First FreeNAS build in over 10 years... will it work?

[hypercoffeedude]

Potential FreeNAS Build
--------------
Mainboard: Supermicro Micro ATX DDR4 LGA 1151 Motherboards X11SSM-F-O
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1240 V6 (Kaby Lake) (BX80677E31240V6)
RAM: Samsung 16GB DDR4-2400 ECC UDIMM (M391A2K43BB1-CRC)
HDD: 6x WD Red 4TB - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6 GB/S 64 MB Cache (WD40EFRX)
Case: Fractal Design Node 804 (FD-CA-NODE-804-BL)
PSU: SeaSonic G Series 550-Watt (SSR-550RM)
Boot Drive: SanDisk SSD PLUS 120GB (SDSSDA-120G-G26)
UPS: CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD

Hey everyone, thanks for joining me here. Based on many recommendations seen here, and a decent amount oof research and manual reading, I have decided to finally prepare to build a NAS due to my increasingly large amounts of data being stored without much in the way of redundancy. Up until now, I have been using WD MyBookLive and MyCloud drives, and while these have worked very well for me so far, I cringe every time I think about future drive failures. They currently don't see a great amount of active use, and so I've gotten many successful years from them. It's high time to get responsible and build a proper storage solution so I don't wake up one day to find my data has poofed into oblivion.

I will be using my FreeNAS box for a few things. I am a hobby photographer so I'll be storing photos (About 30,000+ RAWs and counting). I shoot lots of video, 1080p - 4K, and need to stash that somewhere. Linux ISOs, DVDs (mkv) and other junk as well will need to live there. I'd like to run a Plex server with it's DVR functions, and use it along with my HDHomerun devices. My set up needs to be powerful enough to handle up to 3 active recordings, while also serving media to 2-3 devices.

- I am thinking of configuring it as RAIDz2 with 6 WD Reds.
- If I'm correct, I am expecting to get approx 16Tb usable.
- Starting with 16Gb RAM, will add another 16Gb soon after if needed.
- I really need a sanity check to make sure all my components are compatable.

I have read that this mainboard is compatible with this CPU, but only after a BIOS upgrade? I'd hate to get the system built only to find out I can't use the processor until upgrading BIOS, and not being able to upgrade without a working CPU.

Is there anything else I am forgetting? Is there anything wrong with this setup or else any other advice I should head? I will be buying the parts slowly over the next few months and to get the max warranty from the drives, I'll grab those last. I also have access to educational discounts which I've noticed brings the price of each HDD down to $119.99 (WD Edu Store).

 

[joeschmuck]

Here is my comments on your system...

All your components should work fine. I agree with your consern about the motherboard may not run with the new V6 CPU but I believe you can still perform the BIOS upgrade. Others here have purchased that motherboard with the V6 CPU and didn't have any issues, well one person is having an issue with a similar motherboard but I suspect either the CPU or motherboard is bad, I'm leaning towards the CPU myself. If the V5 is cheaper and it makes you feel better, get one of those.

Ensure your RAM is placed in the Blue slot furthest away from the CPU for single stick operation.

Your six 4TB hard drives will give you ~10.2TB (~14TB minus 2.8TB (20%) = ~10.2TB) usable space. All of this factors in RAIDZ2 and 20% free space to maintain a fast pool.

Holy Cow! That is very expensive for RAM, that is $100 more per stick than I paid. I've got to be honest with you, that is a lot of money. If I were buying a new system then I'd be researching the the best bang for the buck that I could get.

Also, I like the fact that you listed an UPS as well. Maybe people forget about that very important item.

 

[hypercoffeedude]

Thanks for your reply!

If the V5 is cheaper and it makes you feel better, get one of those.

They're about the same in price, the v6 provides faster memory bandwidth, slightly higher clock, and is more power efficient (72w vs 80w) so it should run a bit cooler. If I have a problem here, I'll work it out when it happens.

Holy Cow! That is very expensive for RAM, that is $100 more per stick than I paid. I've got to be honest with you, that is a lot of money.

Yes, I thought so too. It is one of the models "tested" by SuperMicro on that mainboard. I am open to, and will be looking for alternatives.

Your six 4TB hard drives will give you ~10.2TB (~14TB minus 2.8TB (20%) = ~10.2TB) usable space. All of this factors in RAIDZ2 and 20% free space to maintain a fast pool.

Seems reasonable. I had forgotten about the 20% for speed.

Also, I like the fact that you listed an UPS as well. Maybe people forget about that very important item.

Absolutely. I don't trust my data to the power companies. Not to mention this build is not going to be cheap. I have a steady flow of electricity 99% of the time, but there have been days my power has turned on and off in excess of 50+ times (I counted). Looks like this UPS will correct for low voltage situations as well, without switching completely over to battery. We've had brown out conditions at times where I've run around the house unplugging everything important.

Would it make sense to upgrade each hard drive in the vdev with a 8Tb model as each of the 4Tb Reds eventually fail? As opposed to replacing failed drives with another 4Tb. I understand I wouldn't see any space increase until the last hard drive fails and is replaced, but I like to plan ahead. The idea being that when I do need more space in the future, some of the drives will likely already be upgraded.

 

[joeschmuck]

Would it make sense to upgrade each hard drive in the vdev with a 8Tb model once the 4Tb Reds begin to fail?

All of my WD Reds are at the 5 year point so I'd say that you have a long time to make that decision. Odds are you will change your mind on the configuration of the pool as well, at least a few times. And price is always a factor. But upgrading to 8TB drives is fine with a RAIDZ2, if you desired to upgrade to 10TB drives and your data was really important then I might recommend a RAIDZ3 setup due to resilvering times, but you have a while to worry about that. A lot can change in 5 years. For instance I just purchased four 6TB drives to replace my six 2TB drives. I will be reducing drive count and increasing capacity by 2TB. It's not a major change but I can't replace a drive to upgrade, I need to rebuild the pool. Thankfully I can run all the drives at once on my motherboard and just transfer the data quickly. Then my old 2TB drives will be moved over to my backup machine and used there until they die. I'm only waiting on some motivation to pull the backup unit out of the basement. It could be today.

 

[Ericloewe]

Holy Cow! That is very expensive for RAM, that is $100 more per stick than I paid. I've got to be honest with you, that is a lot of money. If I were buying a new system then I'd be researching the the best bang for the buck that I could get.

Holy crap, it just keeps getting worse!

Potential FreeNAS Build
--------------
Mainboard: Supermicro Micro ATX DDR4 LGA 1151 Motherboards X11SSM-F-O
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1240 V6 (Kaby Lake) (BX80677E31240V6)
RAM: Samsung 16GB DDR4-2400 ECC UDIMM (M391A2K43BB1-CRC)
HDD: 6x WD Red 4TB - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6 GB/S 64 MB Cache (WD40EFRX)
Case: Fractal Design Node 804 (FD-CA-NODE-804-BL)
PSU: SeaSonic G Series 550-Watt (SSR-550RM)
Boot Drive: SanDisk SSD PLUS 120GB (SDSSDA-120G-G26)
UPS: CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD

Hey everyone, thanks for joining me here. Based on many recommendations seen here, and a decent amount oof research and manual reading, I have decided to finally prepare to build a NAS due to my increasingly large amounts of data being stored without much in the way of redundancy. Up until now, I have been using WD MyBookLive and MyCloud drives, and while these have worked very well for me so far, I cringe every time I think about future drive failures. They currently don't see a great amount of active use, and so I've gotten many successful years from them. It's high time to get responsible and build a proper storage solution so I don't wake up one day to find my data has poofed into oblivion.

I will be using my FreeNAS box for a few things. I am a hobby photographer so I'll be storing photos (About 30,000+ RAWs and counting). I shoot lots of video, 1080p - 4K, and need to stash that somewhere. Linux ISOs, DVDs (mkv) and other junk as well will need to live there. I'd like to run a Plex server with it's DVR functions, and use it along with my HDHomerun devices. My set up needs to be powerful enough to handle up to 3 active recordings, while also serving media to 2-3 devices.

- I am thinking of configuring it as RAIDz2 with 6 WD Reds.
- If I'm correct, I am expecting to get approx 16Tb usable.
- Starting with 16Gb RAM, will add another 16Gb soon after if needed.
- I really need a sanity check to make sure all my components are compatable.

I have read that this mainboard is compatible with this CPU, but only after a BIOS upgrade? I'd hate to get the system built only to find out I can't use the processor until upgrading BIOS, and not being able to upgrade without a working CPU.

Is there anything else I am forgetting? Is there anything wrong with this setup or else any other advice I should head? I will be buying the parts slowly over the next few months and to get the max warranty from the drives, I'll grab those last. I also have access to educational discounts which I've noticed brings the price of each HDD down to $119.99 (WD Edu Store).

Feel free to apply a metaphorical seal of approval to your build.

Would it make sense to upgrade each hard drive in the vdev with a 8Tb model as each of the 4Tb Reds eventually fail? As opposed to replacing failed drives with another 4Tb. I understand I wouldn't see any space increase until the last hard drive fails and is replaced, but I like to plan ahead. The idea being that when I do need more space in the future, some of the drives will likely already be upgraded.

Totally valid. It's between you, your wallet and your storage needs.