BUILD Home NAS Suggestions - Primarily Chassis / Cooling

[Optimistic Prime]

Hi all,

I recently put together a compact home NAS build in the DS380. Originally, it was going to be populated with 4 drives, instead of 7. During parts gathering, the requirements shifted a bit and the build grew to 7 drives (RAIDZ3). I thought I might still be able to get away with the DS380 using better fans (not yet ordered). I decided to go ahead and see what temps were like and do some initial testing. Ironically enough, the AC died after the system was up for about 12 hours. So, ambient temps were up and over 90F. I checked on the NAS, and a couple of drives were getting up to 64C. I believe 3 were in the 40s, and two in the 50s. I pulled the side panel and noticed a hotspot where the hottest drives were. I went ahead and powered down the system while I re-evaluate the system components.

Current build:

Chassis: Silverstone DS380
PSU: Silverstone SFX 450W 80 Plus Bronze
Motherboard: ASRock Rack C2750D4I
RAM: 16GB Crucial DDR3@1600 unbuffered ECC
OS: SanDisk Cruiser Fit 16GB
UPS: CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD
Drives: 7 x 4TB HGST Deskstar NAS in RAIDZ3

I'm completely open to suggestions. I would still sort-of like to go with a smaller box (804, or maybe even an r5) if I can, due to the apartment I will be using it in. Ideally, I would like to go with a Supermicro 3U or 4U refurb/used, but I don't think I can quite fit one in. It will also be deployed in a bedroom for now, so I'm trying to keep noise levels tolerable. A window AC unit will be on most of the time, anyway.

These are the options I have been considering:

Chassis: Fractal Design Node 804 - I like the design and compartmentalization separating components. The drive trays also seem to have a good amount of rubber. The potential for cooling also looks decent. I would still sort-of like to go with a smaller box like this, due to the apartment I will be using it in.
Chassis2: Fractal Design R5
PSU: Seasonic Platinum Series Fanless 460W - I lean against using this one with the 804 due to placement near the drives, but I'm not sure if it would make much of a difference.
PSU2: Seasonic G-Series 450W
Fans: Noctua industrialPPC 2000 PWM - A note on the fans.. I'm still not sure how I should configure them. I have been thinking of whether or not I should run them on the motherboard headers and use the BIOS fan control, or use a separate controller.

Feedback and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Spearfoot]

HGST Deskstar NAS drives are only rated for an operating temp of 60C max, so your current configuration pushing them to 64C is too hot! Might not be an issue though, if you keep your AC unit in good repair. :)

I use a Fractal Design R4 case much like the R5 you mention. I have rear, bottom, CPU, and two front fans installed, plus a fan mounted on a Zalman FB123 bracket blowing down on the PCH and LSI controller on the system board (a Supermicro X10SL7) . My disks stay cool: I have 7 x 2TB HGST UltraStar drives and they run from 30-33C. The hottest component reported by the system board is the PCH controller, usually at ~40C. The LSI chip is probably hotter, but doesn't have a temperature sensor; so I've also installed a 30mm fan on its heat sink. That's a total of seven fans (!), and I run them full-speed 'cause the system is located out in my shop where noise isn't an issue. Even so, it's not obnoxiously loud, but probably not suitable for a bedroom location. Were you to pursue a similar route, you could probably back the fan speed down a little and still achieve acceptable results.

 

[Optimistic Prime]

HGST Deskstar NAS drives are only rated for an operating temp of 60C max, so your current configuration pushing them to 64C is too hot! Might not be an issue though, if you keep your AC unit in good repair. :)

No kidding! I'm not sure exactly how long they were operating at such temperatures, but I hope I'm in the clear since the system wasn't up that long to begin with.

I use a Fractal Design R4 case much like the R5 you mention. I have rear, bottom, CPU, and two front fans installed, plus a fan mounted on a Zalman FB123 bracket blowing down on the PCH and LSI controller on the system board (a Supermicro X10SL7) . My disks stay cool: I have 7 x 2TB HGST UltraStar drives and they run from 30-33C. The hottest component reported by the system board is the PCH controller, usually at ~40C. The LSI chip is probably hotter, but doesn't have a temperature sensor; so I've also installed a 30mm fan on its heat sink. That's a total of seven fans (!), and I run them full-speed 'cause the system is located out in my shop where noise isn't an issue. Even so, it's not obnoxiously loud, but probably not suitable for a bedroom location. Were you to pursue a similar route, you could probably back the fan speed down a little and still achieve acceptable results.

What fans are you using? Did you replace the included case fans?

I'd like to stay under 40C, if possible.

Thanks for the advice! :)

 

[DrKK]

I just want to re-iterate what I've re-iterated several times before.

Your HDD target temperature on NAS drives, regardless of brand, or anything else, should be mid 30's. If you have to push it to 40C, then so be it. But I strongly recommend that you not be running drives over 45C, regardless of what anyone's "specs" say. The research on this is conclusive and not subject really to debate. Anything over 45C is *completely* out of the question as a long term operating condition for drives holding data you care about, and I personally get nervous in the high 30's.

It sounds to me like the OP isn't even in spitting distance of the cooling scenario he needs. His coolest drives were still past anything I would even be remotely OK with for any system I build.

Good luck.

 

[Optimistic Prime]

It sounds to me like the OP isn't even in spitting distance of the cooling scenario he needs. His coolest drives were still past anything I would even be remotely OK with for any system I build.

Good luck.

I agree, which is why I'm switching cases completely. I purchased the DS380 a decent amount of time in advance (before number of drives changed), so I thought I'd see how temps were. High ambient temps just amplified the problem. Perhaps a blessing in disguise. ;)

Thanks!

 

[Spearfoot]

Based on three decade's experience, I concur with the good @DrKK that keeping HDDs below 40C is a good idea.

What fans are you using? Did you replace the included case fans?

I replaced the rear fan supplied with the Fractal R4. Here is my list:

• Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO : CPU
• Noctua NF-P14S redux-1200 (140mm) : top case front
• Fractal (140mm) (supplied w/case) : bottom case front
• Noctua NF-P14S redux-1200 (140mm) : case rear
• ARCTIC F12 PWM (120mm) : case bottom
• Antec (?) (80mm) : Zalman FB123 bracket
• Evercool (30mm @ 7V) : LSI heat sink

 

[j_r0dd]

There is an issue with the ipmi module and ASRock boards. There were a couple of random days when I woke up to hard drive temp notifications. All my fans were spinning at the slowest speed even when I had them set to run at 100% in the bios. After unloading the module it hasn't happened again. Check out this thread. https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/Disable-IPMI-kernel-module-in-9.3-[resolved].25827/

 

[Darren Myers]

Why isnt the CPU cooler oriented so that air blows all the way through the case? Excuse the crud mspaint skills

 

[DataKeeper]

I'd start looking at swapping out the HGST drives with the WD REDs as well. Swap out one and sell the HGSTs or repurpose them elsewhere. You're not likely to really see any performance hit but you will likely see a decrease in temps as the REDs run cooler.

Try to place the NAS in the coolest room in the house/apartment, not necessarily next to your heat generating desktop and monitors.

 

[Spearfoot]

Why isnt the CPU cooler oriented so that air blows all the way through the case? Excuse the crud mspaint skills.

Because the memory modules preclude it from being mounted in that orientation. The current orientation isn't a problem as far as cooling goes; the CPU never breaks 40C at its busiest and runs at 29C most of the time.

 

[Optimistic Prime]

There is an issue with the ipmi module and ASRock boards. There were a couple of random days when I woke up to hard drive temp notifications. All my fans were spinning at the slowest speed even when I had them set to run at 100% in the bios. After unloading the module it hasn't happened again. Check out this thread. https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/Disable-IPMI-kernel-module-in-9.3-[resolved].25827/

Hmm, I haven't used a PWM fan with the board yet, just 3-pin. So, fans were running full tilt. I'll keep this in mind.

I think I'm going to go ahead and try the Define R5 with a couple of Noctua iPPC 2000RPM fans in the front, and go from there. Thanks for all of the feedback! :)

 

[Optimistic Prime]

I've made some revisions to my system, thought I would report back. :)

Chassis: Fractal Design Define R5
Fans: 4x Noctua iPPC 2000RPM PWM
PSU: Seasonic S12G-550W
Motherboard: Supermicro X10SL7-F (LSI controller in IT mode)
CPU: Xeon E3-1231v3
RAM: 16GB Crucial DDR3@1600 unbuffered ECC
OS: SanDisk Cruiser Fit 16GB
UPS: CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD
Drives: 7 x 4TB HGST Deskstar NAS in RAIDZ3

The drives now sit between about 32C and 36C, have not yet run a scrub. I was trying to manually trigger one via the scheduler but it wouldn't take, not sure why. I've followed cyberjock's recommendations on scheduling.

I'm using the same fan setup as GrumpyBear, except without running all RPM leads back to the motherboard. I think I'm going to look for a way to kick the fan RPMs up a bit. If anyone knows how to best do this, please do let me know.

I did also swap the motherboard as the AsRock board was acting strange, and after further research I lean against trusting the Marvell ports in the long run.

P.S. - Thanks to everyone who has written guides / information around here, the wealth of information is invaluable.

Edit - Forgot to mention that the SM board is missing the pins to the power LED on the header. Seems a bit weird, but not sure if I care enough to try to RMA it.

 

[rogerh]

The drives now sit between about 32C and 36C, have not yet run a scrub. I was trying to manually trigger one via the scheduler but it wouldn't take, not sure why. I've followed cyberjock's recommendations on scheduling.

If you select 'Storage' on the top of the GUI page it opens in a tab called 'Volumes' (If you have more than one pool, you may have to select further at this stage to choose one.) Then your pool is portrayed hierarchically below. The top line bears the name of the pool, and you should select this with a mouse click. Then 3 buttons appear a the bottom. The middle one (with the paintbrush/duster icon) has a meta-text of 'Scrub' when you hover over it, and starts an immediate scrub of this pool if you click on it.

 

[Optimistic Prime]

If you select 'Storage' on the top of the GUI page it opens in a tab called 'Volumes' (If you have more than one pool, you may have to select further at this stage to choose one.) Then your pool is portrayed hierarchically below. The top line bears the name of the pool, and you should select this with a mouse click. Then 3 buttons appear a the bottom. The middle one (with the paintbrush/duster icon) has a meta-text of 'Scrub' when you hover over it, and starts an immediate scrub of this pool if you click on it.

Thank you!

I'll run one this evening. I need to have a look at scripts and how to monitor with smartctl over a period of time. What I was doing before was just setting the critical threshold low and monitoring it via PuTTY.

 

[RichTJ99]

Because the memory modules preclude it from being mounted in that orientation. The current orientation isn't a problem as far as cooling goes; the CPU never breaks 40C at its busiest and runs at 29C most of the time.

I am looking to buy the same CPU 212 Evo cooler for my SuperMicro X10SL7-F - if feel that the push down stock cooler can pop out to easily (JMO). I assume I cannot orient the fan due to the ram also?

I want a very quiet CPU fan.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Spearfoot]

I am looking to buy the same CPU 212 Evo cooler for my SuperMicro X10SL7-F - if feel that the push down stock cooler can pop out to easily (JMO). I assume I cannot orient the fan due to the ram also?

I want a very quiet CPU fan.

Thanks,
Rich

@RichTJ99, it shouldn't be difficult to remove the old 'pop-down' cooling fan. You may be able to mount the 212 so that it blows upwards, depending on the height of your memory modules and/or how comfortable you are with the close proximity of the fan to them.

 

[RichTJ99]

What sort of temps are you getting with the fan?

I have on my stock fan (didnt install the Evo fan) 42C at idle up to about 60 at full load (prime95 in a windows vm).

 

[Spearfoot]

What sort of temps are you getting with the fan?

I have on my stock fan (didnt install the Evo fan) 42C at idle up to about 60 at full load (prime95 in a windows vm).

Mine idles at 26-28C and rises to 32-38C under load. I don't have any benchmark results to share. Note that my system is located out in my shop, away from my desk, so I run all of the fans at max speed.