BUILD Building first freenas server

[Joakim Ollila]

Hi,

I am building my first freenas server. But I have a problem what rackmount chassi should I buy? and from where? I am in europe and it's really hard to find supermicro chassi or good chassi that take more than 16 drives for a cheap price. Only ones I find is around 1000 dollars. I am thinking about supermicro x9srk-7f motherboard. This as my cpu E5-1620v2 then some compatible ecc ram memory 32gb..
Then hopefully has the chassi a power supply.. Then I like to have a possibility to add up to 24 drives. So i probably need some sata card or what do you suggest?

Should I buy a ssd for plex jails and metadata? Or just buy a ssd to be my l2arc?

I am going to use plex to about 10 users internally or externally.
Then I was going to use it for surveillance cameras but freenas dosen't support any surveillance camera software? So i was thinking about maybe buying a nvr for surveillance and then use some of the disk from the freenas server to storage for the cameras.

Or do you have any other logical solutions?

Thanks

 

[SweetAndLow]

Go with the x10srl and 1620v3 and add an LSI 9211 hba. Turn add 2x16GB dimm of Samsung memory. This will cost about the same as your x9 build.

No reason to get an ssd for Plex or even l2arc.

Your IP camera will probably mount your free as shares or exports so you might not need any software.

 

[Joakim Ollila]

Thanks for your input. is it better to get 2 16gb rdimms? or one 32gb lrdimm?

Then do you have any suggestions for a rackmount chassi? I know that supermicro probably makes the best ones and I would like one of those but they are so expensive here.. I know norco has cases but what I have read here on the forums they aren't so great. Backplanes giving up and so on. So if any one has a server chassi in Europe where did you buy it and does it work ?

And for the surveillance I have about 10 ip cameras and yes I can set them up to record to a nas via ftp or so on. The problem is I need to be available to live stream them too to 2 monitors. So I thought about setting up some software on freenas and then stream from that to those monitors.. But the I realized that freenas doesn't support that kind of software..

 

[SweetAndLow]

For chassis I would suggest a used supermicro off ebay with a sas2 expander if you can find one for a good price, i know that might be hard from europe. I got mine for $400 shipped to my door(live in US).

Stick with rdimms i think they tend to be much cheaper and you don't need the max 256GB memory that lrdimms offers.

as for the camera streaming software you can check out the bsd ports tree or search freshports.org, I'm sure there there is a program in there you can run in a jail to stream to your tv's. If not you can just configure some computer on the network to stream for you pretty easily.

 

[Darren Myers]

24 bays of goodness , got my chassis from them really great seller. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...393?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ae39b72c1

 

[Joakim Ollila]

I am giving up my hopes for finding a supermicro case here in Europe for a reasonable price, because certified servers doesn't to my knowledge ship to Europe.. But what do you think of this case? http://www.xcase.co.uk/4u-rackmount...t-expander-backplane-sgpio-389-00-x-case.html It has 24bays and seems quite good. Has a sas expander too. Then I was thinking about a seasonic 750RT power supply. The supermicro chassi with the 2x1200W powersupplys is alot cheaper but I can't get it from the US. The best solution would probably be to take a trip to the US and buy the case...

 

[gpsguy]

A few of our users have used the RM424's. Let's see if @panz can chime in on his experiences with one.

 

[Noctris]

I just recently bought a Logic Case Sc-4324 ( which from all i can see in the pictures, is a norco) from these guys -> https://www.servercase.co.uk/our-brands/logic-case/6 but apparently, they don't have it on their site anymore.

Maybe end of line because price was a steal too: 252 pound ex vat including shipment to Belgium.

Seems to be decent enough for the price you pay ( but it ain't no supermicro)

 

[Joakim Ollila]

I did find a site that gets me an address in the US and then ships my parts to me in Europe. So now I am thinking about buying these: X10SRL-F,
Intel 3.50GHz Xeon E5-1620 v3 4-Core S-2011-3 and this Supermicro 16GB DDR4 PC4-17000 (2133MHz) 288p RDIMM from wiredzone.com. And then the supermicro chassi and LSI 9211-8i 6Gbps from ebay. And a StarTech.com 42U Adjustable Depth Open Frame 4 Post Server Rack Cabinet from newegg.. A 75cm sas cable probably is enough? 8087-8087

I am just waiting for an answer what it costs to ship from the US to me.

I thought about the logic case but it is quite expensive too with the shipping.. The supermicro case from ebay is only a little bit more expensive and much better..

 

[Noctris]

If you solve the shipping issue, the supermicro is definately the way to go. If this works out, i'd love a pm with the guys who ship it to europe.. i used to have a buddy in the states that i could ask but since he came back stuff became.. well, a lot more expensive ;-)

 

[Joakim Ollila]

I found a site here in sweden that ships from usa to the scandinavian countries. There is probably some similar site for the rest of the europe too.. I don't know how well it works yet but I am taking the risk.. so hopefully all goes well..

 

[Joakim Ollila]

I got my parts today. But I was thinking about the air shroud that comes with the chassi a cpu cooler wont fit under it.. So should I throw out the air shroud or buy a watercooler for the cpu? that will fit under the air shroud. The other problem then is where should i put the 120mm fan for the watercooling?

 

[Darren Myers]

What chassis did you end up getting, if its a 4U chassis the full size noctua heatsinks fit in it.

 

[Joakim Ollila]

sc846e16-r1200b. I just need to buy the rails and screws.. Didn't realize that they aren't included.. Yeah okay I'll buy a heatsink are you sure that just a heatsink keeps the cpu cool? Then could you help me with the front panel connector? The frontpanel connector doesn't fit anywhere on the motherboard because the rontpanel connector is for 8 pins and the one on the motherboard for 10 pins. It does fit on the motherboard i just don't know which pins i could leave out.. Because I can't find anywhere what is on which pin on the frontpanel connector. I did find the schematics for the motherboard connector.

Sucks very much when all the parts arrive and then some small things but really important things (like the hdd screws) are missing..

I checked your sig you have the same case :D

 

[Darren Myers]

So for the front panel there is 2 different kinds of cables for the chassis we have, theres the big pin out that doesnt fit everywhere, then there is this adapter sold by supermicro and IS listed on the parts list for our chassis, the part number is CBL-0084L and can be found here. I am using 2 NH-U9DX 's but i am using it for 2 1366 Xeons i think your board is 2011 and IS supported by that cooler. As far as temps...i am not sure, i can however tell you my server has NEVER shutdown or gone into a over heat condition; addionally i have run 5 or 6 Noctua heatinks in different builds and have had ZERO temp issues on all the builds. And i think these are the screws for the 3.5 drives

EDIT: Heres the inside of my chassis with the 2 Noctua heatsinks installed , dont mind the cable mess :P http://imgur.com/a/8hhoW

 

[Joakim Ollila]

Okay.
God damn it I need to buy that adapter the screws and the rails now.. And I live in Finland so it is going to be a week or so til I get these.... Do you have your case in a rack? if you do which rails do you use? I did buy a startech 42u rack.. I read someplace that those racks have U shaped posts and the original supermicro rails only fit in L shaped posts? I haven't got the rack yet so I can't check how the posts are shaped. I have great experience with noctua heatsinks too. But you don't use the air shroud then if a noctua heatsink did fit? How necessary do you think that air shroud is?

 

[Darren Myers]

Nope i dont use the air shroud, i have it in a box lol. Mine came with a rail kit...but i set my rack up to have a 30 some inch depth so these are the rails i THINK i used http://www.ebay.com/itm/SuperMicro-...679?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item337b8acf37 , mine lock into the square mounting holes. I just redid my entire homelab and it IS coming along i have no finished photo's as of yet :( but i do have it all racked in a 25U startech rack , the air shroud is used with the passive heatsinks as they have no way of cooling themselves like the noctua's do since they have a fan. The air shroud just directs air over the CPU(s) passive heatsinks. On my 2U supermicro i left the shroud because i dont have noctua's in that server.

EDIT: If this is the rack you bought, the rail kit above should be perfectly fine http://www.startech.com/Server-Mana...justable-4-Post-Open-Rack-Cabinet~4POSTRACKBK

 

[Joakim Ollila]

Now I have everything up and running. Or not yet.. It is on my balcony now and is disturbing my neighbors ;) But I'll soon relocate it to our company electric room and make som changes there to provide sufficient airflow. But Thanks for your help. Now I am going to invite some friends to plex and start testing what that cpu can do :)