Is FreeNAS for me & build advice

[ThomasHall]

Hey everyone,

I'll try to make a long story short. My current situation is that I've got a single desktop computer with a RAID5 array on it for my storage doing everything. What I would like is to move as much of my storage and network-related stuff to an external always-on NAS/file server setup strictly for personal use. My first thought was just running another Windows or Linux machine which would give me a lot of flexibility in terms of software, but I'm wondering if FreeNAS wouldn't work as well or better for my needs. None of my data is strictly speaking critical, but some of it would sting quite a bit if I were to lose.

Basically, my storage plan is as follows:

• 1x SSD as system disk
• 1x SSD as a scratch drive (just something cheap and replaceable for active downloads and file operations before being moved to long-term storage)
• 2x4 TB HDD in a mirror for storage with possibility for future expansion

Windows 10 must be able to mount storage/scratch disks as a network drive with ability to manage files. Basically, I want the server to act like a regular HDD as far as my desktop is concerned. I would like the server to support torrents, Plex or other media-server functionality, and possibly FTP or similar for external access away from home. I've got a Raspberry PI that I'm planning on turning into a smart-TV (openELEC or some variation thereof) and it'd be great of that could also access the files. If it works for Android phones, that's also a bonus. In addition, I'll use an external drive for backup of the storage space of both the server and my desktop every once in a while and would like this to be supported. Finally, I'm going to get an UPS that can keep the server alive long enough to shut itself down in case of power outage, so I'd really like the machine to have support for that over USB. I think FreeNAS can do all those things based on what I've read, but I'm an amateur and would like to be absolutely sure first.

Next problem is the hardware. I've tried several variations but I have no idea what I'm doing so I'm never quite happy. As usual, I want to minimize price, power consumption and noise. Common for all of them is:

• 2x4TB HDD Seagate IronWolf
• 2x cheap SATA SSD (I have a spare one already)
• Corsair 550W PSU (more than needed, but better options are limited)
• UPS
• 1x8TB Seagate IronWolf + ZyXEL NAS326 for backup of file server and desktop

What varies is mainly CPU/MB/RAM, and what I've got so far is:

1. Supermicro A2SDi-2C-HLN4F (MB + Atom C3338 CPU) + 16GB ECC RAM
2. AMD Athlon 240GE + Asus Prime B450M-A + 16GB non-ECC RAM
3. Intel Pentium G4560 + Gigabute C246-WU4 + 16GB ECC RAM that fits the MB
4. AMD Ryzen 3 1200 + Asus Prime B350-Plus + 16GB ECC RAM

Options 1, 3 and 4 supports ECC from what I've read, while #2 have a MB that supports it but not a CPU (officially anyway, I've heard conflicting messages). In case of the latter, I was kind of hoping that a good low-power AM4 CPU with ECC support would come out at some later date so I could just buy a new one, buy new ECC RAM, and use the non-ECC sticks for my desktop.
In terms of price, the 240GE is the cheapest but it may be offset by a potential future upgrade to ECC, the Ryzen 3 1200 is a bit more expensive (+5%), next is the Atom (+13%), and the G4560 is the most expensive (+20%).
Power consumption pretty much goes up with the performance from 1 to 4, but I'm not sure how much performance I need and while the Atom itself is really low-power, I suspect that the others are going to idle a lot and most of the power will go to the other components anyway.
Other differences is that #4 does not include a GPU, but I can use one temporarily for installation and then run everything without one. #1 has 8 SATA ports, #2 6, #3 10 and #4 6. I'm not sure the differences otherwise is of relevance.


So to summarize; 1) can FreeNAS do what I want and can a relative amateur with little experience set it up, 2) what build should I be looking at, and 3) anything else I should think about/consider? I'm suspecting that the feature set is a-okay, though how hard it is to make happen is another matter. I'm leaning towards the Ryzen build as it has ECC support from the start, it's relatively cheap, and I strongly suspect that the power consumption is going to be fairly similar no matter what I go with. The Atom might be a little bit less noisy as it can be cooled passively, but I'll live.

Any help is much appreciated.

 

[Yorick]

Plex is going to determine CPU needs. If you’re looking for a low performance CPU, is it safe to assume that you will play files in their native resolution? That is, either not stream to mobile, or have mobile resolution versions of the file on disk, prepared via handbrake.

The background to that is that Plex requires roughly 2,000 passmark per 1080p transcode.

FreeNAS can do what you want. As for skill set to configure it: Yes, doable, and, you will face a learning curve. There’ll be a lot of reading, from how ZFS works and what “expand later” means in that context; to how to set up plugins (private cloud, plex, etc) and file shares.

 

[ThomasHall]

It'll be unlikely that I'll do any heavy transcoding of media files, it's mostly just so I can store video, music and pictures and play it either on the TV or some mobile device. I assume music and images won't be an issue. I'll have to check my camera, but I'm pretty sure it's 720p possibly 1080p, and any other media files like movies etc. are probably going to be in that range too. All the CPUs except the Atom are roughly in the 5000-7000 passmark range (G4560 < 240GE < Ryzen 3 1200), so hopefully none of them should have an issue if the need should arise.

I'm honestly not even sure if I'll be using Plex/similar at all, it's more of a safeguard in case I get the urge to at some point. Mainly, I just want to make sure that the hardware is capable of doing what I want it to without bottlenecking. I have no experience with FreeNAS and how much it requires for just baseline functionality.

Thanks.