Hello! Super-newb to NAS + potential build

[threedb]

Hi, I am trying to build a FreeNAS. Here is my build on PcPartPicker. My budget is, er.. was supposed to be $1000. By the time I buy it we may have already spent all my $ at Outback Steakhouse. No, I am not a fan of the 2TB drives but at 6 disks to get me into a RaidZ2 that seems to be what all the cool kids are doing. This one is about the 10th version of this build.

I am a CG artist and not technical. I work a couple of freelance jobs using Synology Diskstations and am in love with NAS. I was going to buy the above but then was encouraged to build my own. I am reading the official FreeNAS guide now and the FreeNAS Forums powerpoint presentation as well. I understand about half of what I am reading but am learning. I don't know if I can do command line or not. I guess that's the 64 million dollar question. It's dubious whether or not I should even be doing this. But I am enthusiastic and still reading. Not that it's the same but I have had minor exposure to Maya MEL script and briefly touched on Python.

This is as much for backing up my desktop machine as it is a central dump for me and my wife's pictures and stuff and hopefully will be able to stream a movie of some kind to one tv set in the living room. Yes, I will have another backup for this offsite -- probably Backblaze. FreeNAS technology is also pretty neat.

I guess I would appreciate any feedback on the above build if that is possible. If that is the proper way to go about doing things here. I appreciate any feedback. Thanks!

 

[Haysden Smart]

Looks to be a descent build.

If you are looking at running a media server (such as Plex) to stream video, I would add a bit more Ram.

My system is overkill but it's better to overkill now and future proof your Nas.

You could limit your Zfs.ark to provide more ram to the plugins and plex, this would just make scrubbing/rebuilding slower and the disks would be accessed more frequently due to less cache. However my server access is very sporadic so the cache is always changing anyway.

Good luck, and I am sure you will enjoy the flexibility and scalability of FreeNas it is an awesome OS and people push it's boundaries everyday. I am yet to break it amd I really put it through its paces.

 

[threedb]

Thank you for the response Haysden. I went through a lot of different versions to get to that point. I would love more Ram. I will have a look at budget and see if I can squeeze out a little more.

Someone had mentioned to me that there had been BIOS issues between that CPU and motherboard about a year ago. So I was wondering about that too.

Anyway, I appreciate the feedback. Thank you!

 

[Ericloewe]

Thank you for the response Haysden. I went through a lot of different versions to get to that point. I would love more Ram. I will have a look at budget and see if I can squeeze out a little more.

Someone had mentioned to me that there had been BIOS issues between that CPU and motherboard about a year ago. So I was wondering about that too.

Anyway, I appreciate the feedback. Thank you!

Consider your build stamped.


The CPU needs the 2.0 or later BIOS, IIRC. Most boards should ship with that or later by now, it's been over a year. If not, you'll need a non-refresh Hawell CPU to update the BIOS or convince Supermicro to give you an unlock code for the IPMI BIOS updater.

 

[threedb]

Thank you for posting Ericloewe. Unfortunatley, it looks like I'm back with Synology. Bummer too. FreeNAS is cool but I am pretty far out of my depth. I'm overwhelmed with work and kind of need to get something set up quickly and it's just not in the cards right now. I don't know if anyone will see this but I appreciate all the help here. So long as I don't flip-flop again.

 

[diedrichg]

It would be much more rewarding to build your own but I understand your circumstances. You seem to be hung up on the CLI. FN can be completely setup and ran from the GUI without having to open a single shell. It's only until you need to setup advanced permissions or system troubleshooting that you would need to access the CLI. By the time this would happen you would have had the time to learn and research this forum. Don't give up yet!

 

[diedrichg]

Have you considered the pre-built FreeNAS Mini by iX Systems? You get all the benefits of FreeNAS with the tech support of the FreeNAS developer.

 

[threedb]

diedrichg, thank you so much! I think I am a little afraid of the CLI. But also just getting everything together and working right. It's all so alien to me it's a little overwhelming. I've spent a fair amount of time pouring over these forums and I am super intrigued. I so bad want to build my own FreeNAS but I just need to get something going now that works now. I've been procrastinating. For me this is kind of a tinker project and I feel like I need more time to work with it. Synology is lame and a little I'm ashamed to admit on here. But it is easy. Or easier. I think. I kind of need that at the moment. Anyway, once I get this going hopefully it will free me up to build a proper FreeNAS down the road as I learn. I am still interested. Just need a little time. I appreciate your encouragement. Thank you!

 

[pirateghost]

Once the freenas system is built and running, it requires very little 'tinkering' to maintain. I don't touch my system for weeks at a time, then I might go in and play with a jail for a couple of days and that's really it. It just runs. 24/7/365. There was an upfront cost of initial configuration, but I had all of it planned out before building. As long as you buy the right components, there really isn't much work involved.

Don't be scared of CLI. If there is anything you ever need to do in CLI, rest assured that someone else has done it and already paved the path. You just need to follow directions. It's actually quite rare that you would need to do anything there.