Author: Arkadiusz Language: text
Description: Hypervisor and ZFS setup for home Timestamp: 2017-07-31 17:50:17 +0000
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  1. Hypervisor and ZFS setup for home Hello Dan and Wes,
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  3. First of all, thank you for the show, your great work, and presence. I think a show like TechSNAP is very needed in our tech community. Greatly appreciated from Europe\Poland.
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  5. I'm writing to you to ask for advice on setting up a home hypervisor and a storage appliance with a ZFS array on one server. Recently I've read more about ZFS, all the great features that it has to offer and the benefits over standard RAID approach. I am a technical person and don't mind learning ZFS.
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  7. The main goal I have is to get a redundant storage for personal and family data (to keep them forever) which I want to share over the local network to Linux and, sadly, windows workstations.
  8. The secondary goal is to be able to host a pfSense VM to secure my network and few VMs to create a lab environment.
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  10. Here is how I picture it:
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  12. SOFTWARE
  13. Type-1 hypervisor - Proxmox/XenServer or maybe ESXi, although I prefer open source (still not decided)
  14. Virtual Machines:
  15. - FreeNAS with 4x2TB disks redirected to this VM for FreeNAS RAW access to disks
  16. - pfSense firewall with 2 dedicated NICs redirected to this VM, for WAN and LAN - I want to put my network behind a pfSense firewall and utilize snort and OpenVPN at a minimum.
  17. - lab environment VMs - spun up periodically for various scenarios: Kubernetes nodes, VMs for pentesting and other training/tests
  18. - maybe a Plex VM to share media to home devices
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  20. HARDWARE
  21. 1 x Samsung 250GB 2,5'' SATA SSD 850 EVO - for hypervisor and VMs
  22. 4 x WD 2TB 7200obr. 128MB GOLD - for ZFS array
  23. ASUS STRIX Z270F GAMING (DDR4 USB3.1/M.2) - with 2x M.2 support for future upgrade with NVMe SSD or Intel Optane technology
  24. Intel i5-7600K 3.80GHz 6MB BOX - overclockable
  25. Cooling: be quiet! Shadow Rock 2
  26. HyperX 32GB 2400MHz Fury Black CL15 (2x16384) - Sadly non-ECC
  27. Power: be quiet! 600W Straight Power 10 CM BOX
  28. Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Titanium
  29. +2 extra NIC cards for pfSense WAN and LAN
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  31. QUESTIONS
  32. 1. First of all, am I doing an overkill setup for my personal/home/lab use? Is there something incorrect about this setup or with having a ZFS array along with hypervisor stuff?
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  34. 2. Is FreeNAS a good fit for a VM to handle ZFS array? OR should I rather go with a FreeBSD install and manually setup ZFS? Pros/Cons?
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  36. 3. Is RAIDZ2 with 4 2TB drives a good idea? I think RAIDZ2 is a good compromise between having 2 redundant disks, enough available storage and cost.
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  38. 4. I am getting a gaming-like motherboard because it has relatively good specs, server grade motherboards lift the price drastically. Same goes for ECC RAM and it doesn't look I can afford it. Do you think gaming mobo or non-ECC RAM is a big problem for a home ZFS array?
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  42. Hope that was not too long. I would appreciate any thoughts/suggestions on this matter. If you have any resources to suggest for a beginner ZFS administrator, would be splendid.
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  44. Thank you again!
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  46. All the best,
  47. Arkadiossi
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