My first FreeNAS

[blacs30]

Hi everyone,

after following the forums for a couple of month and reading the hardware requirements and recommendation slides + pdf I wanted to ask you for some feedback for my build's.

It is basically for SOHO usage.

--> USERS: 3
Wedding photography, movies(plex jail), software storage and puppet/salt stuff + munki (docker), gitlab(jail), rsync backup location for webserver. Backup server for 5 Macs.
Probably other things when I have time which I don't know of yet.

--> CURRENT SETUP: I have a small Synology with 4 bays but its too slow and unflexible, as a backup I have 1x USB with 8TB and an old 2 bay Synlolgy NAS.

Where I want to go during the year:

1x Prod FreeNAS

• 4x WD Red 4TB
• 4x HGST NAS 4TB (prefer mixed brands)
• Supermicro X11SSH-CTF
• Intel Xeon E3-1230v6 (maybe 1240v6 as the 1230 is difficult to get in Germany at the moment)
• Fractal Design Dfine XL R2
• 2x 32GB SanDisk Ultra Fit - Boot drives - if too many get broken I'd change to SATA DOM
• 660 Watt Seasonic Platinum 80+ Modular
• 32GB (2x16GB) Samsung DDR4 2400 ECC Ram (M391A2K43BB1-CRC)

Thinking about ZRAID3. With the background of ZRAID1 being dead ZRAID being dead in 2019. Probably more drives in the feature.
I stay with the boxed CPU cooler as the und of the disks is probably louder anyway so it doesn't make much sense to invest in to a quieter cooler - maybe later when I experience the opposite.

1x backup / test FreeNas

• 3x WD Red 4TB
• 3x HGST NAS 4TB
• Supermicro X11SSH-(C)TF
• Intel Pentium G4600 (before this thread I though going with Intel Core i3 6300)
• Fractal Design Dfine XL R2
• 2x 32GB SanDisk Ultra Fit - Boot drives - if too many get broken I'd change to SATA DOM
• 660 Watt Seasonic Platinum 80+ Modular
• 32GB (2x16GB) Samsung DDR4 2400 ECC Ram (M391A2K43BB1-CRC)

1x backup to eSATA

• Startech 2 Port PCI Express eSATA card + 2 internal SATA ports (PEXESAT322I)
• RaidSonic ICY BOX 3620 eSATA enclosure + big drives

I am wondering about the benifit of the X11SSH-(C)TF over the X11SSH-TF which is for me basically the extra possible hard drives. The price difference here is around 140€.

Would there be a cheaper way with an PCI Express card to add more drives?

Any other recommendations, did I forget something?

 

[Ericloewe]

ZRAID3

It's RAIDZ, not ZRAID. Anything other than RAIDZ that you read on the internet is written by people too lazy to even figure out how to write RAIDZ correctly, so please ignore it. :)

With the background of ZRAID1 being dead ZRAID being dead in 2019.

I assume you mean RAIDZ2 being dead in 2019. Yeah, that's not a realistic assessment. RAIDZ1 suffers mostly from the lack of redundancy in the case of a single failure, which is the biggest risk factor. RAIDZ2 is in a much better situation, on any reasonable pool that isn't held together by adhesive tapes of multiple types. Of course, RAIDZ3 is better, but RAIDZ2 is enough for most cases.

Startech 2 Port PCI Express eSATA card + 2 internal SATA ports (PEXESAT322I)

Bad idea. In generall, all SATA PCIe cards are a bad idea.

RaidSonic ICY BOX 3620 eSATA enclosure + big drives

Horrible idea. Dubious cooling, SATA port replicator, dubious PSU... It's a disaster waiting to happen.

I am wondering about the benifit of the X11SSH-(C)TF over the X11SSH-TF which is for me basically the extra possible hard drives. The price difference here is around 140€.

If you don't need 10GbE, save some cash and go with an X11SSL-CF.

 

[blacs30]

Thanks Ericloewe for your feedback.

It's RAIDZ, not ZRAID.

Oh my I was wondering and found so many posts with titles containing ZRAID... Okay RAIDZ[1..3] from now on.

I assume you mean RAIDZ2 being dead in 2019. Yeah, that's not a realistic assessment.

Then I will go with RAIDZ2.

Bad idea. In generall, all SATA PCIe cards are a bad idea.

My focus was 99% on the eSATA ports. Can that or a different card be okay for such a task or should I forget about that idea of using a more ore less portable eSATA enclosure for backup?

Horrible idea. Dubious cooling, SATA port replicator, dubious PSU... It's a disaster waiting to happen.

Not really that surprised, I guess I looked too much on the money.

If you don't need 10GbE, save some cash and go with an X11SSL-CF.

I will think about it, probably you are right. At the moment I don't have other devices supporting it.


BTW:
The guys from APC have a nice support. They just shipped immediately a replacement for my abnormal behaving Pro 900. I was shocked - positively.

 

[Ericloewe]

Can that or a different card be okay for such a task or should I forget about that idea of using a more ore less portable eSATA enclosure for backup?

There are several problems with that solution, unfortunately:

• The SATA interface is extremely limiting. Cable lengths are severely restricted and anything other than 1:1 drives:ports is a crapshoot.
• Actually getting SATA outside of the chassis is a pain in the ass, since there are no good SATA controllers other than Intel's (for FreeBSD, at least - the Rocket 750 or whatever it's called looks good, but the driver sucks, big-time).
• eSATA enclosures are built down to a price and are generally as dodgy as it gets

Your ideal device, from a technical point of view, would be as follows:

• Instead of eSATA, an SAS HBA with external ports.
• Very short SFF-8088 cable from HBA to enclosure (no more than 75cm)
• External enclosure (up to four bays) that takes a single SFF-8088 cable and runs the connections directly to the drives
• Non-cringe-inducing PSU

If you find such a thing, please tell me because I'd love to acquire one.

 

[blacs30]

Thanks for that explanation. Makes more sense now.
For myself and maybe others I link this article as it takes the "fear" of SAS https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-sas-sy-a-primer-on-basic-sas-and-sata.26145/

There is not much which seems be trustworthy out there for an external enclosure.

I found only 3 enclosures which seem interesting but I don't really know how to judge the PSU.

- Highpoint RocketStore 6414AS - but it ships with a PCIe HBA card for whatever reason and the price is ~600$

- The Addonics Mini Storage Tower and the Storage Tower V seem both quite modular.
Maybe the PSU could be exchanged with a better one?

 

[Ericloewe]

I found only 3 enclosures which seem interesting but I don't really know how to judge the PSU.

If they have a voltage selection switch, run away. They're ancient designs that have no place in modern consumer electronics.