Building replacement NAS

[Nevryn]

Hi,

Building a box to replace my seriously old FreeNAS server, and thought best to get it sanity checked.

I'm replacing a HP N36L Microserver (~9 years old now) that has 16GB ECC RAM and 5TB of usable storage (a 2TB and a 3TB RAID1Z sets), running FreeNAS 9.1 (I think - I haven't updated it for a while) Doesn't do much other than be a NAS, a TimeMachine backend, run Transmission (via a plugin jail) and DLNA server (via a plugin MiniDNLA jail) without transcoding. I've got another general purpose jail on it, running a PHP photo gallery app. It's not doing anything as I'd describe as heavy usage.

I'm looking at something a bit more modern, but of a similar form factor. Currently considering:

SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SDV-4C-TLN2F-O Intel Xeon D-1521 Mini ITX Server Motherboard
SUPERMICRO CSE-721TQ-250B Black Mini-Tower Server Case
Supermicro MEM-DR416L-SL01-ER21 16GB DDR4 2133 RDIMM Server Memory RAM

And either a pair of 8TB or 4 x 4TB Western Digital Red NAS drives, and a small SSD to boot off.

So, will it FreeNAS?

Thanks,

Nevryn

 

[Nevryn]

Okay, slightly different question - will I run into thermal issues with that case, and the passively cooled CPU? Only fan is in the Power supply.

 

[Constantin]

In that case (the CSE-721), I'd put a dedicated CPU cooler on the 1521. See tinkertry, servethehome, and like sites for inspiration.

The thermal load is going to be significantly higher for a D-1521 with a 45W load than the C2750 they put into a Mini (which uses the same case). The mini also features a lot of fans - two on the front under the disk drives, another one in the rear.

Even so, I don't consider this case design to be ideal. I would have preferred a taller case with a top exhaust to help the drives at the top of the stack. This is especially true for the Mini XL during scrubs - the two top drives could get very hot.

For a NAS with a limited need for disks, the old Q26 case from Lian Li is pretty ideal. Plenty of air flow, the possibility of SATA backplanes (that you can make hot-swappable if you put in the time and necessary capacitors), room for a mini-ITX board, and a nice standard ATX power supply. The C2750 I ran in there was happy. But these cases can be hard to find these days (and can be pricey).

Instead, I'd consider a used supermicro chassis on ebay. They can be ludicrously inexpensive and offer pro qualities. I'm still considering ditching my Lian Li A76 for a CSE-836BA to have the chassis ready for expansion should I ever want to add a 2nd VDEV of drives.

 

[Nevryn]

Size (and noise) is very much a consideration for my build, so that'll rule out any of the larger chassis, and why I was looking at the CSE-721 in the first place.

I do take your point about the horizontally stacked drives tho'. The drives at the top are definitely going to get hot.

Might consider Fractal Node 304 instead.
https://www.newegg.com/global/au-en/black-fractal-design-node-304-mini-itx-tower/p/N82E16811352027

 

[Nevryn]

Hmm. Over in this thread someone is being talked out of the Node 304 and into the CSE-721

https://www.ixsystems.com/community...-itx-40tb-home-file-server-first-build.76438/

 

[KrisBee]

You can have long periods of high ambient temps "Down Under", so how does your N36L cope? What kind of disk temps do you see during scrubs? What speed is the rear fan operating at? Does it ramp up and down in the N36L?

Choosing to stick with the same from factor limits both case and m/board choice and raises the question of cooling. AFAIK, the current FreeNAS mini 4 drive model only has a single rear 120mm fan and cooling is less of a concern in the this case than the 8 drive FreeNAS mini XL. Personally, I would favour 4 x 4TB drives in a stripe of mirrors or raidz2 over a single 2 x 8TB mirror, assuming 8TB usable is sufficient in the long term.

The node 304 is popular and allows for the magic six hard drives, but where does the SSD boot drive go? Cabling is a challenge in the node 304 and needs planning and thought to get it this good: https://www.ixsystems.com/community...node-304-x10sdv-tln4f-esxi-freenas-aio.57116/ You have the additional cost of a PSU which really needs to be (semi)modular to avoid an internal rats nest and assist with decent air flow.

I like the CSE-721 for the ease of working (pull out motherboard tray) proper backplane and potential for neat cabling. Of course, you are limited to 4 hard drives, but you have two internal mounts for SSDs.

But the other question I have is if the way you use your NAS is not going to change significantly from the N36L, is you proposed hardware list over kill? How are you, for instance, going to utilise the 10Gb networking?

I wonder if the HP microserver gen8 was still in production, if you would have been happy with that?

 

[Snow]

Why not 10Gb/s :)! I think his system looks good I like supermicro but what do you like they both will work?