Build for home use reusing old desktop parts

[doerakje]

Hi all,

My old QNAP TS-219 no longer receives updates, is too slow and the disks are getting full, so it's time for a new system. It's gonna be a Freenas system for home use. I have an old desktop I intend to use. I've done some testing on this system with a single harddisk in it. Everything seems to work fine, except it's a bit to noisy. The disks will be configured as RaidZ. The real important stuff will be backed up from the Freenas to the old QNAP, the Freenas will not be used for backup purposes.

What I allready have:
Asrock H81M-HDS
Intel i5-4460
Crucial Ballistix Sport 2x4GB DIM DDR3 1600 (BLS4G3D1609DS1S00)
BeQuiet System Power 7 300w
Fractal Design Mini
Sandisk Ultrafit 16GB USB 3.1 Flash Drive (2x)

What I intend to buy:
WD Red WD40EFRX 4TB (4x)
BeQuiet Pure Wings 2 (3x)
Gelid Solutions Siberian

I realize that the above hardware setup is not ideal since I'll be using old desktop hardware, but since the Freenas is not going to contain crucial data, I think the risks are acceptable.

What I'm gonna do with the Freenas system:

• Cifs file server for 3 windows 10 account (mainly office docs and pictures) (tested)
• Plex server (HD, not 4K, hardly ever multiple streams at a time) (not tested yet)

What I might gonna do with the Freenas system (not tested yet):

• Download (and postprocessing) bittorent/nzb files
• Share databases (like my calibre comics and my calibre books) with multiple devices at home
• Automate backups to the QNAP
• Other stuff

My questions:

1. Will this setup freenas allright for the purposes intended?
2. What's the best setup for the disks to keep them cool? I've got 6 slots and will be using 4 of them. Slots 1, 2 and 3 in the middle, slots 4, 5 and 6 at he bottom. Each trio of slots has an intake fan in front of them. The outtake fan is in the back, at the top. I have multiple options, like for example slots 1, 3, 4 and 6 (spreading them out) or slots 1, 2, 3 and 4 (closer to the outtake fan).

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jailer]

Will this setup freenas allright for the purposes intended?

If you want to run Plex along with other plugins/jails you're going to need more memory. 8GB is the minimum for just a file server.

Having said that your hardware is less then ideal. The LAN on that board is Realtek which are notorious for being absolutely lousy, get an add in Intel NIC card. Also your hardware doesn't support ECC memory. You did state up front that you know your hardware is less that ideal so as long as you've excepted that then it should work for you with additional memory added to support your use case.

 

[Chris Moore]

What I allready have:
Asrock H81M-HDS
Intel i5-4460
Crucial Ballistix Sport 2x4GB DIM DDR3 1600 (BLS4G3D1609DS1S00)

I know that it is hard to beat the price of free, but if you you want to step up to a server board that would support ECC memory and give yourself a number of other advantages at the same time, you can't beat this deal:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-X9SRL-F-E5-2609-LGA-2011/222984132591

That is the same kind of board I use and it has been solid as a rock for me. It has ability to use Regisered ECC memory, which can be picked up at reasonable prices on eBay, and you can upgrade all the way to 256GB of memory, if I recall correctly. I only use 64GB and my system works great with Plex, etc.
The seller is including a 4 core 2.4GHz processor and a cooler, both of which are fine to start and if you see that you need more power than the 2.4GHz unit provides, this board can use CPUs up to 10 cores (or more) but I have a 10 core model in my other system board like this that I run ESXi on, so I know it works.
The CPU I use in my NAS is like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon...ket-LGA2011-HEXA-Core-SERVER-CPU/332661343418

The 6 core 2.6GHz processor gives me plenty of power to transcode streams in Plex and I have had no trouble with the system.

The biggest advantage of this board and processor combo is that you can use inexpensive Registered memory. Lets look at an example:

This 16GB stick of UDIMM memory is $157:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Single-16G...E3-xxxx-V3-Atom-C2000-based-only/191591469461

This 16GB stick of RDIMM memory is $60:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SAMSUNG-16...red-1-35V-RDIMM-M393B2G70DB0-YK0/302110582298

The board I have pointed you to will allow you to install up to 8 of those 16GB sticks of memory... Pairs are recommended.

 

[doerakje]

If you want to run Plex along with other plugins/jails you're going to need more memory. 8GB is the minimum for just a file server.

Having said that your hardware is less then ideal. The LAN on that board is Realtek which are notorious for being absolutely lousy, get an add in Intel NIC card. Also your hardware doesn't support ECC memory. You did state up front that you know your hardware is less that ideal so as long as you've excepted that then it should work for you with additional memory added to support your use case.

Hi Jailer,
Thanks for your advise. I'll definitely do some testing with Plex and get an extra 8GB if needed. I've read about the troubles with the Realtek NIC, but since I never had any troubles when using the board as a desktop I thought I give it a go. Or are the troubles with the Realtek NIC only present in combination with Freenas?

I know that it is hard to beat the price of free, but if you you want to step up to a server board that would support ECC memory and give yourself a number of other advantages at the same time, you can't beat this deal:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-X9SRL-F-E5-2609-LGA-2011/222984132591
[..]
This 16GB stick of UDIMM memory is $157:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Single-16G...E3-xxxx-V3-Atom-C2000-based-only/191591469461

This 16GB stick of RDIMM memory is $60:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SAMSUNG-16...red-1-35V-RDIMM-M393B2G70DB0-YK0/302110582298

Hi Chris,
Thank you also. I know you're right. If it was only up to me to decide I would go for something like you suggest, but the extra investment will definitely make the wife acceptance factor go negative for now. I'll have to start with my used desktop parts and intend to (hope to...) do an upgrade to a serverboard later.


I still hope to get some advise on the positioning of the HDD's. Anyone?

 

[Chris Moore]

Or are the troubles with the Realtek NIC only present in combination with Freenas?

It is all down to the drivers. The folks at Realtec wrote drivers for Windows and even for Linux, but not for BSD Unix. The Realtek card needs to Operating System (OS) to do part of the work because of the way the chip works and that means their driver must be custom written for each OS. The folks at Realtek also have not been helpful to the community that might have written their own driver if the documentation had been available, so there have not been any good drivers written by third parties.
It will work, it just won't work well. Just about any inexpensive Intel NIC in a card slot would give better performance.

I know you're right. If it was only up to me to decide I would go for something like you suggest, but the extra investment will definitely make the wife acceptance factor go negative for now. I'll have to start with my used desktop parts and intend to (hope to...) do an upgrade to a serverboard later.

If you do follow that path, just recall that you will NOT need to reinstall. It is easy to move a FreeNAS installation over to a new hardware platform. I have made the switch three times moving to newer system boards and have not had any trouble because FreeNAS re-detects hardware at each boot.

I still hope to get some advise on the positioning of the HDD's. Anyone?

As for the drives, you just need good airflow over the drives. My big chassis has 48 drive bays and it keeps the drives reasonably cool with 3 x 120mm fans on the intake side and 3 more on the exhaust side and the fan speed is set at 1200 RPM so it is barely audible from 3 ft away. The hottest dive is at 37 degrees Celsius but I blame the drive for that, all the other drives are under 35. Temperature is the biggest factor in drive longevity and you should try to keep them below 35 degrees. Drives report their temperature in Celsius, I don't know why, but it is the standard.

 

[doerakje]

Hi Chris, thanks again.

• The Intel NIC will survive the waf, I'll have a go for it.
• I had read about the easy switch to a new platform. That's exactly why I choose this path.
• Celsius is what we like here, Fahrenheit is confusing for us ;). I'll start with slots 1, 3, 4 and 6. I expect that will give me the best airflow.