Help building a FreeNAS machine!

[zovc]

Hey!

So, I've been considering building a NAS for a while now... and I keep putting it off. I need to stop putting it off and the first step to doing that is actually figuring out what I should be spending my money on! A few ideas I had been formulating seem to go against the grain of you folks' hardware suggestions, so it's definitely worth seeing how far off-base I am with my plan.

First, I was considering getting a chassis like this one. The iStarUSA S-917, there's also the S-919 but I couldn't find it on Amazon or Newegg. Basically, they are Mini-ITX or Micro-ATX cases that have a lot of 5.25" external drive bays. I was planning on fitting them with cost-effective hot-swap bays to yield as many drive bays as I could. I never really sat down and crunched the numbers, but I'm pretty sure that's the best/only way to cram 8+ 3.5" drives into a Mini-ITX or Micro-ATX form factor.

For the motherboard, I was considering consumer-grade components. I was under the impression that it's the best value but the guide seemed to argue otherwise. For about $200, can I end up with a Mini-ITX or Micro-ATX motherboard (and processor and cooler) that's adequate for a home server?

Regarding my use-case, it'll normally be only myself accessing stuff from the server. I plan on storing every game I can get my hands on and rip, and I'm most interested in later generations that have good emulators (like PS2, Gamecube, and Wii) so that theoretically can take up a lot of space. I'm confident my network can send me information faster than optical discs can, so that's not anything I'm worried about. I'd also like to use the NAS for networked game storage for Steam. Also the bit of media here-and-there. Some of my other friends are setting up home servers and it's possible we pool storage for backups and do some file sharing, but I'm pretty sure my personal connection would bottleneck that (4Mb/s up) more than nearly any hardware possibly could.

I'm hoping to start with at least ~9TB of storage, but would like to be able to have as much as ~12-18GB before growing out of this NAS. Having a small section of ~3TB or so for game storage would be nice, and I'm considering starting to record 1080p @ 60fps, which I understand can eat up storage pretty quickly. A lot of my data doesn't need serious redundancy and performance is generally preferred over 'security.' Having something like 2-4TB of 'more secure' storage would probably be more than enough, where I could store images for my desktops and anything I ended up deciding was crucial to hold onto.

The most intense workloads I can think of would be:

• Myself and a friend each playing the same game off of the NAS.
• Myself and ~3 friends each playing game off the NAS. (Rather unlikely, could store the game on at least my own computers.)
• My friends with their own servers/networks accessing information from the NAS.
• Myself and a friend playing media (audio or video) from the NAS.

Or any 'sensible' combination of those, like 100% would be somehow I've got company over all playing one game and two people remotely copying/streaming files from the NAS.

So...

• Should I just be looking at server grade hardware? (The chassis, the motherboard, the CPU, the cooler?)
• Are server power supplies preferable to 'desktop' power supplies?
• Does ECC seem to matter for this use-case?
• Any help estimating a rough budget for this system?

Thanks!

 

[BarefootWoodworker]

For your power needs, read this:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/

Make sure you have a good power supply.

For ECC. . .all that can really be said is that it's your data. Are you okay with having to re-rip things or re-download if your system starts to puke? Personally, I have shit like my wedding photos and really old, archaic files that are hard to find, so to me the extra money is worth going ECC. That, and my wife's a paralegal that stores her files on the NAS, soooooo. . .legal reasons.

Personally, I'd gently nudge you toward lower-end server hardware.

This would be a fine little motherboard:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157419

Atom with 4 RAM slots, up to 64GB ECC. 12x SATA. Just remember the C2000 chip family could have a clocking problem where it dies after something like 18 months and won't reboot (there's a note all over the net about it, so check it out).

That's ~$300, has your CPU and motherboard, and enough SATA ports. RAM would run you around $200 to $300.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA98C5DB6785 << 16GB ECC
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0FU42J4712 << 32GB ECC

4x sticks so you can fully fill the RAM and make sure to use all the channels.

So ~$650 for motherboard/RAM if you get 32GB of RAM. If you're wanting hot-swap bays, those are about $100 for a 5-in-3, and with the 917 you would get 2 of those (the 919 would be 3).

All in all, I'd put $1000 aside for vital parts, just in case. Then parts linked should be well more than enough for your needs and to have a little headroom.

*edit* Forgot to add. . .you're going to slaughter your Gb NIC before you start busting the NAS on usage. I could easily take 2x 1TB drives in RAID0 and copying off the FreeNAS, saturate a 1Gb link way slightly before the CPU got slaughtered, and that was using a RealTek NIC on an AMD64 X2 (old hardware).

*edit2* Also, I didn't list hard drives because you weren't really too specific about those, but 1TB drives are around $50 a piece. 2TB drives are around $100. 4TB aren't much more, I don't think. Either way, with 8 drives your big expense will be HDD space, at least $400, but slate around $1000 for HDDs.

 

[zovc]

Thanks! I'll look into that info on power supplies.

I had my eye pretty sharply on that motherboard(/CPU) or its big brother for a while, a few people have discouraged me from getting it since they have started to fail... are there any symptoms or steps that can be taken to prevent that? Or a warranty I can take out? Regarding the C2550, would it get enough work done for me to run one small virtual machine? I like to give one ethernet port to a VM and have its traffic go through my VPN, that way if I want to do any one particular thing on my VPN I don't have to shut off my desktop's one port for a moment to switch, then shut it off again when I'm going back to the regular Internet.

I've heard the rule of thumb is 1GB of ram for 1TB of data, I'll have to do a bit more evaluation on how much storage I feasibly could need, but without doing any napkin math I think ~24GB is probably the most I could need. 32GB sounds pretty cushy for just me, and is probably excessive. How much does ram in excess of the 1GB RAM:1TB Storage benefit performance, and how much does less hurt it?

Does the S917/S919 with hot swap bays sound like a good value? Compared to a server chassis? I should say I don't necessarily need hot swap bays and don't "expect" my drives to fail, it just seems convenient for upgrading or maintaining things. If there's a comparatively frugal case that has ~12+ drive bays, it's definitely worth considering.

Regarding hard drives, I haven't figured that out yet. It'll kind of depend on what my budget looks like at the time and the level of redundancy I'm looking for. Any recommendations for a person who's pretty laid back about failures? Oh, I've heard lots of conflicting information about (SATA) SSDs in RAID (0/1/10), has the community here come to any conclusion on whether it's faster? Has anyone successfully used and benefited from a SD RAID card? Something like this. Haha

Regarding faster storage like SSDs (or a SD Raid), does FreeNAS benefit from having "cache" drives or anything like that? Should I have a certain ratio of SSD to HDD storage?

 

[darkwarrior]

Hello there,

If you're not really what kind of hardware to pick: you can start by looking at the Hardware recommendations ;)

Be sure to check also the forum resources below, if you did not read them yet:
Terminology and Abbreviations | Cyberjock's ZFS Guide | Hardware Recommendations | RAID-Z1/RAID5 isn't recommended

 

[Glorious1]

First, I was considering getting a chassis like this one. The iStarUSA S-917, there's also the S-919 but I couldn't find it on Amazon or Newegg. Basically, they are Mini-ITX or Micro-ATX cases that have a lot of 5.25" external drive bays. I was planning on fitting them with cost-effective hot-swap bays to yield as many drive bays as I could. I never really sat down and crunched the numbers, but I'm pretty sure that's the best/only way to cram 8+ 3.5" drives into a Mini-ITX or Micro-ATX form factor.

Nope! Check out the case in my signature. Holds 10 drives. I don't know if you could set it up for hot-swap. They do sell backplanes for it that make swapping drives convenient, but they're not really hot-swap.

Also check out my motherboard. It's a Supermicro similar to the ASRock board with a built-in Avoton processor. Only 6 sata ports though - I use the HBA for more drives.

I strongly recommend using ECC RAM and ECC-capable board/processor. Aside from data protection, you will be following the hardware recommendations in this forum. You can get fantastic advice and help here, but there is little mercy shown when it turns out the problem system doesn't conform to basic hardware recommendations.

 

[BarefootWoodworker]

Does the S917/S919 with hot swap bays sound like a good value?

I was looking at one before I settled on the current NAS in my signature. I ended up getting an Antec 900 case, though. Looking back, I probably should have gotten a 1200 for the 12 bays and just sucked up the cost. C'est la vie.

Regarding faster storage like SSDs (or a SD Raid), does FreeNAS benefit from having "cache" drives or anything like that? Should I have a certain ratio of SSD to HDD storage?

No offense, but you aren't going to notice SSD/HDD for the small amount of IO you'll be doing. A good rule of thumb is SSD = instant access to data. Is what's on your NAS *that* super-duper mega important that you can't way 1/2 a second?

FreeNAS can benefit from SSDs, yes. Look up the ARC/L2ARC explanations (I forget where they are and can't be arsed to find them). Basically, though, for what you're doing? Complete waste of money. I'm running around 15 VMs all off my NAS (2 Windows, everything else Linux) and I have no need whatsoever for SSD. Your situation would just be throwing money away when you would benefit more from getting extra RAM instead.

I had my eye pretty sharply on that motherboard(/CPU) or its big brother for a while, a few people have discouraged me from getting it since they have started to fail... are there any symptoms or steps that can be taken to prevent that? Or a warranty I can take out?

Manufacturer's warranty. Or at least that's what I've though about using (SuperMicro, no ASRock in my case).

Regarding the C2550, would it get enough work done for me to run one small virtual machine?

No clue. I've never used an Atom for virtualization. I've heard they're decent for the task.

I can tell you that I had an AMD64 X2 with 16GB of RAM. Overall, it was an acceptable install of FreeNAS that probably would have suited my needs (all the VMs, etc). I just wanted to consolidate everything into one place and have a reason for growing my e-peen. Dead serious. For what you're posing, I'm guessing an Atom with 32GB would be extremely sufficient to run FreeNAS and a VM (or two).

*edit* I just noticed on NewEgg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021 << $30 MIR on top of the $30 already discounted, so $69. Not a bad price for a full tower that has a lot of room (though the metal is a little flimsy, but meh).

 

[Quebecman]

Personally, I like to keep in mind scaling for the future. You could go for a basic Intel CPU and eventually replace it with a more powerful processor, if ever you find more interest in virtualisation or more powerful applications for your server some years from now. Just a thought.

 

[GBillR]

Personally, I like to keep in mind scaling for the future. You could go for a basic Intel CPU and eventually replace it with a more powerful processor, if ever you find more interest in virtualisation or more powerful applications for your server some years from now. Just a thought.

On that note, I'd like to point out that an X11SSM-F can be had for right around $200. Add an i3-6100 CPU (Yes it supports ECC), and you'll have a ~$300 MB/CPU that is flexible for future expansion and not have to worry about that Atom board and all its "issues".

Just a thought... and if you need a slightly used i3-6100, let me know. I'm upgrading to the E3 this weekend. ;)

 

[BarefootWoodworker]

Ahh, but the Atom 2758 Glorious suggested is only $330 at Newegg and he/she would get 4 more cores. :p

Mo coes, mo powa. :D

There's also the Atom 2758 has 16 PCI-E lanes, as does the E3/i3. So really, 1 x16PCI-E is coming close to maxing out the chip's lanes (from what I can tell, though there's some oddities it seems with the chipset the chips are sitting in).

In all seriousness, this really all comes down to personal decision and preference. I did look at an X11SSM-F, but I can't remember why I didn't get one (it was either 4 vs 6 core, or something to do with the memory as I was wanting to upgrade my Xeon 1541 at the same time with RAM as well).

 

[GBillR]

Ahh, but the Atom 2758 Glorious suggested is only $330 at Newegg and he/she would get 4 more cores. :p

Mo coes, mo powa. :D

There's also the Atom 2758 has 16 PCI-E lanes, as does the E3/i3. So really, 1 x16PCI-E is coming close to maxing out the chip's lanes (from what I can tell, though there's some oddities it seems with the chipset the chips are sitting in).

In all seriousness, this really all comes down to personal decision and preference. I did look at an X11SSM-F, but I can't remember why I didn't get one (it was either 4 vs 6 core, or something to do with the memory as I was wanting to upgrade my Xeon 1541 at the same time with RAM as well).

I agree it's a personal decision for sure.

But I am curious how the atom really performs versus the i3. What do you make of the attached? I mean I would expect the i3 to blow the doors off the atom on single thread... I get that, but the passmark total? Cache difference, PCI-e 3.0, DDR4?

Maybe for a machine that he/she intends to run several VMs... but that improvement in single thread performance might be better for the typical home-use case. Definitely better for Plex I would think.

Either way, I'd be curious to see the two machines side-by-side running similar setup for comparison purposes.

 

[BarefootWoodworker]

Either way, I'd be curious to see the two machines side-by-side running similar setup for comparison purposes.

Likewise.

After looking at the Intel Ark comparison (https://ark.intel.com/compare/90729,77988), I think personally I'd probably favor an i3. The i3 is PCI-E v3 and may have some instructions sets the Atom doesn't.

Now, since it seems list price there for the silicon runs $117 to $208 (in the Intel Ark papers), I decided to take a peek at a comparison with an E3-1220 v5 (http://ark.intel.com/compare/88172,90729,77988). Solidly between the Atom and i3 GHz-wise, but with twice the cache of an Atom (verrah noice), and the cores/GHz puts it closer to the Atom than the i3 (7.4GHz vs 14GHz vs 19.2GHz). The i3/Xeon do DDR4 vs the Atom's DDR3, though, so that's a plus to them.

I dunno. A case could be made for all 3 of those choices with staying in the same budget. Tough decision that really comes down to what the motherboards offer peripheral-wise and the expense of the RAM for each. If someone had access to the i3/Atom, I'd love to see an actual comparison, though. For laughs, I'd want to see an E3-1220 thrown in, too.

*edit*I forgot to add, I have no idea what PassMark or whatever runs the CPU through. I used to be one of those balls-out overclockers in the early 2000s (I have a picture somewhere where I threw my PC in a freezer to get max overclocks out of it) and after a few "scandals" (GFX companies coding for 3DMark, basically), I tossed canned benchmarks out on their ass.

 

[zovc]

Hey! Thanks for the feedback, friends. Sorry I went ghost for a while.

So, the i3-6100 is an interesting choice. I wouldn't have guessed that it supports ECC, and it's defintely got better integrated graphics than any of these server solutions... for whatever that's worth. If you folks are willing to offer up the i3-6100 as a consideration, what's your thoughts on the Pentium G4560? It's nearly half the price and doesn't sacrifice hyperthreading.

At the moment I'm leaning towards Mini-ITX rather than Micro-ATX, so that the X11SSM-F is larger is a little bit of a bummer. But I could probably live with that.

 

[BarefootWoodworker]

The Pentium G4560 lost ECC support.

Check http://techreport.com/news/31267/kaby-lake-pentiums-gain-hyper-threading-and-lose-ecc-support.

 

[zovc]

The Pentium G4560 lost ECC support.

Check http://techreport.com/news/31267/kaby-lake-pentiums-gain-hyper-threading-and-lose-ecc-support.

Intel's ark says it does have ECC support, though.

 

[BarefootWoodworker]

Heh. . .so it does. I couldn't find that before (but I was on mobile. . .crappy display).

Sooooo. . .yeah, go for the G4560, obviously.

 

[zovc]

The bit of looking I did on PCPartPicker tells me that I'm going to spend ~$200 on a (Mini-ITX) 1151 motherboard that supports ECC. So, we're talking ~$260 vs ~$300-400 for one of the SOC boards. The ASRock C236 WSI has only two RAM slots for whatever that's worth, too.

That $40 is a decent savings, and could go towards another HDD or something, but is haiving an 'upgradeable' board with DDR4 memory better than having more physical cores? I have no doubt that a modern desktop CPU's got better single-core performance than a dated server chip, but I don't know how much that speed difference matters? Does the jump from DDR3 to DDR4 have much of an impact?

 

[zovc]

Welp, I found an Open Box A1SRi-2758F on Newegg for ~$250, so that's what I went with. After I do some budgeting I'll decide if I'm going with 4GB or 8GB memory sticks.

I'm going to be using the system as a (Windows 10, supermicro confirmed it should work fine) desktop for maybe a month tops, so I might just get two sticks of RAM now and two sticks of RAM later when I convert it to a NAS/server.