First build looking for suggestions

[Mike Guilmette]

Hey guys. I am planning on building a NAS in the near future and I would like to know the thoughts and best practices for my build. I have been doing some research, and plan on continuing to do so, and have gotten to this point. I am looking for high fault tolerance, possibly encryption, and media streaming. Unsure of how I will back up the data but I will likely be keeping critical data on local computers and back them up seperately but I am open to suggestion as far as who is best for cheapest.

My build list is here: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GY84f8

I will be using my Raidmax Narwhal case to house this and I am re-purposing the H110i from my Phanteks Luxe as I am currently building a custom loop for it.

If there are any suggestions please feel free to share them as I am open. I just want to build a decent NAS and not have to worry about failing to follow best practices. If you need any other information please ask. Thanks a bunch guys!

 

[BigDave]

My build list is here: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GY84f8

Love the motherboard/cpu!!
Is that Kingston RAM in the Supermicro QVL list for that board?
I see a video card, you don't need one, the motherboard has VGA onboard.
PSU should be of Gold level (or better) efficiency, and most members in here like Seagate Seasonic
You're spending $1500 on electronics, the PSU should be the top quality item in
your case. If they don't have a full five year warranty, I won't even look at them :p

edit: Brand name correction

 

[Mike Guilmette]

Love the motherboard/cpu!!
Is that Kingston RAM in the Supermicro QVL list for that board?
I see a video card, you don't need one, the motherboard has VGA onboard.
PSU should be of Gold level (or better) efficiency, and most members in here like Seagate ;)
You're spending $1500 on electronics, the PSU should be the top quality item in
your case. If they don't have a full five year warranty, I won't even look at them :p

Yea the GPU is only in there for the initial configuring as I already have it but if the mobo has vga then im all set, I know the 1240 does not have an igpu. I am also only using the PSU as it is a Tier 2 rebranded seasonic and it is one that I already have. Eventually I will replace it with a Seasonic platinum or titanium, but for now the XFX stays lol. The RAM was basically a placeholder showing that I am using 16gb RAM and of course it will be ECC but I will be checking the QVL for the RAM prior to purchasing it.

I thank you for your suggestions! What would be the best configuration for freenas knowing the use case and system specs?

 

[BigDave]

What would be the best configuration for freenas knowing the use case and system specs?

That's easy, one pool of six drives in RAIDz2
Good night!

 

[tvsjr]

PSU should be of Gold level (or better) efficiency, and most members in here like Seagate ;)

Seagate builds hard drives... Seasonic builds PSUs.

 

[Stux]

Seagate builds hard drives... Seasonic builds PSUs.

I thought it was a bit early to make that call ;)

 

[BigDave]

Seagate builds hard drives... Seasonic builds PSUs.

Corrected in my post above. Thanks.

 

[Mike Guilmette]

Had a feeling he meant seasonic lol. So raid z2, one zdev of 6 drives? Also will that mobile rack work out ok? I lost 3 of the original internal bays and i wanted external hot swap bays anyway.

What is the best backup method? Ive done some reading and it points me to crashplan. But i have heard the plugin doesn't work too well with FreeNAS.

Should (could) i consider using dedup? I will very likely increase ram after the fact. The rig won't have to be up 100% of the time so maintenance isn't an issue.

 

[Mike Guilmette]

Also should note that it will be used for backups of both a windows machine and a mac so I will need to be able to configure FreeNAS for both.

 

[wblock]

Should (could) i consider using dedup?

The short answer is no. Longer answer: http://doc.freenas.org/11/storage.html#deduplication

 

[Mike Guilmette]

Thanks for that. Yea for most cases dedup isn't worth it from what it seems. What should I do as far as settings for FreeNAS? I will be playing around with it on my desktop in a vm when I get my ram back from warranty on my Luxe.

 

[Mike Guilmette]

Thread Resurrection time. I am getting closer to completing the build.

I have purchased the Supermicro x11ssh-ln4f, 32gb of QVL Samsung RAM (painfully expensive), a few noctua fans, an icydock 4x2.5" hdd cage, icydock 5x3.5" hdd cage, an LFI00304 HBA, forward breakout cable, xeon 1230 v5 with stock cooler, and 2 of the 6tb HGST NAS HDD.

I am now planning to fill the 4bay with 1tb seagate constellation drives and run those in z2 for timemachine only backups, order a 16gb superdom for the boot drive as i have zero luck with flash drives, pick up 6 or 7 more HDD to fill the cage, keep 2 has at-the-ready spares in case a drive fails and will likely pick up an additional 1tb seagate when I start populating those drives. I also plan on picking up a seasonic prime ultra 750w titanium psu and a cyberpower pr1500lcd UPS.

I might pick up the 4 seagates, psu, and superdom now and get the timemachine backups going for the 2 macbook pro's then pick up the 6tb drives as I go. The main desktop is down because I have been working too much to drain the custom loop so its not actually being used.

Any thoughts or suggestions? I will post pictures of the current system as soon as the HBA comes in.