Hello all! New to FreeNAS and need adive on the first NAS build. Thanks!

[Korben Dallas]

Hello all! New to FreeNAS and need advice on the first NAS build. Thanks!

Hi
I have been planning for a while to buy a NAS box from newegg, until it hit me; I can build one! So here is what I came up with so far and would love to hear your input. If you think that doing some changes will improve performance, then I will appreciate your input! So here it is:
CPU: Intel Celeron G540
MOBO: ASUS P8H77-I
RAM: G.SKILL Value 16GB F3-1600C11D-16GNT
CASE: IN WIN BP655.300TB3L
OS Storage: Verbatim Store 'n' Stay 4GB USB
HDD: I will use one I currently have in my computer.

So, I have been looking and I found another Celeron that uses less power (55w vs 65w), with higher clock speed (2.6GHz vs 2.5GHz) and at the same price. It seems very wierd to me so I would like to know if any of you know anything about this model. It is the Celeron G1610

Also, if you think that spending an additional $100 for parts x, y and z or for part Q, will increase performance then let me know. Thanks!

Korben Dallas

 

[JaimieV]

One thing that you should improve on is the HDD. One disk will give you no resilience in case of disk failure, and no way to fix any file corruption that might happen (which is the very best thing about ZFS vs any other current filesystem). Put in at least two disks in a ZFS mirror, or three in a RAIDZ1. Performance with modern drives will be quicker than GigE speeds can support, so the network will be the limiter.

Go read Cyberjock's stickied presentation at the top of the Noobs forum, it's essential knowledge before you start creating disk volumes.

Is this a domestic NAS for just your household? Go for the lower power Celeron, it'll have processing power to spare and the higher clock speed will be better for Windows shares. If not, give us an idea of the situation. You can drop to 8gig RAM too.

Check into the price+availability of HP Microservers near you, too - N40L or the new N54L. They're stunning little boxes for this sort of thing, and are often crazy cheap (look for the cashback offer). As well as the obvious good points they support ECC RAM which is great at modern levels of data storage.

 

[HolyK]

If you have few more bucks ($15), go for Intel Pentium G2020. It is 55W max TDP and it ticks on 2.9Ghz, which is a bit better than 2.5. Samba will love it :D

G540 is "old" 65W TDP Sandy Bridge Celeron - 2.5GHz
G1610 is "new" 55W TDP Ivy Bridge Celeron - 2.6GHz
G2020 is "new" 55W TDP Ivy Bridge Pentium - 2.9GHz (plus bit more L3 cache)

 

[techiem2]

My main input would be that as well as using multiple disks to form a RAIDZ of some sort, make sure you follow the ZFS RAM guidelines of at least 1GB RAM per 1TB of storage space. That one bit me hard when I was running the 6TB array with only 5GB RAM. Once the array got near full the poor Freenas box was killing processes left and right. :P

 

[FireWire2]

Here is what I would do:

MB: http://www.amazon.com/Intel-D2500CCE-Mini-ITX-Motherboard-BLKD2500CCE
- 2GB or 4GB RAM
- 4GB USB pen
- SPM393/SPM394 hardware RAID controller
I'm waiting for this case: http://www.datoptic.com/mini-itx-server-iscsi-nas-case-w-5-hot-swap-able-hdd-and-1x-2-5-slots.html

The part I list have some advantages:
1_ HW raid - It does not tax the host resource, independent form FreeNAS, so update new version of freeNAS should be a breeze Fast transfer rate ~ 240MB/s
2_ Dual Gb NICs increase transfer rate and fail proof if bonding
3_ Very lower power - w/o HDD about 18W

 

[survive]

Hi Korben Dallas,

Gotta help out anyone who references the 5th Element....

So the Celeron G5XX chips are Sandy Bridge chips & the G***X chips are Ivy Bridge....Ivy is the newest Intel desktop chip and is good for maybe 8-10% more performance and less power consumption than a Sandy Bridge chip. Given the choice, spend a few more bucks for an Ivy chip. Keep in mind that the wattage ratings are when you run the chip full bore....all the chips will idle at about the same wattage so I wouldn't really sweat that rating too much.

Looking at the case & parts list....are you really planning on buying this gear to just run one drive? If so, you might just be better off going with an extra drive for your existing computer or maybe just buying all these parts to update it, not building a whole separate NAS.

-Will

 

[techiem2]

The problem with hardware raid (besides defeating the purpose of running ZFS raidz), is that you are tied to that controller. If the controller dies, you are dead in the water until you replace it.

 

[FireWire2]

No matter how you put it.. hardware will die soon or later, example if your RAM is going bad, your ZFS will be screw too
It's a trade off CPU versus power consumption...
My NAS 40TB run on ATOM and 3yrs+ without a hiccup and consume about 180W
http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22898&page=4

My next project for my friend NAS is a 5x bays 20TB and consume less than 60W.
My solution will get there

 

[techiem2]

WD Greens?
Aren't those the "Never ever ever use those in a *nix NAS" drives?
I had a couple 1TB ones for a while and replaced them.
Have they been reliable for you?
Did they fix the issues with the newer models?