BUILD Any suggestions? First (server) build

[Michelli]

After two HDDs died within a month (had backups fortunately) and with my storage capacity quickly running out because of media files, I decided that it's time for a server. Currently saving up money.

Since the router is located in the living room, the plan is to also put the server somewhere in the living room. Furthermore, I still live at home (still studying). Hence the small and somewhat subtle case, and the mITX motherboard.

The plan is to mainly use it as a file server for streaming/downloading media (sickbeard, couchpotato, Kodi/Plex, etc.), and to make backups for me and my mum. Some transcoding through Plex will probably also be used, but probably not more than 1 stream at a time.

The plan is to run the HDDs in Raidz2, meaning I'll have roughly 18TB, which will be more than sufficient for now.

Case:
Silverstone DS380 - € 160
Small, looks nice, and can hold a lot of HDDs.

Motherboard:
ASRock C2550D4I ~ €315 or
ASRock C2750D4I ~ €420
Still contemplating if the C2750 is worth the extra money for my needs.

RAM:
Crucial CT2KIT102472BA160B ~ €160
2x8GB DDR3 SO-DIMM with ECC support

HDDs:
8x WD Green 3TB ~ €800
(wdidle will be used)
Are the WD Reds worth the 20% increase in price?

PSU:
Silverstone SX500-LG ~ €80
Case requires an SFX PSU.

(Prices are listed in euros, since I live in the Netherlands.)

Any thoughts/suggestions? Thanks in advance.

 

[demon]

If you're going to run Plex at all, you'll probably want the extra cores that the C2750 brings to the table, especially if you end up transcoding ever. (Particularly since you can't upgrade the CPU later... at least not without replacing all the things.)

Edit: Also, just for the record, the Crucial kit you're mentioning is not SO-DIMM - but that's fine, because the ASRock boards don't take SO-DIMMs (I have the C2750D4I myself, and used Crucial RAM for my buildout.)

Edit 2: Also also, the 500 W SilverStone is probably overkill; my build with 6 WD Red 3 TB drives and an LSI SAS 9208-8i PCI-E host adapter idles around 50-60W, and my calculated max draw was around 200-ish watts. You'd probably be fine with a 300-450W SFX power supply, but definitely don't go up in wattage, or you'll get even further from the most efficient draw range.

 

[rogerh]

Re Red or Green. There seems to be some doubt if Greens currently being sold have TLER. As you probably know, drives without TLER can go offline for longish periods (rather than a max of about 7 seconds with TLER). I am not an expert so I am not sure if this is catastrophic with ZFS (it can cause hardware raid to stop working) but it is really the only convincing reason for not using Greens as far as I am concerned. The other differences (as long as the rapid head parking with Greens is switched off with wdidle3) seem less convincing given the >10% price differential. See what others think.

 

[Ericloewe]

Greens do not support TLER, according to everything I've seen.

 

[DataKeeper]

I agree on the C2750 over the C2550. Its a small price difference and I've always been one for getting the best CPU you can upfront. If you can swing the REDs that's how you should go.

Btw.. I don't see a UPS listed. Do not forget a UPS! Make sure you have one even for the build and add in a cheap anti static wrist strap for a couple bucks as well.

 

[Darren Myers]

I'd want the better CPU so you dont have to sell the current mobo and upgrade later. I would shoot for Reds rather then greens, and yes a UPS is certainly recommended!

 

[Jailer]

There have been a few reports of questionable reliability of the on board Marvel SATA ports on the Asrock boards. Might want to do a bit of research so you are at least making an informed choice if you do purchasing one.

You also will not have "around 18TB" of space with 8x3TB drives in a RAIDZ2 configuration, you will end up with around 16.4TB. And keeping in line with best practices on drive space utilization of no more than 80% your practical usable storage space will be around 13.1 TB.

 

[marbus90]

There have been a few reports of questionable reliability of the on board Marvel SATA ports on the Asrock boards. Might want to do a bit of research so you are at least making an informed choice if you do purchasing one.

You also will not have "around 18TB" of space with 8x3TB drives in a RAIDZ2 configuration, you will end up with around 16.4TB. And keeping in line with best practices on drive space utilization of no more than 80% your practical usable storage space will be around 13.1 TB.

not TB... it's 16.4TiB. Also the rule has been bumped to 90% -> 14.7TiB. IOf that ZFS reserves some space (up to 10%) for metadata.

Really, don't use the Marvell ports. They don't work properly. They'll crash your pool and crush your data. Better go for 6x4TB drives which still yields 13TiB of usable storage after the 90% rule and use a more basic motherboard.