BUILD Cheapest way to build a FREENAS?

[josecuervo]

I always buy my RAM direct from Crucial. For example: http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Lenovo/thinkserver-ts140

Thanks!

So if I order a TS140 and a couple sticks of ram right now (I already have hard drives) I can have a FreeNas server with ZFS Mirrored Vdevs running Plex and securely backing up all five of my computers via WiFi the day after it arrives after one sleepless night of setup? Am I missing anything?

 

[SweetAndLow]

You'll need a USB stick for the os. You should get a ups for power outages. And don't use Wi-Fi it's garbage.

 

[josecuervo]

I just emailed Computer Upgrade King and they do not ship with ECC RAM claiming they had issues with ECC (wouldn't tell me what). They are fixing the description mistake on their amazon store.

EDIT:

Only their additional RAM is not ECC. The stock RAM is still ECC.

 

[cyberjock]

I just emailed Computer Upgrade King and they do not ship with ECC RAM claiming they had issues with ECC (wouldn't tell me what). They are fixing the description mistake on their amazon store.

EDIT:

Only their additional RAM is not ECC. The stock RAM is still ECC.

I'm betting they got hit with the Kingston ECC RAM snafu.. ;)

 

[alexg]

I'm pretty sure both TS140 models I bought from Amazon last year have ECC memory.

FreeNAS is hosted on i3-4130. My second TS140 is Xeon E3-1225 V3 that I use to host various VMs on XenServer. Both of them came with Samsung's 4GB memory, part number M391B5173QH0-YK0. I googled the part to confirm it that it is indeed ECC memory.

Also, my additional memory is this from Amazon

 

[josecuervo]

Ok I just ordered the TS140 from Amazon and 1 4GB stick from Crucial (is there a reason everyone seems to be going for 12GB+? their websites says FreeNAS only frequires 8GB)

$61.55 after tax for the RAM
+
$219.99 (I guess I'm out of state for them so no tax)
+
free shipping on both
=
$281.54 out the door! Great!

 

[gpsguy]

8Gb is the absolute minimum required for ZFS on FreeNAS. And, there's the thumb rule of 1GB per TB of hard disk space.

If you decide to upgrade to larger hard disks down the road and need to max out the memory on your motherboard, you'll only have to put the original 4GB stick on the shelf, when need to replace it with an 8Gb one.

 

[marbus90]

1x4+1x8GB DIMMs work together. Technically it's slower, but in practice the performance gain due to more RAM is higher. Also you don't have to throw out 2x4GB DIMMs down the road. :)

 

[alexg]

Paying $60 for 4GB vs $90 for 8GB. Way more cost effective to get an extra 8GB to give yourself more than a minimum and future growth. You have to plan for growth.

 

[DJABE]

Side note: folks, have you noticed price increase on Crucial site? I was hoping that after Crucial (Micron) was the first to market DDR4 modules, prices for DDR3 would drop.. but it seems they're rising?!
So, it's better to get some RAM before each and every vendor gives up on DDR3 production!

 

[josecuervo]

You'll need a USB stick for the os. You should get a ups for power outages. And don't use Wi-Fi it's garbage.

What's wrong with WiFi?

 

[Fraoch]

Wireless can be quite unstable. It's resource-intensive and often difficult to configure.

Even when it appears to be working fine, you can get odd problems and inconsistencies.

For a device that does nothing other than serve files and isn't portable, it's best to avoid it.

 

[stefanb]

All Clients sharing the bandwidth.
I did not know your network, but for example:
Your client is Wifi and your server also, they are connected to the same wlan-router.
Client sends data to server, the workload is send to the router and from there to the server.
The bandwidth is shared, speed is 50% of bandwidth.
IEEE 802.11a (54mbit) has a max. usable bandwidth of 20-22Mbit/s. transfering from one wifi client to another results in 10-11Mbit/s.

S.

 

[Ericloewe]

Side note: folks, have you noticed price increase on Crucial site? I was hoping that after Crucial (Micron) was the first to market DDR4 modules, prices for DDR3 would drop.. but it seems they're rising?!
So, it's better to get some RAM before each and every vendor gives up on DDR3 production!

DDR3 production capacity is scaling down by now, leading to lower supply, with demand still relatively stable, leading to higher prices. DDR4 production is ramping up and there's considerable interest, particularly for the power savings, so prices will be high for a while. Once production has peaked and demand stabilized, prices should drop.

 

[DJABE]

I hope so Eric :) We shall wait and see. :)
@regarding WiFi discussion - you can access your SMB shares via WiFi (notebook, tablet, TV...) but no one wants to use WiFi for primary NAS interface, right?

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

What's wrong with WiFi?

I think people are saying you shouldn't use WiFi to connect your NAS. Not talking about your client(s).

 

[josecuervo]

Look at my signature line. Lenovo TS140 and additional 8GB of ECC memory was my budget build.

What kind of performance have you been getting?

 

[alexg]

Enough to run NAS for home use, Plex, crashplan, and syslog server. CPU has never been higher than 30%

 

[Trimble Epic]

So, I'm intruiged by this TS140 i3 box, it seems to be an ideal solution that just needs 8 more G of ECC ram... (I would want 12g to host Plex)

Here's my question - Does it use a standard motherboard? I already have a server chassis that I would rather use, it holds up to 19 drives internally (NZXT Whisper) Could I move the TS140 mb, cpu and ram to a different case?

My current WHS has been running reliably on a supermicro atom board, but alas, it doesn't support ECC... (and I totally get why ECC is required. Thanks Cyberjock) so, I guess that MB will be repurposed... (I'd like to build a new home Sophos UTM for home anyway)

I see that Cyberjock has read this thread and didn't smack anyone's heads over the TS140, so I assume it's a good platform for ZFS...

 

[gpsguy]

Off topic, but ensure that you have 4GB+ RAM for your Sophos box. The newer versions of the firmware will need it. There are a couple of Astaro/Sophos UTM users on this forum. I started on 7.0.


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