First FreeNAS build

[Bhoot]

Just finished my first Freenas build three days back. Quite happy with the performance (esp on data streaming).
Read more for components used and a general overview. Italics list my personal setup issues/findings.

CASE: Antec X1
I know not the best case because it doesn't have ext bays but I am planning to get a server rack with coolers in the near future that's why did not bother to get anything too fancy. ATX board with 8HDD does get a bit cramped but honestly did not have space to go for a bigger tower in my entertainment unit. Just 2 fans being used (preinstalled) and the temperatures are well under control. I might later on add a icybox cage with 5xhdd for 3x5.25" slots. Lets see on how i decide to go about it . :)

MOTHERBOARD: ASUS Z10PA-U8
This was quite tough to obtain in my country. The setup wasn't the easiest. The manual says populate dimm on A1 (single) A1 C1 (double) but then it was getting stuck at system initialization when we booted up. Finally RAM worked on ports B1 B2 (which is strange coz they needed to be populated with 8 DIMMs) but the system detects all (32gb) of it. Rest of the setup wasn't much to talk about

PROCESSOR: iNTEL Xeon E52609v3 + Intel Fan
Probably an overkill for the system but I couldn't find the 1603 at the time of construction. "My guy" said it would take him maybe 15 days to procure it and I wasn't patient.

RAM: CRUCIAL 16GB ECC DDR4-2133 1.2v RDIMM 288p (CT16G4RFD4213)
I know its not listed on ASUS or CRUCIAL website as being compatible with each other, but "my guy" assured me it would work because he had installed them on a few systems and they worked fine. Moreover the other option that I was getting was a Kingston 8GB ECCdimm(x4) for more the cost. Reading and researching from the FREENAS people I didn't want to buy Kingston K (listed compatible) for my build. Funny part about this ram is that its showing 1600 MHz or 1900 Mhz at the boot screen. The reason maybe compatibility but I don't see my system taking a hit on performance as such. I would be happy if someone could throw some light on this.

HDD: WD RED 4tbx8
Set at Raid Z2. I am getting a peak of 100+ MBPS from computer to NAS write speed through gigabit switch and 60 odd MBPS when writing from my WDMBLD (6tb) to NAS. Not sure how that's governed but since this is once in a lifetime thing I am not cribbing. I am not using any aggregation or the monitoring port. Could someone guide me on how to best set those up? I am quite satisfied with my system performance but I also want to use the equipment at hand to its maximum potential

OS USB: HP 16gb
Nothing much to say about.

PSU: Coolermaster 750 gold
I didn't want to save a few dollars on this. I might be expanding the cooling capabilities of the box and also attaching a few ext HDD from time to time. Though 500 would be good enough I still needed the option of expanding further on the box.

In my country India we have very limited choices of hardware so at most of the components there was a totally different set of things I wanted and completely different parts I found so a few parts might be beasty to what was needed but I was ready to spend extra for performance listed than save money now and have a headache forever.

I'll keep sharing my issues and comments here. I am sorry I couldn't find a dedicated section (noob alert) to talk about builds by others.

1) The motherboard has 6 SATA and 4 SSATA ports. What's the difference between them? I have mounted 8 HDDs on 6SATA and 2SSATA. Would you suggest any other way?
2) How do I check the order of the HDD installation through the GUI? How can I check the health of disks? Though all 8 disks are new I have heard of people getting DOA. I was reading of another thread where cyberjock skyped with a member having a cifs share issue. I had the same thing with my first reboot after FreeNAS installed.
3) How do I enable IPMI? I tried plugging in the RJ45 directly to the IPMI. Didn't work. Do I enable IPMI in the bios? the GUI doesn't show any option.
4) I am fairly OK at coding. Haven't done a lot of DOS but have done gwbasic and C++. So while the black screen with white text doesn't scare me I am not sure what to type to get what :D. Could I get a few codes/lines to keep me happy and busy? I might not be very good with the terms as well :P

Thanks a lot to all those who helped and motivated me to achieve my dream solving doubts on Facebook. All comments are welcome. I am not here to start any war. I just seek knowledge.

Peace..

 

[Bhoot]

Got PlexMediaServer up and running. Saves a lot of effort of having my laptop/PS3 constantly on to watch TV. My wife is impressed and happy having to switch on only one equipment to gain access of the whole library and Plex has better decoding than WD Media Server so a lot of content which wasnt supported has now popped up.
Got Transmissions up and running as well.. One problem I had was one of the torrent data shifted to the folder I had used initially for setup. The rest of the files are still in the folder I wanted them in. Question here is does the Transmission software run despite me closing the UI on the browser or shutting down my laptop with no machine having the FreeNAS GUI or Transmission UI running?

Next I have ES file explorer on my Android phone. I could access WDMBLD in the network section of the explorer. The FreeNAS appears there and then says
Login fails
-WLAN is off (definitely not)
-SMB server is out of network scope (dont know what that means)
-The IP is invalid (I am able to run FreeNAS GUI on the browser)
-Blocked by firewall (Don't think FreeNAS has a FW. My phone has no antivirus
-SMB is off(dont know what it means)
I am planning to install DAAP for music but could someone just have a look or share your experiences using such file explorers in Android?

Thanks a lot

 

[danb35]

2) How do I check the order of the HDD installation through the GUI? How can I check the health of disks? Though all 8 disks are new I have heard of people getting DOA. I was reading of another thread where cyberjock skyped with a member having a cifs share issue. I had the same thing with my first reboot after FreeNAS installed.

It's recommended to burn in/stress test your hardware before putting any data on it or, in the case of your drives, creating your pool. This thread offers some suggestions, as does this one. Once you've done that, you'll need to make sure your system is set up to email you. You'll want to schedule regular SMART tests of the disks--the manual describes how, and here are some suggestions on schedules.

3) How do I enable IPMI? I tried plugging in the RJ45 directly to the IPMI. Didn't work. Do I enable IPMI in the bios? the GUI doesn't show any option.

That's likely controlled through your BIOS. What I can find quickly suggests that it's an option for your motherboard, so it might not be installed.

Good luck with your system--you're using a board that, while it seems to meet the specs, doesn't get used much in favor of SuperMicro server boards.

 

[Bhoot]

Well I tried looking for supermicro.. here (in india) I could only find boards for proprietary 1u case. As I pointed out I couldn't really plan on buying a rack in my condo I was deterred and had to make alternate choices and live with them. Hope the board isn't too bad to mess up my system and data.. :/

 

[DrKK]

Well you could have called customer service for any company on the planet, and then you could have asked someone local to you where to buy SuperMicro.

*ZING*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, I apologize.

 

[Bhoot]

I called the company importing/distributing the boards throughout the country.. the only board with more than 6 sata he had was the 16 sata SOC. When I say I "tried" I spent nearly 2 months finding standard components used by many people. I really chewed brains Sadly couldn't find anything.

New update for today. The CIFs arent displayed on my computer in the network>Computers.
I can login to the UI with the ip, can access plex server, view all media play all files. Can run transmissions. This started (rather stopped) when I rebooted the system. Anyone with any kind of knowledge on the tpoic?