New Build in Alaska

[Kogio]

I have looking at building a FreeNAS box for a bit, around the time 10 was not out yet, but wanted to wait when 10 came out for full virtualization
With all that did / did not happen with 10, I was happy to see 11 came out.

I have been building computer back to the 286 days and sure this setup will work.
But most all my experience is with Windows and VMware but not much with the linux side, but got to start somewhere.

Over all this is to replace my 5 bay Synology that is not able to transcode 1080p using Plex

Have Plex running and support up to 6 streams, most likely 3 at a time at 1080p, and possibly transcode 4K to 1080p
I would like to get OwnCloud or something like it working for the family members that have laptops and phones so all there data is in one place
Be able to back up the Windows and Mac computers around the house. CrashPlan?
Back up important docs, photos and videos to the cloud for DR (I have 4 kids and about 80 GB of pics and videos right now) thinking rcloud to Rackspace
In the case I am putting a DVD/Blu-Ray reader and was thinking having a VM with a script setup to rip whatever I put in and dump it to Plex
Migrate my Ubiquiti wifi controller from an older computer to this as a VM
My Synology is doing all my recording of my external video system, thinking that could move to the FreeNAS box but have not looked at it yet
Use my Synology as a backup for the full data on the FreeNAS system

Here is the hardware, some of it I have and others that I will pick up

Case SuperMicro SC833T-653B (I have)
http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/3U/833/SC833T-653B

Motherboard SuperMicro X10SRH-CLN4F
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X10SRH-CLN4F.cfm

CPU Intel E5-2620 V4
https://ark.intel.com/products/92986/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2620-v4-20M-Cache-2_10-GHz

CPU Fan Noctua NH-D9DX i4 3U
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PIPCGWC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

RAM 2x Micron Memory - 16GB DDR4-2133 2Rx4 ECC
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MDZCD78/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I21MHTB1LZK4IC&colid=BCGSVCD2XR1U

Data Drives 8x Segate 2 TB SATA (Had them laying around will be used in RAIDZ2) using the 8x SAS ports via Broadcom 3008
Once the system works and I feel good about it I will replace the drives one at a time to a 4 TB drive, thinking WD RED
I know I have to replace all 8 drives before I can expand the pool

ICY DOCK 4 Bay 2.5 SAS/SATA HDD & SSD Hot Swap Backplane Cage
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0040Z924Q/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Will have the boot drives and SSD Cache

Boot drives 2x Hitachi 160GB 5400RPM 8MB Cache (Raid 1)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LXH98BG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Cache drives?? 2x SSD (have some SSDs laying around from deals on Amazon that have not been used)
DVD/Blu-ray reader sitting around

System will be on its own APC UPS 750

Thanks

 

[Dice]

Hello, welcome to the forums.

If you have any questions in mind, please post them.

 

[Kogio]

Over all do you see any problems with FreeNAS working on the hardware.
Do I need the SSDs for L2ARC / ZIL / SLOG? What I have on hand are 2 500gb 850 evo Samsung's. Or would they be better in a pool of just SSDs?
Are there other / better options for doing backups. Crashplan for the Windows and Mac systems, and using rclone to back up to a cloud?

Thanks

 

[Arwen]

In general, you don't need a L2ARC Cache drive. Plex services would not benefit from a L2ARC Cache
drive since after you are done with a video, you tend not to watch it again. (Except in the case of small
children who want to want a specific cartoon over and over again...)

It's always better to max out the RAM first, before considering a L2ARC Cache drive.

Backing up clients does not benefit from a L2ARC Cache drive. And in general, a SLOG, (separate ZIL),
does not help writes unless the writes are synchronous and I/O bound, (like time sensitive).

Server backup design tend to be an odd subject. Some people trust Internet services for backups. Others
setup a local or remote server for backups. I use removable hard drives, that are rotated and taken off site.

Auto-ripping of new videos on your FreeNAS is not something that comes up here in the forums often. It's
likely you would need a Linux VM to handle it. (Or Docker whence FreeNAS supports that feature well again.)

 

[danb35]

you would need a Linux VM to handle it. (Or Docker

...which would be running in a Linux VM.

 

[pschatz100]

In general, you don't need a L2ARC Cache drive. Plex services would not benefit from a L2ARC Cache
drive since after you are done with a video, you tend not to watch it again. (Except in the case of small
children who want to want a specific cartoon over and over again...)

My wife complains that I act like a small child. Now I know why...

An E5-2620V4 would probably have enough compute power to run three 1080P transcoded streams with h.264 compression, but would most likely will not be able to handle six. If this is a serious consideration, I would consider an E5-2630V4 or higher. If you plan on using h.265 compression when you store your videos, especially with 4K content, then you should consider a stronger processor.

My suggestion would be to keep your build simple. Don't mess with L2ARC's and SLOG's. Your use case doesn't require them. If you really feel you must have them, get your system up and stable first, then monitor performance and make an informed decision.

If you are looking for something to do with the SSD's, you might consider using one for your jails and VM's. On my system, I use an SSD for jails, and spinning disks for data only. Not really necessary, but I like to keep data separate from the system.

 

[Kogio]

So it has been some time, I have all the hardware.
Only changes so far is I am running 48GB EEC RAM
and I managed to get a E5-2699 v4 for a good price

With out hard drives powered on it idles at 60w
CPU burn in about 200w

Also I have decided to setup the system as a VM host with FreeNas as a VM
I know its not the most popular idea out there, but I have been working with VMware from 4.x to 6.5 and this is for a home setup
I just do not have a lot of experience with FreeBSD

With not having to depend on FreeNas to run VMs, would it be better to go with the newest FreeNas 9.x or stick with 11.X?

As it will be hosting VM storage, it sounds like I will need a SLOG, but not something that I need right now


Here is the build out that I am thinking

 

[Stux]

Why do you run so many connections from FreeNAS to the vSwitches?

 

[Kogio]

With my reading It does not look like the FreeBSD supports VM VMXNET drivers, so normal E1000 only supports 1 gig, Other systems do support VMXNET /VM tools, and did not want a bottleneck to the vSwitch that supports NFS

 

[Stux]

Vmxnet works fine in FreeNAS 11 and vm tools are pre-installed.

Here's a link to my ESXi/FreeNAS build FreeNAS installation post

I've benched it at 20gbps on a single link. Suspect it's CPU bound.

 

[Kogio]

Thanks. Must of been looking at 9.x versions of FreeNas. And at this stage it's easy to delete lines.

Wow how did I miss your build. I like, close to how I was going to build mine.

I like the option that FreeNas is mirrored to a USB drive to allow it to boot if there is a problem with ESXi