Is this NAS hardware okay for home entertainment storage?

[astronaute]

Hello friends :)

I've read a lot about different hardware and am about to buy the following parts and put FreeNAS 8 on it, but still have few questions in order to not do something stupid and lose money.

Case: Lian Li PC-Q08A
Case Fan: ANTEC TrueQuiet 140 mm
MB: Asus E35M1-I DELUXE
PSU: Seasonic X-Series Fanless - 400W
RAM: Crucial Ballistix DDR3 PC3-10600 8GB Kit(4GBx2)
HDD: 4xWestern Digital Caviar Green S-ATA II 64 2TB (WD20EARS)

Boot from:
USB: CORSAIR Flash Voyager 16GB USB 3.0


1) I will start with 4 HDD in RAIDZ, but those are SATA II disks and MB is SATAIII, is that okay or do I have to purchase SATAIII disks? Cheapest I can find are Seagate Barracuda Green SATA III - 2 Tb.

2) It will be used primarily for streaming of music and 1080p content and maybe some backups, is it okay for this use?

3) I choose a fanless PSU because the silence is very important for always-on NAS, 400W is maybe too much. Does it spend more energy because of this, or it spends only the real amount of energy needed ?

4) I was thinking about replacing my HTPC by Asus EeeBox PC EB1501P. Do you think it will be okay for watching 1080p content by Wifi from NAS if routed by a very good Wifi router (great)? Or do I have to use Ethernet (not so great because of wires)?

5) Is it safe to boot always-on system from USB knowing that it may damage the USB stick over time ? What happens if the USB stop working, is it easy to just replace it with new FreeNAS 8 on new stick and resume or is it more complicated?

Thank you in advance for your help :)

 

[Milhouse]

1) I will start with 4 HDD in RAIDZ, but those are SATA II disks and MB is SATAIII, is that okay or do I have to purchase SATAIII disks? Cheapest I can find are Seagate Barracuda Green SATA III - 2 Tb.

Your motherboard is fine, it will be backward compatible with SATA2 (and SATA1). SATA3 is really for stupidly expensive SSDs right now - no spinning hard drive will max out even a SATA2 link let alone SATA3. The Seagate Barracuda Green is not going to give you SATA3 performance, though it will work on a SATA3 link (albeit at typical SATA2 speeds).

2) It will be used primarily for streaming of music and 1080p content and maybe some backups, is it okay for this use?

Sure.

3) I choose a fanless PSU because the silence is very important for always-on NAS, 400W is maybe too much. Does it spend more energy because of this, or it spends only the real amount of energy needed ?

It all depends on the efficiency of the PSU - I've read they are most efficient when connected with a load of about half their rated capacity, so a 400W PSU may be appropriate in this case.

4) I was thinking about replacing my HTPC by Asus EeeBox PC EB1501P. Do you think it will be okay for watching 1080p content by Wifi from NAS if routed by a very good Wifi router (great)? Or do I have to use Ethernet (not so great because of wires)?

1080p over WiFi? Not had much success with that in my experience. If you can't run actual ethernet cable, my advice would be 500-AV Homeplug such as the Netgear XAV5001/XAV5004 are very good - I've achieved actual TCP throughput rates of 120Mbits with this kit (tested with iperf).

5) Is it safe to boot always-on system from USB knowing that it may damage the USB stick over time ? What happens if the USB stop working, is it easy to just replace it with new FreeNAS 8 on new stick and resume or is it more complicated?

Yes - just make sure you have a recent backup of the FreeNAS config.

Any cheap 2GB USB key will be fine to boot FreeNAS 8. Don't waste money on anything fancy or with more than 2GB as the space will be wasted along with your cash.


Having said all the above, I'd recommend anyone looking to build a quiet, low powered 4-5 disk NAS to just go and buy an HP Proliant Microserver N36L for about £200/$320 (from newegg.com) and be done with it - it's perfect for FreeNAS. :)

 

[astronaute]

Thank you for your help and recommendations.

For the 1080p over WiFi, 120Mbits sound too much no? I thought that with my 40-45Mbits it would be okay, I was more concerned about the bandwidth stability.
I'll have to test it and report results here as soon as my NAS is functional :)

 

[Milhouse]

Thank you for your help and recommendations.

For the 1080p over WiFi, 120Mbits sound too much no? I thought that with my 40-45Mbits it would be okay, I was more concerned about the bandwidth stability.
I'll have to test it and report results here as soon as my NAS is functional :)

40-45Mbits is probably at the lower end of OK, though I'd prefer a bit more to be comfortable, a figure closer to 60Mbit/s would be better which you may be lucky to get with WiFi. The 120Mbit/s I mentioned is the maximum bandwidth I observed with 500-AV Homeplug equipment and the connection was rock solid stable, something else you can't say you often get with WiFi unless you live in the middle of nowhere. :)

 

[matthewowen01]

I was never able to get 1080p to play over wifi (802.11n 300 mb/s setup as a bridge). I wound up drilling some holes in the wall.

in my testing I needed an average of 150 mb/s with peaks of up to 250 mb/s but the wireless was never able to reliably give it to me, I'd get 30 seconds to a few minutes of play, then a long pause. 720p worked just fine.

 

[Bohs Hansen]

I was never able to get 1080p to play over wifi (802.11n 300 mb/s setup as a bridge). I wound up drilling some holes in the wall.

in my testing I needed an average of 150 mb/s with peaks of up to 250 mb/s but the wireless was never able to reliably give it to me, I'd get 30 seconds to a few minutes of play, then a long pause. 720p worked just fine.

can second that, exact same problem and same fix. Went back to gigabit cable setup

 

[Milhouse]

That's why I suggested Homeplug as it's a better option than even the best WiFi for those who can't run CAT5. Homeplug can stream perfect 1080p (maybe even up to three concurrent 1080p streams in the case of a very good 500-AV connection, as I have) but like WiFi it's environmentally sensitive in that the results you get will depend entirely on how your property is wired up.