Budget NAS build - Home Use

[Omri Traugott]

Hey All i am very new to all this NAS stuff.. So thanks in advance.
i read that most if not all of you recommended to use 2nd hand parts for you first build, witch i like the idea very much.

the only problem with used 2nd hand parts in my country is that usually its buying full PCs. and AMAZON / eBay is not relay a valid option (4-5 weeks shipping and shipping costs). and i am relay bad at understating what is working good.

My needs are very basic i think, General file storage (with raid) , Plex media sharing (if possible), as well as the use of transmission for Torrenting.



intel core i3-7100 kaby lake dual-core 3.9 ghz
lga 1151 b250 ddr4 2400mhz asrock
lenovo 8gb ddr4 2400mhz - x2 (16Gb)
samsung 256 m.2 pm961

this is one option i can purchases form some guy, including a case & 1TB HDD (i will wand to upgrade to 2 HDD of 4Tb each) all for 350USD.

i will add some more that i can find.

will this support / be sufficient to run FreeNAS for 4-5 years??

thanks!

 

[MDD1963]

you'll want a drive for the OS, a small SSD is fine (not sure I'd waste an NVME drive like y our Samsung on this!), and separate drive(s) for storage....; depending on your needs, you can use a single drive, or a pair (mirrored), or a RAID 5 equivalent (RAIDZ1), or RAID 6 (two drives of four or more can be lost), or, striped mirrors, or....the list goes on! Best to review some Youtube tutorials on FreeNAS storage options/strategies.

If your drives last 4-5 years, the OS sure will as well....

 

[Omri Traugott]

you'll want a drive for the OS, a small SSD is fine (not sure I'd waste an NVME drive like y our Samsung on this!), and separate drive(s) for storage....; depending on your needs, you can use a single drive, or a pair (mirrored), or a RAID 5 equivalent (RAIDZ1), or RAID 6 (two drives of four or more can be lost), or, striped mirrors, or....the list goes on! Best to review some Youtube tutorials on FreeNAS storage options/strategies.

If your drives last 4-5 years, the OS sure will as well....

Thanks!

so in general the system i posted looks ok? will it work?

i will add 2 HDD of 4tb each, this is sure. will i need ant thing more?

you can use a single drive, or a pair (mirrored), or a RAID 5 equivalent (RAIDZ1), or RAID 6 (two drives of four or more can be lost), or, striped mirrors

Can you explain this one more time? in general i plan to insert 2 HDD of 4 tb (so 8 in total) and mirror them so i see only 4tb,
so i have a back up of all my Pictures and music. am i correct?

 

[MDD1963]

Two each 4 TB drives can easily be a mirrored pair (i.e, loss of either drive would not affect you), presenting close to 4 TB storage total, where a mirror (like a RAID 1) would be the default chosen storage method within FreeNAS anyway when you are creating a storage pool...(plenty of YOutube tutorials on this)

Good luck with your build!

 

[John Doe]

check out my backup system in signature. I think it might be sufficient.
go for ECC ram and a supermicro motherboard.

 

[Omri Traugott]

check out my backup system in signature. I think it might be sufficient.
go for ECC ram and a supermicro motherboard.

thanks, but as i sad the only way for me to get parts is as a total package.
so can you tell me if the parts i listed above are sufficient? its in my budget so if this should works fine let me know.
or should i search for an other system?

 

[Chris Moore]

thanks, but as i sad the only way for me to get parts is as a total package.
so can you tell me if the parts i listed above are sufficient? its in my budget so if this should works fine let me know.
or should i search for an other system?

I would say NO on the system you listed in the opening post of the thread. It falls short of the best practices for FreeNAS and for about the same money you can get things that are more appropriate. The fact that you are in Israel may impact what hardware is available to you, but it looks like you are already exploring a purchase of used hardware. If purchasing hardware from eBay is a possibility for you, you might want to take a look at these components which I know will work well because I used the same model components in a build for myself.

Intel Xeon E3-1230V2 SR0P4 3.30GHz Processor
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SR0P4-Inte...d-Core-CM8063701098101-Processor/202572624908
US $74.00

Super Micro X9SCM-F, LGA 1155, Intel C204, Micro ATX server motherboard
https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-SuperM...rd-Accessoreis-are-not-included-/352358089215
US $77.77

16GB 2X8GB Memory RAM Intel Xeon E3 ONLY DDR3, 1600MHz, ECC, CL11, 2R, X8, 1.5V, Unbuffered, DIMM, 240-pin
https://www.ebay.com/itm/16GB-2X8GB...-CMT-SFF-Intel-Xeon-E3-ONLY-B89-/301855376261
US $126.00

With some searching, you could likely find those components at an even better price. The key factors to look for is a processor, system board and memory that all support ECC (Error Checking and Correcting) which is a technology that makes the system run more reliably as it protects you from single bit memory errors that you would never even know about in consumer gear until it was bad enough that the system crashes, and you still wouldn't know why the system was crashing. With ECC, you are normally protected from the crash and it notifies you the reason why if there is a crash.

The FreeNAS operating system needs a separate device, best if it is a mirrored pair of devices, for boot media and FreeNAS will handle mirroring the two devices, no hardware RAID is needed or wanted with FreeNAS. The boot media can't be used for anything else, so it can be small, 16GB is more than enough.

Here are some documents to review that may help you understand the things that would be appropriate to a 'low end' server as opposed to a higher standard.

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

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

Chris Moore

 

[Omri Traugott]

I would say NO on the system you listed in the opening post of the thread. It falls short of the best practices for FreeNAS and for about the same money you can get things that are more appropriate. The fact that you are in Israel may impact what hardware is available to you, but it looks like you are already exploring a purchase of used hardware. If purchasing hardware from eBay is a possibility for you, you might want to take a look at these components which I know will work well because I used the same model components in a build for myself.

Intel Xeon E3-1230V2 SR0P4 3.30GHz Processor
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SR0P4-Inte...d-Core-CM8063701098101-Processor/202572624908
US $74.00

Super Micro X9SCM-F, LGA 1155, Intel C204, Micro ATX server motherboard
https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-SuperM...rd-Accessoreis-are-not-included-/352358089215
US $77.77

16GB 2X8GB Memory RAM Intel Xeon E3 ONLY DDR3, 1600MHz, ECC, CL11, 2R, X8, 1.5V, Unbuffered, DIMM, 240-pin
https://www.ebay.com/itm/16GB-2X8GB...-CMT-SFF-Intel-Xeon-E3-ONLY-B89-/301855376261
US $126.00

With some searching, you could likely find those components at an even better price. The key factors to look for is a processor, system board and memory that all support ECC (Error Checking and Correcting) which is a technology that makes the system run more reliably as it protects you from single bit memory errors that you would never even know about in consumer gear until it was bad enough that the system crashes, and you still wouldn't know why the system was crashing. With ECC, you are normally protected from the crash and it notifies you the reason why if there is a crash.

The FreeNAS operating system needs a separate device, best if it is a mirrored pair of devices, for boot media and FreeNAS will handle mirroring the two devices, no hardware RAID is needed or wanted with FreeNAS. The boot media can't be used for anything else, so it can be small, 16GB is more than enough.

Here are some documents to review that may help you understand the things that would be appropriate to a 'low end' server as opposed to a higher standard.

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

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

Chris Moore

thanks a lot!

you may not see this. but all the parts you listed have 30-50 dollar aditional shipping fees.. so in the end it will be much more expansive.
i did serched the web today for some motherbords and memory cads. could not fine 1 that is secend hand.

so i think for my first NAS system i will expiriment with the PC above. and if all works i will upgrade in 2-3 years to a full on server build!

thanks a lot to you all!

 

[Chris Moore]

but all the parts you listed have 30-50 dollar aditional shipping fees

Sorry about the shipping problems. That is often an issue with FreeNAS builds in countries outside the US. I really don't understand the difficulty in sourcing parts locally. It isn't as if these things are made in the USA, we don't build much any more. Most of the parts originate somewhere it Asia.
As for the shortage of second hand (used) parts, that really makes no sense either, not to me.

Still, you have to do what you can. Here is a link to a guide to help you get the system assembled once you start putting it together:

Uncle Fester's Basic FreeNAS Configuration Guide
https://www.familybrown.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=fester:intro

I suggest using version 11.1-U7 of FreeNAS because the user interface matches the one in the build guide. That should make it easier to get the NAS up and running. You can download the ISO file here:

https://download.freenas.org/11/latest/x64/

Do check back if you have any questions. Someone here will be happy to help you.