BUILD Budget NAS For Home File Sharing

[amsgator]

I am trying to come up with a budget NAS that I can use to store files/backups on so I can access them from any computer in my house. I don't really plan on streaming videos (can't afford any capable TVs) . I need it to be as small as possible. I've opted to build instead of buy something like QNAP or Synology offers due to the significantly better specs I can achieve for about the same amount of money.

I've gone through the FreeNAS/FreeBSD documentation hoping to verify compatibility. This is the list I've come up with. If I missed something in the documentation or some of the components below aren't compatible please let me know! My biggest concern is finding a motherboard whose NIC will work, without having to waste the single PCIe slot on a NIC card.

Case:
COOLER MASTER Elite 110

Motherboard and Processor:
BIOSTAR NM70I-1037U

Power Supply:
SeaSonic SS-300ET

Hard Drive(s):
Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD20EFRX 2TB

Memory:
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB)

FreeNAS USB Drive:
World's Smallest MicroSD Reader
4 GB MicroSD Card

My intent is to eventually set up RAID5 with the 3 bays in the case, but I don't have the money to buy three hard drives at the moment.

 

[joeschmuck]

Your design does not meet the minimum specs of a FreeNAS system.
8GB ECC RAM for starters. Typically 4GB RAM may have a problem upgrading the software as seen by a few people who tempt using less than 8GB RAM.
MB & CPU is under powered in my opinion but if you want to use if for UFS setup that is fine.
RAID5, well I guess but again it will have to be a UFS setup. Not sure why you would use FreeNAS if you are not going to use ZFS and an underpowered CPU and no ECC RAM.

 

[amsgator]

Not sure why you would use FreeNAS if you are not going to use ZFS and an underpowered CPU and no ECC RAM.

The short answer is I don't have $600-$1000 to spend on an NAS. That would be more than my desktop computer cost me, including the price for Windows.

If it's going to cost more and require better specs than my computer to set up an NAS with FreeNAS I guess I'm going to have to look elsewhere for alternatives. Spending that much money for what I'm going to use to essentially share files seems silly to me when I can build a full blown computer for the same price.

Do you know of any alternative software that I can use that isn't going to cause me to break the bank?

 

[pirateghost]

Spending that much money for what I'm going to use to essentially share files seems silly to me when I can build a full blown computer for the same price.

What exactly do you think a server is? 'A full blown computer'

if you dont value your data, then you could use any other number of NAS-centric OSes. OpenMediaVault or NAS4Free are the only 2 I would use. Alternatively, you could use AMAHI, or roll your own with any Linux or BSD OS.

 

[amsgator]

What exactly do you think a server is? 'A full blown computer'

There are commercially available NAS options with a fraction of the specifications of the components I posted above. Both QNAP and Synology are running less than 1 GB of RAM (512MB on the DS213j and TS-212P) , and they seem to work perfectly fine as an NAS. Like I stated in the OP, I don't need to be able to stream video, audio, or anything else. I simply want to be able to access and share files that are attached to my network. I don't need a full server, I need a network attached storage solution, hence the "NAS."

My intention was to build something with better specifications, hence the faster processor and more RAM. But apparently that's not possible with FreeNAS? Why should my NAS have 8 GB of RAM when my desktop doesn't even have that much. If it can be accomplished with 512 MB.... I'm well aware FreeNAS probably does more than the DiskStation Manager, but 16 times the RAM?

 

[pirateghost]

You should read up on zfs

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

[amsgator]

You should read up on zfs

I'm well aware of ZFS, that doesn't make it worth me spending $1000 on an NAS. This is for a home, not a business with the need for extra data protection

 

[pirateghost]

I'm well aware of ZFS, that doesn't make it worth me spending $1000 on an NAS

Then FreeNAS is not for you. FreeNAS (and ZFS in general) was intended and designed to be used with big hardware, in a corporate environment. Not typical of your small home use.

If you understand ZFS, then you should know WHY it takes so much RAM, and ECC at that.

I have given you other options since FreeNAS is not fit for you.

 

[amsgator]

Has FreeNAS changed in the last few years? When I Google for NAS software it seems to pop up near the top of all the articles, some of them saying it can be run on an old computer laying around the house (http://lifehacker.com/turn-an-old-computer-into-a-do-anything-home-server-wit-510023147). Even that article says 4 GB is recommended for ZFS.

Seeing how that's obviously not the case, has FreeNAS changed recently to where it now requires prime hardware? If so, maybe that is my source of confusion.

 

[pirateghost]

Has FreeNAS changed in the last few years? When I Google for NAS software it seems to pop up near the top of all the articles, some of them saying it can be run on an old computer laying around the house (http://lifehacker.com/turn-an-old-computer-into-a-do-anything-home-server-wit-510023147). Even that article says 4 GB is recommended for ZFS.

Seeing how that's obviously not the case, has FreeNAS changed recently to where it now requires prime hardware? If so, maybe that is my source of confusion.

Yes, actually it has changed. The versions of FreeNAS prior to 8.X were an entirely different project altogether.

What you read in all those links are people who see the software, set up some tests with it, and publish an article/video basically ignoring all the warnings that the community here in these very forums have lived through. 90% of the information outside of these forums about FreeNAS is just plain WRONG. PERIOD.

http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Main_Page covers the requirements and the necessities of working with FreeNAS, more specifically http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Hardware_Recommendations covers what hardware is needed to function properly.

RAM

The best way to get the most out of your FreeNAS® system is to install as much RAM as possible. If your RAM is limited, consider using UFS until you can afford better hardware. FreeNAS® with ZFS typically requires a minimum of 8 GB of RAM in order to provide good performance and stability. The more RAM, the better the performance, and the FreeNAS® Forums provide anecdotal evidence from users on how much performance is gained by adding more RAM. For systems with large disk capacity (greater than 8 TB), a general rule of thumb is 1 GB of RAM for every 1 TB of storage. This post describes how RAM is used by ZFS.
If you plan to use your server for home use, you can often soften the rule of thumb of 1 GB of RAM for every 1 TB of storage, though 8 GB of RAM is still the recommended minimum. If performance is inadequate you should consider adding more RAM as a first remedy. The sweet spot for most users in home/small business is 16GB of RAM.
It is possible to use ZFS on systems with less than 8 GB of RAM. However, FreeNAS® as distributed is configured to be suitable for systems meeting the sizing recommendations above. If you wish to use ZFS on a smaller memory system, some tuning will be necessary, and performance will be (likely substantially) reduced. ZFS will automatically disable pre-fetching (caching) on systems where it is not able to use at least 4 GB of memory just for ZFS cache and data structures. This post describes many of the relevant tunables.
If your system supports it and your budget allows for it, install ECC RAM.
If you plan to use ZFS deduplication, a general rule of thumb is 5 GB RAM per TB of storage to be deduplicated. Note that there is no upper limit to how much RAM you may need for deduplication. If you do not have enough RAM you may not be able to mount your pool on bootup. In this case, the only solution is to install more RAM or restore from backup. Very few users will find deduplication provides space savings over using compression.
If you use Active Directory with FreeNAS®, add an additional 2 GB of RAM for winbind's internal cache above and beyond all other RAM requirements.
If you are installing FreeNAS® on a headless system, disable the shared memory settings for the video card in the BIOS.
If you only plan to use UFS, you may be able to get by with as little as 2GB of RAM.
If you don't have at least 8GB of RAM with ZFS or 2GB of RAM with UFS, you should consider getting more powerful hardware before using FreeNAS® to store your data. Otherwise, data loss may result. Plenty of users expect FreeNAS to function with less than these requirements, just at reduced performance. The bottom line is that these minimums are the minimums based on many users' feedback in the forums for FreeNAS® to work, regardless of performance. Do not ask for help on systems that do not meet these requirements in the forums or IRC. They will likely be ignored.
WARNING: to ensure consistency for the checksumming and parity calculations performed by ZFS, ECC RAM is highly recommended. Using non-ECC RAM can cause unrecoverable damage to a zpool resulting in a loss of all data in the pool.

If you read the official documentation you will find the answers to your questions about why FreeNAS requires so much power.

 

[amsgator]

Ah, I guess that's why I'm so confused. It looks like FreeNAS 7 became NAS4Free. I guess I'll jump on over to NAS4Free to see if I might be able to use that.

Glad I found my source of issue. Thanks.

 

[joeschmuck]

You could go with a less expensive NAS solution but I wouldn't bundle QNAP or Synology into that group. Those are not cheap and do not come with hard drives either. They make better use of hardware because it's custom. FreeNAS doesn't have a custom hardware setup, it's any IBM compliant PC. The file system is different as well. Lastly the throughput on a FreeNAS machine can saturate the network connection, QNAP or Synology do not, well at least on the ones I've seen. Everything comes at a price.

 

[overkillthemighty]

Just my two cents, I have an old gaming machine with 3 Gb of ram (Originally had 2). I have had absolutely zero issues with it, have upgraded several times and am on the current version of Freenas, and usually get around 75+ MBPS transfer speeds. I have 3 x 3TB WD Red drives and am very happy with my setup. I could probably get more throughput with more RAM, but I am happy with its performance now. Please stop making it sound like Freenas is not capable of running on anything less than modern server hardware.

 

[pirateghost]

Just my two cents, I have an old gaming machine with 3 Gb of ram (Originally had 2). I have had absolutely zero issues with it, have upgraded several times and am on the current version of Freenas, and usually get around 75+ MBPS transfer speeds. I have 3 x 3TB WD Red drives and am very happy with my setup. I could probably get more throughput with more RAM, but I am happy with its performance now. Please stop making it sound like Freenas is not capable of running on anything less than modern server hardware.

I LOL'd

Good luck with your stability.

 

[Ericloewe]

I love it when someone pops out of nowhere and claims that all we do here is spread bullshit and that their inadequate system works fine.


It's not like this forum is run by Micron, Hynix or Samsung, who are trying to sell us more RAM...

 

[pirateghost]

I love it when someone pops out of nowhere and claims that all we do here is spread bullshit and that their inadequate system works fine.


It's not like this forum is run by Micron, Hynix or Samsung, who are trying to sell us more RAM...

Or the fact that we have seen more failures from inadequate hardware than some random person popping in with their anecdotal experience...

 

[demon]

Just my two cents, I have an old gaming machine with 3 Gb of ram (Originally had 2). I have had absolutely zero issues with it, have upgraded several times and am on the current version of Freenas, and usually get around 75+ MBPS transfer speeds. I have 3 x 3TB WD Red drives and am very happy with my setup. I could probably get more throughput with more RAM, but I am happy with its performance now. Please stop making it sound like Freenas is not capable of running on anything less than modern server hardware.

Until your non-ECC RAM gets a stuck bit and a ZFS scrub silently corrupts all your data. But hey, it's not like that's ever happened to anyone... oh wait, yes it has.

 

[overkillthemighty]

My setup has been running for a year and a half... with not a single issue or a bit of data-loss, so I call you on your bullshit.

 

[demon]

My setup has been running for a year and a half... with not a single issue or a bit of data-loss, so I call you on your bullshit.

Until it doesn't anymore, and you're crying on your keyboard because your pool is gone. And because you're using cheap gear that doesn't do ECC, you didn't know.

Please, tell me again how ECC RAM and proper gear is bullshit.

 

[pirateghost]

My setup has been running for a year and a half... with not a single issue or a bit of data-loss, so I call you on your bullshit.

Lol. OK. You have been hostile enough.

Feel free to peruse the forum and see for yourself how many people have failed at using less than the minimum requirements...

We aren't full of it. We have lived it. Where were you while we were helping users that used hardware that was not up to snuff?

You can stop your hostility and rude posts right now.