BUILD Initial FreeNAS server questions

[hobothulhu]

Hello, fellow Internet denizens who value data safety! I am planning out a new FreeNAS server, and would appreciate input to make sure all the hardware is compatible, and to reduce expenses where possible.

This will be a NAS which is only used by myself, to make hourly and daily backups of 2-3 machines in a home environment. No heavy usage is planned, but a lot of data will be stored. I plan for it to have 2 drives at first, which I will increase as time goes by. I chose the motherboard below as it has an onboard USB slot.

• Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCL-O LGA 1155 Intel C202 Micro ATX Intel Xeon E3 Server Motherboard {$160}
• RAID Card: Serveraid M1015 Sas/sata Controller w/2 Mini SAS To 4 SATA Cable {$140+$30}
• NIC: Intel Gigabit CT PCI-E Network Adapter EXPI9301CTBLK {$25}
• Case: NZXT Technologies SOURCE 220 CA-SO220-01 Matt Steel Mesh Front Mid Tower Case with USB 3.0 {$50}
• RAM: Wintec Server MHzCL9 16GB(2x8GB) RegECC Kit 2Rx4 with HS 16 Quad Channel Kit DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) 240-Pin SDRAM 3RSH13339R5H-16​GK {$130x2}
• PSU: Corsair CX Series 750 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Bronze ATX12V/EPS12V 744 Power Supply CX750M {$96}
• CPU: Intel Pentium G645 Dual-Core Processor 2.9 Ghz 3 MB Cache LGA 1155 - BX80623G645 {$65}
• Optical: Sony AD-7280S-0B 24x SATA Internal DVD+/-RW Drive (Black) {$27}
• OS drive: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 4 GB USB Flash Drive SDCZ33-004G-B35​ {$6}
• HD: 8x Seagate Barracuda 7200 3 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST3000DM001 {$130x8}

To reiterate my main questions:

1. Will this setup work with FreeNAS?
2. Will this setup work with itself?
3. Where can I reduce costs, if possible?
4. Will a ZFS raid be a sound choice for simple data safety?
5. Do I actually need a RAID card if I get a motherboard with enough SATA ports already?

 

[pirateghost]

1. looks like it, but i dont have firsthand knowledge of FreeNAS on that particular hardware.
2. sure, why not, assuming the mobo supports that RAM and CPU
3. can the DVD drive, its not needed. you can install FreeNAS directly to the USB drive (refer to the documentation on that)
4. absolutely, thats one of the selling points of ZFS
5. not at all. All you need are ports to plug into, you dont need RAID on the card, FreeNAS just needs to see the drives.

 

[hobothulhu]

Thank you for the input. If I don't actually need a physical RAID card, then I will just get a motherboard with enough SATA ports for my needs.
My updated setup would be:

• Motherboard: MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 FM2 AMD A85X (Hudson D4) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard {$100}
• CPU: AMD A4-5300 Trinity 3.4GHz (3.6GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 65W Dual-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 7480D {$55}
• RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) {$88}
• NIC: Intel Gigabit CT PCI-E Network Adapter EXPI9301CTBLK {$25}
• Case: NZXT Technologies SOURCE 220 CA-SO220-01 Matt Steel Mesh Front Mid Tower Case with USB 3.0 {$50}
• PSU: Corsair CX Series 750 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Bronze ATX12V/EPS12V 744 Power Supply CX750M {$96}
• OS drive: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 4 GB USB Flash Drive SDCZ33-004G-B35 {$6}
• HD: 8x Seagate Barracuda 7200 3 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST3000DM001 {$130x8}

My main goal here is to be reasonably (or better) sure that FreeNAS will work with this configuration of hardware.

 

[pirateghost]

should be sufficient.

 

[gpsguy]

One question - will you be buying the 8 drives from the start? It's not clear in your message.

If not, you won't be able to add the additional ones to the original vdev. You might want to cogitate a bit more on this, before you buy the drives.

No heavy usage is planned, but a lot of data will be stored. I plan for it to have 2 drives at first, which I will increase as time goes by.

• HD: 8x Seagate Barracuda 7200 3 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST3000DM001 {$130x8}

 

[FireWire2]

Will this setup work with FreeNAS?
Yes

Will this setup work with itself?
Yes

Where can I reduce costs, if possible?
Yes

Will a ZFS raid be a sound choice for simple data safety?
It should be OK

Do I actually need a RAID card if I get a motherboard with enough SATA ports already?
For ZFS, you do not need RAID card but SATA HBA - straight JBOD - Just a Bunch Of Drives

There are gives and takes. You must define where is good enough for your need.
Your list of parts will work, but are you using BT in your system? If so ZFS may not be the best... I read some where in this forum with BT enable it can bring the system down


Just to stream several BD.ISO and schedule back up via "RYSNC" then you can pretty much get away with my set up but smaller scale
It'd been running for 3yrs + with 3x HDD replacements and it took about 7 hrs to rebuilt

I was aiming at LOW power and decent transfer rate 200MB/+ for my expandable 40TB RAW NAS. and it consumes about 180W of power
Here is my NAS.
http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showt [...] 898&page=4

 

[hobothulhu]

One question - will you be buying the 8 drives from the start? It's not clear in your message.

If not, you won't be able to add the additional ones to the original vdev. You might want to cogitate a bit more on this, before you buy the drives.

Thank you for catching this. I did not think of that, so I will buy 5 from Newegg (max purchasable at once) and three more (of the same model, etc.) from another location.

There are gives and takes. You must define where is good enough for your need.
Your list of parts will work, but are you using BT in your system? If so ZFS may not be the best... I read some where in this forum with BT enable it can bring the system down


Just to stream several BD.ISO and schedule back up via "RYSNC" then you can pretty much get away with my set up but smaller scale
It'd been running for 3yrs + with 3x HDD replacements and it took about 7 hrs to rebuilt

I was aiming at LOW power and decent transfer rate 200MB/+ for my expandable 40TB RAW NAS. and it consumes about 180W of power
Here is my NAS.
http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showt [...] 898&page=4

What is this BT you mention?

 

[survive]

Hi hobothulhu,

Your original Supermicro based list is roughly what I use myself. Works great and that's what I would go for personally. If you go that route I would make a couple of adjustments:

1) No need for the CT NIC, the Supermicro board has a pair of Intel Gig NICs onboard.
2) The memory you picked appears to be registered ECC. You don't want that, you want unbuffered ECC. 4 X 4GB should run you about $100 for Kingston listed in the Supermicro "Supported Memory" list.
3) I can't speak specifically to the case you selected, but if it were my money I'd spend the extra $50 and get a nice Fractal Designs R4 case. I'm a big fan of spending a few bucks more for a quality case and the R4 wires up real nice with the SFF-8087 cables off of the M1015. Add in a pair of molex-to-4-SATA power cables and your drive stack will be real neat & orderly.
4) The PSU you picked is really overkill. There's nothing wrong with Corsair, they are one of the few PSU's I recommend without reservation but given my choice I'd go with a nice 500ish watt SeaSonic. Once the system is running I'd be surprised if it used more than 120-140w which is going to put you way out of the efficiency "sweet spot" on your PSU.
5) You don't need a RAID card (actually you want a dumb "HBA" (host bus adapter)) but I got one simply to cut down on the rat's nest of SATA cables. To do 8 drives on an Intel platform odds are you would need to spend $30 or so for a 2 port controller anyway so it was very much worth it to go the extra $50 for a proper LSI controller (I use an older BR10i which actually cost me $40.00, but you would be going for the 1015 which should run around $80-100.00).
6) If you do go the HBA route get your cables from Monoprice.com. I used .75 meter cables in my filer which was just about perfect.

-Will