BUILD First FreeNAS Build HW questions along with some other questions about vDev and ZFS

[Moksh Mridul]

Hi Guys,
This is not only my first post here, but it is also my first ever FreeNAS build. I have been on the freenode IRC over the last few days and have had the pleasure of interacting with some of the members who have been absolutely amazing and have helped me overcome a major hurdle during my testing phase.

I will try and break down this post into a few sections, with information containing my build specs, what i aim to achieve from this build and finally what doubts i have. What i would like to obtain with your help and support are flaws/problems with my build (if any) and how i can solve them.

Let me start by saying that i have done my homework and have been loitering around the forums the last few days (as a guest) and have been reading up on many discussion threads and have gone through cyberjock's wonderful presentation. While the presentation has cleared the air regarding many aspects of FreeNAS, it has created a few new ones, which i have been unable to resolve on my own.

My build is based off -
1 ) CPU - AMD Opteron 6282 SE
2) Motherboard - Supermicro H8SGL
3) RAM - 32GB (8*4GB) Samsung M393b5170EH1-CH9
4) HDD - 6*3TB WD RED (Aiming for RAID Z2)
5) Case - Cooler Master N300
6) PSU - Undecided

What I plan to achieve from this build -
1) For it to store (reliably) all my data. The data mentioned here is my collection of movies and TV Shows that i have collected over the years. All my irreplaceable data (under 1GB) is stored using various cloud services.
2) For it to be my complete download solution (torrents and usenet).
3) For it to be my Plex Media Server.

My doubts and queries -
1) If I start off with 6 drives, can i expand to 8 drives by simply adding 2 more 3TB drives to the same storage pool and still maintain all my data AND RAIDZ2 ?
2) The ram I am using is Registered ECC. Will this be fine with FreeNAS, since i see most people use Unbuffered ECC?
3) The current ram is not listed on my motherboards compatibility list, though i am running it through Memtest86+ for the last 24+ hours with no errors. Is this an issue, or am i safe to proceed?
4) What PSU would you recommend for this build? Currently i am looking towards the Seasonic M12II Bronze PSU
5) What, if any component would you change from the above list of parts for this build?

I would like to end by thanking everyone who has posted in the past on the forums as it has helped me learn a lot from their experience and expertise. I would like to thank cyberjock and jgreco for their wonderful posts and stickies which helped me tremendously. I would also like to give a shoutout to the following people who helped me out on the IRC -
cyberjock
YCNZ
Macer
nicolas_
@_jkh
divine
xurious

Thanks for reading and for your valuable inputs.
cheers :)

 

[enemy85]

Hi, quick reply:

1) NO, once you create the zpool you cannot modify the setup;
2) it will be fine as long your mobo supports it
4) personally i'm looking at SEASONIC G360 80 plus GOLD psu but probably the best for you would be the 450w version

question: you already own that mobo and cpu? In case not, you could try to look at something less expensive and power hungry.
cheers

P.S. have a look here at CJ presentation, especially for point #1

 

[Moksh Mridul]

Hi, quick reply:

1) NO, once you create the zpool you cannot modify the setup;
2) it will be fine as long your mobo supports it
4) personally i'm looking at SEASONIC G360 80 plus GOLD psu but probably the best for you would be the 450w version

question: you already own that mobo and cpu? In case not, you could try to look at something less expensive and power hungry.
cheers

P.S. have a look here at CJ presentation, especially for point #1

Thank you for the reply

1) so then ill make the pool as i intend to keep it for the future
4) the list of PSU's available here (india) is pretty bad, but ill definitely look for it

I already have the CPU, RAM and Board. Was a gift from a friend :)

 

[Moksh Mridul]

So i just completed 35 hours of memtest86+ v5 and it passed with no errors, so thats a relief :)
Any thoughts apart from that guys??

Oh and i almost forgot to ask, how are the WD AV-GP drives for freenas?

 

[jgreco]

AV drives are designed for video storage and may not be the ideal drives for a NAS. The error handling in particular may not be what you'd prefer.

 

[Moksh Mridul]

^thank you.
So then i guess ill sell my AV-GP drives once i get my reds :)

 

[jgreco]

I was on a cell phone at the time but wanted to expand a bit upon that; one of the things that's really a differentiator for drives are the little details. AV drives are intended for DVR or surveillance recording operations where being extremely responsive (and maybe erroring out real quick) is valued; desktop drives are intended for environments where the loss of data is assumed to be the only copy, so a desktop drive might try for an extended time to recover a data block, and a NAS class drive might reasonably assume that redundancy within an array would allow data to be recovered.

 

[Moksh Mridul]

I was on a cell phone at the time but wanted to expand a bit upon that; one of the things that's really a differentiator for drives are the little details. AV drives are intended for DVR or surveillance recording operations where being extremely responsive (and maybe erroring out real quick) is valued; desktop drives are intended for environments where the loss of data is assumed to be the only copy, so a desktop drive might try for an extended time to recover a data block, and a NAS class drive might reasonably assume that redundancy within an array would allow data to be recovered.

Thank you for that detailed explanation. I highly appreciate the info :)
So what your saying is that the TLER maybe more than 7 sec ??

 

[jgreco]

I don't know what the defaults are offhand, sorry.

 

[cyberjock]

TLER varies by manufacturer, model, and firmware version. If you want to know the TLER for your exact drive I'd look up the manufacturer's info on your drive.

 

[jgreco]

Technically TLER is a WD specific thing and other people call it different names, we've just gotten in the bad habit of calling it TLER because of the WD Red debate.

So technically TLER does not vary by mfr :)

 

[cyberjock]

Ok.. Ok. Good point...