BUILD HP Microserver Build

[Vellooto]

Hello everybody!

I'm new in the forum, but i've been lurking around for a while...

Right now, i've got a HP Microserver running ubuntu server + mdadm + LVM2.
The machine has 16GB of non-ECC memory and 5 disks: 1x500GB for the OS, 2x1TB + 2x2TB for storage.

Im running out of free space, so i'm planning to upgrade the disks. For the occasion i will also put FreeNAS in the box.

Now, these are my concerns:

I have to change RAM modules with ECC ones: are 8GB enough? (The NAS will be serving 2 PCs, sometimes 3 and will be running AFP,SMB,Torrent, Plexmediaserver and perhaps a small website)
Are the advantages of having 16GB of memory substantials?

Second question: In my actual configuration i've got two raid 1 arrays (the two 1TB disks and the two 2TB disks). The 2 arrays, are lvm pv, member of the same vg and then i have one 3TB logical volume.
For the upgrade i was planning to buy three 3TB WD RED to put in RAIDZ1 to have about 6TB of usable space.
Doing my researches on the web, i've found that RAID5-like configurations are no longer advisable cause of the actual size of HDDs and the URE rate problem.
Now i have some alternatives:
- I buy three 3TB WD Re drives (which are rated at <10 URE on 10E16 bit read) and costs almost twice the RED price.
- I buy four 3TB WD RED and use mirroring instead of RAIDZ1. (I'm not sure this would be a good solution)

Considering that i'll be doing backups on external devices of the small subset of really important data i have, i'd still like to keep as safe as possible the remaining part.

Thanks a lot for the precious help, and forgive my writing errors but english is not my native language. :)

 

[Yatti420]

If you plan on transcoding get a faster cpu and probably I'd get atleast 16gb ecc ram.. You can "squeeze" by with 8gb but I prefer to give the box as much ram as I can afford at the moment..

Not sure on the appropriate disk setup.. I'm looking at redoing mine shortly..

 

[Vellooto]

If you plan on transcoding get a faster cpu and probably I'd get atleast 16gb ecc ram.. You can "squeeze" by with 8gb but I prefer to give the box as much ram as I can afford at the moment..

Not sure on the appropriate disk setup.. I'm looking at redoing mine shortly..

Thanks for the advise, but the CPU is actually integrated; not a big problem, i don't plan to use transcoding...

 

[tio]

If its a Gen 8 micro server you can change it to a quad core xeon with little difficulty. If its the N series then it barely handles transcoding at 720p

There is a 3rd solution. Flash the N series with the updates BIOS, stick in 6GB of ram and push in 6 drives with the external eSATA and internal port where the optical drive would go and do a RZ2. Exactly the same setup I've done on my own with no ill effects to date and a meagre 50w power draw

 

[Vellooto]

If its a Gen 8 micro server you can change it to a quad core xeon with little difficulty. If its the N series then it barely handles transcoding at 720p

There is a 3rd solution. Flash the N series with the updates BIOS, stick in 6GB of ram and push in 6 drives with the external eSATA and internal port where the optical drive would go and do a RZ2. Exactly the same setup I've done on my own with no ill effects to date and a meagre 50w power draw

It's a N40L, so can't upgrade the CPU, but as i said it's not a big deal, i don't need transcoding.
I've decided to keep my actual drives and to add a mirror of two 3TB WD REDs but still not sure if 8GB or 16GB of memory.... :S

 

[tio]

If using RZ2 then id suggest 16GB ECC ram if you are using ZFS. Non ecc and one bad scrub and you can kiss goodbye to your data.

How much money do you want/have to spend as i can suggest some pretty good configs for you. a 6 drive RZ2 with 3TB green drives (avoid the reds, they carry a price premium with no data to actually back it up) woud yield a lot of space, the 16GB of RAM should see it run right as rain especially running plex or even MiniDLNA