Proposed FreeNAS Build

[thedirtmerchant]

Have him help build it, it'll be great bonding and he may learn something as well as find a new interest and appreciation for computers.

Is it ridiculous that I (and he) want to put some cool LED lighting inside the windowed case?
LMAO. I wonder if I'll ever put together one of those gaming rigs...

 

[diedrichg]

Ha. No, not at all. Those green pcb motherboards sure make it challenging to look cool though.

Sent from my LG-H810 using Tapatalk

 

[Stux]

It's flashing drive lights in a removable drive trays if you want bling ;)

 

[thedirtmerchant]

Doh. I spent last night putting everything in various carts (and researched LED lighting!) which is tedious and somewhat annoying (oh, you mean the cheap price I found at x website is great, but their expected shipping date is 1-3 months?). Anyway, I had the mobo in my cart at NewEgg...but this morning, it's out of stock. The next best price I found, shipping is 1-3 weeks. Ah well...

 

[thedirtmerchant]

Everything is ordered. Found the mobo through a the supermicro site authorized resellers and it's cheaper than I originally found it for.

Now to wait impatiently and start searching about drives from different companies and how to try to rescue any remaining data off my old drives. ..

 

[diedrichg]

If I remember right, you are using 6+1 3TB drives. Would you be able to use the extra drive to aggregate your files prior to putting them on the new server? Don't forget to burn-in the drives, memory and CPU.

 

[thedirtmerchant]

If I remember right, you are using 6+1 3TB drives. Would you be able to use the extra drive to aggregate your files prior to putting them on the new server? Don't forget to burn-in the drives, memory and CPU.

I could use my extra drive or one of my backup external drives. I have most everything off of them already but there's a bunch that i still want to get if possible. Figuring i could get the box together and connect the 2 drives i have and pull the files off...

 

[John Childermass]

The two "LSI3008 controller for 8 SAS3" ports. Using a Mini SAS SFF-8643 you can then connect (8) additional SATA drives for a total of 12 drives, PLUS your two SATADOM or SSD boot drives.

I'm looking at a rather similar build (thread), so many thanks to thedirtmerchant for pointing this thread out to me.

If I also pick the X11SSL-CF as diedrichg suggests, to get the possibility of having many more drives in the future, are there any downsides? If I use the Mini SAS SFF-8643 cables, are there any tradeoffs in terms of speed, compatibility, reliability (e.g. running four drives through one cable), or is it just the same as having a load of extra SATA connections on the motherboard?

If I'm starting off with 3+2 drives in a RAIDZ2 vdev, I would plan to begin using 5 of the 6 existing SATA connections, and then put the boot drive on the 6th SATA connection, or maybe as a DOM. Would that make sense?

 

[Ericloewe]

If I also pick the X11SSL-CF as diedrichg suggests, to get the possibility of having many more drives in the future, are there any downsides?

Only that you lose the two additional SATA ports you'd get with an X11SSM-F + a separate LSI SAS HBA.

 

[NAStyBox]

I'll have space for 8 drives, but am planning to use 6 in RAIDz2.
I don't see myself using up the ~8TB of usable space within the next several years.
But if someone has a good reason to go with 8 drives...

When I was a kid I worked for an electronics store, and was selling someone a 486. Here's a quote from them. "I can't imagine anyone needing more than 4mb of RAM."

Just sayin, lol. It creeps up on ya! I bought a ReadyNAS about a year or so ago. I said "I probably won't need more than 12tb for a very long time, if ever." .....and now I'm moving to FreeNAS so I can have 18-20 in a faster box, because I hit 90% on the ReadyNAS and it choked. So if you have the spare cash, I'd go with 8. Unless you plan on building a new box in a couple of years and don't care.

 

[thedirtmerchant]

When I was a kid I worked for an electronics store, and was selling someone a 486. Here's a quote from them. "I can't imagine anyone needing more than 4mb of RAM."

Just sayin, lol. It creeps up on ya! I bought a ReadyNAS about a year or so ago. I said "I probably won't need more than 12tb for a very long time, if ever." .....and now I'm moving to FreeNAS so I can have 18-20 in a faster box, because I hit 90% on the ReadyNAS and it choked. So if you have the spare cash, I'd go with 8. Unless you plan on building a new box in a couple of years and don't care.

Understood, but my usage over the past 4 years in my previous box only crept up from 1TB to a little over 2TB.
If I use RAIDZ2 w/ 6 3TB drives, I think I'm in the neighborhood of 10TB of space (8TB is my thumb rule max, right?).

I should be safe for many years to come. Of course...GoPro video does get very large, doesn't it?!?!

 

[NAStyBox]

Of course...GoPro video does get very large, doesn't it?!?!

Exactly. I won't pay more than $300 a drive, so I hope mine lasts until the 10tb drives drop. Computers are worse than owning a boat!

 

[diedrichg]

When the time comes, post some build photos as well as the finished product, please.

 

[diedrichg]

If I use RAIDZ2 w/ 6 3TB drives, I think I'm in the neighborhood of 10TB of space (8TB is my thumb rule max, right?).

About 8.59TiB usable space which is exclusive of the 20% disk quota you will set when you first build the pool. You can see the breakdown using Biduleohm's RAIDZ Calculator here:

https://jsfiddle.net/Biduleohm/hfqdpbLm/10/embedded/result/

 

[thedirtmerchant]

When the time comes, post some build photos as well as the finished product, please.

Fo sho

 

[thedirtmerchant]

About 8.59TiB usable space which is exclusive of the 20% disk quota you will set when you first build the pool. You can see the breakdown using Biduleohm's RAIDZ Calculator here:

https://jsfiddle.net/Biduleohm/hfqdpbLm/10/embedded/result/

Yup, that's where i got the number, didn't feel like double checking at the time of the post

 

[thedirtmerchant]

OK, so I'm finally getting a little bit of time to work on this.

I have 2 fans (1 front, 1 rear) that came with the Fractal R5 case and purchased 2 of the Noctua 140mm fans.
2 questions...
Where do I put them? I think diedrichg you mentioned leave the stock one where it is and put 2 in the front (next to the HDD cages). But what direction do I face them? 3 outward blowing, 1 inward?

I was thinking 1 inward from the back, 1 outward from the back and the 2 in the front by the drive cages outward.

 

[diedrichg]

OK, so I'm finally getting a little bit of time to work on this.

I have 2 fans (1 front, 1 rear) that came with the Fractal R5 case and purchased 2 of the Noctua 140mm fans.
2 questions...
Where do I put them? I think diedrichg you mentioned leave the stock one where it is and put 2 in the front (next to the HDD cages). But what direction do I face them? 3 outward blowing, 1 inward?

I was thinking 1 inward from the back, 1 outward from the back and the 2 in the front by the drive cages outward.

(2) Noctuas blowing IN from the front
(1) stock fan blowing OUT the back

This will provide positive pressure, minimizing dust, and bringing cool fresh air over the drives.

 

[thedirtmerchant]

OK, had a successful POST (no drives in)! WooHoo!
The thing turns on, the fans are pretty darn quiet (have to say the 2 140mm fans
in the front bay is a very tight squeeze, surprised it didn't push the fans out of shape).
Too tired right now to load the FreeNAS O/S and all that, so I'll stop at this successful point for now
and get some shut eye. I have pics along the way that I'll post at the end.

 

[thedirtmerchant]

Blargh.
Was hoping to get 9.2 installed during lunch, but it hit a "mountroot" error.
I quickly tried the workaround that I found (build in a 50s delay so the USB key is recognized)
but it didn't work.

I just want to install so I can get my files!