Thoughts on hardware for my FreeNAS PC

[sakke]

So like so many people, I'm looking into building a NAS-server. It's going to be used by 2 users, on a public network at a school(if possible, if not I have to buy a ruter as well), as a backup service for a professional studio (each upload will be from 1-80gb).

My main problem is choosing the right hardware, I don't wan't to spend 600$ on something that won't work.


CASE: Fractal Design Array R2 (includes a 300w PSU)
-Perfect, with space for 6x3,5 drives. Which in my head means 9TB RAID 1.

MoBo: Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe (mini-itx, Z77, max 16gb of ram, 64bit)
-Can't seem to find the Intel® 82579V in the supported hardware list, so this mobo concerns me

Processor: Intel Pentium G2030 (Dual core 3.0GHZ)
- I've read that just about any processor will work. So this will be more than enough I asume ?

RAM:Crucial DDR3 BallistiX Tactical 16gb (1600mhz with Cl-8)
- I've read that I should have 1GB ram per 1TB. Will 16GB be enough for 6x3TB(18TB total) in RAID 1 with ZFS? Can't find any mini-itx mobo that support more than 16gb of ram).

Drives: WD Red 3TB NAS
- Starting out with 2x3TB

Boot: Corsair Flash Voyager 8gb
- I've read that a USB-stick should do the trick, soo.... yeah.


So... Any thoughts? Is there somebody here who tested this hardware on FreeNAS?


-Sakke

 

[joeschmuck]

If you will value your data, consider buying hardware that supports ECC RAM. If this is only being used for a backup service then 8GB of RAM is fine in my opinion provided this is basically a single file stream vice thousands of small file transfers. It's when you start accessing multiple files where the more RAM becomes very helpful. But you should buy as much RAM as you can fit or afford but I don't think you will see a very measurable gain if you're streaming a backup file to/from the device.

As for the number of drive to start with, I'd figure out what is your ideal amount of data to store, add 10%, buy that. Use the raidz calculator (google search for it) so you can see what your usable space is depending on your RAID configuration.

There are a lot of threads here asking for advice on hardware, odds are the same hardware you are looking for is already listed. Do a search of the threads here.

 

[sakke]

If you will value your data, consider buying hardware that supports ECC RAM. If this is only being used for a backup service then 8GB of RAM is fine in my opinion provided this is basically a single file stream vice thousands of small file transfers. It's when you start accessing multiple files where the more RAM becomes very helpful. But you should buy as much RAM as you can fit or afford but I don't think you will see a very measurable gain if you're streaming a backup file to/from the device.

As for the number of drive to start with, I'd figure out what is your ideal amount of data to store, add 10%, buy that. Use the raidz calculator (google search for it) so you can see what your usable space is depending on your RAID configuration.

There are a lot of threads here asking for advice on hardware, odds are the same hardware you are looking for is already listed. Do a search of the threads here.

Money is not really at great concern, but I don't want to spend more money than I need. Why should I go for ECC ram? Is it really necessary? I've read about it some time ago, but I thought it wouldn't be beneficial for a only a backup service of this size?

Ah, stupid me. Didn't just try to search for my specific hardware. Sorry for hat one.
Edit; I did a search for mobo, processor, ram and ethernet controller - Didn't find anything on this forum, except my own thread.

Anyways, thanks for quick answer. If you have any more tips for reading/comments, please go. I'm a newbie at FreeNAS, even do I have done work in some of the same categories.

 

[sakke]

I could ofc go for some older hardware, but in my Norway it's quite hard to get by anything else than newest generation, and last generation mobo/processors. It's only overprices stores that sell older stuff, and I don't really wanna pay the same for last generation - and even older generation.

 

[sakke]

So what I've found out so far:

The Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe motherboard should work with FreeNAS. A guy on amazon seemed to have no trouble. He had the WD-version, but that shouldn't matter.

However a guy on another page seemed to have problems on a Intel MoBo, which has the same ethernet controller. ---> PIC
But I can't really see the error here? Isn't that just the boot screen/menu screen on FreeNAS?

Is there anything else I should check out when it comes to compatibility with FreeNAS?


Quess I'm trying to find out of this to help future builders out there :)

 

[joeschmuck]

The reason for ECC RAM is during a SCRUB, the data on the drives are checked to ensure the data is correct. If the data is found to be incorrect then the data is rebuilt using error correction from the parity data. This works great but one problem can occur, even if it's rare, faulty RAM could present errors in the data read during a scrub and then the automatic rebuilding of your data ends up corrupting your good data. It's not a good situation for certain and again, it has only been reported once that I have heard of but I suspect it happens more often than reported because people buy non-compatible RAM or try to overclock with poor results.

So the question really is, how important is the data to you. In my home system I keep backups of my computers on my NAS. My risk assessment is if both my NAS and one of my computers fail at the same time with data loss on both, I have to rebuild from scratch. However I'm gambling that both do not happen at the same time.

I also store photos, financial data and movies on my NAS. If the movies go away, it's an acceptable loss as I could recreate them as I need them, like the kid movies. Photos and financial data are also copied to CD/DVD's and to a second computer in the house thus preserving the data I consider really important to me.

The next FreeNAS upgrade will have ECC RAM just because I care about the quality of my data. This is something you should consider.

 

[sakke]

The reason for ECC RAM is during a SCRUB, the data on the drives are checked to ensure the data is correct. If the data is found to be incorrect then the data is rebuilt using error correction from the parity data. This works great but one problem can occur, even if it's rare, faulty RAM could present errors in the data read during a scrub and then the automatic rebuilding of your data ends up corrupting your good data. It's not a good situation for certain and again, it has only been reported once that I have heard of but I suspect it happens more often than reported because people buy non-compatible RAM or try to overclock with poor results.

So the question really is, how important is the data to you. In my home system I keep backups of my computers on my NAS. My risk assessment is if both my NAS and one of my computers fail at the same time with data loss on both, I have to rebuild from scratch. However I'm gambling that both do not happen at the same time.

I also store photos, financial data and movies on my NAS. If the movies go away, it's an acceptable loss as I could recreate them as I need them, like the kid movies. Photos and financial data are also copied to CD/DVD's and to a second computer in the house thus preserving the data I consider really important to me.

The next FreeNAS upgrade will have ECC RAM just because I care about the quality of my data. This is something you should consider.

Isn't ECC ram quite expensive? Thought that it needed to be supported by mobo, processor and the ram(ofc)? And when you say incompatible ram, do you mean the mobo or software?

The data is uber important. It's going to be used as a backup for 2-3 computers in a recording studio. Which means if one computer chrashes, or a file get bugged - we go back to one of the snapshots. When recording music sometime you play/sing something perfectly with an intense magic, you don't want to loose that because of some hardware chrashing.

At some point we probably have to upgrade to something more advanced, but we have just started up - so I don't want to make things to complicated.

 

[gpsguy]

Please read jgreco's excellent message about some hardware suggestions

 

[sakke]

Please read jgreco's excellent message about some hardware suggestions

Thanks! Will do that later tonight! :)