Assistance Requested in Building My First FreeNAS

Status
Not open for further replies.

dramic

Dabbler
Joined
Jun 16, 2018
Messages
15
Greetings FreeNAS community,

Let me preface my thread by saying that the goal is to learn as much as I can to intelligently select and purchase parts for my first FreeNAS system at home. I have read through the supported hardware documentation, but honestly decrypting that info and selecting, for example, one motherboard over another or selecting the proper parts for the need is a bit overwhelming.

Now to get down to business..

1. Purpose/Requirements:

The main intent currently is build a NAS for my home as a basic file/media(photos and videos) server with remote accessibility due to the nature of my occupation. I currently have about 1.5 TB of files on a USB External HDD that I will migrate to the NAS once complete. In the future my plan is to use it as a Plex Server though I will need to research more on my own and if my smartTVs have that app available. Additionally, we recently received an addition to our family and I want to pick photography back up along side photo editing to capture all of life's precious moments.

2. Parts:

Since I am not Jeff Bezos, I do have some budgetary constraints.

CPU: Intel-Pentium G4560 - $60.00

MOBO: Supermicro X11SSM-F - $199
*** NOTE: As I was referring to the Supermicro's motherboard reference page, I couldn't find any other motherboard that could be cheaper. I am not sure if I will ever use IPMI, so if there is another board out there would it be worth it to find something cheaper? ***

Memory: Crucial 16GB ECC DDR4 2400 - $199.98
I know that I would benefit from using 2x8GB, but I figured for upgrading down the road it would save me more money.

Case: Silverstone GD07B - $134.98
The reason I went along with this case was because of it's versatility and the fact that it could handle 5 internal drives. I am willing to consider other towers as well.

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 550W G3 - $59.99

Storage: 3x WD RED 2TB - $251.97 ($83.99 ea.)
I have also considered the 3TB variants as well, but again I do not anticipate needing anything close to 12TB of storage.

3. Questions:

a. If I create a pool consisting of 3 drives, each having a capacity of 2TB, would I be able to add a 3/4/6/10 TB drive to the pool or will each drive need to be upgraded to mirror the new drive?

Thank you all in advance for all the support and advice.
 

kdragon75

Wizard
Joined
Aug 7, 2016
Messages
2,457
the goal is to learn as much as I can to intelligently select and purchase parts for my first FreeNAS system at home.
Awesome! Welcome to the world of FreeBSD and ZFS. In your research think of FreeNAS as little more than a (mostly nice) wrapper for those two items. The first thing you need to do is identify your performance targets and build to that.
1. Purpose/Requirements:

The main intent currently is build a NAS for my home as a basic file/media(photos and videos) server with remote accessibility due to the nature of my occupation. I currently have about 1.5 TB of files on a USB External HDD that I will migrate to the NAS once complete. In the future my plan is to use it as a Plex Server though I will need to research more on my own and if my smartTVs have that app available. Additionally, we recently received an addition to our family and I want to pick photography back up along side photo editing to capture all of life's precious moments.
Lots to pick through here... Will this be a backup of your photos and videos or will this be the primary storage? If it's the Primary, how will you back it up (yes you still need a backup for FreeNAS)
2. Parts:

Since I am not Jeff Bezos, I do have some budgetary constraints.
Are you open to second hand parts? Older Dell servers like the R510 make great FreeNAS boxes with lots of room for growth. And as a plus, there super quiet!
Storage: 3x WD RED 2TB - $251.97 ($83.99 ea.)
I have also considered the 3TB variants as well, but again I do not anticipate needing anything close to 12TB of storage.
Keep in mind like any RAID setup, you will not get 100% of your drives space. The usable capacity depends on your configuration. RAIDz2 (the most common) would only give you "4TB" in reality it will be closer to 3.6TB on a good day.
a. If I create a pool consisting of 3 drives, each having a capacity of 2TB, would I be able to add a 3/4/6/10 TB drive to the pool or will each drive need to be upgraded to mirror the new drive?
You need to get familiar with vdevs. Each vdev (virtual device) with be some form of "RAID" and all vdevs get striped together like RAID0. Therefore if any one vdev failed you whole pool is lost. This is why RAIDz2 is a common choice. Any two drives per vdev can fail before your pool is in imminent danger.
I run "RAID10". Each vdev consists of a pair of 3TB drives in a mirror. This causes me to lose half of my space but its very safe and very fast (for read IOPS). This setup is ideal for VM setups as I'll have 10 to 30 VMs trying to read the same pool all at once for my home lab.

To directly answer your question, yes and no. Yes you can mix and match vdev configurations. No you can't replace one drive in a vdev and gain that space. All drives in a vdev should mach. You can upgrade all drives in avdev to grow the pool size but it can be somewhat risky especially with "RAID10" and RAIDz1 simply due to the amount of time the array is degraded and in imminent danger. That and user error...

A few things you didn't ask about, SLOG and L2ARC. To answer, don't bother. Using SAMBA, the SLOG is bypassed anyway. This is a big thing for iSCSI and NFS but you made no mention of those. The L2ARC will only help if you have a large amount of data that you access continuously in a semi random pattern. Think databases not movies.
 

dramic

Dabbler
Joined
Jun 16, 2018
Messages
15
Lots to pick through here... Will this be a backup of your photos and videos or will this be the primary storage? If it's the Primary, how will you back it up (yes you still need a backup for FreeNAS)

This will serve as my primary storage. This is great that you brought it up because I was thinking about this, however I was not really sure of the proper way I could go about this. If I were to use an external USB HDD would the backup should it match the vdev pool size or is the backup somewhat compressed in comparison?

Are you open to second hand parts? Older Dell servers like the R510 make great FreeNAS boxes with lots of room for growth. And as a plus, there super quiet!

I suppose I would be. My only hesitation is knowing which second hand parts are in good enough quality to keep for several years before another upgrade. Would you judge these with criteria such as MTTF, hours ran, XX amount of data written, etc?

Keep in mind like any RAID setup, you will not get 100% of your drives space. The usable capacity depends on your configuration. RAIDz2 (the most common) would only give you "4TB" in reality it will be closer to 3.6TB on a good day.

You need to get familiar with vdevs. Each vdev (virtual device) with be some form of "RAID" and all vdevs get striped together like RAID0. Therefore if any one vdev failed you whole pool is lost. This is why RAIDz2 is a common choice. Any two drives per vdev can fail before your pool is in imminent danger.
I run "RAID10". Each vdev consists of a pair of 3TB drives in a mirror. This causes me to lose half of my space but its very safe and very fast (for read IOPS). This setup is ideal for VM setups as I'll have 10 to 30 VMs trying to read the same pool all at once for my home lab.

To directly answer your question, yes and no. Yes you can mix and match vdev configurations. No you can't replace one drive in a vdev and gain that space. All drives in a vdev should mach. You can upgrade all drives in avdev to grow the pool size but it can be somewhat risky especially with "RAID10" and RAIDz1 simply due to the amount of time the array is degraded and in imminent danger. That and user error...

A few things you didn't ask about, SLOG and L2ARC. To answer, don't bother. Using SAMBA, the SLOG is bypassed anyway. This is a big thing for iSCSI and NFS but you made no mention of those. The L2ARC will only help if you have a large amount of data that you access continuously in a semi random pattern. Think databases not movies.

Correct me if I am wrong, but pools are made up by vdevs. Vdevs consist of a pair or more of physical disks depending on the RAID configuration. RAIDz1 allows for 1 physical drive to fail while RAIDz2 allows for 2. You are absolutely right regarding SLOG and L2ARC, I wasnt even aware of it :D However, my ignorance may be apparent at this point, but would FTP be different than NFS or does NFS co-operate with FTP.
 

kdragon75

Wizard
Joined
Aug 7, 2016
Messages
2,457
This will serve as my primary storage. This is great that you brought it up because I was thinking about this, however I was not really sure of the proper way I could go about this. If I were to use an external USB HDD would the backup should it match the vdev pool size or is the backup somewhat compressed in comparison?
You have some flexibility and work here. If your willing to pay, FreeNAS has some cloud storage integration. For local/ self managed, you can use rsync to copy files of ZFS send to send full snapshots (as snapshots or as files) to another location.
I suppose I would be. My only hesitation is knowing which second hand parts are in good enough quality to keep for several years before another upgrade. Would you judge these with criteria such as MTTF, hours ran, XX amount of data written, etc?
I'm running a second hand Dell R510 with 12 hot-swap bays. All I know about it is that is was a datacenter pull. From that I can guess its had clean power and constand temps for its life. It should run longer than I want it to! as for the drives, again old 3TB datacenter pulls. Super high usage and run times but constant temps and few load counts (head park cycles) so after testing should be good for a few more years at least. With that said, I do have spares on hand.
Correct me if I am wrong, but pools are made up by vdevs. Vdevs consist of a pair or more of physical disks depending on the RAID configuration. RAIDz1 allows for 1 physical drive to fail while RAIDz2 allows for 2.
Yep, this is correct. the math is a little bit fuzzer with ZFS as you have more metadata and compression can play a significant role too.
would FTP be different than NFS or does NFS co-operate with FTP
NFS is an odd ball as it tries to extend the filesystem functionality over the network to some extent. FTP accesses data like any program locally installed running as a user. One is quasi filesystem level the other is just plain file level. I didn't explain that very well but I'm sure others will correct me. ;)
 

Inxsible

Guru
Joined
Aug 14, 2017
Messages
1,123
I suppose I would be. My only hesitation is knowing which second hand parts are in good enough quality to keep for several years before another upgrade. Would you judge these with criteria such as MTTF, hours ran, XX amount of data written, etc?
Since you are based in the USA, it would save you quite a bit of cash if you go with X9 gen board and a compatible CPU and RAM combo. Don't worry about the criteria. Most listings on Ebay and Craigslist wouldn't even list these. Make sure to test all the parts thoroughly before the return window is up. The return policy on Ebay is quite good. If the component has errors and such, it can be easily returned, provided it wasn't already mentioned in the listing.
 

dramic

Dabbler
Joined
Jun 16, 2018
Messages
15
I'm running a second hand Dell R510 with 12 hot-swap bays. All I know about it is that is was a datacenter pull. From that I can guess its had clean power and constand temps for its life. It should run longer than I want it to! as for the drives, again old 3TB datacenter pulls. Super high usage and run times but constant temps and few load counts (head park cycles) so after testing should be good for a few more years at least.

I have been scouring ebay listing for those serves and most if not all contain H700 or equivalent RAID controllers and when referencing back to the hardware requirements, those do not seem to be compatible with FreeNAS. Additionally, would I or should I be focusing on SAS features when searching for servers?

NFS is an odd ball as it tries to extend the filesystem functionality over the network to some extent. FTP accesses data like any program locally installed running as a user. One is quasi filesystem level the other is just plain file level. I didn't explain that very well but I'm sure others will correct me. ;)

I think I understood what you were describing. However when you mentioned SAMBA, why is it important for iSCSI and NFS to have access to it? Is this the main software protocol of communicating across LAN clients?
 

anmnz

Patron
Joined
Feb 17, 2018
Messages
286
However when you mentioned SAMBA, why is it important for iSCSI and NFS to have access to it? Is this the main software protocol of communicating across LAN clients?

This sounds a bit confused! :)

You have to decide what protocol(s) you are going to use to share files from your NAS to other (client) computers. Have you decided? What clients will you have?

Possible choices include SMB, NFS, iSCSI, AFP, FTP, ... It depends on what you are trying to do.

(If you are just sharing files to Windows PCs or Macs, SMB is the usual choice, and Samba is just the software that runs on FreeNAS to provide an SMB server.)
 

kdragon75

Wizard
Joined
Aug 7, 2016
Messages
2,457
I have been scouring ebay listing for those serves and most if not all contain H700 or equivalent RAID controllers and when referencing back to the hardware requirements, those do not seem to be compatible with FreeNAS. Additionally, would I or should I be focusing on SAS features when searching for servers?
Yep, pull and toss in the trash. Go buy the Dell H200 and cross flash. I should fit exactly where the perc H700 pos was.
Possible choices include SMB, NFS, iSCSI, AFP, FTP
AFP is just about dead.
 

anmnz

Patron
Joined
Feb 17, 2018
Messages
286
AFP is just about dead.
Yep! And NFS is unlikely to be the right thing (if you don't already know it's what you want, it probably isn't), and iSCSI is pretty niche, and FTP would be a surprising choice in nearly all cases, and FreeNAS' WebDAV is very limited, and...

My money's on SMB. Let's see what @dramic says though, maybe they have a little network of vintage Macs that want to speak AFP. :D:D:D
 

kdragon75

Wizard
Joined
Aug 7, 2016
Messages
2,457
I must be the oddball. I moved from iSCSI to fiber channel. Shared block storage for the win!
 

dramic

Dabbler
Joined
Jun 16, 2018
Messages
15
@kdragon75 and @anmnz,

Thanks guys for all the help. So this is what I deduced from my light internet reading since I have been extremely busy at work.

iSCSI: raw block storage, great for smaller files, and the interface could be compared to a "direct" connection from the client to the storage volume therefor managing it would require direct user privileges managed via server.

SMB/CIFS: can interface with any OS, the clients can access whatever volume of storage is connected to the server via the server.

AFP/NFS.... is a back up to SMB/CIFS, but since I do not have any linux machines at home and only run off of one macbook pro, i do not think that this will be my primary option.

I will be standing by for corrections :D
 

kdragon75

Wizard
Joined
Aug 7, 2016
Messages
2,457
iSCSI: raw block storage, great for smaller files, and the interface could be compared to a "direct" connection from the client to the storage volume therefor managing it would require direct user privileges managed via server.
It's more like the volume shows up as an unformatted disk directly plugged into the client. Add fiberchannel to this but fiber channel has nothing to do with TCP/IP or ethernet. It a separate networking tech for storage only.
SMB/CIFS: can interface with any OS, the clients can access whatever volume of storage is connected to the server via the server.
Nothing to do with volumes. Just folders and files. Add AFP to this list but is used less and less as Apple is killing it in favor of SMB/SAMBA/CIFS whatever you want to call it.
AFP/NFS.... is a back up to SMB/CIFS, but since I do not have any linux machines at home and only run off of one macbook pro, i do not think that this will be my primary option.
NFS is Network File System and stores data on a formatted volume just like SMB but has more integration with the system. Commonly used for sharing files amongs *nix machines and VMWare environments.

EDIT 586 posts! woot! that's way better than the 386 or 486 PCs I started with!
 

dramic

Dabbler
Joined
Jun 16, 2018
Messages
15
Another thing I looked at and thought about. Since FreeNAS wants to connect to the hardware directly rather than via a RAID controller, if I wanted to just expand the number of SATA ports available by using one of these cards?

LSI 9240-8i

Other than ensuring the drivers are supported for a particular device. What are some of the recommended specs/criteria I should look for?
 

dramic

Dabbler
Joined
Jun 16, 2018
Messages
15
Yep, pull and toss in the trash. Go buy the Dell H200 and cross flash. I should fit exactly where the perc H700 pos was.

So from comparing for instance the H200, LSI 9210, and LSI 9240, I a few features such as various sensors, diagnostic tools and reports, and different RAID capabilities. How often have you guys used one benefit of a card that made it worth while for you to pay an extra 40-60 over another card%?
 

dramic

Dabbler
Joined
Jun 16, 2018
Messages
15
After days of comparing cost of parts and cost of operation, I have concluded to go with the R510 Dell PowerEdge Server. I will provide prices from eBay as references. Below are the specs:

PowerEdge R510 8-Bay Server ($124)
-CPU: X5650 x1
-RAM: 6GB (3x2GB)
-Power: 1x 750W PSU
It did include H700 and a DRAC card, but I am unsure of how much I will actually be using those. Might just sell it off on eBay.

1x 3.5" HDD Trays ($28)

3x Lot of 5 3.5" HDD Trays ($19)

1x Lot of 6 Samsung 4GB, ECC, RDIMM ($47)

1x Lot of 3 New Samsung 4GB, ECC, RDIMM ($25)

As I continue to search for parts to complete my list, I will periodically update this post. Many thanks @kdragon75 for providing a different opinion to which I decided was the best path.

EDIT #1:

1x Intel Xeon X5650 ($24.99)
 
Last edited:

kdragon75

Wizard
Joined
Aug 7, 2016
Messages
2,457
Looks like you got some good deals. Just a tip, I set my R510 to low power mode and see no difference in performance for most things. Idle is in the 200watt ball park
 

dramic

Dabbler
Joined
Jun 16, 2018
Messages
15
Looks like you got some good deals. Just a tip, I set my R510 to low power mode and see no difference in performance for most things. Idle is in the 200watt ball park

Thanks for the tip. Outside of the owners manual is there any other literature you found helpful in the setup of the system?

I have searched the FreeNAS forums to help me make up my mind as to which drives I should pursue. FreeNAS recommends WD Reds, however several posts suggest that HGST DeskStar NAS are better. Yet here I am looking at $/GB on some regular hard drives and I could get 2 and possible even 3 for the price of one NAS drive. Since this is my first server, should I go cheap and get used or cough up a little extra premium for new drives? Apparently avg. time to failure of mechanical HDs is 5 years... learned something new today.
 

Inxsible

Guru
Joined
Aug 14, 2017
Messages
1,123
You can choose to use regular desktop drives instead of NAS drives. Many users on this forum use them as well. Read up on the best practices for using desktop drives....like wdidle etc.

However I wouldn't use used drives because you would not know how many errors the drive would come with.
 

kdragon75

Wizard
Joined
Aug 7, 2016
Messages
2,457
Apparently avg. time to failure of mechanical HDs is 5 years.
This number would be heavily skewed as may drives die in the first 6 months. I have had great luck with second hand (sold as new on amazon) 3TH HGST Ultrastars.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top