thedirtmerchant
Patron
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2012
- Messages
- 260
First legit build because the first time around, I cut every corner I could and put together a box for ~$600, had no idea what I was doing and eventually lost some data due to lack of quality hardware combined with a complete lack of knowledge of admin.
Now, armed with the true fear of losing data and a desire to learn I set out on researching and building a properly thought out and relatively well administered FreeNAS box. After many posts, searches, requests for info and some serious help from diedrichg, SweetAndLow, Stux, Ericloewe and anyone else that commented or gave advice across 3 threads and 14 or so pages and even a phone call...I ended up with this:
Chassis: Fractal Design R5 Blackout w/ Window (I chose the blackout version, not pictured).
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V5
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Mobo: Supermicro X11SSL-CF
Memory: Crucial (2 x 16 GB) DDR-2133
PSU: Seasonic USA X-650KM3 650 Watts ATX Modular Power Supply
Fans: 2 Noctua NF-A14 FLX 140mm Fans
Boot: 120 GB SanDisk SSD
And a CyberPower UPS that I picked up at Costco.
It looked like this before anything happened:
(Yes, those are remote control LED lights...for style points).
Also purchased 6 + 1 Cold Spare 3TB WD Reds.
I put the hardware together:
and had a successful POST.
Moving on to the testing,
I followed along with Uncle Festers Hardware Validation
I downloaded Breakin to run the cpu. I ran for I think 4 hours and monitored temps the whole way.
Passed w/o issue.
I downloaded memtest86+ and ran that for 4 hours and 24 hours w/o issue.
I followed qwertymodo's
"How To" on Hard Drive Burn in. Conveyance, short, long, badblocks (50+ hours), long.
All drives passed.
Side note, couple days later one of the drives showed a read error. Returned/replaced and had to burn-in test again.
All good then and since.
The GUI showed a warning for a mismatch for my LSI 3008 controller firmware/driver. I had seen the issue of the version on the driver/firmware being offset, but for me (Supermicro X11SSL-CF mobo w/ the LSI 3008) the firmware version and driver version were both 12. Had to flash the firmware, took some reading and researching to figure out what to do. DL'd the firmware from supermicro HERE and THIS youtube video was very helpful in actually flashing the firmware (be sure to go "into" the USB stick or change to the USB stick so you get the fs0 prompt and THEN kick it off). I did not the first time and it cleared out the firmware but could not open the install files on the usb stick. Once I got in there, it found it and installed no problem.
Followed a combination DrKK's How-To: First Configuration for Small FreeNAS Deployments
and Uncle Fester's Basic FreeNAS 9.10 Configuration Guide to get my basics setup (general settings, pool, router settings, email)
I followed Cyberjock's Scrub and SMART testing schedules
I set up a SMB share following this walkthru video.
Downloaded Plex and set it up. Forget which thread and/or video I found that helped me get it up and running.
I think I still need to set up automatic config file saves and some other housekeeping items (any suggestions are always welcome!). Someone had a thread with a bunch of useful scripts that I wanted to look into. Considering Radarr and Sonarr and VPN and....stuff. As of now, I can stream videos to various displays around my house and share pictures.
I am very happy with all the work I put in and am really looking forward to the fruits of my labor.
This community has always been helpful and I don't know much, but what I do know about FreeNAS I learned exclusively here. A special shout out to deidrichg who really helped out endlessly (and continues to do so). Thank you to everyone that helped, commented or even pointed and laughed at my mistakes. There will be more mistakes to come, I'm sure. But this build really expanded my small knowledge base.
With all the time, thinking and dollars put into this thing, I am really proud to say:
FreeNAS 9.10.2.U2 STABLE
Supermicro X11SSL-CF
Intel Xeon E3-1230 V5
32 GB Crucial (2 x 16 GB) DDR-2133 ECC
6 WD Red 3TB in RAIDZ2
120GB Kingston SSD Boot
Now, armed with the true fear of losing data and a desire to learn I set out on researching and building a properly thought out and relatively well administered FreeNAS box. After many posts, searches, requests for info and some serious help from diedrichg, SweetAndLow, Stux, Ericloewe and anyone else that commented or gave advice across 3 threads and 14 or so pages and even a phone call...I ended up with this:
Chassis: Fractal Design R5 Blackout w/ Window (I chose the blackout version, not pictured).
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V5
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Mobo: Supermicro X11SSL-CF
Memory: Crucial (2 x 16 GB) DDR-2133
PSU: Seasonic USA X-650KM3 650 Watts ATX Modular Power Supply
Fans: 2 Noctua NF-A14 FLX 140mm Fans
Boot: 120 GB SanDisk SSD
And a CyberPower UPS that I picked up at Costco.
It looked like this before anything happened:
(Yes, those are remote control LED lights...for style points).
Also purchased 6 + 1 Cold Spare 3TB WD Reds.
I put the hardware together:
and had a successful POST.
Moving on to the testing,
I followed along with Uncle Festers Hardware Validation
I downloaded Breakin to run the cpu. I ran for I think 4 hours and monitored temps the whole way.
Passed w/o issue.
I downloaded memtest86+ and ran that for 4 hours and 24 hours w/o issue.
I followed qwertymodo's
"How To" on Hard Drive Burn in. Conveyance, short, long, badblocks (50+ hours), long.
All drives passed.
Side note, couple days later one of the drives showed a read error. Returned/replaced and had to burn-in test again.
All good then and since.
The GUI showed a warning for a mismatch for my LSI 3008 controller firmware/driver. I had seen the issue of the version on the driver/firmware being offset, but for me (Supermicro X11SSL-CF mobo w/ the LSI 3008) the firmware version and driver version were both 12. Had to flash the firmware, took some reading and researching to figure out what to do. DL'd the firmware from supermicro HERE and THIS youtube video was very helpful in actually flashing the firmware (be sure to go "into" the USB stick or change to the USB stick so you get the fs0 prompt and THEN kick it off). I did not the first time and it cleared out the firmware but could not open the install files on the usb stick. Once I got in there, it found it and installed no problem.
Followed a combination DrKK's How-To: First Configuration for Small FreeNAS Deployments
and Uncle Fester's Basic FreeNAS 9.10 Configuration Guide to get my basics setup (general settings, pool, router settings, email)
I followed Cyberjock's Scrub and SMART testing schedules
I set up a SMB share following this walkthru video.
Downloaded Plex and set it up. Forget which thread and/or video I found that helped me get it up and running.
I think I still need to set up automatic config file saves and some other housekeeping items (any suggestions are always welcome!). Someone had a thread with a bunch of useful scripts that I wanted to look into. Considering Radarr and Sonarr and VPN and....stuff. As of now, I can stream videos to various displays around my house and share pictures.
I am very happy with all the work I put in and am really looking forward to the fruits of my labor.
This community has always been helpful and I don't know much, but what I do know about FreeNAS I learned exclusively here. A special shout out to deidrichg who really helped out endlessly (and continues to do so). Thank you to everyone that helped, commented or even pointed and laughed at my mistakes. There will be more mistakes to come, I'm sure. But this build really expanded my small knowledge base.
With all the time, thinking and dollars put into this thing, I am really proud to say:
FreeNAS 9.10.2.U2 STABLE
Supermicro X11SSL-CF
Intel Xeon E3-1230 V5
32 GB Crucial (2 x 16 GB) DDR-2133 ECC
6 WD Red 3TB in RAIDZ2
120GB Kingston SSD Boot
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