BUILD First ever NAS - lazy boy approach

[Crisdean]

Hi all,

As this is my first NAS and I've been reading a lot on here and the internet I came across this one. Price seems to be fair. Only thing missing is a HBA

Chassis
Broadberry 743T-645B, (Black), 8 Hot Swap Drive Bays, Single 645Watt Power Supply
Cooling System 4x 5000 RPM Hot-Swappable Cooling Fans
Supermicro X10SLL-F with Dual Gigabit LAN & Dedicated LAN for IPMI & Remote KVM Management
E3 1241 V3 Intel Quad-Core Xeon 3.5GHz 8Mb Cache 5GT/s 80Watts
4x 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 ECC CL11 DIMM with Thermal Sensor
Bus I/O Configuration Unbuffered
Error Correction ECC

I've been reading a lot about ZFS, storage pools and this forum about hardware etc. I'm on a 'budget'. Now when I say budget I know that for what I envision to use the NAS for budget means up to £1,500 as I want to by properly once and then upgrade at a later stage.

I've got a question with regards to the HBA (for the SATA drives). I had my eye set on the LSI SAS 9302-16e. Not sure about 3Ware.

Harddisks either Seagate NAS 2TB or WD Red 2TB drives. 8 of them. I'll use the autoexpand at another time. Does this configuration look ok? I've tried to build my own system but couldn't get it as 'good' as this one. Especially because I've got this desire to have the drives hot swappable.

Your opinion is appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Kind regards,

Chris

 

[danb35]

I've got a question with regards to the HBA (for the SATA drives). I had my eye set on the LSI SAS 9302-16e.

As I understand it, the LSI 3008-based cards aren't too well-tested under FreeNAS. The go-to HBA seems to be the LSI 9211-8i, also rebranded as the IBM M1015 and other brands. Of course, only two drives have to go on the HBA; the others can connect to the motherboard. Or, if you can substitute the X10SL7 motherboard, it has an HBA built in.

 

[Crisdean]

As I understand it, the LSI 3008-based cards aren't too well-tested under FreeNAS. The go-to HBA seems to be the LSI 9211-8i, also rebranded as the IBM M1015 and other brands. Of course, only two drives have to go on the HBA; the others can connect to the motherboard. Or, if you can substitute the X10SL7 motherboard, it has an HBA built in.

Hi Danb35
Got a question with regards to MB and HBA splitting the drives. I found cards with cache and without. Isn't splitting the hdds on HBA and MB a bit risky if something goes haywire? Thinking especially about ZFS. Maybe I'm paranoid but isn't that a bit 'risky'?

Appreciate your feedback.

 

[danb35]

You don't want cards with cache--they'll lie to the OS about what's been written to disk and what hasn't, and ZFS depends on knowing that (same reason you don't want hardware RAID controllers). I'm not aware of any significant risk in splitting drives between the motherboard and HBA--I've been doing it for most of a year so far without issue, and I think plenty of others here have as well.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Splitting the drives shouldn't make a difference. Just make sure you get a non raid card. Just get a lsi 9211 and know it will work great.

 

[Crisdean]

Splitting the drives shouldn't make a difference. Just make sure you get a non raid card. Just get a lsi 9211 and know it will work great.

That's fabulous. Thanks SweetAndLow. Actually just had a look at a 9207 card but will check the 11 one as well.

 

[ChriZ]

But if you get the x10sl7 motherboard, as @danb35 suggested, you will get what you want, plus it will cost less....

 

[Crisdean]

But if you get the x10sl7 motherboard, as @danb35 suggested, you will get what you want, plus it will cost less....

It would. However, it wouldn't be a good choice in the setup chose, since this tower is 'huge'. I'll check the LSI cards today and will see what to do. If I find a more compact case it might be an option.

 

[danb35]

However, it wouldn't be a good choice in the setup chose, since this tower is 'huge'.

Both the X10SLL and the X10SL7 are microATX boards. What does the size of the case have to do with anything?

 

[TXAG26]

X10SL7-F.

 

[ChriZ]

It would. However, it wouldn't be a good choice in the setup chose, since this tower is 'huge'.

This makes no sense, lol...
x10sl7-f has an onboard LSI controller and costs less than a different motherboard plus a separate HBA.
If needed it also has PCIE slots for more HBAs
And the size of the case is irrelevant with all of the above....
You really lost me...

 

[Crisdean]

This makes no sense, lol...
x10sl7-f has an onboard LSI controller and costs less than a different motherboard plus a separate HBA.
If needed it also has PCIE slots for more HBAs
And the size of the case is irrelevant with all of the above....
You really lost me...

Hi,

Apologies I for some bizarre reason thought that the board in the tower was full ATX...... Yes I realised my mistake. From that perspective the other board would make much more sense. Got it. Apologies for the confusion.

 

[anodos]

Hi,

Apologies I for some bizarre reason thought that the board in the tower was full ATX...... Yes I realised my mistake. From that perspective the other board would make much more sense. Got it. Apologies for the confusion.

All the supermicro cases I've seen are veritable pincushions of tapped holes for motherboard standoffs. You should be able to fit a microatx board in it no problem.