First build hardware questions

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Eric Sams

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I'm starting my first build, and am hoping to get some advice and sanity-checking on hardware selection. This will be a home NAS that will act as a file and video server, as well as a user-cloud server. Here's what I'm thinking this far...

Chassis: Fractal Design Node 304
Motherboard/CPU: Asrock C2550D4I
RAM: 16GB kit (2x8GB) of ECC RAM from Crucial, unregistered
Power supply: Seasonic SS-350SFE
USB Drive: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 8GB
Harddrives: Seagate 4TB ST4000VN000

How does this look? Would it be better to use X10SLL+-F with E3-1200v3 for the motherboard and CPU? What RAID should I run? Do I need SSD as well?

Thanks
Eric
 
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You don't have to have SSDs, but you can if you'd like. As far as the hard drive setup, how many 4TB drives are you going to run?
 

Eric Sams

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No more than 4 disks, but I may not need that much storage. Perhaps I could get by with 1-2TB drives and save some money?
 

Ericloewe

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That's an ancient PSU. A Seasonic G-360 would be a much better option in every regard (except possibly price).

The Xeon would be a lot faster than the C2550, that's for sure. If you're using plugins/jails (sounds like you will), you'll want a C2750 or something like an i3 or a Xeon.
 

Eric Sams

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Thanks very much for the info. So, here's my upgraded design...

Chassis: Fractal Design Node 304
Motherboard: X10SLL+-F
CPU: Xeon E3-1220V3 Haswell
RAM: 16GB kit (2x8GB) of ECC RAM from Crucial, unregistered
Power supply: Seasonic G-360
USB Drive: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 8GB
Harddrives: Seagate 4TB ST4000VN000

Is the E3-1220 adequate, or do I need a more expensive CPU?

I'm also wondering ow many harddrives I need? Can I begin this just two and add more later, or would that me a problem for RAID when I add the additional disks?

Thanks again,
Eric
 
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Bidule0hm

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You can't add drives to a vdev (but you can add more vdevs to a pool) so it's not what you want. You can read cyberjock's guide (in his sig or my sig) for more info ;)
 
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danb35

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I'm also wondering ow many harddrives I need? Can I begin this just two and add more later, or would that me a problem for RAID when I add the additional disks?
Absolutely second @Bidule0hm's recommendation to read @cyberjock's guide, but in short, you could do this--start out with a mirrored pair of disks, and add mirrored pairs of disks as time went on and capacity needs grew. It's a method that gives you redundancy, and lets you expand your pool fairly easily. The problem is that the redundancy doesn't work nearly as well as with RAIDZ. As with most things, there are pros and cons.
 
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