First build

[filipjson]

Hi,
The time has finally come for me to do my first FreeNAS build. Something I have longed to do for a long time.

The NAS will be a home server taking care of a few files. But it will also be running Plex (will max out at two full-HD streams at once if even that), Sonarr, Radarr/CouchPotato, NZBGet/SABnzbd and Home Assistant.

I don't have a super tight budget but I have tried to keep the costs down where I can. But after doing my home work I have decided that building without ECC support is out of the question. All suggestions on how I could cut the costs or change out some part for something better around the same price point is more than welcome.

Here are the parts I have picked so far:

Motherboard: Intel S1200SPS (https://www.amazon.com/Intel-DBS1200SPS-Server-Board-S1200sps/dp/B017E0LR32)

Processor: Intel Pentium 3.5 GHz 1151 (https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Pentium-Dual-Core-Processor-BX80677G4560/dp/B01NCE8T92)

RAM: Crucial 16GB Single 2133 DDR4 ECC (https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Single-PC4-17000-CT16G4WFD8213-MTA18ASF2G72AZ-2G1A1/dp/B017UGK94S)

Power: Xilence Performance C 500 (Seems to only be available locally)

HDDs: WD Red 3 TB x 2 (https://www.amazon.com/Red-3TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B008JJLW4M)

Boot: SanDisk Ultra Fit 16GB USB 3.0 (https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-Flash-Drive-SDCZ43-016G-G46/dp/B00LLEN5FQ)

Case: Fractal Design Core 1500 (https://www.amazon.com/Fractal-Micro-Cooling-Cases-FD-CA-CORE-1500-BL/dp/B00O65I9QC/)


Best,
Filip

 

[Ericloewe]

Motherboard: Intel S1200SPS

Why? We have very little experience with that board around here.

Power: Xilence Performance C 500

That's somewhat dubious. You might want to take a look at the Seasonic G-Series and Corsair RM series.

 

[nightshade00013]

Agreed, DO NOT use that psu. From just a couple pages I looked at it screams trouble.

Find a small SSD and use it as a boot drive, especially if you must stick with the board you have listed. It has one internal USB port and having a thumb drive installed to an external port probably isn't the best plan. Plus the SSD will be faster and more stable.

For the money right now the 4TB NAS drives are a much better value than the 3TB. For an extra 20 bucks or less you get an extra 1TB. I also have to ask why only two drives. If you stripe them you had better have daily backups and mirrored you have a tiny amount of storage. While you can easily expand mirrors having a single pair of mirrors fail causes the pool to fail. Grab a few more drives and build a RaidZ2. If it's the cost smaller drives can be used and shopping around is also worthwhile. I picked up HGST NAS drives for less than the same size WD Red's on Newegg.

 

[Ericloewe]

Well, external USB drives are trivially avoided with a USB header to Type A adapter.

 

[filipjson]

This was exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for, thanks!

I totally agree on the PSU, that was just me being cheap, I will get a proper one!

As for the motherboard that was just me being cheap again. I do realize now that I probably should just pay up for a proper one. I'm thinking a Supermicro X11SAE-M, what do you guys think about that?

If I have a board with enough internal USBs to run the USB drive (and maybe even mirroring it?) is there still a reason to go with the SSD. While searching around I didn't find enough good points to convince me to pay the price of an SSD over a thumb drive.

My initial idea with the drives was to run them as mirrors. Then when I needed more space I would just add another two disks as mirrors. This was just to keep the initial costs down. But thinking about it I do realize I would sleep better at night with a Z2 setup, that would give me the same amount of storage but double the security for failed drives, right? But that would also set me back quite a bit more. Argh, so many choices! :)

 

[nightshade00013]

An SSD will last longer and doesn't need two in mirror to be safe. In fact a single SSD should last for the life of the server and then some. It may be a few bucks more but if you find one for 35 or 40 bucks that would be more than enough storage space with the added advantage of faster boot and update times.

https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C236_C232/X11SSM-F.cfm would be better as far as a supermicro board. Think of it this way it doesn't need audio or fancy video so the workstation board you are looking at is going to increase the cost as well as the power use over a board without the audio.

RaidZ2 with say.... 5 drives would give you the capacity of three drives added together with the ability of any two being able to fail and still keep the data in tact. So basically the formula is number of drives minus two times capacity of each drive is total storage capacity. You CAN do a RaidZ2 with four drives but it's better with between 5 and 9. Beyond 9 drives you run higher risks of too many URE's during a rebuild especially with large drives.

My build is with RaidZ3 and seven 4TB drives with a plan to add a second set of seven drives in a couple years. My theory is basically this: make sure that you think about what you are going to do over the lifetime of the server and how you want to manage upgrading the storage as well as what your needs will be like in the next few years. Grab the best board you can get now and go a little cheap on the cpu. Fill half the RAM slots with as large as you can afford. Now in four or five years when the Xeon's that fit your board are hitting E-bay you can grab one for cheap and upgrade your CPU. When you can afford it later on you can populate your other RAM slots and probably double the memory. Later on you can add a SAS controller and add a second pool or a second vDev.

 

[Stux]

BUT going with mirrors and adding pairs is a valid strategy. it allows you to NOT over-commit upfront on storage, as you just add larger storage each time (say a pair of 6TB drives). And eventually you circle around and replace your smaller disks. You just need to commit to a continuous 50% parity/redundancy rather than 20-33% with wider RaidZ2.

And random io performance is potentially better too (when you get to more vdevs)

You still need a backup though :)

If you do go with USB boot, you should get two. If you go with SSD then one is fine, and it should be more reliable.

Go to SuperMicro board is the X11-SSM. Read Eric's hardware recommendations pdf: Hardware Recommendations

 

[filipjson]

Thank you again for your replies! It has really made me realize I should spend the money now and have a server that I can use for a long time instead of saving a few bucks and be unhappy down the road.

I think I will go with the X11-SSM since I see a lot of people using that one. I will probably go with the SSD as well, it doesn't necessarily get that much more expensive anyway.

I've read recommendations of running six drives when running RAIDZ2. Is that really relevant for home use? Can I get five drives and run them in RAIDZ2 without any major disadvantages?

 

[Ericloewe]

? Can I get five drives and run them in RAIDZ2 without any major disadvantages?

Yes.