First FreeNAS Build, replacing an old Netgear ReadyNAS

[Ray H.]

Hello all,

This is my first FreeNAS build. I've put it together based on a lot of information I've read. I plan on using this build only as a NAS, primarily as a backup location for family pictures (in addition to Amazon Cloud backup) and media storage feeding a Plex install on a separate machine. It's for this reason I'm going with an i3 processor, as opposed to something more powerful.

I have two 2TB WD Red drives in my Netgear ReadyNAS that I plan to migrate into my FreeNAS. I'll be adding 4 more 2TB drives in a RAIDZ2, for 8TB of usable space. Sometime in the future I may expand (replacing each drive, resilvering in between), but I'm going to be jumping from 2TB (mirrored) to 8TB (RAIDZ2), so I think I'll be good for quite some time.

In order to ensure I do not end up with a "bad batch" of hard drives, I've selected two different vendors for the new drives. A concern here is that the Seagate Ironwolf drives rotate at 5900RPM, vs the WD Red drives which rotate at 5500RPM. Is that something I need to worry about? Would I be better off ordering 2 WD Red drives from Amazon and 2 from Newegg, in order to get separate batches? Edit: Going with this option.

Edit: My final purchase is listed below. Looking forward to getting it up and running!

Items:

Case: LianLi PC-Q25B - Newegg
Mobo: ASRock E3C236D2I Mini ITX - Newegg
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 v5 - Newegg
Kingston ValueRAM 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 2133 KVR21E15D8K2/32I - Newegg
Power Supply: CORSAIR RM550X 550W (Ericlowe's recommendation) - Newegg
Mobo: ASRock E3C226D2I Mini ITX - Newegg
Hard Drives: 4x WD Red 2TB WD20EFRX - Newegg (buying 2 Newegg & 2 Amazon)
USB Boot Drives: 2x(mirrored) SanDisk 32GB Ultra Fit CZ43 - Newegg

This is not my first PC build by far, but it is the first with such a dedicated purpose, as opposed to general use.

Thanks.

 

[Ericloewe]

Power Supply: CORSAIR SF Series SF450 450W CP-9020104-NA - Newegg

You'd need a bracket for that. You can also find equivalent ATX PSUs for less cash.

Mobo: ASRock E3C226D2I Mini ITX - Newegg
Processor: Intel Core i3-4170 - Newegg

Why Haswell?

Thermal Paste (using Intel stock CPU fan): Arctic Silver 5 - Newegg

Don't mess with the thermal compound on the stock heatsink until you need to. It's pretty good and, more importantly, applied for maximum effectiveness.

 

[Ray H.]

You'd need a bracket for that. You can also find equivalent ATX PSUs for less cash.

Do I need the bracket because it's smaller? Part of the reason that I chose this PSU, in spite of the additional cost, is that it is meant for SFF builds. The dimensions of the LianLi case are reportedly tight for standard ATX PSUs. This is my first SFF build, as I normally deal with standard size cases.

Edit: Yes, now I'm seeing this in the reviews. I feel stupid. Thought I had my ducks in a row, and I make a mistake like this. Thank you for pointing it out. I am now looking at the standard Corsair CX450.

Why Haswell?

Cost. Although now I'm worried, as I had thought the i3-4170 was listed on ASRock's CPU compatibility page for that board, but now I'm not seeing it.

Edit: Looking at some reviews (and manufacturer responses) it looks like the i3-4170 is supported on later BIOS builds. But I think I'm going to replace it with the i5-4690. It's specifically listed on the CPU compatibility page, and it's not much more than the i3-4170. I can pay for it with the savings on the PSU.

Don't mess with the thermal compound on the stock heatsink until you need to. It's pretty good and, more importantly, applied for maximum effectiveness.

Gotcha. Thanks.

 

[Linkman]

But the i5 does not support ECC memory.

 

[Ray H.]

But the i5 does not support ECC memory.

Truly, I feel ridiculous. Thank you.

Edit: Stepped up to a Xeon. Similar price to i5. Although honestly I'm thinking of going back to the drawing board and looking at Skylake with DDR4. /sigh

 

[Ericloewe]

. I am now looking at the standard Corsair CX450.

Those are rather crappy. Corsair RM is just about as low as you should go.

Edit: Stepped up to a Xeon.

There's really no need, unless you'll be transcoding a lot.

Although honestly I'm thinking of going back to the drawing board and looking at Skylake with DDR4. /sigh

If the cost difference is trivial (it generally is), Skylake is the way to go. ASRock Rack has an equivalent Skylake board to the one you picked, but it's still limited to 6 SATA ports.

 

[Ray H.]

Those are rather crappy. Corsair RM is just about as low as you should go.


There's really no need, unless you'll be transcoding a lot.


If the cost difference is trivial (it generally is), Skylake is the way to go. ASRock Rack has an equivalent Skylake board to the one you picked, but it's still limited to 6 SATA ports.

Yep, I found it. I'm in the process of putting together a new build. Thanks for the help, I'll be back once I've got it figured out.

 

[IceBoosteR]

Just a thought: Why dont go to KabyLake instead of Skylake?

For ECC Support, you need to go to Xeon - and with the E3 series also launched for Kabylake (check out the link: http://geizhals.de/?cat=cpuppro&xf=3362_2017~820_1151) I see no need to go into "old" Skylake or even Haswell (even if I have Haswell and Skylake :p )

And for the vendors: I would personally go for one vendor and maybe from two different shops. I don't know if its a good idea to mix WD and Seagate up in one pool, because mostly they have different sizes, and you may loose some GB of raw space. And of course the RPM, but maybe there is a specialist online.

 

[Ericloewe]

For ECC Support, you need to go to Xeon

No, you don't. Only i5s and i7s don't support ECC.

 

[IceBoosteR]

No, you don't. Only i5s and i7s don't support ECC.

For sure? Can't belive that. But I have checked it aaaaand yes the i3 models do support ECC. Wow - that changed my world. Thanks for sharing this information!

Edit: Kabylake does not support ECC on i3 models anymore....

But anyway, I would go to Xeon models, as they have much more horsepower, maybe they are needed later (Freenas 10 VMs...)

 

[Ericloewe]

Edit: Kabylake does not support ECC on i3 models anymore....

What?

God damn it, Intel, this is getting ridiculous.

It doesn't even make sense. Kaby Lake is supposed to be the exact same die as Skylake - are they disabling ECC in microcode on the i3s now? Off I go to investigate. Ugh.

 

[IceBoosteR]

What?

******** it, Intel, this is getting ridiculous.

It doesn't even make sense. Kaby Lake is supposed to be the exact same die as Skylake - are they disabling ECC in microcode on the i3s now? Off I go to investigate. Ugh.

Another reason to go to AMD xD
No seriously, this is another way to force the customers to go to Xeon processors and get more mony from them. It's like milking ...
I have double checked my statement, and I am correct. Chck out Intels datasheets:
http://ark.intel.com/products/90731/
http://ark.intel.com/products/97458/

ECC support is gone. :/

but there are still some CPUs which supports ECC is the low price segment:
http://ark.intel.com/Search/FeatureFilter?productType=processors&ECCMemory=true
For example the Pentium G6400 and my favourite G6560 (only 50 bucks) and all i3 embedded models have ECC support.

 

[Ray H.]

ECC support is gone. :/

That's incredibly disappointing. As for my build, I'm now looking at Skylake. Looked into Kaby Lake for a moment, but there aren't any Mini-ITX server boards for Kaby Lake yet. And I'll probably do as you suggested earlier, and get the same drives from different vendors. WD Red 2TB, seeing as how I already have two of those.

New items are:

ASRock E3C236D2I Mini ITX - Newegg
Intel Core i3-6100 - Newegg
CORSAIR RM550X 550W (Ericlowe's recommendation) - Newegg

The only thing I'm not sure of is the RAM. There's not a whole lot of DDR4 8GB ECC/unbuffered sticks available. I'm basically down to these two choices. Anyone have any experience with Black Diamond?

Kingston ValueRAM 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 2133 KVR21E15D8K2/16 - Newegg
Black Diamond Memory 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 2133 BD8GX22133MQE22 - Newegg

 

[Ericloewe]

but there aren't any Mini-ITX server boards for Kaby Lake yet

It's the exact same platform, FWIW.

 

[IceBoosteR]

Yeah it is the same socket and the old chipset works with KabyLake processors. But mostly a BIOS/UEFI upgrade is needed. And mostly you need a Skylake CPU for upgrading the same.
(I think there are some customer motherboards which can upgrade the bios/uefi without a cpu, but i cannot confirm this...)

So the system looks good to me. I have never heard of Black Diamond. I bought my system with 4GB memory installed (from Hynix) so I was going to purchase another 20Gigs of RAM from Kingston, which are also produced from SK Hynix. They were also rare but works fine for me. So in my eyes, there should not be any problem if you buy the Kingston ValueRAM.

But the Homepage of Asrock does not list the memory as a member of the "Qualified Vendor List"
http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=E3C236D2I#Memory
But this should not matter.

 

[Ray H.]

So I placed my order over the weekend. Ended up spending a little more than I intended to, after I did some research regarding the upcoming FreeNAS 10. I hadn't studied FreeNAS 10 at all, and didn't realize that VMs and Docker were going to be supported in that build (Thanks IceBoosteR). So I upgraded the system accordingly.

Ended up grabbing a Xeon E3-1230 v5 (listed on the ASRock CPU Support List) and 32GB of Kingston Value RAM (Unbuffered).

Final Purchase is listed as an edit above.

 

[IceBoosteR]

You are welcome.
I think you made the right decision with the E3. Hope you have some fun with your new hardware. :)