A few hardware oriented questions

[SaleB]

Ok, I have an idea of building two separate NAS system. One of them would be made of a few disks in ZFS Z2 pool for personal documents. Four to five hard drives could be smaller then 3tb. Data on them would be software iso images, installations, backups, personal documents and personally created multimedia. I thing that for many years ahead 4 or 5 (-2) 2tb drives would be enough.
Other one would be also 4-5 disks system, with movies and series, 3tb disks z1 pool with big files. I have not yet decided what system should I build first and should I combine them as two pools in same system. I would build it with cheaper ITX or mATX case.

For two separate systems I have two computers that work independently with separate ethernet ports, separate processing power and separate memory. On the other hand with faster hardware and good big case and cooling it could be cheaper on the end.

My questions:
How much memory does zfs really need? Do I need to go for 16GB board with i3 or would it be sufficient to take 8GB board with athlon or maybe even Atom or similar? Does the number or size of files need to be considered for specific memory and processor needs? Do I need an UEFI board, to be able to add the 3tb and 4tb disks to vdev pools or can the regular board do it too?

Regards,
Sasa

 

[SaleB]

I forgot to write, I do have an old PC Asus M2N SLI board with Athlon x2 processor, that accepts up to 8GB ecc or non ecc ram, seven sata ports and two gbit eth ports. If I can use it, I would take a suitable case and use it for first nas machine. It does not support boot from usb, but I can use some other combo (sd card class 10 with adapter to sata or some small 32gb ssd) if applicable. Only problem with that machine is 2tb limit, that I do not know is it applicable for non boot device.

On the other hand, after reading some posts on the forum I come to another conclusion. To take a new board with many sata3 ports and some good processor, with uefi and 16GB ram with 32gb max. (I like AMDs and use exclusively them on desktops, on the other hand I like my laptops to be Intel; for such a critical build I think that I would take an Intel) Some Basic processor i3 or in case of amd some <95w TDP Athlon/Phenom. Then add the first machine (from first post) as one vdev. Then when the time comes (money) add an lsi sata controller, 16gb of ram and another vdev. Or maybe should I take a board with basic number of sata ports now and take an lsi 8-12x sata board right now?

I would like someone with deeper knowledge / experience to point me in right direction. Performance is useful, but money is more critical.

I have now about 14tb's of data that is used with hdds like diskettes when needed, I gather about 2tb/yr more. I have lost only one noncritical disk in 5 years because machine hung and corrupted mbr, but I will need the option to have access to my data from outside the house and because of that I am thinking about a nas server. There is also the problem with mobile devices and accessing one central point, and duplicating data for convenience. But, the network is not have more then three users at any given time (a local user, a local media user and an outside connection user).

Sorry for the long text

Regards,
Sasa

 

[cyberjock]

Read this thread So You Want Some Hardware Suggestions. Read the whole thing. There's mention of Atoms in there too, just not at the first post.

To be blunt, if you can't figure out what you need by reading that whole thread you should probably not go for FreeNAS. It's far from trivial for those that have only Windows experience and if you make poor decisions it can cost you all of your data. Also read my guide(link in my sig).

 

[SaleB]

I have read it and I took it seriously. As I do not know much about server, in the manner of finding weak spots in specs, as I can in consumer PCs, I do need your assistance. I would ask you to look at the specs for an used configuration. I have read the specs, found out that 32GB is max for memory, but I could nowhere find if it supports 3tb drives or only 2tb; is there even such BIOS limit on servers like on consumer PCs? On the other hand with 16 positions I can live with 2tb disks for a long time and it combines good with memory (6x2tb + 6x2tb and 32gb ram should work fine). Anyway, here is the link:

http://shop.delwi-itr.de/shop/Server/Sonstige/SuperMicro_X7DBE_1x_Intel_Xeon_Dual-Core_5150_2660Mhz_8192MB_1x_1000GB_SATA2_Onboard_10/100/1000_i260_76639_0.htm

I would like you or someone else with server knowledge/experience to comment on configuration.

Regards,
Sasa