Moving from a Synology NAS storage solution to a white box All-in-One server, I wanted an operating system that had mature support for ZFS Sun Microsystem’s Zetta File System, which narrowed choices down to OpenSolaris derivatives (OpenIndiana, Illumos, OmniOS) or FreeBSD (though the ZFS-on-Linux port is getting there).

I have 15 years experience with Linux, but am an absolute noob on Solaris. I knew I wanted an easy-to-use web-interface for administering the storage part of the server, and a lot of people are really happy with napp-it by Günther Alka (AKA gea), and the preferred OS for napp-it was OmniOS. The fact that OmniOS has a JeOS (just enough OS) approach and that Theo Schlossnagle (founder of OmniTI) comes across as someone who knows his sh*t made the choice easy.

The main features of OmniOS are:

• ZFS
  • Unmatched data integrity (checksums protect against data degradation)
  • Very cheap snapshots (due to copy-on-write nature of ZFS)
  • Integrated NFS and SMB sharing
  • Support for raw volumes (to host virtual machines)
  • Consistent and easy backup (via snapshots)
  • Storage scalability matching my needs (3-way mirror VDEVs)
• Crossbow (network virtualization)
• Zones
  • Secure isolation of services with zero overhead
• QEMU/KVM support
  • Virtual Machines

I went with r151006 which was the Long-Tail Support (LTS) at the time (April 2014). With respect to drivers there were no issues with the hardware I had, but driver support was a bit behind something like e.g. Linux (e.g. r151006 did not have support for LSI SAS3 HBAs).

Considering the cost of good thermal paste and the tediousness of properly removing/re-applying it, I wanted to get this right the first time when I build my new server. The heat sink I used came with thermal paste pre-applied, but since the motherboard was dead-on-arrival, I needed to re-apply it when putting the CPU in the replacement motherboard.

Searching the internet led to this test of thermal paste application methods by Puget Systems. Their conclusion was that a simple X-shaped application to the CPU gives the best performance (fewest air-bubbles, lowest temperature). This turns out to be very similar to Cisco’s recommendation for thermal paste.

I decided to build a brand new white box All-in-One server after being a happy Synology (DS1511+) user for a couple of years. I needed more drives, the ability to run virtual machines, integration of my perimeter firewall on the server, and transition from RAID5 to a more secure file system (ZFS).

I build the server using these components:

• Chassis: X-Case RM424 (improved Norco 424, mine had 12Gbps back-plane and no SGPIO)
• PSU: Seasonic SS-750HT Active 80+
• Motherboard: SuperMicro X9DR7-LN4F (dual socket)
• CPU: Intel E5-2620v2 (2.1 GHz, 2.6 GHz Turbo, 6 cores)
• CPU Heat sink: SuperMicro SNK-P0047PS
• CPU Thermal Paste: Arctic Cooling MX-2
• Memory: 4 x Samsung M393B1K70DH0-YK0
  4x8 GB registered ECC 1600 MHz DDR3, 1.35v, dual rank
• Host Bus Adapters:
  • LSI SAS 9201-16i (16 SAS2 ports)
  • Intel Ethernet Server Adapter I350-T2
  • LSI 20320IE (PCI Express Ultra320 SCSI with external LVD)
• Drives:
  • 3 x 4 TB HGST Deskstar 7K4000 (HDS724040ALE640, 4K sector size)
  • 6 x 2 TB Samsung HD204UI (left over from Synology NAS, 4K sector size)
  • 3 x 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro (over-provisioned to 174 GB)
  • 1 x 100 GB Intel DC S3700 (as ZFS intent log, over-provisioned to 8 GB)
  • 2 x 80 GB Intel X25-M SSD (ZFS rpool mirror, over-provisioned by to 40 GB)

Unfortunately, X-Case initially sent me the wrong chassis (RM424s, a short version which did not accommodate the motherboard). Also the motherboard (from Jacob Electronik) was dead-on-arrival. After having quickly resolved those issues, the server has been running smooth ever since (6 months).

Her opskriften på pandekager.

Ingredienser (til ca. 15 pandekager á 20 cm i diameter):

• 230 g hvedemel
• 3 tsk. sukker
• ½ tsk. kardemomme
• 2 æg
• 4.5 dL mælk
• 30 g smør (til stegning)

Fremgangsmåde: Rør mel, sukker og kardemomme sammen. Tilsæt æg og lidt mælk (1 dL) og rør dejen godt sammen. Tilsæt resten af mælken, rør sammen og bag på pande (ca 1 minut på hver side på stort blus sat på 6 til 7).

Her opskriften på Jeffrey Hamelmans fuldkornsrugbrød med hørfrø (læs rugbrød) fra bogen Jeffrey Hamelman: Bread.

Ingredienser (til 2 rugbrød):

• Surdej:
  • 900 g fuldkornsrugmel
  • 900 g vand
  • 40 g surdejskultur
• Rugkerner:
  • 720 g skårne rugkerner
  • 720 g vand (kogende hvis der anvendes knækkede rugkerner)
• Hørfrø:
  • 120 g hørfrø
  • 300 g vand
• Dej (til 1 rugbrød da min KitchenAid ikke kan klare mere ad gangen):
  • 870 g surdej
  • 700 g udblødte rugkerner
  • 210 g udblødte hørfrø
  • 22 g salt
  • 20 g vand
  • 20 g gær
  • 340 g rugmel
  • 1 rugbrødsform + lidt olie til smøring

Fremgangsmåde: Rør surdejskulturen ud i vand, tilsæt rugmel og rør sammen. Stil til hævning et lunt sted (21-22 grader) i cirka 14 til 16 timer. Surdejen skal være hævet og lugte surt.

Et par timer før dejen laves stilles rugkerner og hørfrø i blød i koldt vand (hvis der anvendes knækkede rugkerner, så brug kogende vand).

Dejen samles ved at blande surdej, udblødte rugkerner og hørfrø, salt, vand og gær i en rørmaskine. Til sidst tilsættes rugmelet og dejen røres godt sammen.

Dejen fordeles i formen og sættes til hævning et lunt sted (28-30 grader) i 50-60 minutter.

Rugbrødene bages 15 minutter ved 245 grader, derefter 1 time ved 195 grader hvorefter de tages ud af formen og bages yderligere 15 minutter ved 195 grader. Ialt halvanden time i ovnen.