Integrating HTPC with DIY NAS Advice (First NAS Build)

[Jorge]

Aloha! As a nerd (as my wife puts it), I'm looking for a better storage solution for our small, but hopefully growing, home network. Current setup can be found below.

Intel i5 processor
8 GB RAM
500 GB WD Caviar Blue
Verizon FIOS 50/25 into HTPC (wired into HTPC)
CrashPlan (Cloud based backup)
XBMC as daily driver
Sickbeard/Couchpotato
Chromecast (just fun)
2 x Nexus Tablets
2 x Android Phones

Between using our HTPC as a PVR, movie player, and digital storage, we've exhausted our 500 GB in a short amount of time. I'd like to deploy a longer term solution instead of constantly shuffling files around to make sure (about 30 GB disk space remaining). I'm thinking a NAS solution may be worthwhile at this point instead of adding an extra drive to the HTPC, but I defer to the community for advice.

The NAS would need to be able to record TV from Windows Media (SiliconDust HomeRun tuner), Sickbeard/Couchpotato downloads, Crashplan cloud backup, DNLA / uPnP etc... essentially everything FreeNAS can do.

I'm also botting off a USB stick so that shouldn't be an issue given what I've read so far.

I read through the hardware "sticky" regarding setups and suggested equipment. I know you get what you pay for, but I'd like to try and keep my NAS build under $500 including 2 x 2TB drives. I have no problems waiting for components to go on sale; for example, picking up a 2TB WD Red for under $100.

I have in my possession a Fractal 304 mini ITX. I know typically one starts with the mobo but I'd like to utilize it if at all possible. I also have an "old" Antec EarthWatts 380W power supply.

Key components then are the mobo, cpu (i'm assuming a combo mobo/cpu is not acceptable), and ECC RAM if possible. In essence, I have about $250 to play with for these three components. Not much I know. First off is it doable? If it is, would the following work:

Mobo: ASRock FM2A85X-ITX FM2 AMD A85X ($100)
CPU: AMD A4-5300 Trinity 3.4GHz ($60)
RAM: Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Server Memory Model KVR1333D3E9SK2/8G ($90)

Thoughts? First time building something other than a gaming rig so any help would be most appreciated. Thanks!

 

[survive]

Hi Jorge,

I'm not sure you can actually record TV from an HDHomerun through WMC to a share....I think the drive needs to be local (might even have to be recorded to a specific folder) due to the DRM that needs to be applied to protect the recorded content.

-Will

 

[Jorge]

Hi Jorge,

I'm not sure you can actually record TV from an HDHomerun through WMC to a share....I think the drive needs to be local (might even have to be recorded to a specific folder) due to the DRM that needs to be applied to protect the recorded content.

-Will

Yep, you're correct. I can run some batch scripts that I've seen floating around if I wanted to copy the PVR contents to the NAS. That may not be of too much importance. Thanks for the catch!

 

[Jorge]

Alright, I've spent the entire weekend nearly obsessing over this. After watching the 61 slide power point and the Google/MSFT papers, looking at the probabilities, etc. I still need to ask. For a home user with photos, movies, docs etc. how important is it to go ECC? I understand if I do not go ECC, I cannot use ZFS (or at least should not). My non-hard drive budget was $250. It would appear to do this correctly with ECC, I'd have to double that as most server motherboards run about $170-180 + processor + ECC RAM (1 to 2 GB per TB storage). My goal is to use a simple RAID 1 format for our home server but the deeper I journey down the rabbit hole, the less "warm and fuzzies" I'm getting about how I wanted to do this versus how it should be done.

Odd question, but does a budget system like the Synology 213j run with ECC memory?

I think I'm just confused at this point.

 

[cyberjock]

You aren't going to get the reliability(or performance) of a system like Synology makes. There's no comparison of Synology to FreeNAS, at all. It's apples to oranges.

So lets discuss a few things.

1. Synology devices are cheap, and, generally okay for many people. They have been known to eat ALOT of data for no reason. Go reading forums and you'll find lots of people that hate those 'ready-made NASes'. Many people here have their own horror stories, which is why they aren't using them anymore.
2. ECC is definitely recommended, but not required for ZFS to function. However, keep in mind that choosing to not use ECC could cost you your data later. While bad RAM isn't exactly common it does happen and it is more often than not devastating to ZFS. This is why ECC is strongly recommended.

So here's where you get to decide what is most important to you, your wallet, and your data.

If your data is important to you, you should strongly consider ZFS with ECC RAM.

If your data is important, but your g/f or wife won't want a divorce if you lose it or you'll want to go lay down in the street, feel free to run without ECC RAM. You might get lucky and never have a problem, or you can potentially lose everything. But if it goes bad don't expect sympathy from the forum. You'll get the "i told ya so" speech.

If your data is even less important than that and you are trying to save a buck everywhere you can, then go for whichever is cheapest(probably the Synology solution but I didn't check it.. I hate those things).

So how much do you feel like spending to protect your data? Because that's literally what you are trying to decide. And that's only a decision that you can make. (If it makes any difference I use ZFS with ECC RAM and I accepted the fact that it cost more.. my data was worth it.)

 

[Jorge]

Even if I run this in pieces, you're absolutely right. Rather do it right the first time and be done with it.

If you don't mind, this appears to be the only decent mini ITX server motherboard available that's not nearly $600. Granted, maximum memory is 16 GB, but would the Intel DBS1200KPR work?

Only 4 SATA ports but I won't be utilizing all 4 from the get go. PCIe slot should buy me extra SATAs if needed. Or do I abandon the mini ITX case and go with a mATX? Love that small form factor though as it'll sit in our living room with our HTPC.

 

[cyberjock]

Totally a personal choice again. If you know you won't outgrow the mini ITX case and it won't cook your hardware like some do, go for it. But more often than not once someone sees how this all works, they'll want to expand, and they'll quickly learn how limited their system is and they start kicking themselves for not thinking about future expansion.

 

[budmannxx]

survive and cyberjock have covered most of it, but here's my two cents:

On recording WMC directly to NAS: it's technically possible, but not recommended. Not because of the DRM, but because of network capacity/throughput. If while you're recoding to the NAS any sort of network hiccup occurs, you'll likely lose the entire recording. Better to record locally and copy to the NAS later. I've had success with the Automove Service (part of Recorded TV Manager). I didn't want any moving parts in my HTPC so I installed Windows on a 32GB SSD, and added a second 128GB SSD--MCE records to the second drive and the Automove Service periodically copies the .wtv files to the NAS. Then you can add the NAS samba share as a folder in your "Recorded TV" Library, and you'll be able to watch both locally stored (or currently recording) and network recordings. It's all seamless within MCE (you can't even really tell if the recording you're about to watch is on the NAS yet, which is nice). Main advantage of using Recorded TV Manager over a batch script is that it's intelligent enough to know when a recording is done (i.e. it won't just try to copy everything to the NAS--partial recordings aren't touched until the show is done).

As for the FreeNAS setup itself, if you're building it from scratch now, just go with ZFS (a RAID-Z2 or -Z3) and ECC RAM if you can afford it. You'll still need a true backup of you important data, but ECC and at least some form of RAID-Z are going to keep your data available.

For Crashplan, last time I checked (which was a while ago), there was no way to run this in a FreeNAS jail. What I believe people did was have the Crashplan client installed on another machine. This machine had a network share to the FreeNAS and the Crashplan client backed up this mounted folder to the cloud. Not ideal but it seemed to work for some people.

For networking, it probably goes without saying, but you're going to want gigabit networking for wired HD streaming between the NAS and the HTPC and at least 5GHz Wireless N (but ideally Wireless AC) for the tablets and phones (assuming they support AC). You may be able to get by with slower protocols, but if more than one user is streaming, you'll likely run into stuttering issues. You'll also want to get an Intel NIC if the mobo doesn't have one already. There's plenty of detail on why throughout the forum.

Given that you're an Android house, I also recommend looking into Remote Potato for controlling the HTPC from the tabs/phones. It has some streaming functionality too, although I haven't used that.

I guess some of this was off-topic, sorry. If you have follow-up questions about the non-FreeNAS stuff I mentioned, please make sure to ask them in the respective products' forums, not here.

 

[Jorge]

@budman - None of that was off topic. Very useful information actually. Thanks!

I think I'll change plans a bit. My initial thought was to use the Fractal 304 mini ITX for the server but I cannot find a fairly inexpensive mITX board that would be appropriate other than that Intel board. My goal now is to convert my existing HTPC (in a repurposed mid ATX case) into the NAS and use the 304 as our new HTPC. Smaller form factor should give me less grief with the misses. I will go ECC though after being scared straight