Depends on the network speed. At 1Gbps a single HDD can easily saturate the network with sequential reads. A pair of HDD could do the same at 2.5Gbps. At 10Gbps or more, you would definitely see the benefits of caching in memory.
Not as much as expected. I have several toy ZFS pools out of ancient 3tb wd reds, and anything remotely home-grade (stripped mirrors, 4,6,8 wide raidz1/2) saturates the disks before 10gig networking. As long as it's sequential, 8gb or 128gb doesn't matter.
Not as much as expected. I have several toy ZFS pools out of ancient 3tb wd reds, and anything remotely home-grade (stripped mirrors, 4,6,8 wide raidz1/2) saturates the disks before 10gig networking. As long as it's sequential, 8gb or 128gb doesn't matter.