mael
Dabbler
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2013
- Messages
- 20
Oops I used the same title as someone else. I'm so original.
First I suppose I should explain what it is that I hope to accomplish. There will only be two people accessing this system but that's four maybe six devices which might all be using it at the same time.
One is a Raspberry Pi that will probably** only be receiving audio and video streams from the NAS via NFS (likely the only thing to ever stream anything mostly during meal times so no big chance of other transfers happening at the same time).
Another is a Windows 8 machine that will have its userdata (text documents, pictures, programming files (PHP, HTML, JS, java, etc.) within the NAS with copies to the Win8 machine.
For this machine and another Windows 8.1 machine I propose to use that same CIFS share to have programs/video game installation files to run the installer from the NAS. I mean why stick 20GB files on each computer that'll only be used once take up all that room and eventually fragment the Windows machines, right ?
Next machine is a Linux machine that'll have its userdata on an NFS shared dataset. Files will consist of random download media and user scripts (that I'll hopefully be able to execute from within the NAS) and I was thinking of using it as storage for VirtualBox .vdi files. For either legacy programs or to test out new versions of OSes to keep up with the times.
-->For virtualization I've read on here that people recommend ESXi. However, I'm not really sure I'd love to spend another couple of months trying to figure out how to set it up; I've got other things I've been wanting to do but already took a detour trying to figure out FreeNAS. With that said, FreeNAS is a wonderful piece of software (and has an amazing community with what seems like infinite patience to deal with my n00biness) and if ESXi really does provide amazing value (as long as FreeNAS doesn't slow to a crawl) I could look into it, if that is what is recommended for me. The VMs speed isn't really crucial. FreeNAS running at 100% or near that (90% ?) is my priority for now.
Down the line I'm thinking of adding a **tvtuner either to the Pi or to the Windows 8.1 machine (which may eventually run some *nix OS) seeing as my current TVs PVR capabilities are less than desirable.
Maybe down the line I might try to convince people to backup their data onto my NAS if it's a success seeing as only a couple of people that I know have backups and seeing as I've been cursed as the computer guy I'll be the one stuck trying to recover their data. I'd rather just have backups to restore to. I'm seeing an extra 3 computers if this ever happens.
The storage is initially going to consist of 8TB (3TB/3TB(audio/video)/2TB(game/programming files, docs, virtual machines) each its own pool) with plans to grow to 18TB (6x3TB either individual pools or raidz2)
I'm thinking of using datasets for all. I've seen loads of posts on here that say home users have no need for datasets, but I've also seen that when someone does make a dataset, the info that wasn't in the datasets disappears, so I think it might be better to just make some. I do plan on running some jails, so I will have to create datasets and would rather not have files disappearing for this reason. The things I plan on jailing are a torrent client and eventually openVPN.
CPU
For hardware, I'm thinking E3 but not sure exactly what I need. I've heard it recommended to stay with Ivy Bridge over Haswell because Haswell is too expensive and that Haswell's graphics have no use in FreeNAS, but I think not all CPUs have integrated graphics, is this correct ? Also, at least on newegg I can find the Haswell CPUs cheaper than the Ivy Bridge. So would I be better off with Haswell if I can find it for cheaper? This is of course when I bundle it in with a mobo which I obviously also need. Currently thinking the 12(20/30/40) v2/3 should be more than enough for my needs.
MOBO
I will definitely follow jgrego's guide and go for a Supermicro board.
If Haswell, it would be an X10 board. I noticed that they are listed as UEFI boards. Which makes me wonder about secure boot.Under OSes supported it doesn't show anything *BSD/Linux... No wait that's been updated now, I see support for FreeBSD 9.1 and Linux across the board. I'm guessing before the update it was all about Secure Boot but that's irrelavent now. I guess I have no choice but...FreeNAS 9.1 is out!? I've edited this post more times than I can count... So, if I upgrade to 9.1 I should be able to use the X10 boards which, like I said, with the discount would end up being cheaper than the Ivy Bridge hardware. However, I'm not sure if there is a reason to stay away from Haswell for now.
Although I don't want to be the first sucker to test out the hardware. Unless someone is willing to hold my hand whilst I try to figure it all out. I do figure it all works though if FreeBSD 9.1 was put down as supported on
http://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/os.cfm
If Ivy Bridge, then I'll have to check some X9 board.
RAM
16GB for now - 32GB in the future when price drops. ECC, of course
On Supermicro's site (and newegg) the X10SAE is listed as supporting 1600MHz RAM. However under "Tested Memory List" several different types of 1333MHz RAM sticks seem to have been tested. What exactly does this mean ?
I know it works the other way around if I have 1600MHz RAM and the board only takes 1333MHz it'll work but run at the lower speed but never thought of it the other way.
For registered RAM what needs to support it ? I've heard it used to be the MOBO and that it's now strictly the CPU. Would I receive any benefit from registered or buffered or should I stick to unbuffered ?
Reason I'm wondering about registered is I saw an article on tomshardware showing a comparison between three different servers. The RAM in all three was 16x4GB; two had registered and shown as 64GB, one was just unbuffered and showed up as 32GB. I initially thought it was a typo and weird that no one commented on it, but then a few pages afterwards they showed a screenshot showing up as 32XXXMB on one of the systems. I was thinking it could've been a typo, that earlier it showed 16x4, but then again it would seem like the test wouldn't be fair if it had half the RAM and this one required more swapping than the others. Although if I understood right they installed Windows 7. Why one would spend thousands upon thousands on a server to install a Desktop OS has me confused.
I just finished reading a post from a "MEMORY MASTER" on toms that unbuffered RAM is what is used in Desktops exclusively but I'm looking at some "ECC unbuffered Server Memory" on newegg. Does this mean this Master is wrong or do I need buffered/registered RAM ? Although another thread there says that the E3 CPUs don't support buffered memory. But on another forum people are saying that it only supports buffered and yet another person says "...it supports ecc, non ecc, buffered, unbuffered memory, can be installed in servers, workstations or desktops...". So who am I to believe ?
My best guess would be that this last person is right, but who is right about unbuffered memory, the vendor or the RAM Master ? Again I'd guess the vendor but it doesn't hurt to make sure. I've seen some vendors spin webs before.
All I can find on the CPU pages are that they support ECC but just that.
FANS
Do I need fans on the hard drives ? Read yet another post that says that if a hard drive gets air on only one side (say from the front), that side will be cool and the other will be hot and then the hard drives will break and therefore there should be no fans near the hard drives. I don't really think this is true but I've seen it.
PSU
Power Supply I'm thinking 700w minimum. I know I should be doing all kinds of crazy mathematical calculations, but I honestly don't know what I should need. But I doubt I have special needs; just having enough watts should be enough. 6 drives, 4 sticks of RAM, E3 12(20/30/40) v2/v3, fans if they don't break anything(maybe 3-4 120mm, 1 200mm) and the CPU cooler.
Oh great new question, who is a reputable company for PSUs ? I was thinking Corsair would be good like in jgrego's PSU link. Then I saw some reviews on Amazon about a really weird and really loud chirping noise, and then I see this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139012
Which gets the "HardwareHeaven Gold Award".
Cons: Noticed loud buzzing first time fully loading system. Soon after I had a black screen and sound stalled as well. Smoke? Yes. Anyway, I am RMA this one as well, going with sseasonic. Also, this damaged my other components as well.
Cons: Chirps as soon as the internal fan starts to run, then shuts off. The most annoying chirp sound. Sent two of these back to Corsair and they replaced with like PS and ALL 3 have the same problem. I am buying Seasonic from now on. Corsair better pay attention.
Cons: Got set up with my new rig and it started out working fine. Got halfway through installing my OS and I hear a gut wrenching pop. Smoke was coming out of my powersupply and it fried several parts of my computer.
Cons: Blew up when I applied power. I was using an APC 865W Backup UPS for my power source. When power was applied I got a loud explosion with a blue flame and then a horrible electrical burning smell. I quickly disconnected power and discovered that this had fried my Blueray BD-DVD/Writer and my 256GB Toshiba SSD, I went to BB and purchased an 850W Thermaltake Bronze and popped it in and am booting up just fine now. Thank the Lord it didnt fry my 32GB RAM or anything else...at least so far.
Those are pretty big cons in my opinion. Also confused on what it is. At the 80 plus site they have only one 650w power supply listed for Corsair and it's Bronze, not Gold, like it's indicated on newegg. On Corsair's site, only the Gold one is accessible, but with a quick google search I do find the Bronze one. Is there a reason the Gold one isn't on the 80 plus site ? I mean if they are getting paid to make sure a PSU is what it says it is, you'd think they'd update their website... Wait I just saw:
*The list of PSUs above is current as of: 7/31/2013
So is Corsair lying ?
I'm sort of stealing this layout from another poster because I think his post was really well put:
http://forums.freenas.org/threads/lots-of-questions-from-a-noob-for-experienced-users.13980/
Which I also bring up because I do have a few questions from there but the ones asked here take presidence.
So any help anyone could provide is very much appreciated. I'm not trying to just ask for everyone to hand me the answers without searching. I have been searching and am continuing but sales end soon, so if someone can tell me something before I can figure out what I need, that would be great. Thanks for reading and any help that can be provided.
First I suppose I should explain what it is that I hope to accomplish. There will only be two people accessing this system but that's four maybe six devices which might all be using it at the same time.
One is a Raspberry Pi that will probably** only be receiving audio and video streams from the NAS via NFS (likely the only thing to ever stream anything mostly during meal times so no big chance of other transfers happening at the same time).
Another is a Windows 8 machine that will have its userdata (text documents, pictures, programming files (PHP, HTML, JS, java, etc.) within the NAS with copies to the Win8 machine.
For this machine and another Windows 8.1 machine I propose to use that same CIFS share to have programs/video game installation files to run the installer from the NAS. I mean why stick 20GB files on each computer that'll only be used once take up all that room and eventually fragment the Windows machines, right ?
Next machine is a Linux machine that'll have its userdata on an NFS shared dataset. Files will consist of random download media and user scripts (that I'll hopefully be able to execute from within the NAS) and I was thinking of using it as storage for VirtualBox .vdi files. For either legacy programs or to test out new versions of OSes to keep up with the times.
-->For virtualization I've read on here that people recommend ESXi. However, I'm not really sure I'd love to spend another couple of months trying to figure out how to set it up; I've got other things I've been wanting to do but already took a detour trying to figure out FreeNAS. With that said, FreeNAS is a wonderful piece of software (and has an amazing community with what seems like infinite patience to deal with my n00biness) and if ESXi really does provide amazing value (as long as FreeNAS doesn't slow to a crawl) I could look into it, if that is what is recommended for me. The VMs speed isn't really crucial. FreeNAS running at 100% or near that (90% ?) is my priority for now.
Down the line I'm thinking of adding a **tvtuner either to the Pi or to the Windows 8.1 machine (which may eventually run some *nix OS) seeing as my current TVs PVR capabilities are less than desirable.
Maybe down the line I might try to convince people to backup their data onto my NAS if it's a success seeing as only a couple of people that I know have backups and seeing as I've been cursed as the computer guy I'll be the one stuck trying to recover their data. I'd rather just have backups to restore to. I'm seeing an extra 3 computers if this ever happens.
The storage is initially going to consist of 8TB (3TB/3TB(audio/video)/2TB(game/programming files, docs, virtual machines) each its own pool) with plans to grow to 18TB (6x3TB either individual pools or raidz2)
I'm thinking of using datasets for all. I've seen loads of posts on here that say home users have no need for datasets, but I've also seen that when someone does make a dataset, the info that wasn't in the datasets disappears, so I think it might be better to just make some. I do plan on running some jails, so I will have to create datasets and would rather not have files disappearing for this reason. The things I plan on jailing are a torrent client and eventually openVPN.
CPU
For hardware, I'm thinking E3 but not sure exactly what I need. I've heard it recommended to stay with Ivy Bridge over Haswell because Haswell is too expensive and that Haswell's graphics have no use in FreeNAS, but I think not all CPUs have integrated graphics, is this correct ? Also, at least on newegg I can find the Haswell CPUs cheaper than the Ivy Bridge. So would I be better off with Haswell if I can find it for cheaper? This is of course when I bundle it in with a mobo which I obviously also need. Currently thinking the 12(20/30/40) v2/3 should be more than enough for my needs.
MOBO
I will definitely follow jgrego's guide and go for a Supermicro board.
If Haswell, it would be an X10 board. I noticed that they are listed as UEFI boards. Which makes me wonder about secure boot.
Although I don't want to be the first sucker to test out the hardware. Unless someone is willing to hold my hand whilst I try to figure it all out. I do figure it all works though if FreeBSD 9.1 was put down as supported on
http://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/os.cfm
If Ivy Bridge, then I'll have to check some X9 board.
RAM
16GB for now - 32GB in the future when price drops. ECC, of course
On Supermicro's site (and newegg) the X10SAE is listed as supporting 1600MHz RAM. However under "Tested Memory List" several different types of 1333MHz RAM sticks seem to have been tested. What exactly does this mean ?
I know it works the other way around if I have 1600MHz RAM and the board only takes 1333MHz it'll work but run at the lower speed but never thought of it the other way.
For registered RAM what needs to support it ? I've heard it used to be the MOBO and that it's now strictly the CPU. Would I receive any benefit from registered or buffered or should I stick to unbuffered ?
Reason I'm wondering about registered is I saw an article on tomshardware showing a comparison between three different servers. The RAM in all three was 16x4GB; two had registered and shown as 64GB, one was just unbuffered and showed up as 32GB. I initially thought it was a typo and weird that no one commented on it, but then a few pages afterwards they showed a screenshot showing up as 32XXXMB on one of the systems. I was thinking it could've been a typo, that earlier it showed 16x4, but then again it would seem like the test wouldn't be fair if it had half the RAM and this one required more swapping than the others. Although if I understood right they installed Windows 7. Why one would spend thousands upon thousands on a server to install a Desktop OS has me confused.
I just finished reading a post from a "MEMORY MASTER" on toms that unbuffered RAM is what is used in Desktops exclusively but I'm looking at some "ECC unbuffered Server Memory" on newegg. Does this mean this Master is wrong or do I need buffered/registered RAM ? Although another thread there says that the E3 CPUs don't support buffered memory. But on another forum people are saying that it only supports buffered and yet another person says "...it supports ecc, non ecc, buffered, unbuffered memory, can be installed in servers, workstations or desktops...". So who am I to believe ?
My best guess would be that this last person is right, but who is right about unbuffered memory, the vendor or the RAM Master ? Again I'd guess the vendor but it doesn't hurt to make sure. I've seen some vendors spin webs before.
All I can find on the CPU pages are that they support ECC but just that.
FANS
Do I need fans on the hard drives ? Read yet another post that says that if a hard drive gets air on only one side (say from the front), that side will be cool and the other will be hot and then the hard drives will break and therefore there should be no fans near the hard drives. I don't really think this is true but I've seen it.
PSU
Power Supply I'm thinking 700w minimum. I know I should be doing all kinds of crazy mathematical calculations, but I honestly don't know what I should need. But I doubt I have special needs; just having enough watts should be enough. 6 drives, 4 sticks of RAM, E3 12(20/30/40) v2/v3, fans if they don't break anything(maybe 3-4 120mm, 1 200mm) and the CPU cooler.
Oh great new question, who is a reputable company for PSUs ? I was thinking Corsair would be good like in jgrego's PSU link. Then I saw some reviews on Amazon about a really weird and really loud chirping noise, and then I see this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139012
Which gets the "HardwareHeaven Gold Award".
Cons: Noticed loud buzzing first time fully loading system. Soon after I had a black screen and sound stalled as well. Smoke? Yes. Anyway, I am RMA this one as well, going with sseasonic. Also, this damaged my other components as well.
Cons: Chirps as soon as the internal fan starts to run, then shuts off. The most annoying chirp sound. Sent two of these back to Corsair and they replaced with like PS and ALL 3 have the same problem. I am buying Seasonic from now on. Corsair better pay attention.
Cons: Got set up with my new rig and it started out working fine. Got halfway through installing my OS and I hear a gut wrenching pop. Smoke was coming out of my powersupply and it fried several parts of my computer.
Cons: Blew up when I applied power. I was using an APC 865W Backup UPS for my power source. When power was applied I got a loud explosion with a blue flame and then a horrible electrical burning smell. I quickly disconnected power and discovered that this had fried my Blueray BD-DVD/Writer and my 256GB Toshiba SSD, I went to BB and purchased an 850W Thermaltake Bronze and popped it in and am booting up just fine now. Thank the Lord it didnt fry my 32GB RAM or anything else...at least so far.
Those are pretty big cons in my opinion. Also confused on what it is. At the 80 plus site they have only one 650w power supply listed for Corsair and it's Bronze, not Gold, like it's indicated on newegg. On Corsair's site, only the Gold one is accessible, but with a quick google search I do find the Bronze one. Is there a reason the Gold one isn't on the 80 plus site ? I mean if they are getting paid to make sure a PSU is what it says it is, you'd think they'd update their website... Wait I just saw:
*The list of PSUs above is current as of: 7/31/2013
So is Corsair lying ?
I'm sort of stealing this layout from another poster because I think his post was really well put:
http://forums.freenas.org/threads/lots-of-questions-from-a-noob-for-experienced-users.13980/
Which I also bring up because I do have a few questions from there but the ones asked here take presidence.
So any help anyone could provide is very much appreciated. I'm not trying to just ask for everyone to hand me the answers without searching. I have been searching and am continuing but sales end soon, so if someone can tell me something before I can figure out what I need, that would be great. Thanks for reading and any help that can be provided.
