First Attempt at Building

[Seal of Samsara]

I've been considering attempting a FreeNAS build for a while now. However, despite reading through some of the documentation, I feel ignorance. At minimum, I feel ignorance towards the hardware. I have already acquired HDDs (WD Red 3 TB drives) and am now attempting to figure out a suitable build to house them.

Going onto the Supermicro website, I filtered on 4U, Titanium, and 24 drive bays. Among those I used what rudimentary knowledge I had to narrow it down to:
SuperChassis 846BE2C-R1K23B (E2C: Dual SAS3 (12Gbps) expander backplane)
SuperChassis 846XA-R1K23B (Direct Attached HDD backplane)
SuperChassis 846XE1C-R1K23B (Single SAS3 (12Gbps) expander backplane)
The second column represents something I thought might be important. I.e., in reading some threads, I've been given the feeling that direct attached would be better although both can achieve the same purpose by connecting things the right way.

I also notice that, at the bottom, a couple of them list motherboards, i.e. X10DRX or X9DRX+-F. In particular, the max listed SATA connections is 10, however, I presume that's where the PCI-E 3.0 expansion slots come into play in order to utilize the full 24 bays of the chassis. Correct?

However, it seems that X10DRX, even with the 10-1 PCI-Es would at most give me 20 connections (assuming it's a 1 to 1 of PCI-E to SATA connector). Presumably that's not the case, i.e. the expansion could allow multiple SATA connections, however, what's a suitable amount per PCI-E?

Lastly, to clarify my intent, it's merely to store data. No rendering or anything fancy, merely storage. I also have no preference for non-wired connection to the NAS. Truly, my concerns are # of bays, noise, and power usage.

Based off of my conceptions, SuperChassis 846XA-R1K23B with X10DRX would suite my purposes, but would perhaps be overkill.

Could I have some advice in my approach towards choosing parts? Focusing in on what I'm optimizing for, i.e. # of bays, noise, and power usage as opposed to speed, (wireless) connectivity, or some type of job running on the NAS (an the jump in the amount in RAM that would require).

Separately, I will claim to be completely ignorant as to what a "Mini-i-Pass" is.

Pardon if I've not sufficient research before posting.

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

Why not use some LSI 9220-8i HBA cards (e.g. IBM M1015) flashed to IT mode with a SATA breakout cable? You can find them on eBay for US$25 (plus the cables). Each card will support 8 drives.

 

[Seal of Samsara]

Why not use some LSI 9220-8i HBA cards (e.g. IBM M1015) flashed to IT mode with a SATA breakout cable? You can find them on eBay for US$25 (plus the cables). Each card will support 8 drives.

Perhaps. I presume that by supporting 8 drives it would run well with 8 drives (especially considering my semi-cold storage approach). However, I presume that example is just one example considering https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/simple-question-ibm-m1015-still-a-good-card.64341/ states that it's not compatible with PCIe-3. For the X10DRX and the X9DRX all but one are PCIe-3.

I don't know if in my ignorance I should just buy a SuperStorage from superMicro, however, my hope was to save some money. I also took note of the X9DRX being discontinued, but perhaps it could be found used. Actually, further reading the docs the X9DRX seems superior to the X10DRX since it can handle double-bit error correction.

Edit:
Found https://mbsa.supermicro.com/mbsa/default.aspx
In setting X9, 4U, 7-14 SATA, > 6 PCIe, No Workstation, it seems: X9DRH-7F is what I want, expect for I'm sad that it isn't all SATA 3.0. Searching the equivalent for X10, i.e. X10, 4U, 9-10 SATA ports, 6 > PCIe, No Workstation, does satisfy me with the pure SATA 3.0, however, everything is single-bit error correcting, not double bit. Checking X11 with 4U, 7-14 SATA, > 6 PCIe, No Workstation has every motherboard with double bit correct except the worst match X11DPL-i which lacks it.
All the X11 hits are good (again, except for the last one), but I can just see the cost being much higher than that for the X9.

 

[Seal of Samsara]

Inclusions:
Compatible with 4U
Single-bit error correction
Double-bit error detection
ECC RAM compatibility
Sufficient PCI-E 3.0s and in-built SATA cables for expandability. E.g. 24-36 HDDs.
1 USB 3.0 port for a keyboard (If GUI, then 2 USB 3.0 ports--one for the mouse)
Chassis intrusion detection
1 X GbE LAN port (X can be replaced with 1, 10, or 100. I'm not sure how much speed is needed or if the writing system would be the bottleneck anyways.)

Exclusions:
Audio related compatibility--this is purely a storage unit.

Optional:
Wireless connectivity related things. I could deal with a single ethernet cable connecting to the NAS. I.e., then my PC or another PC could act as a gateway.
VGA port--due to the LAN port, I could monitor it from a separate PC, right? Most boards will come with this anyways though, I guess.

Determination:
Chassis compatible with motherboard with 36 slots:
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/chassis/4U/847/SC847BE1C4-R1K23LPB

https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X11DPH-i
Has double-bit error detection.
Has 10 SATA + 3 PCI-E 3.0 x16, 4 PCI-E 3.0 x8 ~ 10 + 24 + 32 = 66 drives possible (taking the above user's input).
~$570 from newegg for the motherboard.
~$2000 from newegg for the chassis. (the 24 drive version is about ~$1700)
~$120 from the official site for RAM (each) CT16G4WFD8266 (Crucial 16 GB ECC. I question how one can come up with 4 TB of ram at these prices. I also question the 1 GB of RAM per TB of storage. Especially for a pure storage unit without any major processing.)

Still don't know what CPU to use. The motherboard seems to allow a pretty broad amount. Since I'm just using this for storage I don't think I need anything too powerful. I actually have an old i7 from a laptop lying around if that could be used. Currently landing at ~$2800-$3000 in cost. I guess I'm also forgetting the PSU, but I think the cost would at most reach $3500. Will modify when I figure out a PSU. I would still like to ask the question if my i7 from my laptop could be used, or if that's not of the appropriate kind.

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

To "channel" others on the forums: Have you considered buying a used server? There are a number of used Supermicro and other complete systems that might meet your requirements. Here are a few:

• 4U 24 Bay Supermicro FreeNAS Server 024x 4TB SAS HD X9DRIF https://ebay.us/bVMNTu
• Supermicro SAN Storage 2U 8 Bay SAS2 UNRAID JBOD FREENAS ZFS Docker https://ebay.us/ja6ZjB
• 3U Supermicro 16 Bay 6Gbps FREENAS Storage X9DRILN4F Xeon 12 Cores https://ebay.us/Pyxp4U
• 2U 12 Bay FreeNAS X9DRILN4F 2x Xeon E52650 V2 10 Core 64GB ZFS https://ebay.us/eaWKo4

I am not endorsing any of the sellers but there are options out there that are very cost effective.
[edit - fixed links]

 

[Seal of Samsara]

Thanks for the links above. Part of this is also understanding the hardware better, so not just buying pre-built used has some slight purpose.
Decided to think about this again, in recent times.

Usage: Deluge for downloading, streaming media at most to my actual workstation over ethernet, cold storage for data. In particular, keeping Deluge/etc. separate in case of contamination (e.g. I would hope if I got a virus from something, it wouldn't destroy the rest of my stuff).
Size: 24 Bays should be sufficient. Overall storage ever shoudn't exceed 50 TB (might not exceed 10 TB, but who knows).

The Deluge downloading could be optional (i.e. I could do it on my workstation and then just file transfer to the NAS), in particular because, should I have it, it would necessitate the NAS connecting to the internet which may be unsafe(?)

For the streaming of media to my workstation over ethernet, obviously I just need an NIC. For the cold storage, the 24 bays + my WD Reds account for that. I believe that's all. The remaining things would be noise and power consumption.

Motherboard: X11SSM-F or X11DPH-i (the latter has double-bit correction)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 T2, 80+ TITANIUM 1000W (overkill? But with 24 bays, should be good?)
RAM: 2x Crucial - DDR4 - 8 GB - DIMM 288-pin - unbuffered
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1220V5 3 GHz Quad-Core Processor - 8 MB - LGA1151 Socket

Thing I notice is that X11SSM-F isn't listed as supported under any of the 24 bay chassis on SuperMicro. Only the latter has: SuperChassis 846BE1C-R1K23B and even SuperChassis 847BE1C4-R1K23LPB for 36 bays. Of course, perhaps I could just use a non-supermicro chassis.

However, assuming I am to use a supermicro chassis, am I correct that, for 24+ bay support, I need to go with:

Motherboard: X11DPH-i
Power Supply: Comes with the super chassis.
RAM: 2x Crucial - DDR4 - 8 GB - DIMM 288-pin - unbuffered
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1220V5 3 GHz Quad-Core Processor - 8 MB - LGA1151 Socket (falls under scalable processor?)
Chasis: SuperChassis 846BE1C-R1K23B
?

Will continue to investigate.

 

[Seal of Samsara]

Motherboard: X11DPH-i (Socket Type LGA 3647|Memory Type DDR4-2666)
Power Supply: Comes with the super chassis.
RAM: 2x Crucial 16GB DDR4 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR4 2666
CPU: Intel Xeon Scalable Bronze 3104 SkyLake 6-Core 1.7 GHz LGA 3647
Chasis: SuperChassis 846BE1C-R1K23B
HDDs: already owned

Checked that everything lines up in terms of compatibility. The cost is about $2000. Honestly, Ebay weirds me out because I wind up seeing stuff for 36 bays at ~$500-$700 (used, yes, but I still find that overly cheap, so I question if I'm misreading the descriptions of what they're selling, i.e. if they're actually only selling parts X, Y, and Z, and not the whole thing).

 

[Inxsible]

The cost is about $2000.

If you are in the US, you don't need to pay that much !!

Ebay weirds me out because I wind up seeing stuff for 36 bays at ~$500-$700 (used, yes, but I still find that overly cheap, so I question if I'm misreading the descriptions of what they're selling, i.e. if they're actually only selling parts X, Y, and Z, and not the whole thing).

Oh, they are selling the whole thing. You probably won't get a X11 based board but you'd definitely get a X9 based board with all the doo-dads for around $400-$600 + drives. If you look hard enough, you might even find a X10 based system.

 

[Seal of Samsara]

If you are in the US, you don't need to pay that much !!

Are you speaking in general, or for the specific setup I described? Just talking the chasis, it would go for $1600-1700, the RAM is $135 each (so $270 total), the Intel Bronze is $250, and, say, the motherboard for $500.

If you're speaking in general, i.e. there exists a cheaper setup, in reference to the used items on Ebay, I agree: there do exist cheaper setups.

Oh, they are selling the whole thing. You probably won't get a X11 based board but you'd definitely get a X9 based board with all the doo-dads for around $400-$600 + drives. If you look hard enough, you might even find a X10 based system.

Good to know. I have seen X10 based systems and, as you said, not X11.