Need some suggestion

[mon39]

I've E5-2660 v2 on Asus Rampage IV Extreme. I have the following HDD in spare currently,
120GB Apacer SSD
6*4TB 7200RPM HDD
2*8TB 7200RPM HDD

My motherboard has the following Sata spec
Intel® X79 chipset :
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), red
4 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s), black
Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10
ASMedia® PCIe SATA controller :
2 x eSATA 6Gb/s port(s), red
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), red

I've gone through the latest FreeNas tutorial. I need your kind suggestion on which drives to use if I would to build RaidZ2? I've got 64GB rams too btw.

 

[Chris Moore]

Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10

Don't use any hardware RAID with FreeNAS. Any disk controller needs to be in AHCI mode, meaning that is passes control directly through to FreeNAS with no modification.

What is you goal with the above hardware?

I've gone through the latest FreeNas tutorial.

What tutorial ?

I need your kind suggestion on which drives to use if I would to build RaidZ2?

You said that you already had hard drives:

6*4TB 7200RPM HDD
2*8TB 7200RPM HDD

 

[Chris Moore]

ASMedia® PCIe SATA controller :

Less than ideal hardware but we can't tell you much if you don't ask anything.

 

[Heracles]

Hi Mon,

You wrote that you have 6x 4TB and 2x 8TB. You also asked for RaidZ2. Know that if you put all your drives in a single RaidZ2, only 4TB of your 8TB will be used. With RaidZ2, all drives must be the same size, so bigger ones are limited to the size of the smallest one. Also, with only 2 drives of 8TB, you can not make a RaidZ2 out of these only two drives.

What are you going to do with your FreeNAS ? RaidZ2 is not good if you wish to host VM over iSCSI but can be very good if you do mostly sequential reads.

Another option would be to do Raid10 : 3 mirrors of 4TB each and one mirror of 8TB. You can either have the two series in a single pool or have the 8TB in a first pool and the others in a second pool. But again, to know the best fit, we must know about your goals.

Good luck with your new setup,

 

[mon39]

Thanks guys for the reply. This is gonna be a small setup to share between family members. Some might want to do a bit of photo/video editing but mostly it's to store family event pictures and videos across different family members. Willing to learn the Plex and Cloud parts but one thing at a time first.

@Chris Moore Tutorial regarding setting up FreeNas. Some basic stuff. Yea I also had more than 10 3TB drives too. But with very limited Sata ports available so I'm wondering what could be possible the most ideal setup for me. I've read that the onboard Asmedia Sata port is not recommended?

This is my old gaming gear, I no longer game, so might as well turn it into a Nas for my family.

I read that RaidZ2 has good redundancy and speed. So I'm thinking to go this way, do let me know if there is a better one.

My 3TB HDD are these, are they suitable for my basic nas setup?
https://www.amazon.com/HGST-Ultrast...ords=HGST+3tb&qid=1557550440&s=gateway&sr=8-3

 

[Chris Moore]

My 3TB HDD are these, are they suitable for my basic nas setup?
https://www.amazon.com/HGST-Ultrast...ords=HGST+3tb&qid=1557550440&s=gateway&sr=8-3

They should be fine to start, as long as there is no data on them already. When you establish a FreeNAS (ZFS file system) storage pool on them, it will clear any data already on them.

I've read that the onboard Asmedia Sata port is not recommended?

The best SATA controllers are made by Intel, some others are reasonably good, but you can also attach SATA hard drives to a SAS controller card like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/H220-6Gbps-SAS-PCI-E-3-0-LSI-9205-8i-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID-SAS2308-IT/123499957094
You would just need to verify that it has the latest version of the firmware once you get it.

Here are a bunch of links to useful information to get you going. Please spend some time learning before jumping right into a build, but also ask questions. It is best to get it right from the start than to make a mistake that can cost you data and lost time later.

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

Why not to use RAID-5 or RAIDz1
https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/

FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev. 1e) 2017-05-06
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

Hardware Recommendations by @cyberjock - from 26 Aug 2014 - and still valid
https://forums.freenas.org/threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

Proper Power Supply Sizing Guidance
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/don't-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy.48/

Confused about that LSI card? Join the crowd ...
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/confused-about-that-lsi-card-join-the-crowd.11901/

Building, Burn-In, and Testing your FreeNAS system
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/building-burn-in-and-testing-your-freenas-system.38/

Github repository for FreeNAS scripts, including disk burnin
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...for-freenas-scripts-including-disk-burnin.28/

Uncle Fester's Basic FreeNAS Configuration Guide
https://www.familybrown.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=fester:intro