synology KB article, which is said DSM's SSD cache for ONE volume only, does it mean that it work for either my RAID0 or RAID5 volume?

1) If you want to see the SMART values in Xpenology jep, software raid.

2) no idea, sorry.

3) Never actually tried it, but i think it's said to be 1 SSD per Read, 1 SSD per Write PER Volume.

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23 minutes ago, haldi said:

1) If you want to see the SMART values in Xpenology jep, software raid.

that's my concern too... I prefer h/w raid instead of s/w raid, because I have HP's iLO to monitor the drives

 

30 minutes ago, haldi said:

3) Never actually tried it, but i think it's said to be 1 SSD per Read, 1 SSD per Write PER Volume.

yes, 1-SSD for R only, 2-SSD for R/W, my idea is R/W for the HHDs under group#2 & group#3, not sure are they called "volume" or something else

 

thank you so much haldi!!

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On 10/26/2017 at 7:33 AM, gem.cafe said:

that's my concern too... I prefer h/w raid instead of s/w raid, because I have HP's iLO to monitor the drives

 

no hpsa.ko driver for dsm 6.1 so no go for baremeatal

that kind of leavs you only by esxi and there you can choose to use vmfs volume with virtual disk or map the raid volume from controller as rdm to the xpenology vm

if using the hardware raid then you will only need basic disks in dsm/xpenology

(if you trust the hp controller with the non hp disks, i can imagin what hp will tell you if there is any fail ...)

 

btw most people here dream of much bigger hardware, yours seem more of the affordable side

my dream build (with shelved hardware) would be more like  50 TB all flash with 40G network :-)

Edited by IG-88
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thank you so much for your reply, IG-88, you showed me a clear path to continue the XPEnology journey

 

1 hour ago, IG-88 said:

no hpsa.ko driver for dsm 6.1 so no go for baremeatal

 

stupid me, I almost forgot that the v6.1 has no hips.ko for HP RAID card :7_sweat_smile:

 

1 hour ago, IG-88 said:

(if you trust the hp controller with the non hp disks, i can imagin what hp will tell you if there is any fail ...)

 

sure that HP will tell me "none of my ... business" :lol:

 

1 hour ago, IG-88 said:

most people here dream of much bigger hardware

 

:4_joy:... the setup on above is a dream, but I think it is not impossible, that's why I'm here to see how to make it work

and yours may became true in one day later... 

 

 

okay, no hpsa.ko & HW RAID is not recommended, VM is much, so I would let DSM to handle all my RAID0 drives, hahaha

 

sorry, let me ask one more question... the planning of the drives

I googled & read many posts,/articles for trying to understand about the "volume" & "disk groups" under DSM

but frankly, I still don't really understand what are their functions :7_sweat_smile:

I understand that the original plan for the drives arrangement may not be accomplished, is there any suggestion which can make a similar one?

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2 hours ago, gem.cafe said:

okay, no hpsa.ko

for dsm/xpenology esxi does support it and that why esxi might be your choice

 

Quote

& HW RAID is not recommended

dsm is kind of made for software raid and comfortably manage it, thats one of its strong sides (like Synology Hhybrid Raid - SHR)

if you prefer the hp hardware way you can do it, esxi does support it (there are even hp custom images of esxi with all drivers included)

 

Quote

VM is much, so I would let DSM to handle all my RAID0 drives, hahaha

dependes on what you pefer and what brings better performance, you can have a 4 disk hardware raid and from that you have the 2 options of vmfs + vmdk or rdm of the raid5 volume to vm, one other way is the 1 disk raid0 option and then rdm every of the 4 disks into the dsm vm and make a software raid5

i usualy prefer a way thats not to complicted and more like "default", if you prefer hw raid and want to stick to the controller then format your hardware rais volume as vmfs and put things in and create one big vmdk file for your big volume and make it a basic disk in dsm, can be done inside esxi gui, nothing special to know, easy to configure and if something braks also easy to recreate

 

2 hours ago, gem.cafe said:

"volume" & "disk groups" under DSM

but frankly, I still don't really understand what are their functions :7_sweat_smile:

I understand that the original plan for the drives arrangement may not be accomplished, is there any suggestion which can make a similar one?

 

basicly a disk group is a mdadm raid set (mdadm = the usual software raid for linux, try google or wikipedia) and the volume (there can be more then one) will be a lvm (also see google or wikipedia) or "partition" inside the raid set (for lvm or a partioning programm the raid set  look just like one big disk) - thats it

as you are going to user basic disks in dsm  the disk group will only contain one disk (no need for softwre raid when your vmdk file risides in a hw raid5 protected array)

so the only choice will be one volume or more (i prefer using one, so need to shift data later, if you have more volumes and judged wrong the one volume might be choosen to small and you will have to shift things later, a lot of unnessisarry time/work)

 

if you prefer baremetal then put away that hp hw raid stuff and take lsi controller in it mode )lots of them to get cheap oem on ebay) or marvell sata controller that run with ahci driver in dsm/linux (do not use the stuff with multiplexer chip on the card, just 1 x 4xsata or 2 x 4xsata marvell chip on a card)

 

Edited by IG-88
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thank you, IG-88, thank you for your detail explaination about all my doubts!

 

I understand about 80% what your suggestions above, but VM is still "new" for me, I need a bit more time to digest.

I will have more free time next week, so that I can use my on hand hardwares to start my journey.

before that, I will google more to make 100% understand your suggestions.

 

again, thanks for your time! :D

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as you mentioned esxi i expected you know a good amount about it

setting up rdm needs some knowlage about using vmware (and its not the way i would choose, i'm more into KISS and defaults - maybe i'm getting old ;-))

 

imo hw raid is overrated, there ist plenty cpu power and doing sw raid is a good way to use it in times where quad core is kind of smallest default

and if the data are importend ZFS is the way (at least for now, btrfs is prommising but not finished yet without reliable native raid support)

 

 

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to be frank, I’m also like everything as “default”, bcoz I’m old and lazy, that's why my first idea is bare metal DSM, I thought it is simple to setup, just plug&play, but I was wrong :lol:

 

no, VM & DSM are totally new for me, my old build is just few 1T drives with RAID5 under 2012R2, it just a dump file storage machine, but after few years of that setting, I feel a bit bored and wanna make it more useful, for today, I want to use it for BT tv shows & movies, store/share my raw/jpeg pictures, I don’t want to use my old macbook air’s ssd for these purposes

 

forgot to tell, my ms gen8 got 1265L v2 + 16GB RAM + P420 at the very beginning, it sounds like over power for just 2012R2 but I didn't have much choices at that time, so just 2012R2

 

I heard about ZFS, it is the file system under linux /unix, hmmm.. after I graduated, I forgot all linux/unix commands except ls, cat... I think DSM does fit my requirements for now

 

 

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Probably a dumb suggestion but how about ditching the P420 controller, get a cheap sata3 compatible syba 4 port card and use that? A shame to lose the use of that expensive and powerful controller but, 1) the community might resolve the drivers/modules issue at some point so you keep it spare or 2) Sell it on ebay and use that to cover the cost of the new controller and a drive or two?

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thanks for your suggestions, sbv300, but...

 

7 hours ago, sbv3000 said:

expensive and powerful controller

I got my card just around US$90, it is not expensive

 

7 hours ago, sbv3000 said:

1) the community might resolve the drivers/modules issue

true, the solution will come up anytime, so for sure to keep it, and, DSM 6.3 will be out soon (I hope)

 

7 hours ago, sbv3000 said:

2) Sell it on ebay

I don't think the card of mine can make much from ebay

 

I will keep using my gears and start to re-build next week, may be I can learn more from this way :D

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i'd expect final 6.2 in 3/2018

btw did you consider open media vault? it a real linux not a appliance like dsm and it has a lot of the features of dsm, plugins, docker, virtualbox, ...

imho you should give that a try if you want to stick to your hardware

(its my planed choice if i loose patience or faith with dsm)

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59 minutes ago, IG-88 said:

open media vault

 

wow... it looks good and pretty like dsm

 

but after I quick "scanned" few web sites about omv & omv's plug-in, I couldn't found something like dsm's photo/audio-station, these 2 are major for me, I think omv is mainly work as a "file server"

 

the funny thing is , I found a guy who installed omv + vm plug-in, and... he installed "dsm" under vm  :4_joy:

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yes it's a NAS mainly ;-)

 

then dpending how much new you want to do an the way ...

new controller and baremetal OR esxi and as vm

btw vmware is still used a lot in business enviroment, so learning basics about that on the way isnt a bad thing

if you have time and want to play try esxi, it does'nt cost you anthing and if you feel its not your way you can still buy a controller and start again with baremetal

 

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interesting never heard that the p420 has a hba mode, would be the right thing for xpenology/dsm

dont't know in what mode the controller was as the hpsa.ko was tested, p410 was tested, not shure about the p420

the extra.lzma 3.2 still contains a hpsa.ko, not shure whitch one but can try it with the controller in hba mode (i'd expect it to be the one that comes with the kernel)

if you want i can have a look what drivers i still have to test with but afair the other driver from external source crashed on loading (oops'ed)

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I found it accidentally by googling "esxi p420 passthrough"

this *new* port mode option is came from firmware v8.0.0, released on 2016-10-24, it also packed in latest HP service pack

I think no one will keep checking the FW for RAID card very often if there is no issue

 

I will start re-building my machine this weekend, and bare-metal will be the first try

will keep you posted ;)

 

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On 11/3/2017 at 7:49 PM, gem.cafe said:

ran a quick test based on p420 HBA with the original jun's 1.02b loader, without extra.lzma 3.2

 

thats normal, the standard extra.lzma does not contain a hpsa.ko

 

if you use windows10 or linux then there will be a 2nd partition when you insert the usb flash drive, on that 2nd partition is the extra.lzma, just rename it and copy the new one

the other way is the same as in the howto, use Win32DiskImager and mount the 2nd partiton of the img file, exchange the extra.lzma, write to flash drive

 

fun fact for P410 about HBA mode

"... P410i HBA mode support was only released for Integrity servers.

The rx2800 i4 and DL380 G6 list different P410i firmware versions, however the install packages do BIOS checks before allowing you to continue. Not sure if there's a way to bypass this, however bypassing the process could result in undesired results..."

so its possible but with the normal firmware it cant be switched as with the new p420 firmware

 

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thanks IG-88, I spent a night to install windows 10, bcoz I'm a mac user :D

 

okay, I tried 3 combinations:

1) extra.lzma v3,

2) extra.lzma v3.2,

3) extra.lzma v3.2 + one SSD attached to B120i/AHCI 

 

the results for #1 & #2, ask me to install hard drive

the result for #3, let me complete the installation, but, except the SSD, DSM finds no HBA/drives 

 

sounds like only one way to go... VM :cry:

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:lol: after many times of trial & error... I made it finally, and I'm learning DSM right now... yeah... DSM 6.1.4

 

5a035a73592dd_dsm6.1.4.jpg.b8fa0930e96321f6e9c9714ef5413f63.jpg

 

ok, here is the first problem... a RDM drive is missing

as this round is for testing only, so I set 2 x SSD as 2 standalone RAID0 drives (disk 2 & 3), and 2 x HDD as 1 RAID0 drive (disk 4)

after added all 3 drive via RDM, one of the SSD is missing, and wried that the numbers of the 2 disks are "disk 33" & "disk 34"

 

RDM.jpg.ed513a0653babde72f5068ef198a6415.jpg

 

final.jpg.4ec71afb5a1e783985b246b3e2031de1.jpg

 

very sleepy now, good nite!

 

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