BUILD Another 1st-time builder

[Dillan]

I have spent a bit of time reading different guides and trying to find something for my needs. I am planning on a server to last me many years, capable of plex streaming, and a couple virtualbox machines as well. Here is what I have moved towards:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/LBY4FT

• CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($239.99 @ SuperBiiz)
• Motherboard: Supermicro X10SL7-F Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($251.98 @ Newegg)
• Memory: 2x Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($87.98 @ Directron)
• Storage: 5x Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive ($149.89 @ OutletPC)
• Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Arctic White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ SuperBiiz)
• Power Supply: SeaSonic 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($74.99 @ SuperBiiz)
• UPS: CyberPower CP850AVRLCD UPS ($104.95 @ B&H)

Total: $1677.31

The price is a little higher than I was hoping for, but not unreasonably. I figured this would give me a bit under 12TB of space using RAIDZ2, which to my understanding would be the way to go. My main questions would be:

1. if this is the idea processor and motherboard for what I need (I find the mountain of options a little difficult to sort through, when documentation is so scarce at times),
2. if I need 32GB of ram,
3. will this power supply cover the necessary load safely,
4. and if I picked the UPS correctly. Should it simply match the wattage of the power supply? I gave it about a 50W buffer to be on the safe side, but there isn't a whole lot of information on picking one.
5. (half question about boot drives. The official documentation states to go with a USB stick or two, however more recent posts indicate that USB isn't as reliable as a small SSD, would I be safe either way?)

Aside from a boot drive, am I missing anything else?

Thanks for being the best!

 

[Dice]

Hello, Welcome to the forums.
1. yes.
2. yes.

4. yes. Always backup the config file regularly from the gui. There is a simple button "save config". As some of the 'forum elders' puts it: 'loosing a boot drive should not be a major event with FreeNAS' - that is if you've saved your config to an accessible location. If USBsticks, care enough to get atleast 2.

Cheers,

 

[ALFA]

About the power supply you can always check this thread -> https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/

 

[Ericloewe]

Memory: 2x Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($87.98 @ Directron)

That's an odd choice. It should work, but it's not validated and nobody around here is familiar with it. Consider CT2KIT102472BD160B instead.

if this is the idea processor and motherboard for what I need

The CPU is probably overkill. Are you planning to transcode? If not, an i3-4330 would probably be plenty.
If you're okay with limiting yourself to six drives for the foreseeable future, consider an X10SLM+-F instead, which will save you some cash and still allow you to expand later by adding an LSI SAS controller. The X10SL7-F is attractive if you're going to need the SAS controller soon, since it's cheaper than buying it separately.

if I need 32GB of ram,

Probably not immediately. If it turns out that you do, it's easily added after the fact.

will this power supply cover the necessary load safely,

Sure.

• and if I picked the UPS correctly. Should it simply match the wattage of the power supply? I gave it about a 50W buffer to be on the safe side, but there isn't a whole lot of information on picking one.

Not quite that easy, but that model should be fine.

• (half question about boot drives. The official documentation states to go with a USB stick or two, however more recent posts indicate that USB isn't as reliable as a small SSD, would I be safe either way?)

SSDs are more reliable, but take up a SATA port. USB drives are cheaper and less reliable. Either option is fine. Just be sure you keep an up-to-date backup of the config file.

 

[Dillan]

Consider CT2KIT102472BD160B instead.

Thanks for that, I wasn't able to see too many specifics on type of ram outside of it being ECC and matching buffered/unbuffered.

The CPU is probably overkill. Are you planning to transcode? If not, an i3-4330 would probably be plenty.

I was planning on using plex which would bring transcoding with it. Outside of that however, I wasn't planning much. Would the i3 still be sufficient?

If you're okay with limiting yourself to six drives for the foreseeable future, consider an X10SLM+-F instead

Sorry, understanding the minute differences in different motherboards is not my strong suite. On newegg I found the X10SLM+-F-O that was cheaper by a bit. What would be the drawbacks of dropping to the X10SLL-F-O? I also noticed the + in the name comes and goes on different product sites, any concern there?

Of course I am still early in the planning phase. Say I implement the system and find managing freeNAS is too much work for me to maintain, and I want something I could just set and forget for the most part. I don't think this will happen but if it did and I decided to use OMV or amahi as the OS, how much would the hardware change? ZFS is ram intensive, so I imagine that would take the ram down to 8gb maybe? It's mostly just a hypothetical learning situation, since the other server OS sites don't have nearly the documentation or support forums.

This has really helped me solidify my hardware choices, thanks.

 

[Spearfoot]

• Storage: 5x Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive ($149.89 @ OutletPC)

Is OutletPC an 'authorized reseller' of Western Digital drives? If not, there's a good chance Western Digital won't give you a warranty on drives you purchase from them. You might want to consider purchasing these from Amazon or NewEgg -- both are authorized resellers and both offer the WDC Reds for just about the same price.

 

[Dillan]

Is OutletPC an 'authorized reseller' of Western Digital drives? .

pcpartpicker automatically lists the cheapest price, so that is what got copied over. I will more than likely wait for a newegg sale (they seem to pop up ever month or so) to get the drives.

 

[Ericloewe]

Would the i3 still be sufficient?

Depends on what you're doing in virtualbox... It's hard to say. Minus that, an i3 can easily handle a small number of transcoded streams (1-2).

Sorry, understanding the minute differences in different motherboards is not my strong suite. On newegg I found the X10SLM+-F-O that was cheaper by a bit. What would be the drawbacks of dropping to the X10SLL-F-O? I also noticed the + in the name comes and goes on different product sites, any concern there?

They're different boards: https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ed-to-buy-a-supermicro-x10-motherboard….25951

Either is fine, but the X10SLM+-F is better.

 

[Dillan]

Depends on what you're doing in virtualbox... It's hard to say. Minus that, an i3 can easily handle a small number of transcoded streams (1-2).

From what I have been reading about, running crashplan in a virtualbox is the most reliable way to go, so 98% of the time, it would just be a linux box for backing up. I might play around with other machines here and there, but I doubt it would ever be at the same time as streaming from plex. Maybe there is a middle ground of a beefier i3 I could use?

 

[Matthew Webb]

That's an odd choice. It should work, but it's not validated and nobody around here is familiar with it. Consider CT2KIT102472BD160B instead.

For more info on CT2KIT102472BD160B, read this post...
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...or-supermicro-x10-lga1150-motherboards.23291/

Cheers,
Matt.

 

[Ericloewe]

Maybe there is a middle ground of a beefier i3 I could use?

Intra-family differences are mostly irrelevant. All i3s have two cores, only the L3 cache size (between 41xx and 43xx) and clocks vary.

It's not the end of the world if the i3 isn't enough for your needs, it's easily swapped out for a Xeon - you just need to find a use for the i3 or take a hit and sell it.

I'm not too familiar with crashplan (or anything popular in jails, really - I have a hard enough time keeping up with the rest of the forum, so I don't read the jails and plugins sections), but I don't imagine it as a serious computational load. That said, the VM environment has non-trivial overhead that may tax a 2c/4T processor due to frequent context switching.

 

[Dillan]

For more info on CT2KIT102472BD160B, read this post...
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...or-supermicro-x10-lga1150-motherboards.23291/.

this place is great.

Intra-family differences are mostly irrelevant. All i3s have two cores, only the L3 cache size (between 41xx and 43xx) and clocks vary.

It's not the end of the world if the i3 isn't enough for your needs, it's easily swapped out for a Xeon - you just need to find a use for the i3 or take a hit and sell it.

I'm not too familiar with crashplan (or anything popular in jails, really - I have a hard enough time keeping up with the rest of the forum, so I don't read the jails and plugins sections), but I don't imagine it as a serious computational load. That said, the VM environment has non-trivial overhead that may tax a 2c/4T processor due to frequent context switching.

Alright, thanks for the info, I will spend a bit of time researching in that area of the forum, but other than that, I feel like I have put together a fairly confident machine!

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/GrzbnQ

• CPU: Intel Core i3-4330 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($134.98 @ NCIX US)
• Motherboard: Supermicro X10SLM-F-O Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($176.65 @ NCIX US)
• Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($92.29 @ Amazon)
• Storage: 5x Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive ($149.99 @ Newegg)
• Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Arctic White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ SuperBiiz)
• Power Supply: SeaSonic 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($74.99 @ SuperBiiz)
• UPS: CyberPower CP850AVRLCD UPS ($104.95 @ Newegg)
• Other: SSD/SATA Dom ($30.00)

Total: $1443.40

 

[cyberjock]

Where in AZ are you at Dillan?

 

[Dillan]

Where in AZ are you at Dillan?

Flagstaff, although I will be in the valley for the summer for an internship. Do you live here too?

 

[cyberjock]

Yeah. I'm in the valley myself. :P

 

[AVB]

No comment on the build but the 4TB WD Reds are 5400 rpm drives not 5900 rpm.

 

[Jailer]

I figured this would give me a bit under 12TB of space using RAIDZ2

This will not give you 12TB of free space. After redundancy, TB-Tib calculations and ZFS overhead you'll have 10.9TiB. And sticking to the 80% rule that gives you roughly 8.5 TiB of usable space.

Check out the excellent ZFS RAID size and reliability calculator thread that @Bidule0hm prepared for more info.

 

[Dillan]

Yeah. I'm in the valley myself. :p

It's the best place to be!

No comment on the build but the 4TB WD Reds are 5400 rpm drives not 5900 rpm.

Yeah, pcpartpicker's entries are screwed up sometimes, but of course linking to the actual website you see the correct rpm.

This will not give you 12TB of free space. After redundancy, TB-Tib calculations and ZFS overhead you'll have 10.9TiB. And sticking to the 80% rule that gives you roughly 8.5 TiB of usable space.

Right, I was mostly just talking in full disk size for simplicity, I am aware the size will be smaller.

 

[Dillan]

Assuming I get some WD Red 4TBs for 130, what would be better for the data - 6 3TB or 5 4TB? It would be practically the same amount of storage, and nearly the same cost.

 

[Bidule0hm]

I'd say 5x 4 TB but it's pure intuitive logic so I may be wrong :)