Dell PowerEdge T710 for home server

[Frankie's Dad]

I am planning my first FreeNAS home server and found an upgraded Dell PowerEdge T710 for US$550.00 that looks interesting. The server needs to run Plex, Nextcloud, Logitech Media Server (if a version exists that will run on FreeNAS) and it will be used as a file server in an mixed MacOS/Windows 10/Linux/IoT network. In the future I may add a security camera server that monitors a mix of 7 - 8 2.1MP and 4.2MP cameras. I have Netgear switches that support link aggregation.

The server I am looking at has 2 Xeon X5680 3.33GHz processors, BIOS 6.4.0, 16 GB RAM, no hard drives, a DVD drive and redundant power supplies. I would like to replace the DVD drive with a SSD if possible. I have 6 WD Red 3 TB HDs that would be repurposed from a Netgear NAS to the T710. I do not know what type of disk controller is installed.

Will this NAS work for my requirements or should I keep looking?

 

[Heracles]

I have Netgear switches that support link aggregation.

Know that link aggregation does not increase the actual bandwidth, even less in such a small setup. Considering you will also have a single switch, it will not increase redundancy by much either.

I have 6 WD Red 3 TB HDs

Ensure these are not SMR....

Also, consider that being that old, they have as much of their life already past.

With Raid-Z2, that would give you 12 TB of usable space. How much do you expect to use ?

16 GB RAM,

With everything you listed as features you are looking for, this is on the low end.

Also, do not forget about your backups. No single server, FreeNAS or not, can be more than a single point of failure.

 

[Frankie's Dad]

Know that link aggregation does not increase the actual bandwidth, even less in such a small setup. Considering you will also have a single switch, it will not increase redundancy by much either.

I'm a newbie at networking and recently enabled link aggregation on a Mac Pro server because of bandwidth problems caused by Timemachine, the security camera server and the Plex server all streaming at the same time. This is the first time I used link aggregation and I discovered that it's not as easy as Apple says, but I learned a lot in the process.

Ensure these are not SMR....

Also, consider that being that old, they have as much of their life already past.

With Raid-Z2, that would give you 12 TB of usable space. How much do you expect to use ?

The drives are WD30EFRX of varying ages, which are CMR. I plan to replace them with larger drives when they fail. The Netgear NAS shows that 51% of 13 TB is used, so 12 TB should be okay for the near future. Initially, only 6 of the 8 drive slots will be used. Can larger drives be installed in the other 2 slots? Something like 4 TB or 6 TB drives, possibly Seagate Ironwolf.

With everything you listed as features you are looking for, this is on the low end.

Most of the memory slots in the server are open, so adding more would not be a problem. How much memory would be needed?

Also, do not forget about your backups. No single server, FreeNAS or not, can be more than a single point of failure.

Server backup is something I absolutely need, but I am not sure where to start. I don't have an offsite location to store drives and was considering Blackblaze B2. What would work for local backup? A storage only NAS or an external hard drive?

 

[Heracles]

The drives are WD30EFRX of varying ages, which are CMR.

Good for you.

The Netgear NAS shows that 51% of 13 TB is used, so 12 TB should be okay for the near future.

To add space in a pool is not always easy. Better to plan for longer future.

51% is a significant load for a pool, so you are best to start thinking about it when still in your design phase.

Initially, only 6 of the 8 drive slots will be used. Can larger drives be installed in the other 2 slots?

Yes, but if you used mirrors instead of Raid-Z2. It is not recommended to mix and match vDev types. So for adding a 2 drives vDev, that means your other vDev should be 2 drives also. Using mirrors, your storage space will be 3x 3TB at first, so 9 TB instead of 12. Your 6.5 TB load will be even more important.

By using mirror, it will be easier to do auto-expand at a later time : by replacing both drives of a vDev with bigger ones (one at a time with re-silvering between each of course), the mirror will expand to the new size allowed by the new drives once the re-silvering is done. Should you build a 6 drives Raid-Z2 vDev, that auto-expand will require the replacement of all of these 6 drives before actually expanding.

Most of the memory slots in the server are open, so adding more would not be a problem. How much memory would be needed?

FreeNAS will never have too much RAM
Put as much as you can, you will always benefit from it. I would say 32G would be the minimum I would use. If you can make it to 64, that would be even better. 128G or more will make you a lucky guy but is not actually required by your use case.

I don't have an offsite location to store drives

Don't you have any friend or family member where you can deploy a backup server for remote sync ?

For a complete backup strategy, you can review the 3-copies rule explained in my signature.

Have fun designing your system,

 

[Frankie's Dad]

Thank you Heracles. Based on your advice, I am abandoning the plan to reuse the WD Red drives and am looking for deals on new Ironwolf drives. I see that there are good prices on used certified memory and and plan to install at least 64 GB in the server.

 

[Samuel Tai]

I am ... looking for deals on new Ironwolf drives.

Beware firmware on the Ironwolfs. See this thread for details. To be brief, make sure all the drives are firmware SC61 or higher.

 

[Frankie's Dad]

Beware firmware on the Ironwolfs. See this thread for details. To be brief, make sure all the drives are firmware SC61 or higher.

Thank you. I didn't realize there where any gotchas with the Ironwolf drives.

 

[pschatz100]

Regarding the RAM, you can start with the 16GB you have. Whether or not you actually need more will depend upon the tasks you are running. After the system is together, keep watch on the system SWAP space. If utilization is zero, then 16GB is enough for what you are doing. If SWAP space used is not zero, then I would add more.

Down the road, as you add other tasks such as the security cams or VM's, you can always increase memory.

 

[Frankie's Dad]

Regarding the RAM, you can start with the 16GB you have. Whether or not you actually need more will depend upon the tasks you are running. After the system is together, keep watch on the system SWAP space. If utilization is zero, then 16GB is enough for what you are doing. If SWAP space used is not zero, then I would add more.

Down the road, as you add other tasks such as the security cams or VM's, you can always increase memory.

Thanks for the recommendation, but I already have 96GB of ECC memory on order. I decided to use 4 new Ironwolf 10TB hard drives to start with. I intend to use Nextcloud first as a learning exercise and to dump Dropbox, then install Plex. I will keep watch on the swap space to see how the system is performing.

 

[rvassar]

That's a rather old system for that kind of money. Fully 4 generations back... No Spectre microcode fixes, etc... I'd try for something a generation or two newer...

Consider... The bottom end, available today new Dell T140 starts at $439.

 

[Frankie's Dad]

That's a rather old system for that kind of money. Fully 4 generations back... No Spectre microcode fixes, etc... I'd try for something a generation or two newer...

Consider... The bottom end, available today new Dell T140 starts at $439.

I appreciate what you're saying, but I did look at new servers and newer generation used servers. Unfortunately, they either didn't meet my requirements, were too expensive, or required too much upgrading. The T710 was local, which saved me $130 in shipping, already had upgraded processors and came with a GPU, which I may or may not use. Plus I am learning a lot working with this system and am enjoying working with it. I installed all the firmware updates I could find, including BIOS 6.6.0, which includes updates for Spectre. I'm not a security professional and don't know what Spectre and other vulnerabilities remain unpatched.