Decided to take the FreeNAS dive

[wanako]

For the longest time, I've been wanting to get a NAS server at home, and finally I took the plunge. I figured it would be a nice project and something cool to learn, so I built myself one with FreeNAS. I've never been the type to get something off-the-shelf, when the option to make it myself was out there. I'm still figuring it all out and a bit of a ways before I put the NAS into production.

I did a bit of research and here are the specs on my little NAS:

Mobo: ASRock C2550D4I

RAM: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) ECC DDR3-1600

Boot Drive: A-Data Premier Pro SP900 64GB

HDD: 5x Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB
1x Hitachi Ultrastar 7k4000 4TB (I had this one for about a year)

Case: U-NAS NSC-800

PSU: FSP Group FSP300-701US 300W

I'm still getting the hang of the FreeNAS, and can tell that it can be a massive undertaking, but I'm quite excited about it! I plan to have it in RAIDZ-2, though I wonder if i should just fill up all 8 bays at once? Gotta see more about that. I'll likely get another set of 16GB RAM to get 32GB. I really wanted to max it out, but 16GB ECC/unbuffered DIMMs are rare and expensive.

Anyway, I'm truly excited about this project and will be scouring the stickies in the next couple of weeks. :D

 

[Sakuru]

The link to your case goes to your Part Lists. I believe this is what you meant to use: http://www.u-nas.com/xcart/product.php?productid=17617&cat=249&page=1
That is an interesting looking case. It looks like you need an HBA though http://forums.openmediavault.org/index.php/Thread/4055-U-NAS-NSC-800-Build/
The IBM M1015 is popular around here, but I'm quite happy with my crossflashed Dell PERC H310 that I got from eBay for about $55.

If possible, it would probably be better to get a bigger PSU https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/

Once you create a VDEV you cannot add drives to it. You can add VDEVs to a pool, but that case doesn't hold 12 drives. I would recommend going with 8 drives from the start.
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Do you have a UPS? They help keep NASs from turning into doorstops :)
Do you have a backup strategy? RAIDZ2 is awesome, but it's not a backup.

 

[wanako]

Whoops! Yeah sorry those links weren't supposed to be there. My bad. :P

Thank you for the info! Yes, I was thinking about the HBA when i bought the equipment, but when the case arrived, I noticed that the connectors from the backplane to the motherboard are actually SATA. Since the motherboard has a million SATA ports (12) I decided to stick in normal SATA cables I had around. Popped everything in and gave it a test run of FreeNAS and it picked up all the drives.

Thank you for the VDEV advice though. I did read cyberjock's slideshow and it was very enlightening. I'll take the advice and go with a full 8 drives.

UPS is on it's way. I NEVER run production equipment without a UPS. They've saved me a million times over. I'm planning on a APC Back-UPS 550, unless someone has a better suggestion? I know I want something that'll allow the NAS to turn off in the event of a failure, but am unsure if this will suffice.

I take care of data backups at work, so I'm quite stingy when it comes to data redundancy. 3 copies of data, 2 seperate media, 1 off-site. ;)

 

[INCSlayer]

there is more than one reason people was suggesting the HBA that motherboards has multiple sata controllers and beyond the intel ones which is belive is 4(or 6) ports the other ports use 2 different Marvell chipsets which are not that supported on freenas (i didnt have any issues with them but mileage may vary) they will work but they could eat your data the HBA is however very well supported and you know that atleast there wont be any driver issues for your drives

 

[wanako]

Interesting. I'll have to look further into that. Thank you!