First Build: X11+Xeon-E3, general build advice and storage expansion RAID1 to RAID10 vs RAIDz

[behindtheviewfinder]

Hi, I'm preparing to build my first home NAS. I've been researching FreeNAS for last month and playing with it in a VM and the solution looks quite compelling.
My main usages for the server will be:

• Backup for my local machines
• File server for shared media (music library for Sonos, photo storage and maybe run a Plex Media Server for some movies)
• Replace dropbox with NextCloud or BitTorrent Sync
• OpenVPN
• Github hosting for some of my private projects
• Linux VM for some dev tools
• ?? Win10 VM for photography work (want to see how effective it is to run Lightroom/Photoshop through RDP vs. on my local laptop) ??
• Litecoin/Ethereum mining when server is not in use - because why not (i know it's not going to be efficient)??
• Backup the whole ZFS to external USB and to Backblaze B2 (for offsite/online recovery) using snapshots.

I plan to use the following components:

• Xeon E3-1270 v5 (or v6)
• Supermicro X11SSM-F-O
• 16GB ECC UDIMM from Kingston KVR21E15D8/16 (I know... but the price :/) - in future get additional 16GB
• 2x3TB WD RED (will add another 2x 3TB in future)
• Fractal Design Define Mini Black Silent MATX + beQuiet 500W PSU
  
• Boot from mirrored USB stick

• (Optional) Intel SSD 600p 256GB + M.2 to PCIe card - mostly for jails and VMs (is that a good idea)?

What do you think about the HW match for the usage needs?

Question about vdev expansion. If I start with RAID1 and add another set of two drives, will I be able to just expand the size of an existing vdev by creating RAID10 configuration? I'm not paranoid about disk failure since I plan to have a backup of my NAS to an external HDD and an online backup. And I want to keep the cost at a reasonable level (for home use) so I'm not planning on purchasing additional drives initially.

Let me know what you think about the setup, all responses are much appreciated.

 

[danb35]

If I start with RAID1 and add another set of two drives, will I be able to just expand the size of an existing vdev by creating RAID10 configuration?

Not precisely, but close enough.

 

[behindtheviewfinder]

Not precisely, but close enough.

I mean I should be able to stripe the RAID1 and get 2x the size of existing pool, right?

 

[Thomas102]

I mean I should be able to stripe the RAID1 and get 2x the size of existing pool, right?

Hi,
Yes. You will create a new mirror (vdev) and extend your pool with it. Your new mirror can have any size.

Reading your description I feel like a great part of your uses cases can be better handled by a workstation (VM, lightroom...) ?

 

[behindtheviewfinder]

Reading your description I feel like a great part of your uses cases can be better handled by a workstation (VM, lightroom...) ?

Sure it can, I just don't want one - between my i7 laptop and the near future NAS build I have enough power for any of my "home/hobby" level tasks.

 

[Chris Moore]

Sure it can, I just don't want one - between my i7 laptop and the near future NAS build I have enough power for any of my "home/hobby" level tasks.

If your goal is to keep the cost down, you might want to consider picking up used enterprise server gear from ebay. That is what I used and although I ended up spending quite a bit, it would have been thousands more for the same solution if I had bought new. I did spring for all new drives in the Irene-NAS instead of the used drives that I had built the Emily-NAS with. You should be able to see the hardware list in my signature and check some prices on ebay.

Also, I would suggest starting with a larger number of drives (say six) and put them in RAID-z2 as it will give you better resistance to drive failure AND it gives you faster access to the data. In a mirror (as you describe) you only access data at the speed of one drive, where in a multi-drive group, you access your data faster based on the number of drives. In the case of six drives in a z2 pool, you get a little less than the speed of four drives and that can be nearly as fast as the speed of an SSD.

That brings me to the SSD question you had. You can certainly put a single SSD in to run your VMs from, but you won't need to do that if you use a multi drive array because the effective speed of data access will be pretty close to the same.

Something to think about.

 

[behindtheviewfinder]

Thanks! I actually have a pretty hefty discount on both the CPU and SSD so that drives the cost down quite a bit for me, plus I want as modern HW as possible to last me a little longer. The reads from a mirror should be 2x speed of a single drive, just the writes will be at 1x (that's what I get from my current SW RAID1 from the two disks connected over Thunderbolt to my laptop), I assume FreeNAS is also benefiting from the speed bump for reads from the mirror.
Basically getting 4 new drives will almost double my cost up front, while adding the SSD will be quite cheap.

 

[Thomas102]

raidz2 has the iops of a single disk and iops is what makes windows boot faster when switching from hdd to sdd.
Using a dedicated SSD for VM can be a good choice. Backup can be done in a few clicks by configuring replication to the raid array.

 

[behindtheviewfinder]

raidz2 has the iops of a single disk and iops is what makes windows boot faster when switching from hdd to sdd.
Using a dedicated SSD for VM can be a good choice. Backup can be done in a few clicks by configuring replication to the raid array.

I'm not planning on using z2 for a while (since I'm not planning on adding additional storage in next year or so), so I'll be stuck with a mirror for foreseeable future.

 

[Thomas102]

Mirror bas better iops than raidz2. Twice for reading in your case.

Envoyé de mon GT-I9505 en utilisant Tapatalk

 

[behindtheviewfinder]

Mirror bas better iops than raidz2. Twice for reading in your case.

Thanks for confirming, that's what I remembered as well.