BUILD First FreeNAS build - A pre-flight check

[TigerXtrm]

I've been reading up on FreeNAS the last few days and I think I've come up with a build that covers all the bases. But I'd like to run it past the experts to make sure I haven't missed anything. This build will just be a basic home server, serving files and serving media through PLEX. It will run Transmission and all those other fancy apps, as well as Mumble as a voice server. It will send partial snapshots to an online backup service, probably Crashplan.

I've been doubting about getting a 6 bay or 12 bay case, contemplating the possibility of expanding the array with a second 6 disk pool later on. But I'll probably be struggling to even fill up the 8TB this system will give me and I can just expand the existing pool with larger drives when the time comes.

Chassis
Fractal Define Mini with 2 120mm intake fans and 1 120mm outlet fan.

PSU
Seasonic G-series 450 watt

Motherboard
Supermicro X9SCM-F

CPU
Intel Xeon E3-1230v2 3.3 Ghz Quad Core (Old CPU from a server I'm stripping for parts), Scythe Mugen 4 cooler.

Memory
Samsung M393B1K70DH0 ECC 8GB x 2

Boot device
Sandisk Cruzer Ultra Fit 32GB (Mini USB stick)

Storage
WD Red 2TB x 6 in RaidZ2
Single 500GB drive in its own pool to serve as a 'scratch' disk for automated downloads and incomplete files (to prevent fragmentation in the main pool).

UPS
APC UPS Back-UPS ES 550VA

Thanks!

 

[BigDave]

You did not mention a motherboard... you'll need one!:D:p
You've done your home work, I'd grade that A+ work (Gold Star for you!)

 

[TigerXtrm]

Yeah I caught the missing motherboard, lol. I've added it in.

 

[BigDave]

Don't forget the Building, Burn-In, and Testing your FreeNAS system.

 

[TigerXtrm]

So I just thought of an issue. I was planning on having 6 drives in the main pool and an additional drive to serve as a scratch disk. Problem is, the board only has 6 SATA ports and expansion cards start at 100+ bucks, which is more than I'm willing to spend on a simple scratch disk. Hooking up an extra drive to a USB port would be way too slow. I did find a PCI x 1 SATA expansion card that would give me 2 extra SATA ports, but I'm not sure if I would reach decent speeds on that. I don't want it bottlenecking my download speeds any more than it needs to.

So how important is it to have a scratch disk for torrent downloads? Is it something the system could go without or would it cause serious performance issues in the future?

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

I did find a PCI x 1 SATA expansion card ... I don't want it bottlenecking my download speeds ...

You'd have to have an extraordinarily fast internet connection for a SATA card to be a bottleneck.

So how important is it to have a scratch disk for torrent downloads?

Not at all important, as far as I can see.

 

[Bidule0hm]

You did not mention a motherboard... you'll need one!:D:p
You've done your home work, I'd grade that A+ work (Gold Star for you!)

I'd say it's an A, but with a SSD for the boot device it's an A+ :D

 

[TigerXtrm]

You'd have to have an extraordinarily fast internet connection for a SATA card to be a bottleneck.

I was referring to the speed the PCIe card would be able to utilize on a single lane, but after some more reading I don't think that would be an issue.

I'd say it's an A, but with a SSD for the boot device it's an A+ :D

I originally wanted to use a SATA DOM, but then I ran into the issue of only having 6 SATA ports. Now I'm looking into SATA cards, though, so if I can expand my SATA ports by 2 I should be good to get a SATA DOM or an SSD. Which of those would be preferred?

This is the SATA card I found: https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adap...-Express-SATA-6-Gbps-Controller-Card~PEXSAT32

Keep in mind that the card itself will not be controlling any data critical disks, those will all be hooked up directly to the motherboard. This card would only control the boot drive and a scratch disk.

 

[Bidule0hm]

A DOM is basically a small form factor SSD but it's more expensive. So unless you care about the size then a SSD is cheaper ;)

Keep in mind that the card itself will not be controlling any data critical disks, those will all be hooked up directly to the motherboard. This card would only control the boot drive and a scratch disk.

I was worried when I read you wanted to use a SATA card but if it's just for the boot drive and some other not important things then it's ok :)

 

[TigerXtrm]

You did not mention a motherboard... you'll need one!:D:p
You've done your home work, I'd grade that A+ work (Gold Star for you!)

Turns out that A+ wasn't well deserved, because the memory I mentioned isn't compatible. I didn't pay attention to the fact that it is registered RAM, which is not supported by the CPU. Luckily I had some other ECC unbuffered server ram laying around which at least allowed me to test if the system posts properly. Hope I can still return the RAM though.

 

[BigDave]

Samsung M391... was the tested RAM for that board and I'm sorry for not looking it up.
I feel bad and hope you can return it so my guilt is decreased somewhat :(
I have the same board in my FreeNAS server and have used the Crucial kit# CT2CP102472BD160B
without issue since day one. As a matter of fact, I just added another kit to bring the total amount to 32GB.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008CMUP5I/?tag=ozlp-20
For 8GB DDR3-1600 sticks tested, see links below...
This is one directly from the SM QVL listed on Amazon
Matched to the published QVL of X9SCM-F product page...
Taken directly from the list here.

 

[TigerXtrm]

Samsung M391... was the tested RAM for that board and I'm sorry for not looking it up.
I feel bad and hope you can return it so my guilt is decreased somewhat :(
I have the same board in my FreeNAS server and have used the Crucial kit# CT2CP102472BD160B
without issue since day one. As a matter of fact, I just added another kit to bring the total amount to 32GB.
For 8GB DDR3-1600 sticks tested, see links below...
This is one directly from the SM QVL listed on Amazon
Matched to the published QVL of X9SCM-F product page...
Taken directly from the list here.

Don't worry, I'm not blaming you :p I should have caught it myself. I'll go hunting for some other memory, hopefully it won't take another week to arrive though :D Sadly I had to get creative with the memory in the first place because for some reason the tested list on Supermicro's website is extremely hard to find in the Netherlands. That's why I went with the Samsung memory that looked to be as close as possible, but didn't account for the registered thing. Oh well.

Another thing, could I start installing and configuring Freenas with the current 8GB ECC RAM and add another 8GB later on? Or should I wait for the new memory?

 

[Bidule0hm]

Another thing, could I start installing and configuring Freenas with the current 8GB ECC RAM and add another 8GB later on? Or should I wait for the new memory?

Yep, no problem, as long as you don't do stupid things (like VMs or a ton of Plex transcoding flux) ;)

 

[TigerXtrm]

Yep, no problem, as long as you don't do stupid things (like VMs or a ton of Plex transcoding flux) ;)

Define a ton? Would it be able to handle a single 1080p transcode? This same CPU and RAM combo has been running PLEX for months already, but I don't know how much ZFS is going to hog.

 

[joeschmuck]

As for a good and supported SATA add-on card and for a reasonable price, I am using two PCI-E SI-PEX40062 cards (4 port) but it does require an PCI-E X2 slot (or a X4 or X8 or X16 slot). You could shoot for a the PCI-E X1 slot version SI-PEX40064 (4 Port) but you will not be able to saturate all four SATA III ports at the same time on this card due to the limited bandwidth of the PCI-E X1 connection, but honestly I doubt you would even notice the bottleneck, but I wanted to at least put this out there.

This chipset is supported by FreeBSD now and currently planned to be supported for a long time.

 

[Bidule0hm]

AFAIK one transcode should be okay but IIRC you really should have at least 12 GB if you use Plex. I don't think your data will be at risk but maybe the perfs will not be that great.

 

[joeschmuck]

Boot Device: You should not use the Sandisk Cruzer Ultra Fit unless it's a USB 2.0 version. The USB 3.0 versions are starting to die out and you see this all over these forums. But since I did recommend a SATA add-on card, I'd find a real cheap SSD, and I mean whatever is on sale and any size will do (only a single drive, don't need to mirror these things) and use that as your boot drive.

With respect to Plex running, I've had no issues running Plex on a FreeNAS system with 8GB RAM and streaming BluRay quality video. The real trick for Plex is having enough CPU horsepower to perform any transcoding required and ensuring your network is in good condition. But you have 16GB RAM planned for this build so RAM will not be an issue for you. Also the CPU you are using will have no problems doing what you are asking.

Single 500GB drive in its own pool to serve as a 'scratch' disk for automated downloads and incomplete files (to prevent fragmentation in the main pool).

And I don't understand what you are saying here... How do you plan to use this pool? Also, fragmentation is part of the game, you can't get away from it with ZFS as your data is spread out all over the disk platters.

 

[TigerXtrm]

And I don't understand what you are saying here... How do you plan to use this pool? Also, fragmentation is part of the game, you can't get away from it with ZFS as your data is spread out all over the disk platters.

Yes, fragmentation is part of the game. But there's no reason to actively make it worse than it needs to be. Downloading a torrent file does not play nice with ZFS's copy on write systems, since a torrent is downloaded in tiny random file blocks that only get fused into a big file once the download is done. So what the scratch disk aims to do is contain all that raw torrent fragmentation to one physical disk. Once the download is complete, the tiny blocks are converted into a single file, which then gets moved into the main pool, minimizing the fragmentation and COW actions ZFS has to do in that pool.

There's not actually a lot of documentation on this subject, but this wiki paragraph sums it up fairly well: http://open-zfs.org/wiki/Performance_tuning#Bit_Torrent

 

[joeschmuck]

Hum... seams like more work that it's worth but then again I don't do much bit torrent except maybe once a year or so.

 

[yourmate]

Sorry for the hijack attempt but figured I have many questions so I've started my own thread.
Thanks for having me though ;)