Expert Opinion, First FreeNAS Build

[Plough]

Good day guys!

This will be the first time I am posting here but have been reading and researching. Though I dont have that time to really dig for information since Im quite busy with work as i am into field work most of the time. My Background is an IT Network Admin and System Admin though more on Windows Servers and Not Linux and Unix..

I would like help in Building and finding suitable hardware for my needs rather than buying Synology as i find it mediocre for the price of the hardware. And have been reading bad stuff if it conk out.. Though ive been administrating Synology already in our small office.

This build will be for my Home and to he shared by my family. Let me list Requirements:

a. File Server (Data, Photos, Movies, etc)
b. iSCSI
c. Video and Audio Stream
d. Network CCTV Data Storage
e. Cloud

Planning:

1. I am planning to build FreeNAS under VM using VMWare ESXI
2. Will be running also a PFSense Server along with it and another instance for AD Blocking.
3. Will run on Gigabit Network and I am open in Upgrading it to 10Gigabit Network in the future
4. Initial 4 x 4TB-6TB Hard Drives and Expandable to 8-10 Hard Drives in the Future.
5. Initial 12gb-16gb ECC RAM
6. 450W-550W True Rated PSU
7. Atleast 2 x 128gb SSD for OS
8. OPTIONAL: if only possible to be a Video and Photo Editing platform for my daughter (Sorry Budget constraint.. Lol)

Hardware and Limitations:

Processor:

• Intel XEON E5-2600 series particular E5-2640
• I am quite confused with XEON's and im still open to Suggestions
• Is E3 enough?

Motherboard:

• Of course I want SUPERMICRO but here in Philippines it kinda difficult to find one
• Any good alternative suggestions is highly appreciated

RAM:

• Any Suggestions for Brand and Type would do as long as its within the budget and reliable

SSD:

• Im thinking of Intel or Crucial

HDD:

• Ive had bad experience with Western Digital so this is really out of my consideration
• Looking for Seagate NAS drives

Network Card:

• Any recommended Intel dual port gigabit Card would do.
• Planning for Network Teaming

PSU:

• Any model recommended for Seasonic as long as it is True Rated and Reliable
• Also considering HEC and Corsair

Possible consideration i saw locally listed as second hand:

• Supermicro Server Board, Xeon E3-1240 v2, 16 GB X9SCM-F for $290 for both
• Dell Precision T5600 for about $800

I would really appreciate all your efforts for helping me throughout my build process..


Thank you!

 

[joeschmuck]

I'll just touch on a few things here, not the entire project. You have quite a requirements listing and my advice is lots of RAM, as in 64GB or more, where more is better. You should be looking into requirements for iSCSI as well, I'm not sure your pool configuration will be optimal at all for that. Video editing requires lots of resources and this is not a cheap system. Others here have tried to create a good video editing server on the cheap and I don't recall anyone doing it well. As for the OS, a single SSD will be fine, make it at least 256GB since you are planning to install ESXi and a few VMs. Keep in mind that FreeNAS needs a minimum of 8GB RAM but for the server you desire will need lots more. pfsense requires 2GB RAM minimum, and your AD VM, well I don't know that but hopefully you do.

The CPU, for this type of project you will need a minimum of 4 cores (not threads) and the highest clock rate you can afford.

My advice to you is to find some lonely computer that you can install ESXi on and then FreeNAS, or at least FreeNAS on a VM on your PC, then setup your iSCSI shares and such. See how it works for you. Even if this PC is slow at least it will give you an idea on what to expect.

 

[jenksdrummer]

FreeNAS depends on all the major components (disk, cpu, ram) to be as low-latency as possible, which a VM does not do as well due to the scheduling/sharing of resources. It can work, but, I'd be concerned about it being stable when pushed. To that, I have done exactly this scenario to get a grasp of FreeNAS as a product and work through some of the configuration items I was interested in, and test them, but...it struggled when pushed compared to blasting the ESX host it was running on (not a significant box either), and running it off hardware. I was thinking against FreeNAS during testing due to stability/performance, but moving to hardware it seemed like it might meet the need.

 

[Inxsible]

I would second @jenksdrummer and advice installing FreeNAS on bare-metal for what you want to do with it. Don't put a layer of indirection if it's not really required.

You can always install ESXi on another machine and use that for your VMs.

That's the setup I have in my house. X9SCL-F hosts my ESXi -- which provides 3 VMs -- a linux server, a PCOIP linux box, and a test bed VM for tinkering. My FreeNAS box is separate which acts as my file server, media server etc.

 

[Snow]

Yeah Sounds like you may want to split some of that up you can make a great Pfsense with pretty cheap hardware. I would keep FreeNas as close to the bare metal as you can. I would look at FreeNas as a very fast File Server that can hosts some Jails for media and backups you can do some pretty cool stuff with jails they are kida like VM's. Jails do add a layer of complexity to the Equation. iSCSI is its own animal and can kill a system pretty fast unless your running the right stuff like 10GB/s Or 40GB/s Nics. Most just use SMB or NFS you can get iSCSI really cooking if you want to lay the pipe to your system's but that comes with networking costs as well as hardware costs. Like @joeschmuck you may want to test it out be for taking that dive.