Budget NAS build

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turick

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Hi all. The kind people over at anandtech.com have convinced me to not buy a commercial NAS and build my own. My current Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ is used 99% of the time just for streaming movies/tv shows to up to 4 clients at a time. I run into problems when files are being copied to the NAS while I'm watching videos on the NAS.

I have 4 2TB WD Red drives currently in my NAS which will be reused in the new NAS. I was looking at the Synology DS412+ for $600 when I started exploring the FreeNAS option. So far, this is the build I've come up with:


case DIYPC Skyline-A Black Steel USB 3.0 ATX and Micro-ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with 1x 80mm Fan 18.99
cpu Intel Pentium G3220 Haswell 3.0GHz LGA 1150 54W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646G3220 69.99
mobo ASRock H87M Pro4 LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX 82.99
memory AVEXIR Standard Series 8GB SDRAM (4GB X2) Dual Channel CL9 240-pin DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Module Model AVD3U16000904G-2SW 69.99
psu CORSAIR CXM series CX430M 430W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active 49.99

All this for a grand total coming in under $300. Is this a good set up for home use? Does anybody have any other recommendations/criticisms? Any specific USB drive I should consider for running FreeNAS?

As soon as I can get some verification I'm going to go ahead and pull the trigger... thanks in advance!
 

cyberjock

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If you stop and read the stickies you will probably be able to find every "mistake" you've made. We wrote those stickies so you can do your own research. :)
 

turick

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LOL I did read them, and the guys at Anandtech told me that all of that info was only for professional grade high availability servers in a production environment and not necessary for home use. They said this hardware would be fine for home use and you can really just re-use any old spare hardware I might have on-hand because FreeNAS is just that awesome :) I just wanted to verify this info with the fine folks on this forums.
 

cyberjock

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All of our recommendations are in the stickies. So if you think that our recommendations don't apply for home use, then have a ball with your new server. :)
 

turick

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Um, no, I'm just verifying what I was told elsewhere. I had a lurking suspicion that I might be told otherwise here. Just looking for friendly advice, not sure how that warranted the snarkiness and sarcasm.
 

cyberjock

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Excellent choices. Only change I'd make is the X9SCM-F-O. You get an extra PCIe slot for like $5 more. Might never use it, but $5 won't break the bank either. It'll be that one thing you'll bang your head against the wall over later when you need 1 more PCIe slot and you don't have it.

I'm all for recycling appropriate hardware. As long as your hard drives stay below 40C in the case even when running a scrub is running the it should work just fine.
 

BigDave

FreeNAS Enthusiast
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Is this a good set up for home use? Does anybody have any other recommendations/criticisms? Any specific USB drive I should consider for running FreeNAS?
Let me share with you, my experience thus far...
I threw together some old parts I had laying around. I played with the FreeNas OS and got comfortable with the interface.
Learned to create a mount, shares, & permissions, ect.
After reaching that point, I stepped back and ask myself some serious questions, like how important are my files intended to be stored on this machine.
The folks in here created sticky posts to give advice on building a DEPENDABLE machine, that for the most part will be less
likely to crash and burn (along with your data files). Learn from them or not, the choice is yours. I for one have taken the time
to read the advice ALREADY posted here and realized that if my efforts were noticed, I would receive all the help I needed.
You must see that answering the same question over and over again for each individual is trying to be avoided and for good
reason, it sucks for them AND is boring! Their advice to Noobs (I am one of those), read the stickies. Please take the time,
if nothing more than to show the respect of the knowledge shared, in the spirit it was given.
afaik all your questions are answered within the posts already in this forum. Last, let me say that there are some really smart
people over at the other site, but when it comes to building and configuring a SERVER (home use or not) you've landed on good ground.
My time in here has been well spent. Welcome Sir!
 

DrKK

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Turick:

That would appear to be much better. That's a good price for everything too. This CPU does *NOT* have AES support, so you'll probably not want to use this on an encrypted filesystem, just for the record. The power supply you chose---a lot of people think it's a "piece of crap", but I can't verify or deny that personally. Make sure you did your research. Since you're FreeNAS may ostensibly be on 24/7, maybe you want a Gold-certified PSU, a lot of the guys have one.

As for the snarkiness, you know how it is. Basically:

1) These guys have taken a lot of time in the forum to put down exactly why ECC RAM is important for ***ALL*** FreeNAS builds.
2) These guys have taken a lot of time in the forum to put down exactly why consumer-grade motherboards and stuff like that are not appropriate for ***ALL*** FreeNAS builds.
3) etc.
4) And then people come in and ask questions that they feel they've answered, on the record, 20 times already.

A lot of them are generally sour pusses, and are extremely fatigued from answering time and time and time again on these issues. Any sentence that begins with "The guys at anandtech told me..." or "My friend who's been a big deal IT guy for 15 years" or "My 20 years of experience tells me that..." is just automatically going to raise every red flag. These guys, here, *ARE* the subject matter experts on what amounts to a very, very unusual filesystem, ZFS. Cyberjock is one of those guys...and he gets paid $0 for his expertise. It is THEIR answers and posts in the forums here which are definitive.
 

turick

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I see a lot of support for SuperMicro motherboards. Is this because they offer fairly inexpensive server-grade equipment? Sorry to compare information I've received from other forums to here, but some say the low end single socket server boards can be pretty poor quality. Not sure exactly what that means, but do you believe these low end SuperMicro boards are good products?
 

DrKK

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Many/most of us with home FreeNAS's use SuperMicro boards, and love them. X9 series and X10 series, usually.
 

turick

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Ok... the guys over at Anandtech are really busting my chops about this, but I'm going the server/ECC route. I found a guy willing to sell me 16gb of ecc ram on the cheap, too. So here's the final build:



ram 2x Ddr3-1333 4Gb/512Mx72 Ecc Cl9 Server Memory
ram 2x Kingston 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) ECC System Specific Memory Model KTH-PL313E/4G 85
mobo SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCL-F-O LGA 1155 Intel C202 Micro ATX Intel Xeon E3 Server Motherboard 152.99
cpu Intel Pentium 2 LGA 1155 Processor BX80637G2030 63.49
psu Corsair CX Series 430 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Bronze ATX12V/EPS12V 384 Power Supply CX430M 49.99

Total cost, $350. Now the fun begins. I need to copy everything I want off my NAS onto my HTPC so I can pull the drives and build the FreeNAS machine. And then I need to figure out how in the hell to install, configure, and use FreeNAS :)
 

DrKK

FreeNAS Generalissimo
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I suggest you download VMWare Player, and practice installing/configuring/sharing/messing with FreeNAS before you actually put it on real metal.
 

JohnK

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Nov 7, 2013
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you can save yourself $12 if buying that mobo from Newegg today using their 15% off code EMCYTZT4859 at checkout.
 

turick

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Hmm... I just noticed this motherboard has 6 SATA2 ports, and my hard drives are SATA3. Is this a concern?
 

jyavenard

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None of your hard drives will ever max out the sata2 interface (250MB/s)

You have the equivalent supermicro x10 motherboard with 6 onboard sata3 ports if you're that concerned, but you'll need a newer intel 1150 socket CPU (there's also the equivalent to the one you've chosen). That will add a little bit to your budget (but the new pentium has aes support)

Or you can get a PCIe sata3 adapter, check the sticking about the LSI adapter.
 

turick

Dabbler
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Thanks for the info. I just stuck with what I had and I'll run them on the SATA2 ports.
 

DrKK

FreeNAS Generalissimo
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None of your hard drives will ever max out the sata2 interface (250MB/s)

You have the equivalent supermicro x10 motherboard with 6 onboard sata3 ports if you're that concerned, but you'll need a newer intel 1150 socket CPU (there's also the equivalent to the one you've chosen). That will add a little bit to your budget (but the new pentium has aes support)

Or you can get a PCIe sata3 adapter, check the sticking about the LSI adapter.
NEGATIVE sir, the new pentium does *NOT* say again, does *NOT* have AES-NI support.

As you can see.
 
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