BUILD First Build - Parts Check and Feedback Appreciated

[Joe Tucker]

This is my first NAS build. I've built a few PCs but am mainly a Mac guy.

Case : NZXT Phantom 410 (bought locally for $25 - couldn't pass it up)
Power Supply: Seasonic S12G-450
Motherboard: Supermicro X10SLL-F-O
Processor: Xeon E3-1241 v3
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered
Storage: 6x 3TB Western Digital Reds - I know that 4TB seems to be the suggestion here but got an email from NewEgg that brings my total cost on all 6 to $620 and I don't think I can justify the difference in price to jump to 4TB.

Plan to use in conjunction with Plex - don't have much need for transcoding now but want the flexibility and headroom to in the future. Would be interested to hear the limitations of this setup (other than storage space).

One other thing - I have 3 Samsung Spinpoint 2tb drives that are sitting unused. Suggestions on how I might use them in conjunction with this build or maybe a separate but complimentary build?

Thanks for the feedback in advance.

 

[marbus90]

That's a pretty good combination there. my servers are specced around the same and the only thing which gets them are enviroment power issues.

the Samsungs are probably quite a bit older - maybe as raidz for temporary storage. if you plan on adding more than 6 drives to the main freenas, pick a X10SL7-F instead.

 

[Ericloewe]

I'd recommend a Seasonic G-450 instead of the S12G, but otherwise, everything looks good.

 

[Joe Tucker]

Ended up buying a ThinkServer TS440 with the same hard drives and 20gb of ECC RAM. Just got it setup last night. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[jmatt3685]

Hey Joe, I've got the exact build you do. My 440 arrives tomorrow and I wanted to ask you if you had to do anything with the RAID card? I've been reading a bit online about some people flashing it and some not... what'd you do???

 

[marbus90]

You don't want a RAID card for ZFS. You need to crossflash it to LSI 9211 P16 IT mode firmware.

 

[Joe Tucker]

Hey Joe, I've got the exact build you do. My 440 arrives tomorrow and I wanted to ask you if you had to do anything with the RAID card? I've been reading a bit online about some people flashing it and some not... what'd you do???

Based on everything I'd read - I didn't try to set everything up without flashing the card first. I followed the instructions on servethehome that had been posted here. I did run into an issue part way through the process of flashing the card where I got an error and had to put the card in another machine to get to a UEFI shell (the TS440 BIOS doesn't support a UEFI shell - I tried to find it for about 2 hours before just moving the card). It ended up being a little bit awkward doing half of the process in DOS and half in the UEFI shell but I was able to get it done.

I am certainly not an expert on any of this stuff - I undertook this process partly as a learning experience but I'm pleased to say that everything I've tried to do so far I've been able to figure out.

 

[jmatt3685]

Based on everything I'd read - I didn't try to set everything up without flashing the card first. I followed the instructions on servethehome that had been posted here. I did run into an issue part way through the process of flashing the card where I got an error and had to put the card in another machine to get to a UEFI shell (the TS440 BIOS doesn't support a UEFI shell - I tried to find it for about 2 hours before just moving the card). It ended up being a little bit awkward doing half of the process in DOS and half in the UEFI shell but I was able to get it done.

I am certainly not an expert on any of this stuff - I undertook this process partly as a learning experience but I'm pleased to say that everything I've tried to do so far I've been able to figure out.

Well, I think I might just end up giving it a shot along with you. I bought a 9UX version and am going to end up sending it back since it doesn't have the 2nd hard drive cage. The YUX version has the raid and all that. But, where I'm getting lost is that my box doesn't have any cards in the PCI slot, and from what I'm hearing, it should???

Also... do you think it was worth it? I really am a fan of the 440 and love how well laid out and built it is. I could build my own, but I feel that, for the price, it would be hard to do!

 

[marbus90]

4 disk bays = no PCIe RAID card (9UX)
8 disk bays = with PCIe RAID card (YUX)