Stevie_1der
Explorer
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2019
- Messages
- 80
Hello everyone!
I'm currently thinking of building a small home-NAS, and FreeNAS sounds as what I need.
Purpose:
Network storage and backup for 2 Windows PCs and some Android smartphones.
Current data amount is about 3TB in total, so I think I should be fine with 6 to 8 TB of NAS net storage (please correct me if you thinkt this is too small).
Maybe I could add Plex support, but not as a primary goal, just as an additional goodie.
No DB, mail, or OwnCloud servers, or stuff like that are planned.
I want a rather compact build, so I'm planning with a 4-bay case and Mini-ITX.
So I searched and came up with the following configuration:
Case: Supermicro SuperChassis 721TQ-250B (4-bay Mini-ITX with 250W Flex-ATX PSU)
Mainboard: Supermicro A2SDi-4C-HLN4F (Atom C3558, 4x2.2GHz)
RAM: Samsung DIMM 16GB, DDR4-2400, CL17-17-17, ECC (M391A2K43BB1-CRC)
Boot drive: SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB, USB-A 3.0 (SDCZ430-032G-G46) USB thumb drive
Storage: WD Red or Seagate IronWolf
Now for the storage configuration, what would you recommend?
Mirror with 2 disks (leaves space for a later upgrade for another mirror) or RAIDZ1 with 3 disks, or even RAIDZ1 with 4 disks or RAIDZ2 with 4 disks?
To save some bucks, I could change the Mainboard to an ASRock Rack with a Celeron G3930 (2x2.9GHz).
I think both the Atom C3558 and the Celeron G3930 will be sufficient, is this right?
But I could easily pick another CPU instead for the E3C232D2I, like for example a Pentium Gold G4560 (2x3.5GHz), Core i3-7100 (2x3.9GHz), or a Xeon E3-1225 v6 (4x3.3GHz) if it would be needed.
This could be the case for transcoding with Plex.
Does anyone know if the Plex plugin supports hardware transcoding, especially with a C232 chipset (without graphics ports)?
If not, would it work with a C236 board?
I have searched a little, and it seems the current Plex plugin for FreeNAS 11.2 doesn't support hardware transcoding at all, so I think I can forget that for now and go with a G3930 or G4560, these should be able to transcode 1080p in software, if needed.
What would you pick for the task, Supermicro Atom C3558 board, or ASRock Rack + Celeron/Pentium?
And now some more detailed questions:
The Supermicro case has a backplane built in, will the HDD LEDs only function if the sideband header and/or activity LED header is populated?
If yes, has one of my selected mainboards a suitable connection for that?
I guess no, but I hope I'm wrong...
What about the USB thumb drive as boot device, will that last or is it likely to die after a short time?
I can read very mixed opinions about that, from "works since years" to "dies every few weeks".
So I thought of using a SSD (or 2 in mirror) instead.
But even the cheapest SSDs have minimum 120GB, and it would be a waste if I only put the boot files onto them.
Is it possible to use the remaining space for something else, like for example the system dataset?
That would have the additional benefit that I could send the data HDDs to spindown mode (like after 1 or 2 hours of idle time).
Or it could be used for the plugin jails.
I'm looking forward to your answers and advice!
I'm currently thinking of building a small home-NAS, and FreeNAS sounds as what I need.
Purpose:
Network storage and backup for 2 Windows PCs and some Android smartphones.
Current data amount is about 3TB in total, so I think I should be fine with 6 to 8 TB of NAS net storage (please correct me if you thinkt this is too small).
Maybe I could add Plex support, but not as a primary goal, just as an additional goodie.
No DB, mail, or OwnCloud servers, or stuff like that are planned.
I want a rather compact build, so I'm planning with a 4-bay case and Mini-ITX.
So I searched and came up with the following configuration:
Case: Supermicro SuperChassis 721TQ-250B (4-bay Mini-ITX with 250W Flex-ATX PSU)
Mainboard: Supermicro A2SDi-4C-HLN4F (Atom C3558, 4x2.2GHz)
RAM: Samsung DIMM 16GB, DDR4-2400, CL17-17-17, ECC (M391A2K43BB1-CRC)
Boot drive: SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB, USB-A 3.0 (SDCZ430-032G-G46) USB thumb drive
Storage: WD Red or Seagate IronWolf
Now for the storage configuration, what would you recommend?
Mirror with 2 disks (leaves space for a later upgrade for another mirror) or RAIDZ1 with 3 disks, or even RAIDZ1 with 4 disks or RAIDZ2 with 4 disks?
To save some bucks, I could change the Mainboard to an ASRock Rack with a Celeron G3930 (2x2.9GHz).
I think both the Atom C3558 and the Celeron G3930 will be sufficient, is this right?
But I could easily pick another CPU instead for the E3C232D2I, like for example a Pentium Gold G4560 (2x3.5GHz), Core i3-7100 (2x3.9GHz), or a Xeon E3-1225 v6 (4x3.3GHz) if it would be needed.
This could be the case for transcoding with Plex.
Does anyone know if the Plex plugin supports hardware transcoding, especially with a C232 chipset (without graphics ports)?
If not, would it work with a C236 board?
I have searched a little, and it seems the current Plex plugin for FreeNAS 11.2 doesn't support hardware transcoding at all, so I think I can forget that for now and go with a G3930 or G4560, these should be able to transcode 1080p in software, if needed.
What would you pick for the task, Supermicro Atom C3558 board, or ASRock Rack + Celeron/Pentium?
And now some more detailed questions:
The Supermicro case has a backplane built in, will the HDD LEDs only function if the sideband header and/or activity LED header is populated?
If yes, has one of my selected mainboards a suitable connection for that?
I guess no, but I hope I'm wrong...
What about the USB thumb drive as boot device, will that last or is it likely to die after a short time?
I can read very mixed opinions about that, from "works since years" to "dies every few weeks".
So I thought of using a SSD (or 2 in mirror) instead.
But even the cheapest SSDs have minimum 120GB, and it would be a waste if I only put the boot files onto them.
Is it possible to use the remaining space for something else, like for example the system dataset?
That would have the additional benefit that I could send the data HDDs to spindown mode (like after 1 or 2 hours of idle time).
Or it could be used for the plugin jails.
I'm looking forward to your answers and advice!