First FreeNAS build please help

[marson]

Hello

I am planning to builf my first FreeNAS, currently I have Synology DS214play and I need some suggestions.
The NAS will be used as a file storage and as a emby server for max 2 or 3 users at a time, so what CPU I should choose. I am considering Pentium G5420 3,8GHz or Pentium G5420 3,8GHz

What motherboard should I choose?

I thought about ASRock B365M-HDV or for AMD Asus PRIME B450M-A

for storage at this time I have WD Red 4 TB and seagate exos 7e8 4 tb I will also mount 240 GB SSD for FreeNAS, In the future I want to buy additional 4 TB drive

RAM: 8 GB stick 2666 MHZ

Case: Cooler Master ELITE 342

PSU: Cooler master Elite V3 500W

 

[NAS___]

Hi,
You should check if the motherboard has an Intel network card. Freenas may have some problem with Realtek ones.
Have you checked AMD also? For example the AMD 3000G, it is more powerful and consumes less power. I'm rebuilding my NAS based on this one and the Asrock B450 Gaming ITX board (with Intel NIC) and 2x16Gb ram.
If possible, you may also go for a 16gb stick as price difference with 8gb stick is very low now.

For the box, it's best for disks to have a fan blowing on them to keep them cool and extend their lifetime.

For disks, take care that adding drives to Freenas is different than on other consumer NAS due to the use of ZFS filesystem.
You can't start with a mirror and convert it to RAIDz. Please also note that building RAIDz1 with disks bigger than 2TB may be risky when you have to resilver. Of course, you can start with 2x4Tb mirror and then another 2x4Tb mirror. RAIDz2 will require more disks.
For cheaper disks, check this thread: https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/the-wd-elements-8tb-still-have-hgst-he8-in-them.86200/

For boot drive, you don't need such a big SSD, go for cheaper and smaller one.

 

[marson]

Hello

Thank you for the suggestions, I will check that AMD, however as I can see in the test that it is slower than that pentium, however I am also consider AMD Ryzen 3 3200G will it be good choice?

As for boot drive, this is my spare drive from other PC, so I will not pay anything for it. Other than network card, should I consider something else for motherboard? I mean, chipset or brand?

 

[NAS___]

Please check https://www.cpubenchmark.net for performance.
- Intel G5420 is only 3547 points for 54W
- AMD 3000G is 4481 points for 35W
- AMD 3200G is 7372 points for 65W
What do you plan to use it for? To serve file with disk encryption and compression, even a 1000 points CPU will saturate your gigabit link and will run Plex without encoding, GIT, Nextcloud, ... I would go for the cheapest one (and less power hungry one) and use the remaining money to buy more RAM.
Not much to consider other than that. The more RAM the better. No need to use high frequency RAM, it's better to use it at rated speed or even below if it's not ECC to ensure there is no errors. You should check your RAM a few times with memtest86.
Same for disks, check them with badblocks and then a long smart test, even if it requires a week to test them.

 

[marson]

Hello

Thanks again for the reply, I will use my NAS for file storage accessed via SAMBA on Windows PC, and also for emby server, can anyone confirm that emby is available on FreeNAS?

 

[NAS___]

I'm not an Emby user, but there is an official Emby plugin. You may also manually install it in a jail if you prefer to master updates.

For AMD, you can also check for 200GE, 220GE or 240GE, they offer similar performance to 3000G and may be cheaper depending on your supplier (or not...).

 

[marson]

I am looking for AMD 3200G however I have one more question, you told me that the better is to use intel ethernet cards because the realtek didn't work in freenas, can you recommend any motherboard with the intel card for AM4 CPU? Everything I check uses realtek ethernet, so what should I do?

 

[NAS___]

In my opinion, 3200G is overkill while 8Gb RAM is the strict MINIMUM to get Freenas working. You should reconsider this to get a more balanced system.

It will depend on your board dimensions. I'm using ITX size so have this one: https://www.amazon.fr/ASRock-90-MXB870-A0UAYZ-Carte-B450-Socket/dp/B07FVVNDFX
Still in test, but works fine so far You just have to disable onboard audio and WLAN.
ATX boards are much cheaper.

For the box, I use this one since a few years (ITX size motherboard). It's really great, disks are really well cooled and it's very silent: https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B009PIEMUC

 

[marson]

To be fair I am a bit confused at this time you told that Realtek network cards are not an option but that motherboard uses realtek card, so what? Should I buy PCI-E network? If yes, what? As of CPU, well, this is for my entertainment, so I will expand gradually my config, I have 4 slots of memory so over time I will upgrade it to 16 GB RAM or more if I need but when I decide to change CPU it will be harder than add a RAM, so I prefer to choose a better CPU first then add more RAM in the future.

 

[NAS___]

The motherboard I gave you the link (Asrock B450 Gaming ITX) uses an Intel Gigabit NIC. No need to buy PCIE network.
To choose your motherboard, you'll have to check the specs to confirm it uses an Intel NIC. I've seen posts from people have Realtek NIC who have random reboot, low bandwidth... but sometimes it works fine. Hard to predict...
I understand you choice for CPU and global reasoning. You'll be ready to run multiple Vitual machines and transcode multiple HD/4K video in realtime will all this power
To give you some numbers on my current setup with an Intel N3150 (6W CPU, 1191 points on cpubenchmark), transferring file over Gigabit LAN from an encrypted disk uses about 30-40% CPU. Streaming a bluray from Plex uses on average 2 to 4% CPU.