200 Euro - First FreeNAS - Buget diskless FreeNAS

[boy2litle]

Hello people!

I've spend my last 2 week looking for a NAS. I've started looking at an used diskless Drobo NAS (4bay or 5bay) and I've endup with Synology and Qnap.

I love the ease of use of a Drobo, I love how stable it is a Synology, I love the features of Qnap and I hate the amount of money that you have to spend to get an used one which does have just 4 of 5 bay.

I already have the following 7 internal HDD which I plan to use in my future DIY NAS:
- 1 x 80 GB Western Digital - WD800 - https://bit.ly/2nGdWBE
- 1 x 250 GB Seagate - ST3250820AS - https://bit.ly/2Mn4fa3
- 1 x 500 GB Western Digital - WD5000AADS - https://bit.ly/2MVzrsX
- 1 x 320 GB Western Digital - WD3200AAKS - https://bit.ly/2Mvrm1n
- 2 x 2000 GB Seagate ST2000DM001 - https://cnet.co/2L4bApy
- 1 x 3000 GB HGST - https://bit.ly/2w6rQAM

Also it's on it's way an external 8TB Hard Drive (Seagate Expansion 8TB Desktop External Hard Drive USB 3.0 (STEB8000100)) - https://bit.ly/2KYFcnS

I'm planing to buy a SSD for cache, but I will need your help to know what will suit my actual and future needs.

The Internal hard drives have data on t em and the plan is to transfer them on the external 8TB HDD and after that to use them in my FreeNAS.

Specs Future FreeNAS
As you notice in the title, my budget is very tight, around 200 euro. And I want to build a FreeNAS where I will be able to have 8-10 HDD bay available (considering the ones for the optical drive, which I will convert them into HDD bay). Also is very important for me to have an motherboard with Gigabit LAN port, ECC memory compatible, enough SATA ports (8 or 10), and which cat take at least 32GB DDR3 ECC memory or more.

I'm planing for the moment to use as a storage space for my work, but to use it as a Home Media Server and if possible as a web server and streaming server as well (as you can do with Synology or Qnap).

I'm planing either to buy a used case with multiple 3.5 bays and a used PC from which I will re-purpose the parts, or to buy used parts (but if I will do so, I might end-up with some compatibility issues). Me and my wife will be the only two persons that will use this NAS, using either our laptops, tables or smartphones, and pretty often we might use it in the same time.

After lots or researches I'm still not sure what parts I should use and consider fine for my build because I don't know what parts are fine enough for my actual almost 8TB of total storage and for a future 32TB or 64 TB of space, once that I will start to replace my drives one by one.

I had in mind an some prebuild PCs:
- HP Z200 Workstation PC Intel Core i5-650
- HP Compaq 6200 Pro Desktop PC i3 2100
- Dell Precision 490 workstation dual Xeon 3.2Ghz
- Dell Precision T3500 PC Xeon X5670 hex core
- Dell Precision T3500 Workstation Xeon W3520 CPU @ 2.66GHz
- HP Z400 Intel Xeon Quad Core W3530 2.80GHz

, but the motherboard does not support ECC memory or I don't know if the CPU it will be powerful enough for a future 32TB storage and for all the task that I will trough at it.

Because of that I might consider to buy the parts:

I found the following CPUs:
- INTEL XEON E5-2609 2.4GHZ 10MB 4-CORE SANDYBRIDGE-EP SR0LA LGA2011 80W TDP CPU
- Intel Xeon E5-1603-V1 (SR0L9) 2.80GHz Quad Core LGA2011 CPU Processor
- Intel Xeon E5 2603 1.8GHz SR0LB Server CPU Socket LGA2011 4 Core Sandy Bridge
- Intel Xeon E5-2630L Six 6 Core Processor 2.00GHz 2.5GHz Turbo LGA2011
- Intel Xeon X5680 3.33GHz 1366 CPU
- Intel Xeon E5 2640 SR0KR | 2.50GHz Six Core LGA2011 CPU
- Apple Intel i5-2400S 2.5ghz Processor Skt H2 LGA1155
- Intel i5-2500s 2.7GHz SR009 SKT H2 LGA1155 iMac
- Intel Xeon E5 2640 SR0KR | 2.50GHz Six Core LGA2011 CPU
- Intel Core i7 - 3820 SR0LD 2nd Generation Processor CPU / 4 Cores / LGA 2011
but I don't know which one is powerfull enough for my FreeNAS. Feel free to recommend my any other cheap and very powerful CPU suitable for my NAS.

I have found the following motherboards (open to any other ECC ready motherboard suggestions):
- X58 LGA 1366 DDR3 16GB Support ECC RAM Lot LN
- Intel Motherboard X79 LGA 2011 - (M) ATX DDR3 ECC USB 3
- X58 Mainboard LGA 1366 DDR3 16GB Support ECC RAM (even if supports up to 16GB memory)

- Power supply
What's the most efficient 80+ case that you can recommend me, which will be fine for now but for future as well? Any good price recommendations?

I'm planing to use either RAID 6 on my NAS for safety, because I will be able to loose 2 HDD and still to have my data save . Will I need an RAID PCI card? Can you recommend me one?
Can you recommend me something better than RAID 6?

What OS should help me better with the above mentions features?

I really need your hel to build this one to stay in the budget and to be able to build this NAS with the above features.

Thank you in advance for your time and for your help!

 

[garm]

There is so many issues with this build it’s hard to write up a response.

You need to read more on ZFS in particular and FreeNAS.

You don’t mix ZFS with hardware raid. ZFS RAIDZ2 (which will give you a 2 drive redundancy) with the hard drives you mentioned will be around 400 GB of net storage. Check out @Bidule0hm ’s calculator.

A SLOG or a L2ARC (your SSD “cache”) has very specific requirements and use cases. Please read up on those as well.

The only “OS” I’d be willing to discuss is the appliance FreeNAS, which is built on FreeBSD and is using ZFS.

And in the end I would be really curious to see you pull this off within budget.

 

[pro lamer]

- 1 x 250 GB Seagate - ST3250820AS - https://bit.ly/2Mn4fa3
- 1 x 500 GB Western Digital - WD5000AADS - https://bit.ly/2MVzrsX
- 1 x 320 GB Western Digital - WD3200AAKS - https://bit.ly/2Mvrm1n

These three can be put into raidz1, but in that setup they would work as if all of the three were 250GB.
EDIT2:

- 2 x 2000 GB Seagate ST2000DM001 - https://cnet.co/2L4bApy

And these two can be turned into a mirror.

But the other drives... Hard to give advice... Maybe read more about ZFS as @garm recommended. This can be a good start:
"Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC for noobs"

EDIT: and the calculator garm recommended

Sent from my mobile phone

 

[boy2litle]

So, long story short, the main problem in here is the different brands, capacity and model of the hard drive? A FreeNAS can't be made/configured to work like Drobo/Synolog where you can combine different brands, capacity and model of the hard drive? What will be the quickest solution for me to solve this situation?

I had a look on that calculator and I think is very helpful for someone who is not a newbie like me. At this stage I have dificulties to understand what Drive MTBF, MTTPR, TiB TB % (on the top of the table), Metadata overhead, Blocks overhead, Total overhead, MTTR, MTTDL mean. What is the difference between "Total data space" and "Usable data space"?

 

[garm]

Total data space is the net data volume in a zfs pool. Usable data space is the practical net storage volume as ZFS will not work well above 80%, grinds to a halt at 90% and you will loose the pool at 100%.

But before you go on start reading about how ZFS works. There are plenty of resources on the forum and else where

 

[danb35]

A FreeNAS can't be made/configured to work like Drobo/Synolog where you can combine different brands, capacity and model of the hard drive?

Short answer: no. Longer answer: you can combine them (the issue is capacity, not brand or model), but you'll be limited by the capacity of the smallest one in the RAID set. Best answer: actually read the ZFS documentation you've already been pointed to.

What will be the quickest solution for me to solve this situation?

Get another 2 TB disk and don't bother with your antique disks.

 

[pro lamer]

Get another 2 TB disk

Maybe rather a 3TB so there can be two mirrors in stripe: 2x2TB + 2x3TB


?

Sent from my mobile phone

 

[danb35]

Maybe rather a 3TB so there can be two mirrors in stripe: 2x2TB + 2x3TB

Yeah, that would work. I was thinking 3 x 2 TB in RAIDZ1, but then the 3 TB disk isn't doing anything.

 

[CraigD]

Could you stretch to this? https://www.amazon.co.uk/DELL-serve...ie=UTF8&qid=1534555837&sr=8-7&keywords=server

Buy one more 2TB drive to do a 4 wide RAIDz2 pool EDIT: Use 3 2TB and 1 3TB this is about 3.5TB usable

Later add an HBA and a JBOD using a case that hold lots of drives (I recommend both of cases use)

Have Fun

 

[boy2litle]

Short answer: no. Longer answer: you can combine them (the issue is capacity, not brand or model), but you'll be limited by the capacity of the smallest one in the RAID set. Best answer: actually read the ZFS documentation you've already been pointed to.

Get another 2 TB disk and don't bother with your antique disks.

Is this situation because we speak about FreeNAS, or some other operating systems will give me the same result (to not be able to combine diffent capacity HDDs)?

Maybe rather a 3TB so there can be two mirrors in stripe: 2x2TB + 2x3TB

Sent from my mobile phone

Yes, that might be an idea. Thank you for that I will consider that.
The only question that I have at the moment is, if one hard drive will fail, how will you rebuild and RAID 1 (you said about mirrors and I know that RAID 1 is functioning like this)?

If instead of RAID 1 I will go with a RAID 6, will I not get more space available?

Could you stretch to this? https://www.amazon.co.uk/DELL-serve...ie=UTF8&qid=1534555837&sr=8-7&keywords=server

Buy one more 2TB drive to do a 4 wide RAIDz2 pool EDIT: Use 3 2TB and 1 3TB this is about 3.5TB usable

Later add an HBA and a JBOD using a case that hold lots of drives (I recommend both of cases use)

Have Fun

Thank you for suggestion CraigD! It's slightly over my budget and I also have to consider to buy a different case with 9 bays, for future expension of this NAS. This one (https://bit.ly/2MX01lv) is much more closer to my budget, to you think that will do?

At this stage I still didn't get it what's the minimum configuration of a PC that will work fine for a NAS with up to 12TB of raw space.

 

[pro lamer]

if one hard drive will fail, how will you rebuild a RAID 1

Striped mirrors are not simple analogue of raid 1 - see below.

In striped mirrors case: One of the two vdevs will [have to] resilver after the failed drive replacement.

If instead of RAID 1 I will go with a RAID 6, will I not get more space available?

Striped mirrors are not simple analogue of raid 1 but rather RAID 0+1 (or 1+0 - I keep falling to memorize which is which).

EDIT: Anyway striped mirror for 4 disks 2x2TB plus 2x3TB is a pool made of two vdevs each vdev being an analogue of RAID 1.

Sent from my mobile phone

 

[kdragon75]

A FreeNAS can't be made/configured to work like Drobo/Synolog where you can combine different brands, capacity and model of the hard drive? What will be the quickest solution for me to solve this situation?

FreeNAS is not designed to be consumer-add up all your random drives-NAS. FreeNAS is build around ZFS as stated. ZFS was designed to be datacenter scalable and insanely resilient. As such its assumed that some planing has been done before buying hardware. You can still mix and match disks but generally you want all disk in a vdev to match at least in performance and capacity.

The only question that I have at the moment is, if one hard drive will fail, how will you rebuild and RAID 1 (you said about mirrors and I know that RAID 1 is functioning like this)?

If instead of RAID 1 I will go with a RAID 6, will I not get more space available?

Ok, RAID1 means all disks in that array element have EXACT copies of the data hence the term mirror. Usually don't with two drive but with ZFS you can mirror as many drives as you need. This means that as long as one disk is in good condition, you data is intact. Also the more mirrors the faster your read speed. If all the data is the same across all the disks we can read from all disk at the same time. However writes are only as fast as the slowest disk in the mirror.
Now with RAID6, to keep redundancy we use some math. With this method, we effectively use all but two disks to save the data and the two disks save the calculated values so if one OR two disks die we can reverse the math to calculate the missing data. Now to satisfy the RAID gurus out there, we don't pick two disks and save all the parity data to them. There is a striping pattern to distribute the data and parity information.

As for the hardware itself, Take a look at Dell R510 or R710 servers on ebay. You would need to budget for an HBA card but that's about $30usd (sorry I don't know the conversion rates).

 

[Jailer]

As others have suggested you need to educate yourself a bit before you go any further with FreeNAS.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/zfs-primer.38927/

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

 

[boy2litle]

As for the hardware itself, Take a look at Dell R510 or R710 servers on ebay. You would need to budget for an HBA card but that's about $30usd (sorry I don't know the conversion rates).

I had a look the some Dell R510 and R710 server on ebay, I love that they have 8 or 12 bays for HDD, the bad part is that they won't come HDD trays/rack. They have to be bought separately which will take me somewhere around 300 euro (to much for me.)

I got an offer for an:

• Dell Precision T3500 PC
• Intel Xeon X5670 hex core @ 2.93 CPU
• with 12GB RAM
• 500GB HDD (space for another drive)
• includes ATI FirePro 2260 Dual Display Port Video card, for 180 euro.

or

Precision Workstation T5500

• 6GB Memory
• DVD-RW Writer Drive
• 500GB Hard Disk Drive
• nVidia Quadro FX 3500 Graphics Card
• Xeon W5580 3.20GHz Quad Core Processor, for 110 euro.

But I don't know if it will suit it's purporse in terms of performance.
For another 30 euro I will add a 9 bays (5.25 bays) case like (Sharkoon Rebel 9 Midi Tower, or Nexus Prominent 9 Premium ATX Tower Case).

When I will have the right money, I will add 3 hard drives hot swap cases/cages (see the image bellow). Like this one, for each cage it will take up to 5 hard disk drives. In this way I will have 12hdd bays with hot swap trays.

https://www.amazon.com/ICY-FatCage-...80326&sr=8-3-fkmr0&keywords=Icy+Box+IB-555SSK

or

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/5x-3-5-SATA...er-Tray-Caddy-Bay-with-Fan-Space/382504795233

or

Also I got an offer for a QNAP TS-410 Turbo 4-bay NAS for 125 euro. The price is good, but I know that I wont be able to mix different hard drives in a QNAP. Also I don't knot what you will have to do when you have to do when you want expend to more than 4 bays. Is there any kind of expansions?!?!?

I started to have a look on the suggested resources about the FreeNAS. I don't know how much it took to fully understand how you should build and configure such a system, but for me is still science rocket.

If you will be in my shoes what you will decide to go for?

Thank you

 

[pro lamer]

R510 and R710 server on ebay, I love that they have 8 or 12 bays for HDD, the bad part is that they won't come HDD trays/rack. They have to be bought separately which will take me somewhere around 300 euro (to much for me.)

IIRC @Chris Moore saw some similar trays for a low price a short time ago...

Sent from my mobile phone

 

[CraigD]

The 5 in 3 cages are great, you will have to modify your case to get them to fit but it is not that hard, hammer time...

I used cages first but opted to replace them with seven 5 bay Kingwin hot swap units cheaper than IcyDock

Here are the temps (ada2 and the SSDs are not in the Kingwin Hot swap bays)

Code:

root@freenas:~ # ~/scripts/get_hdd_temp.sh
=== CPU (2) ===
CPU  0:   40C
CPU  1:   39C

=== DRIVES ===
   da0:   24C [3.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD30EFRX-68N32N0)
   da1:   24C [3.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0)
   da2:   24C [3.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0)
   da3:   25C [3.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0)
   da4:   31C [500GB]  XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 CT500MX500SSD1
   da5:   31C [500GB]  XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 CT500MX500SSD1
   da6:   25C [3.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0)
   da7:   24C [3.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0)
   da8:   25C [4.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD40EFRX-68N32N0)
   da9:   24C [4.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD40EFRX-68N32N0)
  da10:   24C [4.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD40EFRX-68N32N0)
  da11:   24C [4.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD40EFRX-68N32N0)
  da12:   24C [4.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD40EFRX-68N32N0)
  da13:   25C [4.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD40EFRX-68N32N0)
  da14:   25C [4.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD40EFRX-68N32N0)
  da15:   25C [4.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD40EFRX-68N32N0)
  da16:   24C [4.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST4000DM000-1F2168)
  da17:   25C [4.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST4000DM000-1F2168)
  da18:   23C [2.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Green (WDC WD20EARX-00PASB0)
  da19:   21C [4.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Seagate IronWolf (ST4000VN008-2DR166)
  da20:   24C [3.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0)
  da21:   24C [3.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD30EFRX-68N32N0)
  da22:   24C [3.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0)
  da23:   24C [2.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (AF) (ST2000DM001-1ER164)
  da24:   24C [2.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (AF) (ST2000DM001-1ER164)
  da25:   23C [2.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Seagate NAS HDD (ST2000VN000-1HJ164)
  da26:   24C [2.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (AF) (ST2000DM001-1ER164)
  da27:   24C [3.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD30EFRX-68N32N0)
  ada0:   30C [120GB]  XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Apacer AS330 120GB
  ada1:   25C [2.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Seagate Barracuda Green (AF) (ST2000DL003-9VT166)
  ada2:   30C [3.00TB] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	 Western Digital Red (WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0)

The 24 4U cases don't look so expensive now do they?

Have Fun

 

[Chris Moore]

Precision Workstation T5500

Terrible system. If you want something like that, go with the Precision T7500. Much nicer interior layout in the chassis.

 

[boy2litle]

Terrible system. If you want something like that, go with the Precision T7500. Much nicer interior layout in the chassis.

Is to expensive, over 200 euro just the system. Thank you for your suggestion, but for this project I have to stay in the budget.

 

[Chris Moore]

Is to expensive, over 200 euro just the system. Thank you for your suggestion, but for this project I have to stay in the budget.

I don't know the conversion rate, so I looked it up. It works out to $229.94 US and that is not much to pay for system board, processor and memory. Actually, very inexpensive. I understand the idea of going cheap to get started, but then there is being so cheap that you are hurting yourself.
I have not got the time to read all that you posted, but your plan doesn't look to be very well considered. Here are links to some resources that you should read and I think they will help you get started on a better path:

Hardware Requirements
http://www.freenas.org/hardware-requirements/

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev 1e) 2017-05-06
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

Proper Power Supply Sizing Guidance
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/don't-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy.48/

Building, Burn-In, and Testing your FreeNAS system
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/building-burn-in-and-testing-your-freenas-system.38/

Github repository for FreeNAS scripts, including disk burnin
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...for-freenas-scripts-including-disk-burnin.28/

 

[garm]

well, there is always these
https://www.amazon.de/Dell-20-3692-...=UTF8&qid=1534855507&sr=8-2&keywords=dell+t20

room for four 3.5 drives and two 2.5, just add some memory and your set