All in One?

Well the debate continues in an earlier blog post I discussed my thoughts on my new servers for fileserver and esxi box (debating new home hardware) my current thought has now changed from getting two servers into just getting one but running Solaris ZFS in a guest on it. I know ZFS loves memory, so to make Solaris or Nexenta ZFS perform its best I would get one HP ml350 g6 but upgrade it into the middle of its capacity, 2x quad core e5606 (3.13 ghz 4MB of l3 cache), and 4GB of memory from hp, (2x 2GB dimms from hp) and then 4x 8GB dimms from a 3^rd party memory supplier for a total of 36GB memory. For the controller I will use the p410/nz and grab a 512MB cache with battery backup to get full write performance for the disks  I will add 2x 250GB  from HP to hold Solaris and a couple other guests, and  4x 2TB  sata drives from a 3^rd party in a raid 1+0 layout, two 460 watt psus. Even with the extra 8GB of memory and extra power supply it works out to be $800 less and more importantly it also uses less power so lower electric bill long term.

I think the above configuration should be a good enough performance. But if it still needs more performance Napp-it  all in one, documents using a SAS controller in pci pass through mode with good results. The card they recommend is LSI 1086E SAS controller that Amazon has on sale for $160 but then I may need to get a separate disk box or put the disks in the non hot-swap bays. I don’t think my storage needs require overly fast performance and I could easily dedicate 8-12GB of memory to the Solaris/Nexenta guest perhaps even more. Third party 8GB dimms are only $270 and the ml350 g6 has 18 dimm slots so its not like I’m going to run out or I could possibly get a SSD device and attach to the p410 controller and pass that into Solaris/Nexenta guest.