BUILD Building my first NAS Box

[tjo]

Hello all. I'm new to the home NAS scene. I'm starting to assemble my hardware and reading all the post on building. I have IT experience but have been pushing more paper for the last five years then getting into the actual building. My goal is to set up a home NAS for movies, music and photo's. I'm going to be using XBMC to access my movies and tv shows. I'm hoping to have sickbeard set upon it as well. I will be running backups for three Mac's and one PC. Any tips you would like to pass on will be greatly appreciated. One question I had is it better to a SSD then mem stick? I can pickup a 60 gb SSD for $70. I will be starting with 3 2 TB drives is this sufficient ordo I require more drives.

Okay hardware I have so far:

Case: BitFenix Prodigy Midnight Black Edition Mini-ITX (BFC-PRO-300-KKXSK-RP)

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=6_631&item_id=049443

HDD: 3 X WD Red (WD20EFRX) 2TB SATA3 64MB Buffer NAS Hard Drive

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=15_1086_210_212&item_id=050753

PS: Corsair Builder Series Modular CX430M 430 Watt 80 PLUS Bronze Certified Power Supply (CP-9020058-NA)

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=33_442&item_id=056809

OS Drive: Patriot Element 16GB Aluminum USB 3.0 Flash Drive (PSF16GLSEL3USB)

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=11_180_632&item_id=055470

Still looking at which Mb/CPU/ram combo. So far been looking at this.

ASRock E350M1/USB3 AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual-Core) AMD A50M Hudson M1 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo and buying 16gb of ram.

Okay back to reading the forums.


Thanks for any help

 

[JaimieV]

As we always say, there's no sense in installing FreeNAS on anything other than a 4+gig USB stick - waste of cash, waste of a SATA port, and a mild PITA to do, too. Otherwise, looks sensible specs at a glance - I'm not really up on ITX kit though. You might want to step up to 3Tb drives, since they're not much more than 2Tb now and it's easier than upsizing later. You may want a faster CPU if you expect to do any transcoding, but with XBMC at the head end you presumably won't so the E350 would be fine. Tip: use AFP shares for the Macs, CIFS is single-threaded and CPU bound for speed.

/Edit: Just reread and saw you've already got the 2Tb drives, so skip the 3Tb recommendation! You've read Cyberjock's presentation on the sticky at the top of the Noobs forum, right? So you know that you should plan now for your disk array rather than expecting to be able to slam another disk on later. Building large enough at the start is definitely the way forward.

 

[tjo]

JaimieV,
Thanks for the reply. Yes I`ve bought the drives. I`m still in the big city for an another day so I`m contemplating whether I want to go Raid Z1 or raid Z2. If I do raid Z2 I will just buy one more 2 TB. They haven`t been opened yet. I might just go back and return for 3 X 3 TB drives. it will be about the same cost for 4 X 2 Tb as 3 X 3 Tb Ah decisions decisions.....

Cheers

 

[gpsguy]

Given the mobo/cpu you're considering, you might want to consider HP's N54L Microserver. Mailorder in the US, they run about $340, not sure what they cost in Canada. Frequently, we see rebate/cash back offers that discount it even more.

I saw a good deal last Friday and ordered one along with 16Gb ECC RAM. Although I won't be using it for FN, it would be adequate for my file sharing needs.

 

[tjo]

Okay so I went back and changed my 3 2Tb drives for 3 3TB drives. Going to set up using RaidZ1. I've also decided on my board and ram choice. Going with these two parts.

Ram: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-16GBXL

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231486

MB: ASRock E350M1/USB3 AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual-Core) AMD A50M Hudson M1 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157247

Going to order sunday hopefully have it for next weekend to start the build. Any points or concerns on my hardware selection that anyone sees.

Being doing tons of reading manual, forums and internet. Kinda a bit of overload at this point. Lots of great info though.

Cheers...

 

[tjo]

Well I have everything up and running. It booted up and everything is running as it should be. Ram registered as 16 Gb 1333 MHz

Here is my final parts list,

BitFenix Prodigy Midnight Black Edition Mini-ITX (BFC-PRO-300-KKXSK-RP) case
WD Red (WD30EFRX) 3TB SATA3 64MB Buffer NAS Hard Drive(OEM)
Corsair Builder Series Modular CX430M 430 Watt 80 PLUS Bronze Certified Power Supply (CP-9020058-NA)
APC (BE550G) Back-UPS ES 550 - UPS - AC 120 V - 330 Watt - 550 VA - USB - 8 output connector(s)
Kingston DataTraveler Micro 8GB Black USB Flash Drive (DTMCK/8GB)
ASRock E350M1/USB3 AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual-Core) AMD A50M Hudson M1 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-16GBXL
StarTech USBMBADAPT2 2 Port USB Motherboard Header Adapter

Spent a bit more then I wanted to but in the end I happy with my choices.

I used the instructions for setting up a USB img using a Mac and had no problems. Took a few minutes to img the usb drive. Popped it in the box and everything went great. Took about 5 minutes to setup everything. I started with a monitor keyboard and mouse but was able to log in from my web browser. Took a min for the page to load the first time. Went in and set up my admin pwd and thats about as far as I got for today.

 

[Kosta]

I would like to know two things: Could you please test your transfer speeds and measure the power usage? I reckon you can test your gigabit transfer speeds?

 

[tjo]

I would like to know two things: Could you please test your transfer speeds and measure the power usage? I reckon you can test your gigabit transfer speeds?

Kosta; I'm away for a couple of days and have the NAS shut down. I will test when I return. I still haven't completely setup my NAS so It might take me a day or to when I get home to finish tweaking everything. I don't have anything to test power usage but will see if work has something I can use.

Cheers

 

[Kosta]

Hi tjo,

Thanks, looking forward to it!

 

[tjo]

Hi tjo,

Thanks, looking forward to it!

Kosta I haven't forgot just haven't had time to finish setting it up. So far I've created a ZFS volume just need to add some data sets and decide If I'm going to go with AFP. I'M going to be back home this weekend so I should be able finish off my setup to see how my transfer speeds are.

 

[Kosta]

Hehe, neither did I :)
Will be watching the space. Thanks.

 

[tjo]

So I have set my NAS up with only one volume. My question is should I or even can I have more then one volume in my ZF pool set up as raid ZF1. I have 3 3TB drives. I plan on backing up one Mac mini's, one MBP and my iMAC. I'm also going to have movies, TV shows, Music and pictures. I plan to set up a plugin jail and run a bunch of programs such as Sickbeard. Here is my plan.

1 Volume divided into data sets

Movies, 1 TB
TV Shows 1 TB
Music 100 GB
Pictures 100 GB
MBP Back up 600 GB
Mac Mini 700 GB
iMac 1TB

After all the manual reading and browsing the forums this is what i think I need? Am I on the mark or right out of it? I appreciate any input on what would be the best way to set this up.

- - - Updated - - -

One additonal point. the file system will be AFP.

 

[Kosta]

So I have set my NAS up with only one volume. My question is should I or even can I have more then one volume in my ZF pool set up as raid ZF1. I have 3 3TB drives. I plan on backing up one Mac mini's, one MBP and my iMAC. I'm also going to have movies, TV shows, Music and pictures. I plan to set up a plugin jail and run a bunch of programs such as Sickbeard. Here is my plan.

1 Volume divided into data sets

Movies, 1 TB
TV Shows 1 TB
Music 100 GB
Pictures 100 GB
MBP Back up 600 GB
Mac Mini 700 GB
iMac 1TB

After all the manual reading and browsing the forums this is what i think I need? Am I on the mark or right out of it? I appreciate any input on what would be the best way to set this up.

- - - Updated - - -

One additonal point. the file system will be AFP.

I'd get a 4th 3TB disk, and run RAID-5. Good performance and some data-security, against total data-loss of the whole volume if one of 3 dies.
AFP is not a file system. ZFS is. AFP is a sharing protocol.

Looking forward to results ;-)

 

[JaimieV]

Kosta, he's already aiming for RAIDZ1 across 3x3Tb - that's fine. Better than RAID5! I wouldn't be averse to adding a fourth disk myself, I do think 4 disks is the minimum size worth making a set out of!

Tjo, there's no particular point in making datasets for everything. Why not do this in your volume folder:

Shared ( <- a folder, shared as "Shared")
Shared/Movies
Shared/TV Shows
Shared/Music
Shared/Pictures ( <- these four are all just folders too)

This allows you to just have the Shared share mounted on each Mac, and see all your media contents inside that.

For the backups,

Backups/ (just a folder)
Backups/MBP (dataset, quota 600gig, shared as TM-MBP)
Backups/Mini (dataset, quota 700gig, shared as TM-Mini)
Backups/iMac (dataset, quota 1Tb, shared as TM-iMac)

I have a vague recollection that you can only advertise one share as a TM share, although that might be fixed by now. If it's not fixed, you can set them all as normal AFP shares, mount the correct backup share by hand on each machine and point the Mac's Time Machine at it (you may need to do the 'enable unsupported volumes' tweak). Or just make one 2.5Tb Backups dataset *with* TM advertising enabled and no subfolders, and point all three Macs at it. The latter is what I do - I have four Macs all backing up to one TM-advertised share. Works great, they handle running out of space competently.

 

[tjo]

Hey guys thanks for the quick replies,

I had originally planed a similar setup but after reading the manual and lots of forums I was just getting info overload and started thinking data sets. That setup sounds good and easily managed .

I do have a 1 TB Time Capsule that I back my iMac up on (wife and kids are not backed up currently). Should I continue to use this and just back up to my NAS (Back up of a Backup using rsync)

Should I setup my jail in a separate data set or install on a 16 GB USB 3 drive I have sitting around not using? (Brand new in the package)

I did look at getting another drive but decided that I was at my max as far as cash was for this build. I have already gone over my original budget.

Again thanks for your replies and input. I'm learning tons as I go along and appreciate all the input.

Cheers

 

[JaimieV]

It's easy to overcomplicate with a new toy! I did the same originally.

Suggestions: set up a TM share on the FreeNAS and use that for just the iMac, point the other two at the (officially fully supported) Time Capsule. I wouldn't recommend setting up an rsync backing up the TC, you're too likely to end up with an inconsistent backup on the NAS due to the way TM backs up into a sparsebundle on a network device.

There's also the Mountain Lion feature where you can point TM at *two* (or more) destinations, and it'll alternate backups between them. That's great if you're on Mountain Lion - perhaps point your most important machine at both TC and FreeNAS, and the others to just the FreeNAS?

Lots of choices. Like I said above, personally I just point all my Macs at one quota'd dataset that's a TM advertised share.

 

[tjo]

JaimieV,
Thanks for the info. I didn't know you could point to two or more destinations. I think this will work perfect for me. As all things go I didn't get to setup my NAS last night. Life seems to get in the way of things these days.

 

[tjo]

Ok so tonight I'm finally sitting down to setup my NAS. I now have it mounted headless in my utility room. No problems connecting and everything booted up fine. I do have question though.

JaimeV recommended the following setup. How do I just make a folder called shared on my volume1? I only have one volume.


Shared ( <- a folder, shared as "Shared")
Shared/Movies
Shared/TV Shows
Shared/Music
Shared/Pictures ( <- these four are all just folders too)

This allows you to just have the Shared share mounted on each Mac, and see all your media contents inside that.

For the backups,

Backups/ (just a folder)
Backups/MBP (dataset, quota 600gig, shared as TM-MBP)
Backups/Mini (dataset, quota 700gig, shared as TM-Mini)
Backups/iMac (dataset, quota 1Tb, shared as TM-iMac)

Cheers

 

[tjo]

So I copied two files one off my timecapsule to the Share and one from my iMac





Opinions on my speed for the hardware I'm using?


So I created one share then created the folders on my iMac to setup as JaimeV recommended. Is this the best way?

 

[Harilal K M]

@tjo i would like build a freenas on the same cpu/mobo . Didi you face any problem with h/w , as there is somany threads saying that ther isn't much support for amd platform? If you could help me it would be best.