YAN (Yet Another Noob) Build

[okgunguy]

This will be, of sorts, a recorded experience of my build. From the perspective of someone who has zero IT experience. A little background of myself: I have build 3 computers over the years. All just web-surfers and general PC's. All with AMD products. I worked in the telecom industry 5 years ago for 10+ years and worked quite a lot with UNIX. So although it is not unfamiliar, I am anything but proficient. I can muddle my way through setting up a wireless router, so that my family thinks I know what I am doing. But I can't even forward a port on them, so I have them completely fooled. I no longer work with anything IT/telecom related. I own and run a retail store now. Everything I have learned so far about FreeNAS and all related software has come from reading, googling, and these forums. And I have MUCH more to learn. I have no one that I can call and ask questions. So I am hoping to make some contacts here so that someone can maybe put this foreign language into English for me.
I probably should have asked before I did it. But I just placed my first order with NewEgg for the first portion of my NAS. It includes:

1x - SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SL7-F-O , uATX/1150/C222/LSI SAS 2308 6Gb/s (MBD-X10SL7-F-O)
1x - Xeon E3-1241 v3 , 3.5GHz (BX80646E31241V3)
2x - Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) , ECC/Unbuffered - Total 32GB (CT2KIT102472BD160B)
1x - Seasonic SSR-550RM 550W , 80+Gold/Part Modular (SSR-550RM)
1x - Fractal Design Define Mini , 6 HDD/SFF (Define Mini)
1x - StarTech USB Motherboard 4 Pin Header F/F (USBMBADAPT)
1x - Cougar 120mm PWM fan (CF-V12HPB)
3x - Kingston Micro 16GB USB 2.0 (DTMCK/16GB)
1x - ARCTIC MX-2 Carbon-Based Thermal Compound (MX-2R)

For the easy glaring items that someone will inevitably point out:
- There are no harddrives. I will be getting 6 of these as they go on sale. I haven't narrowed down the size. I can get by with 2T. 3T would be better. 4T would be icing on the cake. Just depends on what goes on sale for the best deal. I want to stagger them so I don't get the same batches. And they will be WD reds. I was thinking about the HGST's but it sounds like they are louder and run hotter?? (6 HDDs in a Z2)
- The Cougar fan is for the Define Mini case since it only comes with 1 rear fan and 1 fan for the HDD's. I want as much air flowing over the HDDs as I can get. And since the Mini has 2 spots for fans on the front, I want them filled up.
- I know a few people are on a "everything Kingston is crap" kick right now. But I like the size of them and I didn't like the reviews of the SanDisk Cruiser Fit. These are not ordered yet, I was ordering them from Amazon. So if someone can give me first hand knowledge that the cruiser fits are better, I can go that way.
- The thermal compound is for if I need to change out the stock CPU cooler with a better one. (If the CPU even comes with a heat sink. I couldn't find anything in the description that says it does)

Where to begin... I have so many questions.

1) The X10SL7 - will the BIOS be compatible with my CPU? Is there a sticky somewhere that I haven't found yet that gives the exact commands I need to run to find out?/ to update it?/ save it (is that what flashing is)?
2) The X10SL7 - will the LSI 2308 be good to go? Or will I need to update it's firmware as well? I've been trying to decipher how to do this from a couple of threads I've been reading, but it isn't making much sense to me yet. I was planning on using the 6 SATA 2/3 and saving the 8 LSI's for expansion. So I can play with this.
3) The E3-1241-V3 - good? I wanted something that can transcode Plex directly to my Samsung DVD player. As well as to laptops/iPhones/iPads (on the LAN) and remotely now and then. As well as keep up with multiple jails.
4) The Crucial 32GB - not any questions. It's the max the MOBO can hold. And I could afford it. Plus it needs to keep up with the jails I'll bring up in a minute.
5) The Seasonic 550W PSU - everyone says Seasonic is the way to go. This is the part that caused me much worry. I hope I got the right size. I wanted to make sure it's enough for now, and possibly for expansion. But I didn't want it so big it was wasting energy.
6) The Startech USB header - I hope this works on my MOBO for my 2nd (mirrored) FreeNAS drive. It was $3, so I got it.
7) The jails I plan on using are - Plex, Sabnzbd, Couchpotato, Sickbeard and Transmission. Maybe others. I'm still learning what they all do, and how they all work (some together I'm gathering). Any good stickies to learn from?
8) I don't have the greatest ISP speeds at my house (live in the country) No cable, No DSL. We have a local ISP that beams in wirelessly. Probably cellular. But the NAS's main streaming will be happening over my LAN anyway. I hope it's enough to keep up with the jails and to SFTP files into it remotely from my store.
9) UPS -What do I need to look for as far as capabilities? How should it connect to the NAS? RJ45? DB9? How do they communicate? How do I determine what size I need?

When my shipment arrives I want to start burn in testing. CPU (Prime 95). Memory (Memtest 86). Any good stickies to learn how to do these (user guide?)? I have an extra 120GB drive laying around so I can learn on it. It's empty to begin with so if I have to start over a few hundred times it's not going to be devastating. I'll probably also play with the jails on it. If I get them all figured out and working (before my HDDs come in) is there a way to import that config? Or will I have to start all over?
My first order of business will be a UPS. But I figured I'd ask you guys first on what I should get. And if my CPU doesn't come with a cooler (any advice on this too?), I'd order them both at the same time, and maybe a drive or two.
I've been reading all the required threads. Hardware requirements, 9.3 User guide, along with a few others I can't remember right now. If anyone has some that they think will help me in the areas I'm lacking, please let me know.
Thank you for reading my novel. If anyone wants to tackle 1 or 2 of my questions, please help a wanna-be-geek out.

PS - Is this a good place to upload pics to? I'd like to document as much of my build as I can. Or does someone have a better idea? Thanks in advance for all the help I'm sure to get from the community.

 

[okgunguy]

Ok, already an update. I'm ordering the Sandisk Cruzer Fit 16GB USB (SDCZ33-016G-A11) x3. Was reading through more threads and decided it wasn't worth the risk. I'm sure these will go bad eventually anyway. So I'll just be sure to back up my config any time a change is made (to another flash drive) and I'll be good no matter what flash drive I have. When one goes bad, I should be able to pull it out and pop in the backup and start up perfectly fine.

 

[Nick2253]

Welcome!

I've got a couple comments that will hopefully help you out:

• Your hardware looks fine! We all thank you for not trying to run FreeNAS on your decade old desktop :D
  
• Unless you purchased the OEM version of your CPU, it will come with the stock heatsink. This will be more than enough for FreeNAS.
• You may not need as much airflow as you think. According to Google's HDD study (https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//archive/disk_failures.pdf), drives run with least failure between 30C and 40C. Run them too cool, and you could increase their failure rate.
• Burn-in is really unnecessary with CPUs. If it makes you feel better, a few hours on Prime95 will be more than enough to confirm the functionality of your CPU.
• For memory testing, you want to let Memtest 86+ run overnight or so. I personally aim for at least 3 full passes.
• I'd argue that the most important "burn-in" is the HDDs. Make sure you do multiple full-write passes on the drives. I used a linux liveCD to perform this step.
  
• You can easily overwhelm your ISP with all those jails running if you have them actively downloading stuff. Before you start turning things on, you'll want to understand how much data they'll use.
• The 120GB drive is not a bad idea, but you won't get any experience building RAIDZ vdevs with only one drive. Running FreeNAS in a VM on your main computer will give you more experience with hard drive configuration.
  
• For the jails, it's more than just moving the config. You'll need to move the datasets for the jails from the old hard drive to the new array. This is more than doable, but it's more involved than a point and a click.
• UPS is definitely important. Your system will probably not draw more than 300W on peak load, but to be conservative, you could go with 500W for your 500W PSU. That will help you size your UPS.

Unfortunately, I don't have answers to all your questions, but I hope this helps. Let us know if you need anything else!! Good luck with the build!

 

[rogerh]

I'd just remark that a 500W UPS will be marked as such in the very small print, but will be sold with 750 VA (or more) as the headline figure. You also need to consider whether it is convenient to power routers, switches and perhaps a PC from the same UPS.

 

[gpsguy]

First and foremost, thanks for a great first message. For someone with "zero IT experience", it's obvious that you've been lurking on the forum and reading up on what's required, before jumping in with a system unsuitable for FreeNAS. We see the latter happen so much, that reading your wall of text wasn't so bad. :)

For burning in and testing, see jgrego's treatise on subject: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/building-burn-in-and-testing-your-freenas-system.17750/

You will need to flash your LSI 2308 to IT mode. Search the forum for instructions on how to do it.

Since your motherboard has a power connection for a SATA DOM, you might consider using one of these to boot from.

 

[okgunguy]

Wow!! Such great replies already!! Yes, I've been lurking and reading for probably over a month now. Tracking shows my parts should get here Monday.
I've been reading the Burn-In-And-Testing post, so once I begin, it will be pulled up right beside me. The Flashing To IT Mode has me most worried, so I'll be doing more reading up on this.
I considered the SATA DOM, but I'm still not totally sure how that works. Doesn't that eat up a SATA port? I mainly held off on that due to cost. If/when my flash drives give me enough of a headache to warrant switching to them I will.
Thank you,Nick2253 on giving me somewhere to start on what size UPS to look for. rogerh, I will probably only have the router and the NAS powered off the UPS. They're the only things touching the NAS so I want clean power through both. Not sure how much a router pulls but it can't be much. Will probably search for all between 500W to 750W.
Here is an idea for you guys, or anybody really. I was thinking about my mediocre internet at the house while I'm sitting here at my store with COX high speed internet. And my jails. I'm wondering if there's a way to set up Sabnzbd/Couchpotato/Sickbeard to run on a PC here at the store. Download (fast) to a drive here. Then set up a FTP/SFTP/Transmission? on the NAS (at home) to download (slow) from the store? What jails would I actually need to set up on FreeNAS? I'm thinking not the big 3. I haven't read up enough on the Transmission yet to know what it's capable of. Or if the drag and drop/FTP would be better. Pick a few each night before bed and let it download overnight? Maybe set up a VM here at the store?
My brain is so full of questions and ideas I don't even know what I should be focusing on. Thanks again for all the replies.

 

[diedrichg]

Here is a ZFS calculator created by @Biduleohm to give you a fairly accurate idea of how much space you will have
https://jsfiddle.net/Biduleohm/hfqdpbLm/10/embedded/result/

pcpartpicker.comPCPartPicker.com This site is great for watching pricing trends on hardware. Unfortunately though you will not find most server motherboards but you will definitely find hard drives.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Download (fast) to a drive here. Then set up a FTP/SFTP/Transmission? on the NAS (at home) to download (slow) from the store?

I'm probably missing something, but if the transfer to home NAS is still over the internet, how would this save any time? But anyway, if you're looking for an easy way to automatically move data from work to home, perhaps Syncthing or BTSync would fit the bill.

 

[rogerh]

A large flash drive might be the quickest and most effective way to get the data home.

 

[Nick2253]

I'm probably missing something, but if the transfer to home NAS is still over the internet, how would this save any time?

With torrenting, I've found (anecdotally) that the overhead from the protocol can eat up 10-25% of your connection speed. I would say that downloading first on a fast connection, and then transferring over the slow connection, you'll be able to be more efficient with your slow connection.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

overhead from the protocol can eat up 10-25% of your connection speed

I haven't seen that myself, but I've always kept the number of simultaneous connections quite low, and limited the upstream bandwidth to avoid choking the downstream connection.

 

[okgunguy]

That space calculator is interesting. It'll be interesting to see how close it is once I get all my drives come in and compare it. I started a watch on PCPartPicker on 2,3 and 4 TB WD reds. Hopefully someone puts them on sale for around $20 each soon!! :)
I've looked over the NUT Compatibility list of UPS's. There's only like a metric ass ton of choices on there. And I haven't been able to find a pattern on here of the most popular brand most people have. And there are no recommendations on the Hardware Recommendation thread. So I'm thinking CyberPower/APC/TrippLite. I'll have to do more research on them first thing. I definitely want one that I can change the batteries in.
Thanks for all the ideas on getting the files from the store to home. I'll do more research on all of them.
I'm thinking a small VM here at the store with the jails downloading to a drive here is my best bet. Since my home internet is weak, I will be able to control when it gets used for downloading (probably after bedtime and/or when we leave for work). I thought of using flash drives, but I have a question about that. Can FreeNAS, or maybe a jail, recognize that I put a flashdrive in the NAS, and pull the files off it? And put them where they need to go? How is that accomplished?
You guys are the greatest. BTW this is the first forum I have ever posted anything asking for help. I've read plenty of them. You all are giving the impression that people on forums are extremely helpful and nice.
I have more reading to do. So more updates and questions to come. Thanks again!

 

[Nick2253]

CyberPower and APC are fairly popular, I'd say. TrippLite less so, but not unheard of. You'd probably be pretty safe (from a compatibility standpoint) with any APC UPS.

You can add other devices to FreeNAS like you say, but I would stay away from doing that. The fewer times you change the hardware, the better. Instead, I'd just put the USB stick in a local desktop, and write to it over the network. A good FreeNAS system will be more than capable of saturating the gig-e connection, much less a USB stick's write speed.

 

[BigDave]

When my shipment arrives I want to start burn in testing. CPU (Prime 95). Memory (Memtest 86). Any good stickies to learn how to do these (user guide?)? I have an extra 120GB drive laying around so I can learn on it. It's empty to begin with so if I have to start over a few hundred times it's not going to be devastating. I'll probably also play with the jails on it. If I get them all figured out and working (before my HDDs come in) is there a way to import that config? Or will I have to start all over?

As I am very much like you in the IT experience department (actually even less experience than you), I would heartily recommend
you take some time to dive into the world of virtual machines. I found this to be very helpful once I started using one. I downloaded
a copy of VMware Player and set up a FreeNAS VM and played with it for a few days while I was burning in my new build. The really
cool thing about a VM is you can break things virtually and there's no consequences, you just start over from your last "saved game".
It's easy to get the hang of and practice configuring vdevs, replacing failed drives, setting permissions, etc.

 

[okgunguy]

An update to my build: I have received my parts and have assembled my NAS. Minus the harddrives and UPS.
I have read and read and re-read so many threads I can't keep them straight anymore. But there is nothing like trial by fire to figure stuff out. Back when I worked in telecom, I took studious notes and wrote many procedures on how to accomplish even the most menial tasks. So that those that came after me could pick them up and start running right then. Many of these posts assume that whoever is reading them have basic knowledge that the authors take for granted. Many of us do NOT!! So in the spirit of my old profession, I will be compiling procedures of steps I had to accomplish in order to get my NAS working.
1st - I needed to download a program called Win32DiskImager - I got mine from http://sourceforge.net (google it, you'll find it) Get it, Download it. You'll need it.
2nd - I needed to create a Ultimate Boot CD on USB. This is what will have many of your stress tests that you will run on your CPU, RAM, HDDs. Go to ultimatebootcd.com / Download UBCD (on the left) / scroll down and look for the newest version. It is 5.3.5 right now. Download the ISO.
- Then I formatted the USB in Windows Explorer by right clicking the disk and formatting.
- Then I ran Win32DiskImager and burned the ISO onto the USB.
3rd - I needed to download the FreeNAS install on USB. You should be able to find that file, or you wouldn't be on this forum. Same thing as before, run Win32DiskImager and burn the ISO of FreeNAS onto a 2nd USB.
4th - I need to change my Firmware on my Supermicro X10SL7 so it will be flashed to IT. You'll need to get the latest file from their FTP site. I got some much needed help from a member here (Bidule0hm) and he posted the file he had on a site and let me download it straight from him. It happened to be the same file as their latest. PH16.0.1-IT.zip Since I haven't quite figured out the FTP/SSH/SFTP out yet, this was extremely helpful. This also was his advice : use the UEFI shell (you'll see the option in the BIOS) to boot on a USB key where you'll put the content of the UEFI directory right at the root of it, then follow the tuto on the forum (forgot where it is, sorry) to flash it . So what I have done so far was to format a 3rd USB in Windows/ and extracted the contents of the UEFI folder of the PH16.0.1-IT.zip onto it. Only the contents. I'm am hoping this is correct.
So far, I have powered on my NAS. No smoke! Watched on my router for a new connection so I knew what IP to use. Then typed that IP into IE on a laptop. The login page popped right up. Login for factory Supermicro boards are un=ADMIN, pw=ADMIN. (had to hunt that down too). IPMI came up but I had to update Java. So after that updated I rebooted with my UBCD in a USB port and was able to pull up the UBCD options by clicking on the Java window.
I have ran a small CPU test and watched the temps on the IPMI page. But since it was late, I shut that down and went to bed. This morning I started the NAS back up and started a Mem86 test. That is currently running until I get home this evening.
What I have planned this evening is to run another more strenuous CPU test. And then before bed start another Mem86 test.
My greatest concern right now is the Flashing to IT. If I can get some pointers in here, I may try it this evening. I have been reading the threads: "Confused About LSI?" and "Flashing my LSI 2308 controller" (haven't figured out how to change them to actual links yet). I'm especially paying attention to Linkman's post because he has the same board as I. Hopefully I can do it from the IPMI straight to the USB. Otherwise I don't know. I have this .zip file that I don't know what to do with. I'm going to play with it and if I can't get it, I'll post what I've tried and start taking suggestions.
Hopefully I have kept these instructions so far as Phisher Price as possible.

 

[HoneyBadger]

For someone with "zero IT experience" you're approaching this like a pro; you've done piles of research, you're soliciting and responding to feedback, and importantly you're documenting your work which is something that even seasoned admins have issues doing at times. Internet high-five!

One note - while the P16 firmware is correct for FreeNAS 9.3.0, you'll actually want to use the P20 firmware for FreeNAS 9.3.1 and later. @pclausen posted a downloadable link and some instructions in this monster thread.

For his instructions though, bear in mind that you'll want to record your SAS address since "500605bxxxxxxxxx" isn't a real one.

 

[okgunguy]

And here I though Honey Badgers don't care!! ;)
Thanks for pointing me to that thread. I've read it about 3 times now. I am particularly stuck on Spearfoot's post on the 3rd page. I've looked at my system enough now to think that this is a procedure I can actually do. So here's the steps I have done so far:
1 - Like Spearfoot said to, I have downloaded the PH20-IT.zip from ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/driver/SAS/LSI/2308/Firmware/IT/
2 - I downloaded Rufus and formatted my USB (left all the settings on there as they came, kinda worried about the "Create a bootable disk using FreeDOS" but not really as I'll show in a second.
3 - I went to my PH20-IT.zip file and navigated into the UEFI folder. Ctrl+A and selected all files. Extracted to USB.
4 - When I pulled up my USB files, there were 2 folders and a couple start-up files. One of the folders was UEFI. I went into that folder and Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C (copied). Then backed out of that folder to the root. And Ctrl+V (pasted) all the files in there. Then I deleted all of the other files AND folders out of the root directory. So that only the files that originally were in UEFI are the only ones left in the root.
What I'm thinking is that no matter how the USB was originally formatted from Rufus, since the only files are the UEFI files, when I launch the "UEFI: Built-In EFI Shell" on my Supermicro Setup Screen it'll see the files it needs and be happy.
Everyone on that thread are in a different state than I am though. Seeing as they have a copy of FreeNAS that they are in the middle of upgrading. And I have ZERO FreeNAS software on my machine at the moment. So once the Flash to IT is complete, I should be able to load FreeNAS 9.3.1 and be golden. Theoretically!!! We'll see how it plays out in real life. I'll be trying this tonight and will report back. If it goes smoothly, I may even try the install of FreeNAS.
On a side note, all my stress tests have run clean. CPU (multiple tests) and RAM (multiple tests and for MANY hours each), one is running again right now until I get home tonight. If it's clean I'm calling those two good.
Ohh... And I fumbled around in the BIOS enough last night and found my SAS address number. So I have that written down.

 

[okgunguy]

Good thing I double checked. I had the FreeNAS Stable 9.3 on my USB. So I downloaded the 9.3.1 from the top link on this site. Then used Rufus again to "Create a bootable disk using ISO Image" and choosing the new file I downloaded. With the 201508250051 at the end. I wish it said 9.3.1 but they both just say 9.3
So I'm all set for this evening if all goes well with the SAS flash.

 

[okgunguy]

Great news!! I was able to upgrade my LSI 2308 to IT mode. AND was able to install FreeNAS 9.3.1 !!!
My experience differed from Spearfoot's. In that when I booted up into the BIOS and went to "UEFI: Built in EFI Shell" I was unable to post up into fs0. When I did a "dir" it listed all the files on the USB. But it just wouldn't let me into it. So I ran a "sas2flash.efi –listall" and it ran the command no problem. So I said "it's a test machine at this point, let's do it" and I ran "SMC2308T.NSH" and it took off running. I had to enter the last 9 of my SAS number and it was done. I ran the "sas2flash.efi –listall" again and it listed as IT. Then I rebooted and went into the LSI bios (I think "Ctrl S" maybe "Ctrl C") and it said 20.00.02.00 and IT. I was extra paranoid and rebooted a couple more times and powered completely off, once even shutting off the PSU, rebooted and went back in and it still said IT every time. I was feeling pretty good.
So I decided to install FreeNAS. It went perfectly as the manual describes. My only question on it is: I did not install to mirrored USBs. Can I go back later and do that? Or do I need to erase one of my USBs (that have my UBCD and my LSI flash on them) right now and do it again as mirrored? I figured if I could do it later I could just format my original FreeNAS install USB and add it as mirrored. IF it can be done later.
My only advice on the install to a first-timer is to copy the install file onto a different brand, or size, of USB stick. When it gets to the point of choosing where to place the OS; if they are both the exact same brand and size it takes some trial and error to figure out which one you are copying from and which one you are writing to.
Now I need some advice. Ultimately, I would like to add 2 groups: Family and Guest. With all of my family able to copy from and to and guests only able to copy from. Do I need to worry about that right now? Or can this wait? I'm not sure on all the permissions and it's going to take a lot of reading to get this going.
My main objective is to get this machine able to stream movies/music, play movies onto my TV, and once I get all of my harddrives, able to start downloading (couchpotato,sickbeard,etc). Should I concentrate on these? Or setting up groups and users? Is streaming dependent on groups and users?
Thanks for all input. Happy!!

 

[Bidule0hm]

Yep, I had the same thing about the LSI flashing process, took me some time to figure out that I was already on the fs0 device...

Yes, you can add another USB drive later, see the manual ;)

Permissions are just awful, personally I've solved the problem by allowing everyone to do everything... :P but your case is not very complicated so it should be ok. Permissions is one of the last things you do so don't worry right now.