Newbie building a budget setup - A couple questions

[EngineerFreely]

Good afternoon everyone. I stumbled upon this great forum searching for a off the shelf NAS setup. Needless to say I wasn't happy with what I found and I started to piece together a setup.

Thanks to Chris Moore's advice on another thread, I have purchased the following (and keep in mind, ultra budget good deal stuff).

Supermicro X9SCM-F, Xeon E3-1220v2, 8GB ECC RAM (2x4gb) for $66 on ebay
2x Red 4tb NAS for about $55 and $65
1x HGST 4tb NAS for $53.
I have this old Rocketfish server case I bought 12-some years ago - https://www.bestbuy.com/site/reviews/rocketfish-aluminum-full-tower-case/8428604
Still plan on 1 more 4tb drive, 16gb more ram, a seasonic gold psu, and Dell H310 card.


So now for the few questions. I am sure these answers are plain as day, I couldnt wrap my head around it.
-Dell H310 flashed for FreeNAS? Why the external raid card? Is it because the motherboard supports hardware RAID but not software raid setups? Expansion reasons?
-Boot drive on the server. I have seen people use a single SSD, USB, double USBs in raid 1. Whats the consensus with this motherboard? It has 1 onboard internal USB header. I have a spare Intel 60gb SSD laying around. Thoughts?
-Network connection. Right now I have a Netgear AC1750 connected to my cable modem https://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/R6700.aspx and its claimed to be a gigabit router for wired. I am assuming I would just hook my server wired to the router and I would be able to connect to it with anything over wifi or wired connection. Since my house is not wired for ethernet at this time, any tips for a wireless setup? What about tips for a wired setup if I do run wires?
-I have a Realtek RTL8111F dual onboard NIC on my main computer (mini itx with NO room for expansion to an Intel Nic). Any thoughts about getting the best wired connection if I do run wires? Can I utilize the dual jacks?
-I understand the disk, vdev, pool. If I have a RaidZ2 setup, 4x4tb drives on 1 Vdev and I add 4x3tb drives in another vdev on that pool, does it just stripe 57%/43% to the 4x4tb and 4x3tb or does it limit me to essentially a 4x3tb and 4x3tb setup?

Thanks for the help. Great forum and VERY thorough and useful.

 

[Chris Moore]

I have this old Rocketfish server case I bought 12-some years ago

Wow. I don't know if that will work... Is it galvanized? ;)

Why the external raid card?

It is flashed to IT (initiator target) mode and is NOT able to configure any form of RAID. It is only there for connecting more drives if you want more than what can be connected to the system board. If you are only going to do four drives, you may not need this. Many people choose to use six or eight drives and then it is very handy to have them all connected to the same controller.

Is it because the motherboard supports hardware RAID but not software raid setups?

Drives are configured in software inside FreeNAS. No hardware RAID of any kind should be used with FreeNAS.

Boot drive on the server. I have seen people use a single SSD, USB, double USBs in raid 1. Whats the consensus with this motherboard? It has 1 onboard internal USB header. I have a spare Intel 60gb SSD laying around. Thoughts?

I have had too many of the USB memory sticks fail under continuous use. My recommendation is to use the SSD. They are more reliable. The speed is not really at issue but the boot drive does need the best reliability possible, which is why many people setup a mirror for the boot device.

Since my house is not wired for ethernet at this time, any tips for a wireless setup?

The NAS needs to connect over the wire. Other devices can connect to the wireless and access the NAS, but it might be most beneficial for the initial configuration to be done using all wired connections to ensure everything is talking.

What about tips for a wired setup if I do run wires?

Regular Cat6 patch cable should be fine. No real benefit to running two lines.
You will want to read through this helpful guide:
Uncle Fester's Basic FreeNAS Configuration Guide: New GUI version

-I have a Realtek RTL8111F dual onboard NIC on my main computer (mini itx with NO room for expansion to an Intel Nic). Any thoughts about getting the best wired connection if I do run wires?

If you are running Windows on that computer, it should work fine. The problem with Realtek in FreeNAS is the drivers are not the best because the chip maker (Realtek) does not make FreeBSD drivers and the ones that exist are community created and not fully optimized.

-I understand the disk, vdev, pool. If I have a RaidZ2 setup, 4x4tb drives on 1 Vdev and I add 4x3tb drives in another vdev on that pool, does it just stripe 57%/43% to the 4x4tb and 4x3tb or does it limit me to essentially a 4x3tb and 4x3tb setup?

The capacity of each vdev is calculated independently. Looks like this:

Code:

root@Emily-NAS:~ # zpool list -v

NAME                                     SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  CKPOINT  EXPANDSZ   FRAG    CAP  DEDUP  HEALTH  ALTROOT
Emily                                   43.5T  18.3T  25.2T        -         -     0%    42%  1.00x  ONLINE  /mnt
  raidz2                                21.8T  10.1T  11.7T        -         -     1%    46%
    gptid/af7c42c6-bf05-11e8-b5f3-0cc47a9cd5a4      -      -      -        -         -      -      -
    gptid/b07bc723-bf05-11e8-b5f3-0cc47a9cd5a4      -      -      -        -         -      -      -
    gptid/b1893397-bf05-11e8-b5f3-0cc47a9cd5a4      -      -      -        -         -      -      -
    gptid/b2bfc678-bf05-11e8-b5f3-0cc47a9cd5a4      -      -      -        -         -      -      -
    gptid/b3c1849e-bf05-11e8-b5f3-0cc47a9cd5a4      -      -      -        -         -      -      -
    gptid/b4d16ad2-bf05-11e8-b5f3-0cc47a9cd5a4      -      -      -        -         -      -      -
  raidz2                                21.8T  8.26T  13.5T        -         -     0%    37%
    gptid/bc1e50e5-c1fa-11e8-87f0-0cc47a9cd5a4      -      -      -        -         -      -      -
    gptid/a03dd690-c1fb-11e8-87f0-0cc47a9cd5a4      -      -      -        -         -      -      -
    gptid/a6ed2ed5-c240-11e8-87f0-0cc47a9cd5a4      -      -      -        -         -      -      -
    gptid/b9de3232-bf05-11e8-b5f3-0cc47a9cd5a4      -      -      -        -         -      -      -
    gptid/baf4aba8-bf05-11e8-b5f3-0cc47a9cd5a4      -      -      -        -         -      -      -
    gptid/bbf26621-bf05-11e8-b5f3-0cc47a9cd5a4      -      -      -        -         -      -      -
log                                         -      -      -         -      -      -
  gptid/ae487c50-bec3-11e8-b1c8-0cc47a9cd5a4  19.9G   312K  19.9G        -         -     0%     0%
cache                                       -      -      -         -      -      -
  gptid/ae52d59d-bec3-11e8-b1c8-0cc47a9cd5a4  98.1G  3.14M  98.1G        -         -     0%     0%

If you look at the first RAIDz2 vdev in my pool, it has 10.1TB allocated and 11.7TB free, where the second vdev has 8.26TB allocated and 13.5TB free. The vdevs happen to have the same total size, but there was a time when one vdev was made of 2TB drives and the other was made of 4TB drives, so they were not equal. ZFS is very flexible. It will even let you do things that you shouldn't do. Be sure to ask. Better to ask than to put your data at risk.

 

[Chris Moore]

PS. It is perfectly fine to run the boot drive from the SATA controller on the system board and data drives too for that matter, just don't configure any RAID in the BIOS. The SATA controller should be set to AHCI mode.

 

[EngineerFreely]

Would you recommend to start off with getting the Dell card for my initial setup? I plan on doing a 4 drive + SSD (or two if I can find another Intel 60gb). I would max the board out immediately if I did so. Would adding the card in the future be a pain or just it "just work"?

Thank you for the information. I cannot wait to have all my stuff adequately setup, rather than some external drives I keep misplacing. and trying to remember to back up.

 

[Chris Moore]

Would adding the card in the future be a pain or just it "just work"?

It would just work. Drivers are included in the OS. You can move the disks from one controller to the other with no trouble. I would keep the boot disks in the same place to ensure the system still boots.

 

[Inxsible]

-Boot drive on the server. I have seen people use a single SSD, USB, double USBs in raid 1. Whats the consensus with this motherboard? It has 1 onboard internal USB header. I have a spare Intel 60gb SSD laying around. Thoughts?

The on-board USB is usually a very bad place to put the OS. It tends to get hotter inside the case (captain obvious) and the USB fails quite often.

Use a SSD -- if you have spare ports available. Use USB only if all your SATA ports are being used for your main pool. And even then, use an externally facing usb port.

 

[EngineerFreely]

I picked up a matching Intel 80gb SSD for $13. So I will run a raid 1 of 80gb Intel SSDs off the onboard headers.

Thank you

 

[Chris Moore]

I picked up a matching Intel 80gb SSD for $13. So I will run a raid 1 of 80gb Intel SSDs off the onboard headers.

Thank you

Just don't use the hardware RAID. When you are running the FreeNAS installer, it can select two drives for the boot pool and it will create a ZFS pool on those two drives.

 

[EngineerFreely]

Thank you for continuing to answer questions. I am cautious since this is my first time doing this. I have one of my last 4tb drives stuck in ebay seller limbo. As far as I understand, I can setup my system with a smaller 4th drive and then replace it when I get my last 4tb drive. So it will be 3x4tb and 1x1tb. The system will be basically as slow as that 1tb and sized accordingly. Then I can swap it out when it finally arrives and it will be like how I intended.

 

[EngineerFreely]

Im having some issues here with the install.
Going to post this on the install section.