BUILD Small form factor home NAS build, hardware feedback and some questions

[iostream]

Hi all,

I am building a small(ish) form factor FreeNAS box. The application will be backup (time machine for a mac laptop and rsync or similar for a linux laptop), photo/video storage and backup, shared storage for a few laptops in the house, and light software development (postgresql database server, git server, dev web server). I've read the hardware advice, and I'm glad I did, because I switched from consumer class components to server class, for the most part. I plan to run 6 2TB disks in RAIDZ2 formation. I already have 2x2TB Samsung disks, of about 2 years vintage from a Synology NAS that died on me (hence the new system). Here's the rest of the box:

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/iostream/saved/2dGS

Question 1: the intel motherboard has 4 SATA ports, 2xSATA2 and 2xSATA3. Can I daisy chain two of the 6 disks on each of the two SATA3 ports, giving me four drives hanging off the two SATA3 ports and the other two hanging off the SATA2 ports? I have read here and there that you can do that, I'm just verifying. If I can do that, I can ditch the disk controller card and save myself $109 U.S.

Question 2: What's the best way to structure my zfs pools? Should I have separate pools for backup, shared storage, development, etc.? Or just one giant volume and separate directories for each. Come to think of it this is probably addressed in a FAQ that I haven't read yet, but I'd love to hear how people are doing it.

Question 3: anything I'm missing, or any other advice for m?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Nindustries]

If I were you, I wouldn't "daisy chain" SATA-ports. (Had to look that one up, English isn't my foreign language.)
Those REDS + your Samsung disks give 6 disks, and there are plenty of mini-ITX motherboards that contain 6 SATA-ports.
Besides, you could always buy a HBA afterwards.

 

[iostream]

Heh, sorry about that, it's only way I could think to say it. :)

Thanks for the advice, it's well taken. I should have mentioned that having ECC RAM is important to me for this build. I looked, but couldn't find any other mini-ITX motherboard that supports ECC RAM and also had 6 SATA ports. If anyone finds one, please let me know, I'd love another option or two to consider.

 

[Nindustries]

It's a good thing i'm still learning some new words :D didnt see you wanted ecc,
I'll look for one if I've get the time, busy weeks busy weeks!

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

[cyberjock]

Your CPU choice isn't going to work with ECC RAM. You should consider a xeon or a Pentium g2020 if you want ECC support.

 

[iostream]

Thanks, cyberjock. I had read some conflicting reports on whether or not the i3s supported ECC RAM, but your suggestion of the g2020 is excellent, that's the perfect CPU for this system. Thanks!

Also, update on the motherboard, it went out of stock on newegg, and some slightly more expensive non-prime sellers on amazon selling them with only a few in stock, and I found 2 in stock at provantage for a really good price. I panicked a little and bought it. That's the case and motherboard purchased.

Any other thoughts on whether or not it will be a problem to daisy chain two of the drives off the SATA3 ports?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[cyberjock]

daisy chain? what?

 

[iostream]

Sorry, maybe daisy chain is not as common a term as I thought, or maybe it does not mean what I think it means.

What I mean is, I have 6 drives, but the motherboard only has 4 SATA ports. Various postings I have read say it's possible to hang 2 drives off a single SATA port with the right cables. I haven't figured out the details of that yet, but if I could do that, I could save $109 on the build by not purchasing the disk controller add-on card. Do you know if that's possible, or if possible, is it ill-advised? Even if it slows down the speed of data transfer for those drives, it will still be fast enough for a NAS, no?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[gpsguy]

Maybe daisy chain is a port multiplier?


Sent from my phone

 

[iostream]

Daisy chain just means to connect things serially. The more I read, the more I think SATA does not support doing that. It seems like it's one port to one drive only.

 

[cyberjock]

One port = 1 drive. It's serial and not parallel. So you can't do what you want.

With a port multiplier you could, but those aren't always supported and are usually a major failure for servers. So tread carefully if you want to go with a PM.

 

[iostream]

Thanks, I shall get the controller card!

 

[budmannxx]

Also note that a HDD isn't able to max-out a SATA2 port anyway, so you can use all of the onboard SATA2 and SATA3 ports with no worries.

 

[iostream]

Small update. Unfortunately the Pentium g2020 is not supported by the motherboard. :-/ I'm going with the Pentium g860 instead. According to this post, any supported CPU on that S1200KBR motherboard will support ECC RAM. Here's hoping. The other thing is the SuperMicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 disk controller card is not compatible with FreeBSD. Apparently there is an older model of the same card with a slightly different model number (but similar enough to fool a casual google searcher like myself) that is supported, but this one is definitely not. I decided to just bite the bullet and get the M1015 and cross flash it. I found one on amazon for $130. $21 more than the SuperMicro, and more than what I've seen people picking them up for on ebay, but I like ordering from amazon because of their return policy and fast shipment. Anyway, I'll update again when I have a finished and working build.

 

[cyberjock]

Hmm, you might want to actually get a tool that verifies you are actually using the ECC function. Despite that post, that kind of flies in the face of what most people say, including Intel. At least Intel's website says that the g2020 supports ECC. I'm sorry, but if he's going to make the argument that the S1200KBR supports ECC with CPUs that aren't supported elsewhere Intel is going to be sued to high heaven for not making that feature available to other manufacturers. And from plenty of posts here, not all CPUs "just work" with ECC support. Many CPUs will work with ECC RAM, but do not use the ECC feature. Many people will make this leap of faith without actually verifying that is the case.

 

[Dusan]

List of LGA1155 socket CPUs that support ECC: http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced/?s=t&Sockets=FCLGA1155&ECCMemory=true
(Yes, few i3s support ECC.)

 

[iostream]

The tool posted on this thread is what I plan to use to check. I actually already ordered the g2020, and I plan to keep it to try just in case. If both don't work, I guess I'll send them back and try something else.

 

[Dusan]

Another way to check for ECC is to run dmidecode -t 16
It shows this for my X9SCL + E3-1230v2:

Handle 0x0007, DMI type 16, 23 bytes
Physical Memory Array
Location: System Board Or Motherboard
Use: System Memory
Error Correction Type: Single-bit ECC
Maximum Capacity: 32 GB
Error Information Handle: 0x000F
Number Of Devices: 4

I also tried the ecc_check you linked and it works too -- the last number is 3 on my system.

 

[iostream]

Thanks for the info, Dusan. I'll try both ways.

 

[cyberjock]

I also tried the ecc_check you linked and it works too -- the last number is 3 on my system.

Did you compile that on FreeNAS? If so what command did you run?