My first Freenas build

[MadManChris1]

Hey so I'm new to this forum, I had a quick look over some of the pinned stuff and it was very helpful.

I've finalised my nas build and I am going to buy it tonight.
I have messed around with Freenas in an old pc but its time to take it to the next level now.
Here's the components:
Case: Fractal Node 304

Mobo:C2550D4I - ASROCK MOTHERBOARD MINI-ITX C2550 FCBGA1283 SOCKET

Ram: Kingston Technology KVR16E11/8 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz ECC DIMM Memory with Thermal Sensor (unbuffered)

PSU: Seasonic SS-250SU 250W Flex ATX 1U power supply

HDD's: 2 x 3TB WD reds. I am going to expand to 6 drives when I have the money and will start the pool from scratch again. Raid 1 config for the two drives until I expand.

I only have one concern and that is about the Ram it ticks all of asrocks specifications so in theory it should work. Can anyone confirm it does or at least that it should?


I plan to use Plex media centre and maybe a few other plugins. I will use a ZFS.

I'm really excited about this new project, and will probably be spending more time on these forums.

How does this build sound to you guys? let me know if you need more info.

Thanks in advanced.

 

[Ericloewe]

Ideally, the RAM should be specifically listed as compatible either by Kingston (or whiever brand you end up buying) or Asrock.

I believe those Marvell controllers (the ones driving the extra SATA ports) are behaving erratically under FreeBSD. You might want to research that before going for it.

 

[MadManChris1]

Ideally, the RAM should be specifically listed as compatible either by Kingston (or whiever brand you end up buying) or Asrock.

I believe those Marvell controllers (the ones driving the extra SATA ports) are behaving erratically under FreeBSD. You might want to research that before going for it.

Thanks for the reply.
I intend to use the Intel ones at first so I'm going to look to see if they're going to patch it soon.
Would i see a big performance drop with the sata2 ports compared to the sata3 ports as i only want 6 HDD's for the foreseeable future? As there is 6 Intel ports.

I'll see if I can buy any of the recommended ram for a similar price.

 

[Ericloewe]

While I don't recommend you buy something before its issues have been corrected, using SATA 3Gb/s will have no impact whatsoever with mechanical drives.

Last time I checked, a 10kRPM Velociraptor (I think it was the latest 1TB version) can't even saturate SATA 1,5Gb/s (unless it's reading from its cache, that can easily saturate SATA 6Gb/s, but it's tiny). This means that, in practice, you have nothing to worry about when running at less than 6Gb/s, unless you're running several drives from one SAS lane using an expander.

 

[MadManChris1]

While I don't recommend you buy something before its issues have been corrected, using SATA 3Gb/s will have no impact whatsoever with mechanical drives.

Last time I checked, a 10kRPM Velociraptor (I think it was the latest 1TB version) can't even saturate SATA 1,5Gb/s (unless it's reading from its cache, that can easily saturate SATA 6Gb/s, but it's tiny). This means that, in practice, you have nothing to worry about when running at less than 6Gb/s, unless you're running several drives from one SAS lane using an expander.

Thanks ,
well I don't plan on using the Marvell ports now, just the Intel ones. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
I cant find anywhere to buy the recommended 8gb ECC in the UK, so i think il have to go with the ram stated. it checks the requirements so I optimistic that it will work.

 

[Ericloewe]

You can also try looking around Kingston, Crucial and Samsung's sites to see if they have anything tested with your motherboard. If not, just make sure you get good return conditions.

 

[MadManChris1]

You can also try looking around Kingston, Crucial and Samsung's sites to see if they have anything tested with your motherboard. If not, just make sure you get good return conditions.

I've just seen some one with the board and ram and it seemed fine for him, so I'm going to go for it.

Thanks for the help