Hardware suggestions for build

[eeerl]

Hello,

Long time lurker and first time poster. I've been using freenas for about 7 years now having built a small box for file sharing (smb, iscsi) and plex. The specs on this box are:

mobo: Intel® Desktop Board DH67CF
cpu: i3-2100
ram: 8GB
disks: 4x2GB in raidz1

I'm planning on re-purposing this system into a NVR system for some security cameras that I have. This will be an opportunity to build a new freenas box.

Some requirements.
* File sharing (max 2-3 simultaneous users). Smb for general stuff, iscsi for my photos.
* Storage for NVR - create iscsi drive which the NVR will use. read/writes ~30 Mb/sec
* Media server - plex, misc jails.
* I plan on getting some new disks (probably 8x8TB) but will also re-use the existing disks (no errors atm).

Would like to have:
* Cost below 2k without disks.
* 10G networking
* Rackmount case with hot swap drives
* IPMI
* low power

I'm currently toying around with the current build ideas. Any thoughts or other suggestions would be appreciated.
* xeon-d 2123 + HBA. - https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X11SDV-4C-TP8F
* atom c3958 - https://www.gigabyte.com/ca/Server-Motherboard/MA10-ST0-rev-11#ov
* xeon e2200 (probably 2226G) - not sure which board.
* 32 GB ECC ram - or should I go with 64?
* SLOG/L2ARC - worthwhile?
* Are the cases with a sas backplane and hot swap drives (supermicro) worth the large $$ difference over a barebones case and regular drive cages?

 

[Inxsible]

If you are in the US, then you should go the used route and you could get a pretty good system with not much coin.

 

[LeDiable]

I'm nowhere near as experienced as about 99% of the people here but with regards to your rackmount case I recently went through some difficulty finding something rackmount which wasn't super expensive, and I wasn't even interested in hot swap bays. I finally opted for buying a used Supermicro 3U case on eBay (here). It came exactly as described/pictured, in pretty good condition all around. The final cost was higher than I planned on spending, but then I thought about a bare case, plus power supply, plus hot-swap cages (if I decided to go with those at some point) probably would have cost just as much. Also, many people recommend Supermicro cases for the build quality. From my limited exposure so far, I would agree that they seem to be well built.

Downsides to buying that particular unit that I've found in the first 3 weeks: it came with the drive trays but they didn't have the plastic dummy drive in them, so for now I used masking tape to cover the air holes of the empty drive trays to force air over the installed HDDs. Then I had to purchase a different cable to connect the backplane to my HBA because the HBA that I bought uses a different connecter, which isn't really a big deal. I should have known that based on the info in the listing, they clearly state what you're getting. And, the fans are on the noisy side, but not crazy, and I haven't had an opportunity to set up a fan control script for them, so that might improve things for me.

Good luck!

 

[lightwave]

Welcome as a forum poster then :)

Looks like a decent setup based on my limited experience.

I find the Atom Denverton (Cxxxx) series to be a really attractive choice in the low power area. I am currently using the Atom C3758 on a SuperMicro A2SDI-8C-HLN4F for my main FreeNAS box and couldn't be happier. When building the machine, I was worried that the performance would not be sufficient, but based on my experience so far, I could actually have gone for one of the smaller Denverton CPUs. Then again, your usage scenario is somewhat different from mine: I do not have a 30 Mb/s video feed going into the box, I do not run a 10G network and I do not use jails (my services run on a separate ESXi box).

I have very little experience with GigaByte boards in general, but the one you've found looks highly interesting. The guys at STH have a highly positive review of it (https://www.servethehome.com/gigabyte-ma10-st0-review-unique-storage-platform/). SuperMicro boards get very good reviews on this forum (as you are probably already aware). I can only chime in.

* Are the cases with a sas backplane and hot swap drives (supermicro) worth the large $$ difference over a barebones case and regular drive cages?

It depends on your requirements. I personally prefer hot swap for the convenience when a drive needs to be replaced. However, when considering that this only happens once every 2-5 years, it is hard to make the business case. I recently got my hand on a very cheap SAS enclosure with hot swap support, but I'm not sure the next machine I build will have hot swap unless I happen to stumble upon another great deal like that.

* SLOG/L2ARC - worthwhile?

Based on your use case, I would be surprised if a SLOG or L2ARC made any perceivable difference in your setup. Your write profile does not seem to match one that would benefit from a SLOG. SLOGs are typically providing a benefit for databases and ESXi disk images with high volumes of sync writes. Neither does the home use scenario you describe seem to warrant an L2 ARC cache, especially not if you plan to have 32 or 64 GB of RAM. Considering the added complexity and cost of adding a SLOG or L2ARC, my suggestion would be to start without it. You can always add either later on if you experience sub-par performance.

Please post back and let us know what you end up with in your setup. Always interesting to hear how it turned out.