SOLVED Custom build or IXSYSTEMS FreeNAS mini?

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Hello!
I'm currently in the process of building a NAS for my house.

Preface
I am a software developer, while not an expert in systems, I'm totally capable of using command line, writing bash scripts, SSH and so on. I work on a daily basis on Ubuntu and spend most of my life in the text editor and shell.

I'm trying to find out if a FreeNAS mini would be a better option over a custom-built NAS.
My main concern is future-proofing without spending a fortune: I'm considering the FreeNAS Mini XL just for that purpose (8 bays instead of 4).

Right now, I have a raspberry (2b), with a WD Red attached in USB (with an enclosure that HAS A FAN, to keep temperature low). My experience with HDDs has been terrible: I had 3 HDDs (3TB) die on me, in sequence. They were all clone of the original drive, I had copies, some outdated, so I ended up losing a lot of data (it was a very sad event). So, I have backups! I currently backup stuff by using RSync toward a WD Green (same size as the WD Red) every "now and then" (when I feel it, really).

I scraped another WD Red from my old house (long story, it was running but not in use), so now I have 1 WD Red (3TB) almost full (242 GB free) and another WD Red (3TB) completely free.

Usage

• Storing movies/photos/software
• Playing movies/photos from there
• Playing movies/photos remotely (I have high upload here, yay!)
• Booting up a few local game servers, I'm mainly thinking of Factorio and Minecraft (they will be for family and friends, don't expect more than 10 people on those)
• ownCloud/nextCloud, one of the two. I really need a "personal dropbox"
• Some service to replicate the old feature from dropbox "public folder", basically you copy the files in the folder, right click "copy link" and you can use that link anywhere, raw (not with all those web page stuff that dropbox has around now, sigh)
• Samba
• SFTP
• SSH

Budget
I don't have a real budget plan here. I was considering up to $1500, it's high (I don't feel happy when I think about it), but since my baby came out, I decided my photos are very important and I'd love to have more room for my baby's movies: they happen to take a lot of storage

Updated budget: We decided to go with 1000 CAD$ as a budget (roughly 750 $USD), currently evaluating the PowerEdge T30

Problems
I'm in Canada and while IXSYSTEMS happens to deliver here, I'm extremely concerned about customs giving me a big bill when the item arrives.

Questions

1. Are the FreeNAS Mini up-to-date? I know they have Xeon processors in there, but are those the latest or am I better served by buying those myself and assembling the computer manually (I'm able to do that)
2. Is the FreeNAS Mini XL overkill for just a family?
3. How much space is available on a 3TB hard drive with ZFS?
4. Having 2 3TB hdds, I wasn't planning on setting up replication, I was going to handle them as two separate drives (different data). Also the first HDD will be mostly "readonly", since it's full and I want to keep the data in there
5. What are the disadvantages of a FreeNAS mini?

Any suggestion is welcome. I'm posting this as a brain dump where people could point flaws in my thinking. I might just be hyped because of a new "toy to tinker with" and in reality my requirements are low and a 700$ computer could be enough.

 

[Yorick]

I think the dell t30 that c. Moore found as a budget option would be enough. Room for 4 drives. You’ll want more than those 8GB in there - my main concern with that system would be your desire to run Minecraft servers, which will need memory.

You can start without replication, just allow for the drive dying and have an off-site backup that’s automated.

Keep in mind you can shuck wd elements 8tb and will most likely end up with hgst he8 spun down to 5400 rpm. Two of those and you have a mirror with a lot of space. Well under your budget, too.

I wonder whether the board in that dell can take 16Gb modules. I’d be a little shocked if not. Chances are you can make that 32gb, and that allows you to run VMs on top of the fileserving and cloud syncing.

 

[microserf]

Problems
I'm in Canada and while IXSYSTEMS happens to deliver here, I'm extremely concerned about customs giving me a big bill when the item arrives.

Taxes will be assessed and are generally payable to the courier before home delivery. For example, in British Columbia you'd see 12% added.

Having 2 3TB hdds, I wasn't planning on setting up replication, I was going to handle them as two separate drives (different data). Also the first HDD will be mostly "readonly", since it's full and I want to keep the data in there

Read these first:
A Complete Guide to FreeNAS Hardware Design, Part I: Purpose and Best Practices
A Complete Guide to FreeNAS Hardware Design, Part II: Hardware Specifics
A Complete Guide to FreeNAS Hardware Design, Part III: Pools, Performance, and Cache
A Complete Guide to FreeNAS Hardware Design, Part IV: Network Notes & Conclusion
Six Metrics for Measuring ZFS Pool Performance Part 1
Six Metrics for Measuring ZFS Pool Performance Part 2

Edit: to fix a link.

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I think the dell t30 that c. Moore found as a budget option would be enough. Room for 4 drives. You’ll want more than those 8GB in there - my main concern with that system would be your desire to run Minecraft servers, which will need memory.

You can start without replication, just allow for the drive dying and have an off-site backup that’s automated.

Keep in mind you can shuck wd elements 8tb and will most likely end up with hgst he8 spun down to 5400 rpm. Two of those and you have a mirror with a lot of space. Well under your budget, too.

I wonder whether the board in that dell can take 16Gb modules. I’d be a little shocked if not. Chances are you can make that 32gb, and that allows you to run VMs on top of the fileserving and cloud syncing.

Where can I find the FreeNAS mini specs? I can't seem to find those anywhere on their website (they have very high level specs). Like, what motherboard/cpu/ram models and which case.

I'm considering the lockable case important now. I have a baby and it will go around destroying stuff very soon. Or just pressing the power button.

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Taxes will be assessed and are generally payable to the courier before home delivery. For example, in British Columbia you'd see 12% added.


Read these first:
A Complete Guide to FreeNAS Hardware Design, Part I: Purpose and Best Practices
A Complete Guide to FreeNAS Hardware Design, Part II: Hardware Specifics
A Complete Guide to FreeNAS Hardware Design, Part III: Pools, Performance, and Cache
A Complete Guide to FreeNAS Hardware Design, Part IV: Network Notes & Conclusion
Six Metrics for Measuring ZFS Pool Performance Part 1
Six Metrics for Measuring ZFS Pool Performance Part 2

Edit: to fix a link.

Thanks,
After reading the guide I'm even more interested in buying a FreeNAS mini rather than something else.
However, I'd love to know the hardware in use.
Also, I found on amazon FreeNAS Mini XL (the one I'm looking for) at $1800 CAD, but it doesn't mention if it's the latest one or an old model, or what hardware it uses. It also doesn't give me an option to buy warranty for it, I'd love to have 3 years warranty on a 1800$ device (I miss Europe for these kind of things, 2 years is bare minimum for costly electronic devices)!

 

[microserf]

I don't own one. From what I've read on these forums, it uses the ASRock C2750D4I motherboard:
https://www.amazon.ca/ASRock-Motherboard-C2750D4I-COLOR-BOX/dp/B00HIDQG6E

See this similar discussion:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/freenas-mini-xl-or-diy.52210/

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I don't own one. From what I've read on these forums, it uses the ASRock C2750D4I motherboard:
https://www.amazon.ca/ASRock-Motherboard-C2750D4I-COLOR-BOX/dp/B00HIDQG6E

See this similar discussion:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/freenas-mini-xl-or-diy.52210/

My wife pointed out that we might not need something that costs around 2000 $CAD (sigh, I was so looking forward it), the Dell T30 might handle all our needs for $750 CAD. I couldn't find an argument against that, except for the great case FreeNAS mini has (with the key), which is very good since my baby will be a toddler in 1-2 months and will try to shutdown all my computers

 

[microserf]

Wives do that .

I would suggest you familiarize yourself with ZFS vdevs, mirrors, and raidz before taking the plunge. You should be planning on buying a hard drive or four if you go the T30 route. The last two links in my earlier post go through it.

The current FreeNAS manual is located here:
https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/

Adding a drive to a storage pool wipes the data currently on it. One possible path to take with your current 3TB WD Red is outlined here:
https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/storage.html#importing-a-disk

 

[danb35]

To address some specific points:

• No, the FreeNAS Mini doesn't have a Xeon of any flavor; it has an Atom C2750. This is a perfectly capable CPU, if a bit long in the tooth (though there really isn't anything, AFAIK, that's a direct replacement).
• Most of us who use FreeNAS want redundancy for our data--some flavor of RAID. It will certainly support individual single-disk pools, but that really isn't the way the system is intended to be used.

I have a baby and it will go around destroying stuff very soon. Or just pressing the power button.

I'm sure the system could be put in a place where the baby can't reach it.

How much space is available on a 3TB hard drive with ZFS?

Very close to 3 TB--I think ZFS uses something like 3% of disk space for overhead, the rest is available to the user.

What are the disadvantages of a FreeNAS mini?

IMO, it's the "bang for your buck." If the small mini-ITX case is essential to you, that will really limit your options. But if you can deal with having a larger, less-sexy case, you can get quite a bit more machine for your money, and probably with better cooling as well. And if you can bring yourself to buy used hardware, you can save much more yet (for example--my current system, which you can see in my sig, cost me less than a FreeNAS Mini XL, including everything but the disks).

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

To address some specific points:

• No, the FreeNAS Mini doesn't have a Xeon of any flavor; it has an Atom C2750. This is a perfectly capable CPU, if a bit long in the tooth (though there really isn't anything, AFAIK, that's a direct replacement).
• Most of us who use FreeNAS want redundancy for our data--some flavor of RAID. It will certainly support individual single-disk pools, but that really isn't the way the system is intended to be used.

I'm sure the system could be put in a place where the baby can't reach it.

Very close to 3 TB--I think ZFS uses something like 3% of disk space for overhead, the rest is available to the user.

IMO, it's the "bang for your buck." If the small mini-ITX case is essential to you, that will really limit your options. But if you can deal with having a larger, less-sexy case, you can get quite a bit more machine for your money, and probably with better cooling as well. And if you can bring yourself to buy used hardware, you can save much more yet (for example--my current system, which you can see in my sig, cost me less than a FreeNAS Mini XL, including everything but the disks).

All good points!

I solved the case problem. There is an out-of-reach location as long as it's less than 55cm high, which should be ok for most tower cases.

That frees me of most of the issues.
Regarding redundancy, it totally makes sense for the new HDD I'm going to add, but for the readonly one, I'm good with no redundancy, since that + a clone of it it's basically all I need. Aside from setting my house on fire (which could happen, but that's a much bigger problem), I should be good.

So, I'll update my budget to 1000 CAD$. In an ideal world, I get 8 HDD slots so that the "single read only drive" won't annoy me that much (on 4 slots it's very annoying due to the power-of-2 rule)

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Wives do that :).

I would suggest you familiarize yourself with ZFS vdevs, mirrors, and raidz before taking the plunge. You should be planning on buying a hard drive or four if you go the T30 route. The last two links in my earlier post go through it.

The current FreeNAS manual is located here:
https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/

Adding a drive to a storage pool wipes the data currently on it. One possible path to take with your current 3TB WD Red is outlined here:
https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2/storage.html#importing-a-disk

I'm reading the pdf presentation regarding vdevs, zpool etc: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzHapVfrocfwblFvMVdvQ2ZqTGM/view

Based on it, I'd really like 8 slots rather 4, so I can build a pool of 4 (6?) and use the other 4 (2?) slots as "singles" (1 vdev in one zpool), since they are readonly.
Basically, the first 4 slots are for experiments, the remainings are for once i'm settled and have money for all those drives.

Edit: Reading futher, a raidz2 vdev of 6 drives in one zpool, then one zpool with one vdev with one drive would be ok for me, with one spare slot left.

I also understood I'll never be able to pick the right hardware. I'm really concerned about compatibility.

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

After careful examination, I think I'll go with a Dell T30 and 2x3tb (mirroring) and later 2x6tb (mirroring again). I waste some space, but it's the only thing that allow me to build the raid over time. It took me some time to fill 3tb and 6 additional would be a lot. I'd also get good replication and I can easily backup the data on the 6tb drives by just rsyncing to another 6tb drive.

Out of curiosity, if you have a raid-z2 for 16tb, how do you backup that data? It doesn't fit on a single hard drive, so you can't just rsync.

Unless someone has a good suggestion for the same price point ($750-1000 CAD) with 6-8 3.5'' bays (I can even assemble it myself if needed, but I don't love it), I'll buy the Dell T30 tomorrow morning. I'm concerned it doesn't have an Intel NIC, do I have to buy one?

Thanks everyone

 

[Yorick]

> Out of curiosity, if you have a raid-z2 for 16tb, how do you backup that data?

That is a really good question. The short answer is: By replication to another FreeNAS server, take a look at replication. That covers the "2" of "3-2-1" (3-2-1 backup scheme: 3 copies of data, 2 on separate machines, 1 offsite), and then you'd need an offsite copy, something cloudy with lots of storage space, via FreeNAS Cloud Sync.

It also matters what those data are. In my case, FreeNAS holds digital copies of physical entertainment media, and the backup files from two PCs. The PCs get synced to the cloud, from the PC's, for their "1" of the "3-2-1", and that FreeNAS copy _is_ the "2", so I can lose it and be good.

For the entertainment media, I've decided it's not important enough to back up the digital copies, and not important enough to have an offsite. If the volume dies, I'd have to recreate digital copies from physical - annoying but not the end of the world. If my house burns down or someone steals both the FreeNAS server and the cabinet with the physical copies in it, oh well. Insurance will cover it. That's just a risk calculation: I've got roughly 9.5 TiB of entertainment data, that'd cost 50/month via BackBlaze, 600/year. Not worth it for me. I'll just replace if my house burns, and consider that the least of my worries. If those were baby photos, that'd be a different story. Those I couldn't replace.

Know your risk, know what you're willing to accept, and if your assessment tells you you need 3-2-1, do.

 

[Yorick]

Unless someone has a good suggestion for the same price point ($750-1000 CAD) with 6-8 3.5'' bays (I can even assemble it myself if needed, but I don't love it)

You'd have to love it. @Chris Moore has an amazingly cost-effective "Xeon v2 eBay scrounger build" on these forums: In your case it'd go into a Fractal Define R5, which gives you 8 drive mounts, and then you'd get parts from eBay and assemble them. When I last looked at it, it came to USD 710-730 without drives. You get a powerful and flexible system; you'll also be assembling components from eBay. Unless that shouts "fun hobby!" at you, my advice is to go with the Dell.

 

[danb35]

Out of curiosity, if you have a raid-z2 for 16tb, how do you backup that data?

Alas poor @Yorick has suggested replication to another ZFS system, which is probably the ideal scenario. Cloud solutions can also work, though they can get expensive--the most cost-effective is probably the Google Drive that comes with Google Apps for Business, at $10/mo. FreeNAS has the cloud sync feature built in and will encrypt the data before transmission.

It doesn't fit on a single hard drive, so you can't just rsync.

I don't see what those two statements have to do with each other.

 

[Chris Moore]

I will point out that many people have started with used gear to save money on the initial setup. Is that something you want to consider?
Also, regarding the backup question, I am running a pair of FreeNAS systems with an hourly sync to keep the backup current.
It has saved me some pain a couple of times, but you can protect your files from deletion by snapshots in pool. Physical backup is a safeguard against catastrophic hardware failure .

 

[danb35]

I will point out that many people have started with used gear to save money on the initial setup.

...and many are even continuing to use that as their long-term setup. Energy efficiency might not be as good as the most current stuff, but they can (as you know, of course) still save lots of money.

 

[Yorick]

@danb35 $60/month for that unlimited cloud storage - up to 5 users its limited to 1TB/user.

https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html

 

[danb35]

@danb35 $60/month for that unlimited cloud storage - up to 5 users its limited to 1TB/user.

Officially, yes. Unofficially, reports are that it's unlimited even as a single user. But, of course, they could begin to enforce that at any time.

 

[Yorick]

Looking around for used gear, here’s one idea Lenovo ts460. https://m.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw...334524.m4084.l1313.TR3.TRC0.A0.H0.Xts460.TRS0

I’m sure there are equivalents by hp and dell, and older versions for even less