BUILD $2K Home Build Help

[Stephen304]

Hey guys, I've been planning on building a home nas and I could use some help picking hardware - I've read almost every guide here I could get my hands on, but there's so much information and I want to make sure I don't shoot myself in the foot.

The details of what I want are below:

Budget: $2,500
Purpose: Backup and media repository
Form Factor: 2U
Drives: 12
Raid Config: 2X (6 disk raidz2 (4+2)) - starting off with 6 bays populated and expanding later

Features:
Speed: Fast enough to stream 4K from it (NFS probably)
Dedup: Probably no
Encryption: Preferred

The questions I have are:

1. Do these requirements / desires make sense for my use case? I have tons of media, and some important personal files that I want to protect with redundancy. Does the raid configuration I have in mind (2x 4+2) make sense? I want double redundancy and figured 10+2 would be too large of an array, and 3x 2+2 would waste too much space.

2. I am in love with the Silverstone RM212 12 bay case - from what I understand, what I need to pay attention to in cases is airflow. Do you think this case would have adequate airflow to be fully populated?
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S0M4D8U/?tag=ozlp-20

3. I'm mostly going by the hardware recommendations thread here, which says that both Supermicro X10s boards are recommended for less than 6 or 6-8 disks. Is the X9SRH-7F the board I should be using for 12 disks?

4. For ram, I assume I should get somewhere around 16GB of ECC Ram, but since I have so many drives would I need more?

5. Since I'll probably have a supermicro board, I was checking the tested memory list and noticed that there's all sorts of frequencies and ECC or registered ECC. What frequency should I go for and does it need to be registered ECC or just regular ECC?

6. I might go for a 500W power supply, is this in the ball park of what I would need for 12 drives? I hear the drives could pull their max wattage on power on, so what should I be aiming for? I want to go with a redundant power supply if my budget allows. Suggestions?

7. From what I can tell, breakout cables are for converting between multiple sata and mini sas (sff8086), so since the case I want to use has a backplace with 3x mini sas and raid cards use mini sas (correct?), I shouldn't need any breakout cables and I can just use a mini sas cable to connect the backplane to the raid cards?

8. The recommended raid card seems to be the ibm serveraid M1015, which has 2 mini sas ports. Since the case I want has 3, I'll need 2 of these cards to use all 12 drive bays correct?


That's a lot more questions than I thought I had - I hope it doesn't seem too much like I was going down the parts list and asking for what to buy. Any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Fuganater]

1. 2x 6 drive RAIDz2 is a good setup.
2. I haven't seen anyone use that chassis. Look at a Supermicro 826 series. Cooling will probably be better and you can get a redundant PSU.
3. IDK where you heard that. X10 with any amount of drives is fine. You will be using an HBA for your drives so mobo doesn't really matter.
4. 16GB is fine, personally I would say buy 32GB and be done with it.
5. Reg and w/e you can afford.
6. Look at the PSU sizing sticky. If you get a SM chassis this is a non issue.
7. Do not buy a raid card. Buy a LSI 9211-8i and flash it to IT mode.
8. See #7.

 

[nightshade00013]

The advantage the X9SRH-7F has is the built in SAS controller. Then again you can find an x10 board with one as well. All things being equal with the number of drives you want to use I would look towards a board with the SAS controller built in rather than buying a separate one. The cost will be the same or generally cheaper than buying a board and a controller. The only thing you will have to watch with the built in controllers is the possible need for a reverse breakout cable it will depend on the backplane for whatever case you use. As far as an x10 series board http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C220/X10SL7-F.cfm would be a good one to look at.

For the Backplane in the case you are looking at I believe you could use the onboard SATA ports with the SFF8087 port with a reverse breakout cable, just don't go trying to plug in SAS drives in those bays.

For the ram ECC and whatever the board supports. So you will need to narrow that down. Stick to the recommended list or something someone else has already tried for ram. Don't go buy a stick of kingston and just expect it to work. They have done some bad things and are shunned by the community.

4K streaming is not something a lot of people have information on yet. There just isn't enough content out there. It will also depend on the compression ratio and if you want to transcode it.

We do not know if encryption will be included with FreeNAS 10 so you may either have to let that idea go or plan to stay on the 9.3.1 branch. If this is just going to hold media and such it's probably not all that worthwhile anyway.

Case wise look around and see what works best. Just make sure the drives will stay cool, cook the drives and you are asking for trouble. Supermicro makes some great cases, from what I can see though you would probably have to step up to a 3U though unless you can find something a little older, just make sure it supports SAS2 or better. SAS1 backplanes and expanders have some limitations that will not make you happy.

 

[danb35]

We do not know if encryption will be included with FreeNAS 10

Well, we do know, or at least we've been told, that encryption will not be included with the initial release of FreeNAS 10. It may or may not be added in a future release.

@Stephen304, I think you're misreading something in the hardware recommendations thread. There's no difference between X9 and X10 boards wrt number of drives--the difference is that the X10 boards are newer-generation, have newer chipsets, and support newer CPUs, and as a result probably have marginally better performance per dollar and per watt. If I were building today, I'd probably be looking for an X10 board, though I wouldn't turn down a good deal on an X9 board. Specifically, in your case, I'd probably suggest the X10SL7-F, which has an onboard LSI SAS controller/HBA. It's limited to 32 GB of RAM, though.

For the chassis, I don't know anything about the Silverstone model you're looking at. Supermicro are very common around here, and they can be pretty expensive new, but there's lots of used gear on eBay. What you want is a chassis with a SAS2 expander backplane, which will make cabling up the drives much easier than it could otherwise be. I was looking for one on eBay and found this listing for $375, including redundant 500W power supplies and a motherboard. It's an X8 board, so a previous generation, but it's dual-socket and will support up to 192 GB of RAM. You'd still need to add CPU(s), RAM, and drives. I'm not finding nearly as many bare chassis in the 2U form factor as I do when I search for 4U.

Speaking of which, are you certain you aren't ever going to want more than 12 drives? Prices on eBay for the SuperMicro 4U, 24-bay chassis are about the same as for the 2U, 12-bay models, and you obviously get room for twice as many drives. I'm speaking as someone with a 2U who's starting to wish he had a 4U. This listing, for example, gives you 24 bays, a SAS2 expander backplane, and redundant 1200-watt 80+ Gold power supplies for $500. Or this one gives you 36 bays, motherboard, CPUs, RAM, and power supplies, for just under $1k--just add drives. You'll probably want to expand the RAM eventually, but there's plenty of space to do that.

 

[Stephen304]

Thanks guys for all the responses! I'm gonna try to quote and organize by the original question numbers to keep it readable:

2.

I haven't seen anyone use that chassis. Look at a Supermicro 826 series. Cooling will probably be better and you can get a redundant PSU.

Case wise look around and see what works best. Just make sure the drives will stay cool, cook the drives and you are asking for trouble. Supermicro makes some great cases, from what I can see though you would probably have to step up to a 3U though unless you can find something a little older, just make sure it supports SAS2 or better. SAS1 backplanes and expanders have some limitations that will not make you happy.

For the chassis, I don't know anything about the Silverstone model you're looking at. Supermicro are very common around here, and they can be pretty expensive new, but there's lots of used gear on eBay. What you want is a chassis with a SAS2 expander backplane, which will make cabling up the drives much easier than it could otherwise be. I was looking for one on eBay and found this listing for $375, including redundant 500W power supplies and a motherboard. It's an X8 board, so a previous generation, but it's dual-socket and will support up to 192 GB of RAM. You'd still need to add CPU(s), RAM, and drives. I'm not finding nearly as many bare chassis in the 2U form factor as I do when I search for 4U.

Speaking of which, are you certain you aren't ever going to want more than 12 drives? Prices on eBay for the SuperMicro 4U, 24-bay chassis are about the same as for the 2U, 12-bay models, and you obviously get room for twice as many drives. I'm speaking as someone with a 2U who's starting to wish he had a 4U. This listing, for example, gives you 24 bays, a SAS2 expander backplane, and redundant 1200-watt 80+ Gold power supplies for $500. Or this one gives you 36 bays, motherboard, CPUs, RAM, and power supplies, for just under $1k--just add drives. You'll probably want to expand the RAM eventually, but there's plenty of space to do that.

So for case I'm hearing I want to watch out for cooling and a sas2 expander backplane is a huge help. I'm planning on using SATA drives (probably wd greens or reds), would a sas2 expander backplane support sata drives?

Also, I'm not planning on going beyond 12 drives in the near future - the potential capacity of this system is much larger than what I need.

3.

IDK where you heard that. X10 with any amount of drives is fine. You will be using an HBA for your drives so mobo doesn't really matter.

The advantage the X9SRH-7F has is the built in SAS controller. Then again you can find an x10 board with one as well. All things being equal with the number of drives you want to use I would look towards a board with the SAS controller built in rather than buying a separate one. The cost will be the same or generally cheaper than buying a board and a controller. The only thing you will have to watch with the built in controllers is the possible need for a reverse breakout cable it will depend on the backplane for whatever case you use. As far as an x10 series board http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C220/X10SL7-F.cfm would be a good one to look at.

@Stephen304, I think you're misreading something in the hardware recommendations thread. There's no difference between X9 and X10 boards wrt number of drives--the difference is that the X10 boards are newer-generation, have newer chipsets, and support newer CPUs, and as a result probably have marginally better performance per dollar and per watt. If I were building today, I'd probably be looking for an X10 board, though I wouldn't turn down a good deal on an X9 board. Specifically, in your case, I'd probably suggest the X10SL7-F, which has an onboard LSI SAS controller/HBA. It's limited to 32 GB of RAM, though.

My main reference is this post, which says that the X10SLL+-F is good for "6 disks or less" and the other X10 option it lists, the X10SL7-F, it says is good for "6-8 disks". Regarding a SAS controller, would that save me from having to buy a card and allow me to plug in mini sas (sff8086) directly to the mobo?

7/8.

7. Do not buy a raid card. Buy a LSI 9211-8i and flash it to IT mode.
8. See #7.

That listing calls it a raid controller card? Is it not? Also what's the difference between the IBM ServeRAID M1015 and that one? I see a lot of posts recommending the ServeRAID M1015 crossflashed to IT mode.

Regarding connecting the drives, I really want to be able to connect a couple mini sas cables and not have to use a breakout cable, plus if I use a breakout cable to get individual sata cables for each drive, I'd need a mobo that has 12 sata ports when it's fully populated, is that correct?

 

[nightshade00013]

SAS supports SATA drives, SATA does not support SAS drives.

Tis better to plan ahead and have a couple extra spaces even if you don't envision the need now. 16 Bays would give you the option to have a couple hot spares or do raidZ3 with seven drives for a little more redundancy, either would be good. Don't just limit yourself to what "looks" a particular way. The more you leave yourself open to something else the better off you will be.

Yes the http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C220/X10SLL_-F.cfm supports only 6 disks directly connected to the board but you can put a SAS HBA in and support a ton more, there is just the added cost of the HBA

The http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C220/X10SL7-F.cfm however supports 14 disks, 6 via SATA and 8 via SAS.

5. 2x SATA (6Gbps), 4x SATA (3Gbps)

6. 8x SAS2 (6Gbps) via LSI 2308

The ServeRAID M1015 and LSI 9211 8i are basically the same card. They are both SAS2 controllers based on the SAS2008 chip. The controllers have two modes, IR or "Raid" mode which is bad for FreeNAS and ZFS and IT mode or "Initiator Target" which FreeNAS and ZFS will work correctly with. Since you will have to flash to a specific version of firmware for the card to match the driver version in FreeNAS you may as well flash the firmware to the IT mode and know it will work correctly. If you want to roll the dice and leave it in RAID mode that is your choice but doing things the wrong way will not get you sympathy when things go wrong.

SAS drivers and Firmware work in sets, each driver and firmware has a revision number and they need to be the same to ensure problem free use.


For the cabling, it does not matter greatly if it is individual ports or combined ones. A breakout cable can be had that will combine or split apart the individual ports. If the backplane has the combined ports and the board has them split apart already a cable can be had that will make it work. In fact in the link you showed for the silverstone case http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S0M4D8U/?tag=ozlp-20 there is a review at the bottom with a picture. It shows a SAS controller with two black cables running to the front of the case and then some bright red ones coming from the front to the motherboard. They are using SAS and SATA, the SATA are being used with a reverse breakout cable.

Don't get too hung up on everything being one way or another. You did good by coming here with questions but realise what you envisioned to begin with isn't exactly how things will go at the end.

As far as the Ebay listing http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...453681?hash=item3ab73eddb1:g:ttsAAOSwMmBVy7xT I am using the same motherboard in the listing, I grabbed a pair of e5640's and 48GB of ram. If I didn't already have everything going I would probably grab that in a heartbeat. The CPU's are cheap the RAM is fairly cheap for the smaller sticks and everything is there. That means you can stick more money into drives.

Say you buy the X8DT6-F with the case at 425 shipped, you grab http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-...341523?hash=item43e6675913:g:gf8AAOSwl9BWJn4p x2 at 70 and 3 sets of http://www.ebay.com/itm/16GB-4x4GB-...550468?hash=item567e252304:g:qYsAAOSwu-BWQQwo at 210 and have 1795 for drives and a pair of UPS's

Figure 200 for the battery backups that leaves you 1595 for drives of which you can grab six http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...1&cm_re=PPSSYTPAMHUKKG-_-22-236-737-_-Product with what's left for around 21.8TB of useable space.

There are SOOOOOOO many options out there which is half the fun IMHO. Figure out the basics and work three or four options then weigh which will be the best. The bad thing for the x8 platform is it's a little more money on electricity in the long run, if you have a cheap rate then it's not that big of a deal. Spend more money on the CPU and such and have something that is a little more efficient at the sacrifice of storage space since you will have less cash to spend on drives.

 

[danb35]

would a sas2 expander backplane support sata drives?

Yes, it would.

My main reference is this post, which says that the X10SLL+-F is good for "6 disks or less" and the other X10 option it lists, the X10SL7-F, it says is good for "6-8 disks".

Since you don't link "this post", I'm not sure which one you're talking about, but assuming it's the hardware recommendations thread, you're misreading it. That post recommends the X10SL7-F as "amazing if you are planning to go with more than 6-8 disks" (my emphasis).

 

[Stephen304]

As far as the Ebay listing http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...453681?hash=item3ab73eddb1:g:ttsAAOSwMmBVy7xT I am using the same motherboard in the listing, I grabbed a pair of e5640's and 48GB of ram. If I didn't already have everything going I would probably grab that in a heartbeat. The CPU's are cheap the RAM is fairly cheap for the smaller sticks and everything is there. That means you can stick more money into drives.

Say you buy the X8DT6-F with the case at 425 shipped, you grab http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-...341523?hash=item43e6675913:g:gf8AAOSwl9BWJn4p x2 at 70 and 3 sets of http://www.ebay.com/itm/16GB-4x4GB-...550468?hash=item567e252304:g:qYsAAOSwu-BWQQwo at 210 and have 1795 for drives and a pair of UPS's

Figure 200 for the battery backups that leaves you 1595 for drives of which you can grab six http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...1&cm_re=PPSSYTPAMHUKKG-_-22-236-737-_-Product with what's left for around 21.8TB of useable space.

For that bundle, is 500W enough for 12 drives? I was looking at the post for calculating wattage, and it estimates 850-1050W for 11-12 drives.

Since you don't link "this post", I'm not sure which one you're talking about, but assuming it's the hardware recommendations thread, you're misreading it. That post recommends the X10SL7-F as "amazing if you are planning to go with more than 6-8 disks" (my emphasis).

Yes, that was the post I meant to link to. My bad, I wasn't reading carefully. Since both you guys have said the X10SL7-F would be a reasonable choice, I'll mark that down as one of my options if I don't get a mobo/case/power bundle.

 

[Fuganater]

So for case I'm hearing I want to watch out for cooling and a sas2 expander backplane is a huge help. I'm planning on using SATA drives (probably wd greens or reds), would a sas2 expander backplane support sata drives?

You need SAS2 if you are using 3TB+ drives. If you are only using <2TB then SAS1 is fine. I have 1x 846 with a SAS1 backplane and only use 2TB drives. My second chassis has a SAS2 backplane for my 3TB drives.

That listing calls it a raid controller card? Is it not? Also what's the difference between the IBM ServeRAID M1015 and that one? I see a lot of posts recommending the ServeRAID M1015 crossflashed to IT mode.

It is a HBA Raid Card. Flashing the 9211-8i to IT mode is easier than the M1015. Also the ports are pointed to the backplane which makes for better cable management. I also do not believe in crossflashing a card to be something it is not but that is just my personal opinion.

 

[Stephen304]

You need SAS2 if you are using 3TB+ drives. If you are only using <2TB then SAS1 is fine. I have 1x 846 with a SAS1 backplane and only use 2TB drives. My second chassis has a SAS2 backplane for my 3TB drives.

I see, so 3TB+ drives simply don't work with SAS1 it seems? I think everything I've looked at is SAS2, but I'll be sure to watch out for that.

It is a HBA Raid Card. Flashing the 9211-8i to IT mode is easier than the M1015. Also the ports are pointed to the backplane which makes for better cable management. I also do not believe in crossflashing a card to be something it is not but that is just my personal opinion.

Thanks for your thoughts on this - since the 2 are roughly the same price I'll definitely go for the 9211-8i.

I still have to work out what power supply and cpu cooler to get.

I did some calculations with the spec sheets for all the parts and it comes out to roughly 500W, which * 1.25 = 625W. I think I'll need more than a 500W power supply to be safe, so I'm not sure if that bundle nightshade00013 suggested will work as it is.

For cpu cooler, I haven't seen a lot of focus on this, so I assume it isn't that easy to mess up. Does anybody have any objections to the Dynatron K666? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835114105

 

[danb35]

I still have to work out what power supply and cpu cooler to get.

I've not seen any reason, in a 2U or larger chassis, to bother with anything other than the stock Intel CPU cooler. It comes with the CPU anyway, it's quiet, and it works at least well enough.

I see, so 3TB+ drives simply don't work with SAS1 it seems?

Correct. Where this can be a problem is with used gear on eBay. The links I posted had SAS2 backplanes, but a lot of the used gear has SAS1 backplanes instead. If you think you'll ever want to use drives larger than 2TB, hold out for the SAS2 models.

 

[Fuganater]

I see, so 3TB+ drives simply don't work with SAS1 it seems? I think everything I've looked at is SAS2, but I'll be sure to watch out for that.

Well this really only matters if the backplane is an expander. A SAS1 expander can only see up to 2.2TB per drive. So like the Norco 4224 has 6 SAS1 boards. They are not expanders, the just break out 1 SFF-8087 to 4 drives so you need 6 SFF-8087 cables for all 24 drives. Your 2U could be the same. Some have an expander (1 cable) some do not (1 cable for 4 drives or a SFF-8087 to SATA and 1 cable per drive).

Thanks for your thoughts on this - since the 2 are roughly the same price I'll definitely go for the 9211-8i.

Let me know if you have any issues flashing it. I did it on my X10-SRL-F and it took no time at all.

I still have to work out what power supply and cpu cooler to get.

Any 2U active HS will be fine. (I prefer active, some prefer passive)

For cpu cooler, I haven't seen a lot of focus on this, so I assume it isn't that easy to mess up. Does anybody have any objections to the Dynatron K666? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835114105

Reviews say it is loud but I doubt it will be louder than the fans in your chassis.

 

[Lucky Sidz]

1. 2x 6 drive RAIDz2 is a good setup.
2. I haven't seen anyone use that chassis. Look at a Supermicro 826 series. Cooling will probably be better and you can get a redundant PSU.
3. IDK where you heard that. X10 with any amount of drives is fine. You will be using an HBA for your drives so mobo doesn't really matter.
4. 16GB is fine, personally I would say buy 32GB and be done with it.
5. Reg and w/e you can afford.
6. Look at the PSU sizing sticky. If you get a SM chassis this is a non issue.
7. Do not buy a raid card. Buy a LSI 9211-8i and flash it to IT mode.
8. See #7.

I just Ordered LSI 9211-8i on ebay after your recommendation

 

[Fuganater]

I just Ordered LSI 9211-8i on ebay after your recommendation

Good deal. Here is the guide I used and it worked after the first try. Download the P20 firmware and the UEFI Shell version of the installer.

 

[Lucky Sidz]

Good deal. Here is the guide I used and it worked after the first try. Download the P20 firmware and the UEFI Shell version of the installer.

Thanks will request for some help after I do the installation...
Cheers
Sidz