1TB 2.5" HDD for Hypervisor system
- Thread starter weust
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To be fair, I don't see any reason to use pfsense in a home situation, either. Why fanny about with a PC and multiple NICs when any decent router will do it all.? If your router's software doesn't do what you need, I'm pretty sure one of the open source router firmwares (TomatoUSB, DD-WRT, etc) that can be flashed on to common consumer routers will do everything you need.
An Asus RT-N66U or similar with TomatoUSB is probably the only router anyone will ever need. You can even do bond bonding for a 2Gb link if you're running Merlin-RT formware on certain Asus routers...
An Asus RT-N66U or similar with TomatoUSB is probably the only router anyone will ever need. You can even do bond bonding for a 2Gb link if you're running Merlin-RT formware on certain Asus routers...
Stability. I got tired of rebooting my router every now and then.
Flexibility. Paying 200 bucks just to upgrade the access point? PFsense + dedicated AP's work much better and costs less.
Scalability. Lots of routers only have 100 mbit WAN NICs. This might not be a problem for most, but it could easily become one. PFsense on proper hardware also supports a lot more connections than even modern routers. Again, not an issue for most, but it might become one as IoT is getting more and more widespread.
Customisation. Lots of fun packages to play around with. Which leads me to my last point:
FUN! I'm sure most of us with multi-TB arrays, hypervisors, Infiniband networks, PoE switches etc. NEEDS it. We WANT it. We tinker with it, we break it, we fix it, we brag about it, we learn from it. Off-the-shelf routers are just appliances. They're boring.
Even Pfsense is more up to date security wise than most of the router firmwares available. Also it is used to be cheaper to set up a router distribution than to get the top of the line Atheros rebranded router and still run into the limits with a high # connections and dead slow interfaces.
You're obviously buying the wrong routers then...
RT-AC68U with TomatoUSB Shibby, and stick on optware, and all your points are moot. I have a N66U which is pretty old, and I'm running optware on there. All the storage is on a microSD card in the slot inside the router, I could probably run all my server needs on the router alone, and still have a 800Mb router with hardware NAt, gigabit interfaces, and as-good-as-it-gets Wireless-N.
RT-AC68U with TomatoUSB Shibby, and stick on optware, and all your points are moot. I have a N66U which is pretty old, and I'm running optware on there. All the storage is on a microSD card in the slot inside the router, I could probably run all my server needs on the router alone, and still have a 800Mb router with hardware NAt, gigabit interfaces, and as-good-as-it-gets Wireless-N.
Like I said, it used to be. The N66U is a 3 year old router and the 68U you mention is a dual core ARM model, indeed pretty decent. When I set mine up Asus' catalog consisted of only a bunch of motherboards for the 468 platform.
I've yet to cross paths with a router that has a decent package manager, and can therefor be considered a relative secure option. Also, flashing your typical 150 greenbag router with an unstable firmware packed with proprietary drivers and voiding your warranty is left to a selected few enthusiasts.
Yea I really can't see how a $200 router with built-in WiFi and a custom rom that voids your warranty can make my points moot. If anything it confirms them.
I'm running 2.1.5 virtualized in ESXi 5.5 and I don't see the CPU issued you're having. I run 60 mbits throughput regularly and CPU doesn't get close to 100% in pfsense or in ESXi monitoring. I'm running 2 vCPUs however and both LAN and WAN connections are vmxnet3, nothing passed through. Personally I don't notice any performance drawbacks running pfsense virtualized, but maybe I'm not doing anything too taxing.
Since this topic is completely de-railing, I will give one final answer.
I am not a typical home user. I wouldn't even come here if I were.
My hobby has always been to work with computers. Wanting to know it inside out, do crazy things with them.
Over 13 years ago I made it my work. Work and hobby differ a bit, but for the last 5 years I've been working with VMWare and mainly Hyper-V.
With everything I've done so far, I think I pretty much know what I can and cannot do.
Whether running Windows Servers at home for a home LAN is overkill or not, is besides the point.
It's a hobby. I want to do it because it interests me in setting it up for my small home LAN.
Right now I run a Soekris net6501-30 with pfSense (coming from m0n0wall), a HP Thin client with Linux for DNS/NTP/DHCP and a Mac Mini which serves as the torrent client and iTunes library for my Devialet audio system.
Plus the Synology DS209 which is in progress of being replaced by a DS415Play.
It's all been running in pretty much the same configuration for years.
The Thin client has seen many others before it, from SUN to DEC Alpha to SGI MIPS machines (all running Linux, btw).
The part about virtualizing pfSense clearly lacks experience. Version 2.2 works great on Hyper-V.
Already tested that last September.
The torrent part I can get with heavy I/O. But I don't have that.
Upload is limited to 1MByte/s (configured in the client settings) and the download is a max 21MByte/s.
Right now that's done on a external USB disk connected to the Mac Mini.
I have thought about putting the torrent storage on a separate disk, but I doubt I can put extra storage inside the Supermicro Superserver, and add the extra dual port NIC.
Hence the dual 1TB disks in mirror. And I don't want to use iSCSI connections to the NAS, because I don't want to disks inside the NAS running 24/7. NAS doesn't sleep, disks will. Gotta think about power usage and costs a little bit.
The hobby itself is expensive enough
Windows DHCP server is fine. No idea what would be wrong with that.
It's been running here in a Active Directory environment since 2003. Obviously the server OS was updated in the meantime, but other then that it's still pretty much the same configuration.
Hope this explains a bit about MY idea behind my hobby at home.
I am not a typical home user. I wouldn't even come here if I were.
My hobby has always been to work with computers. Wanting to know it inside out, do crazy things with them.
Over 13 years ago I made it my work. Work and hobby differ a bit, but for the last 5 years I've been working with VMWare and mainly Hyper-V.
With everything I've done so far, I think I pretty much know what I can and cannot do.
Whether running Windows Servers at home for a home LAN is overkill or not, is besides the point.
It's a hobby. I want to do it because it interests me in setting it up for my small home LAN.
Right now I run a Soekris net6501-30 with pfSense (coming from m0n0wall), a HP Thin client with Linux for DNS/NTP/DHCP and a Mac Mini which serves as the torrent client and iTunes library for my Devialet audio system.
Plus the Synology DS209 which is in progress of being replaced by a DS415Play.
It's all been running in pretty much the same configuration for years.
The Thin client has seen many others before it, from SUN to DEC Alpha to SGI MIPS machines (all running Linux, btw).
The part about virtualizing pfSense clearly lacks experience. Version 2.2 works great on Hyper-V.
Already tested that last September.
The torrent part I can get with heavy I/O. But I don't have that.
Upload is limited to 1MByte/s (configured in the client settings) and the download is a max 21MByte/s.
Right now that's done on a external USB disk connected to the Mac Mini.
I have thought about putting the torrent storage on a separate disk, but I doubt I can put extra storage inside the Supermicro Superserver, and add the extra dual port NIC.
Hence the dual 1TB disks in mirror. And I don't want to use iSCSI connections to the NAS, because I don't want to disks inside the NAS running 24/7. NAS doesn't sleep, disks will. Gotta think about power usage and costs a little bit.
The hobby itself is expensive enough
Windows DHCP server is fine. No idea what would be wrong with that.
It's been running here in a Active Directory environment since 2003. Obviously the server OS was updated in the meantime, but other then that it's still pretty much the same configuration.
Hope this explains a bit about MY idea behind my hobby at home.
Yeah, lots of people do not have this problem, but many others do. Multiple vCPUs wont help, as pfsense 2.1.5 isn't multithreaded. People have tried lots of combinations of vNICs and pNICs and last I checked it looked completely random if you had the issue or not (obviously, in IT nothing is ever random, you just haven't found the root cause of your issues yet).
Weust, it seems you already know what you want to do and how you want to do it, so advice falls on deaf ears and your responses are filled with arrogance and hostility. Good luck with your project.
I would try to find a solid state drive if you can. The 840/850 Evos are pretty cheap given the performance and reliability you gain over spinning disks.
Given that a software raid always feels itchy, it might actually be worth going for a SSD for boot and VM storage, and a seperate HDD for the torrent storage.
I use a Samsung EVO 840 Pro in my desktop which is running great.
Might have to think about setting up a backup schedule now too, just in case.
Right now the servers I run aren't backupped at all. Don't feel the need for it as in case of a failure I can switch machines or even re-configure the Airport Extreme to do the routing. Which is now only a Access Point.
Not sure whether I linked the Supermicro model I want yet, but it's [url=
Given that a software raid always feels itchy, it might actually be worth going for a SSD for boot and VM storage, and a seperate HDD for the torrent storage.
I use a Samsung EVO 840 Pro in my desktop which is running great.
Might have to think about setting up a backup schedule now too, just in case.
Right now the servers I run aren't backupped at all. Don't feel the need for it as in case of a failure I can switch machines or even re-configure the Airport Extreme to do the routing. Which is now only a Access Point.
Not sure whether I linked the Supermicro model I want yet, but it's the 5018A-FTN4.
And since I want to put in the dual NIC card, I can't place too many hard drives it seems.
Also, I know there is a Superserver with six NICs, but it doesn't have the NICs on the front side.
Which I really want.
I use a Samsung EVO 840 Pro in my desktop which is running great.
Might have to think about setting up a backup schedule now too, just in case.
Right now the servers I run aren't backupped at all. Don't feel the need for it as in case of a failure I can switch machines or even re-configure the Airport Extreme to do the routing. Which is now only a Access Point.
Not sure whether I linked the Supermicro model I want yet, but it's [url=
Given that a software raid always feels itchy, it might actually be worth going for a SSD for boot and VM storage, and a seperate HDD for the torrent storage.
I use a Samsung EVO 840 Pro in my desktop which is running great.
Might have to think about setting up a backup schedule now too, just in case.
Right now the servers I run aren't backupped at all. Don't feel the need for it as in case of a failure I can switch machines or even re-configure the Airport Extreme to do the routing. Which is now only a Access Point.
Not sure whether I linked the Supermicro model I want yet, but it's the 5018A-FTN4.
And since I want to put in the dual NIC card, I can't place too many hard drives it seems.
Also, I know there is a Superserver with six NICs, but it doesn't have the NICs on the front side.
Which I really want.
So to add to my previous post here is how I have my storage setup for my 2 node hyper-v cluster.
1x 840 Pro 256gb setup as iscsi for my VMs
5x 4tb R5 - Bulk storage, movies, downloads, etc.
Since the SSD is a single disk I have it backed up every night to the R5 array for fast restore. I also backup the backup from the raid5 array to the cloud using crash plan.
This provides me fast disk for my VMs without the cost of multiple disks.
I have a local backup for a fast restore should my SSD die.
I have an offsite backup should my entire storage fail.
1x 840 Pro 256gb setup as iscsi for my VMs
5x 4tb R5 - Bulk storage, movies, downloads, etc.
Since the SSD is a single disk I have it backed up every night to the R5 array for fast restore. I also backup the backup from the raid5 array to the cloud using crash plan.
This provides me fast disk for my VMs without the cost of multiple disks.
I have a local backup for a fast restore should my SSD die.
I have an offsite backup should my entire storage fail.
I am using the built in Lun backup feature in Synology. There is an agent that I had to install on the hyper-v host to take application consistent backups.
Just got to this thread.
The pair of S3500 800GB drives I got for $300/ ea are now slated for something similar to this. I know they are not 1TB but I am a big replication/ snapshot user and I have a bunch of VMs I just want to have a low power "uh oh" box that I can use a few days a year. Plus, I can use them to add to my growing data set.
The pair of S3500 800GB drives I got for $300/ ea are now slated for something similar to this. I know they are not 1TB but I am a big replication/ snapshot user and I have a bunch of VMs I just want to have a low power "uh oh" box that I can use a few days a year. Plus, I can use them to add to my growing data set.
Are your using those drives in a stripe set or a mirror?
I can imagine for snapshots it's great. Replication with 10 or more Gigabit too.
At work I do replication with a 100Mbit connection. Even with compression it will take a 3TB+ VM some time to do the initial replication. It will start at 1am on 1 January.
I don't have the space or time for a export first.
I can imagine for snapshots it's great. Replication with 10 or more Gigabit too.
At work I do replication with a 100Mbit connection. Even with compression it will take a 3TB+ VM some time to do the initial replication. It will start at 1am on 1 January.
I don't have the space or time for a export first.