rmblr
Dabbler
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2019
- Messages
- 13
Hi folks,
I've been lurking for some months now, soaking up as much info as I can. I've finally got the budget to build my FreeNAS setup, so I'm humbly submitting it for you feedback.
Goals
I know for some it is popular to buy used server pulls, but here in Europe this is a little more difficult. First, the don't seem to be as available, second the cost savings from used hardware is mitigated by the fact that buying used often means paying VAT. Whereas if I buy new from a normal vendor, I can save 19-20% on VAT.
Case: Inter-Tech 3U-30255 3U €120
Motherboard: Supermicro X11SCH-F €216
CPU: Intel Core i3-8100 (socket 1151 coffee lake) €124
RAM: 2x16GB Samsung M391A2K43BB1-CTD DDR4-2666 ECC UDIMM €168
CPU Cooler: Arctic Freezer 12 CO (ACFRE00030A) €20
Power Supply: Seasonic Prime Ultra Gold 550W ATX 2.4 (SSR-550GD2) €93
SATA Cables: 6 pack SATA cables €8
Quiet Fans: Arctic P12 120mm fans, 5-pack €18
Pre-storage subtotal: €766.66
Boot Drive: Intenso High Performance SSD 120GB, SATA (3813430) €16
vdev1: WD My Book (shucked) 8TB x2 €227
vdev2: WD Red 8TB x2 €401
Storage subtotal: €644
Final total: €1,410.13
Commentary
Case: I would love to get a Rosewill 4U chassis witth 15 bays, but they are very expensive here in europe due to low/no availability. So I found this Inter-Tech case with 12 3.5" bays. Using 4+1 bays now, leaves me witth 7-8 bays for future vdev expansion (if i move the ssd off sata). with I know this community likes to recommend the Supermicro xU, but these are just way out of my budget, even used off ebay. I prefer the rackmount chassis for aesthetics. Who knows in the future I could build another 4U as a DSA and get a mini cabinet. Are the 4x 120mm fans sufficient?
Mobo: Motherboards here in EU are just much more expensive. I chose this one because it has 8 SATA ports, 2 PCI3 slots, and an M.2 slot. The plan is to eventually max out the 8 SATA ports, then add an LSI HBA to one of the PCI slots. The other PCI slot could eventually be used for a NIC or other LSI HBA controller. For now I am not using the M.2 slot, but later on I could move the boot disk to M.2 off of SATA to free a port, or just add an M.2 ZIL/SLOG disk if I find it necessary.
CPU: I'm conflicted about the i3-8100, I'd much prefer a Xeon, but I don't think I can justify the extra 100 EUR they start at.
CPU Cooler: I'm not sure it will fit. With the 3U case having a height of 133.5 cm and the cooler spec sheet stating it is 130cm, that leaves only 3.5cm for mobo clearance.
Boot Drive SSD: A complete no name brand for sure, but a great price.
RAM: Usually I build my PCs with Kingston, but I've read here that it should be avoided (at least that was the word several years ago). Anyways I found an ok deal for these 2 sticks of Samsung (€83 apiece)
Storage: I plan to use mirroring with sets of 2 in order to make expansion easier. Though with RAIDZ expansion landing in the future, maybe I should reconsider?
Any thoughts or tips? Would love to reduce the price a bit more if possible.
I've been lurking for some months now, soaking up as much info as I can. I've finally got the budget to build my FreeNAS setup, so I'm humbly submitting it for you feedback.
Goals
- Build a NAS for personal and business use (I'm a freelance software engineer)
- No plex/media transcoding streaming
- Long term storage and archival
- Expandable storage
- Budget ~1400 EUR
- Home media storage (repeat: no transcoding required): photos and video: periodic writing of mid-large size files and infrequent random read (aka, storing new photos videos daily and periodically browsing old media)
- Reliable and performant access to work storage (package/dependency mirrors, docker images, debian pkgs, npm modules etc): frequent R/W of many small files
- Running several services in VMs (nextcloud, sync/backup daemons, other home/work services to migrate off of public cloud services as necessary)
- Many (30+) ephemeral VMs used several at a time for development during my work day
I know for some it is popular to buy used server pulls, but here in Europe this is a little more difficult. First, the don't seem to be as available, second the cost savings from used hardware is mitigated by the fact that buying used often means paying VAT. Whereas if I buy new from a normal vendor, I can save 19-20% on VAT.
Case: Inter-Tech 3U-30255 3U €120
Motherboard: Supermicro X11SCH-F €216
CPU: Intel Core i3-8100 (socket 1151 coffee lake) €124
RAM: 2x16GB Samsung M391A2K43BB1-CTD DDR4-2666 ECC UDIMM €168
CPU Cooler: Arctic Freezer 12 CO (ACFRE00030A) €20
Power Supply: Seasonic Prime Ultra Gold 550W ATX 2.4 (SSR-550GD2) €93
SATA Cables: 6 pack SATA cables €8
Quiet Fans: Arctic P12 120mm fans, 5-pack €18
Pre-storage subtotal: €766.66
Boot Drive: Intenso High Performance SSD 120GB, SATA (3813430) €16
vdev1: WD My Book (shucked) 8TB x2 €227
vdev2: WD Red 8TB x2 €401
Storage subtotal: €644
Final total: €1,410.13
Commentary
Case: I would love to get a Rosewill 4U chassis witth 15 bays, but they are very expensive here in europe due to low/no availability. So I found this Inter-Tech case with 12 3.5" bays. Using 4+1 bays now, leaves me witth 7-8 bays for future vdev expansion (if i move the ssd off sata). with I know this community likes to recommend the Supermicro xU, but these are just way out of my budget, even used off ebay. I prefer the rackmount chassis for aesthetics. Who knows in the future I could build another 4U as a DSA and get a mini cabinet. Are the 4x 120mm fans sufficient?
Mobo: Motherboards here in EU are just much more expensive. I chose this one because it has 8 SATA ports, 2 PCI3 slots, and an M.2 slot. The plan is to eventually max out the 8 SATA ports, then add an LSI HBA to one of the PCI slots. The other PCI slot could eventually be used for a NIC or other LSI HBA controller. For now I am not using the M.2 slot, but later on I could move the boot disk to M.2 off of SATA to free a port, or just add an M.2 ZIL/SLOG disk if I find it necessary.
CPU: I'm conflicted about the i3-8100, I'd much prefer a Xeon, but I don't think I can justify the extra 100 EUR they start at.
CPU Cooler: I'm not sure it will fit. With the 3U case having a height of 133.5 cm and the cooler spec sheet stating it is 130cm, that leaves only 3.5cm for mobo clearance.
Boot Drive SSD: A complete no name brand for sure, but a great price.
RAM: Usually I build my PCs with Kingston, but I've read here that it should be avoided (at least that was the word several years ago). Anyways I found an ok deal for these 2 sticks of Samsung (€83 apiece)
Storage: I plan to use mirroring with sets of 2 in order to make expansion easier. Though with RAIDZ expansion landing in the future, maybe I should reconsider?
Any thoughts or tips? Would love to reduce the price a bit more if possible.
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