First Home NAS

[gandalfxviv]

I am planning a build for my first NAS system for home use. As I read info on this site and others I waver between high quality and trying to stay in a budget. This is the current list of specs I'm considering. Would appreciate any feedback. I plan to use it mostly for backing up up my computers (PC and Mac) and a media streaming server.

Supermicro MBD-X11SCH-LNF-O
Intel Xeon E-2124 Coffee Lake 3.3 GHz Quad-Core
Supermicro HMA81GR7AFR8N-VK 8GB SDRAM ECC Registered DDR4 2666 (PC4 21300) (x2, or maybe 4GB x4?)
Baseky 2.5" SATA III 64 GB SSD (for boot drive)
WD Red 6TB NAS HDD 5400 RPM (x7 for data)
EVGA SuperNOVA 650 GA 80 Plus Gold
APC BX1500M Back-UPS Pro 1500 VA 900 Watts

One reason I was looking at that motherboard is the M.2 slots. I might get NVMe drive(s) for SLOG/L2ARC, possibly in the future.

 

[Bozon]

I am planning a build for my first NAS system for home use. As I read info on this site and others I waver between high quality and trying to stay in a budget. This is the current list of specs I'm considering. Would appreciate any feedback. I plan to use it mostly for backing up up my computers (PC and Mac) and a media streaming server.

Supermicro MBD-X11SCH-LNF-O
Intel Xeon E-2124 Coffee Lake 3.3 GHz Quad-Core
Supermicro HMA81GR7AFR8N-VK 8GB SDRAM ECC Registered DDR4 2666 (PC4 21300) (x2, or maybe 4GB x4?)
Baseky 2.5" SATA III 64 GB SSD (for boot drive)
WD Red 6TB NAS HDD 5400 RPM (x7 for data)
EVGA SuperNOVA 650 GA 80 Plus Gold
APC BX1500M Back-UPS Pro 1500 VA 900 Watts

One reason I was looking at that motherboard is the M.2 slots. I might get NVMe drive(s) for SLOG/L2ARC, possibly in the future.

I didn’t see a case in your list. What case are you planning to use.

 

[gandalfxviv]

I didn’t see a case in your list. What case are you planning to use.

Antec P100 ATX Mid Tower

 

[JohnnyGrey]

I am planning a build for my first NAS system for home use. As I read info on this site and others I waver between high quality and trying to stay in a budget. This is the current list of specs I'm considering. Would appreciate any feedback. I plan to use it mostly for backing up up my computers (PC and Mac) and a media streaming server.

Supermicro MBD-X11SCH-LNF-O
Intel Xeon E-2124 Coffee Lake 3.3 GHz Quad-Core
Supermicro HMA81GR7AFR8N-VK 8GB SDRAM ECC Registered DDR4 2666 (PC4 21300) (x2, or maybe 4GB x4?)
Baseky 2.5" SATA III 64 GB SSD (for boot drive)
WD Red 6TB NAS HDD 5400 RPM (x7 for data)
EVGA SuperNOVA 650 GA 80 Plus Gold
APC BX1500M Back-UPS Pro 1500 VA 900 Watts

One reason I was looking at that motherboard is the M.2 slots. I might get NVMe drive(s) for SLOG/L2ARC, possibly in the future.

You will likely never see any real-world benefit from having RAM in dual-channel mode. I always suggest to purchase the densest stick you can afford right away, to leave room for growth. If you're set on 16gb, I'd get a single stick. If you get 2x8, you only have two slots available, if you go 4x4, you'll have to remove RAM if you want more.

Looks good! I'm kind of jealous! I have an older X11 SuperMicro board with the C236 chipset, so I can't even use the newest 1151 CPUs, but mine has been chugging almost 24/7/365 for 2.5 years now!

If you live near a MicroCenter, they have their Inland brand SSDs dirt cheap. May be something to consider for a boot drive. Slightly more reputable brand.

 

[gandalfxviv]

You will likely never see any real-world benefit from having RAM in dual-channel mode. I always suggest to purchase the densest stick you can afford right away, to leave room for growth. If you're set on 16gb, I'd get a single stick. If you get 2x8, you only have two slots available, if you go 4x4, you'll have to remove RAM if you want more.

Looks good! I'm kind of jealous! I have an older X11 SuperMicro board with the C236 chipset, so I can't even use the newest 1151 CPUs, but mine has been chugging almost 24/7/365 for 2.5 years now!

If you live near a MicroCenter, they have their Inland brand SSDs dirt cheap. May be something to consider for a boot drive. Slightly more reputable brand.

Thanks for the tips. Sadly there’s no micro center nearby. Do you think I’ll need more than 16 GB of RAM?
I’m not really set on any particular brand of SSD. Are there better brands on Newegg or Amazon?

 

[JohnnyGrey]

Thanks for the tips. Sadly there’s no micro center nearby. Do you think I’ll need more than 16 GB of RAM?
I’m not really set on any particular brand of SSD. Are there better brands on Newegg or Amazon?

I don't know. You have much more storage than I do. I'm using eight 2tb drives in a raidz3 config, so 10tb usable, and I've never felt the need for more. But that's the nice thing of going with a single stick of 16gb. If the need for more arises, I still have three slots open. Depending on your usage, you might need a little more than I do, but you won't be able to tell until it's in service.

I also just realized the SSDs I use are available on Amazon, and they are indeed "sold by Microcenter and shipped by Amazon." 120gb is insanely overkill for a boot pool, but they are a lot faster, have a three year warranty, and I trust their warranty. They also have better endurance than the similarly priced Kingston A400. They are $28 a piece.

 

[gandalfxviv]

Thanks. I appreciate the help. As far as storage goes, I figured I'd want to go as big as I can afford for future proofing. It's easy to add another stick of RAM (or replace sticks) but from what I've read it's not very simple to increase the storage space on a raidz array. So I wouldn't want to get 1 or 2TB now and then have to replace the whole array in 2 years when they're getting full. Games and save files can take up lots of space.

 

[JohnnyGrey]

Thanks. I appreciate the help. As far as storage goes, I figured I'd want to go as big as I can afford for future proofing. It's easy to add another stick of RAM (or replace sticks) but from what I've read it's not very simple to increase the storage space on a raidz array. So I wouldn't want to get 1 or 2TB now and then have to replace the whole array in 2 years when they're getting full. Games and save files can take up lots of space.

Yeah I agree. With the knowledge that I now have, I kind of regret using a bunch of smaller drives. Half of my overall cost still went towards hard drives (2017), but I could have gone larger, fewer drives. I think I let my paranoia drive my desire for raidz3, too. I did add an LSI card as a recent upgrade, so I did free up SATA ports on my motherboard, which allowed me to swap from USB flash drives as boot devices to the 120gb SSDs.

If I wanted to increase the size of my main pool, I need to replace one drive at a time, then resilver in between, which takes anywhere from 5-12 hours. And I can't use the extra space until the final drive is replaced, so if I spread that out among many paychecks, it could be a couple months before I can even use the larger drives' space.

 

[Inxsible]

Supermicro MBD-X11SCH-LNF-O

Any particular feature of that board that you want?

If not, think about going with an older generation board. X9 or X10 based board. That will save you a ton of money

Supermicro HMA81GR7AFR8N-VK 8GB SDRAM ECC Registered DDR4 2666 (PC4 21300) (x2, or maybe 4GB x4?)

Your RAM is not compatible with your chosen board. X11SCH-LNF-O requires UDIMM -- that is unbuffered. The RAM you have chosen is Registered or RDIMM.


Back to the drawing board.

 

[gandalfxviv]

Any particular feature of that board that you want?

If not, think about going with an older generation board. X9 or X10 based board. That will save you a ton of money
Your RAM is not compatible with your chosen board. X11SCH-LNF-O requires UDIMM -- that is unbuffered. The RAM you have chosen is Registered or RDIMM.


Back to the drawing board.

Thanks for catching that. I don't really know much about server RAM since I mostly look at gaming parts. I'll pick new RAM. Is UDIMM or RDIMM better for NAS systems?

As far as the board goes, the main reason I picked it is because it has two M.2 slots. I'm thinking about getting some nvme drives to use for read/write cache. Not a deal breaker, so I could go with a cheaper board. Just something that would be nice to have.

 

[Inxsible]

Is UDIMM or RDIMM better for NAS systems?

One isn't better than the other. However, usually a motherboard will support one or the other. Some boards are out there which will support either UDIMM or RDIMM, but will still not allow you to mix them together. You have to choose one or the other in every case.

RDIMM supported boards usually allow a massive amount of RAM -- 512GB - 1TB of RAM. I personally don't remember any UDIMM based board supporting more than 256GB RAM and even those are rare. The most you'd find is 64GB and a few with max 128GB UDIMM support

the main reason I picked it is because it has two M.2 slots. I'm thinking about getting some nvme drives to use for read/write cache.

Adding a SLOG or L2ARC when you don't need it can actually degrade performance. I would advise you to figure out what the application of your build is. Then if a SLOG and/or L2ARC is needed/required, then go ahead and add it. If not, leave that alone. You could use the M2 for a mirrored boot drive -- but then again with SSDs being so cheap, I wouldn't pay a premium to get onboard M2.

I would look at X9SCL-F, X9SCM-F or X10SSM-F boards on ebay. You will find that you can build your entire system (including drives) for 75% the cost just getting brand new components (without drives)

 

[sretalla]

WD Red 6TB NAS HDD 5400 RPM (x7 for data)

Those are the EFAX drives, so you will run into the problem with SMR (https://www.ixsystems.com/community...egarding-drive-replacement.83314/#post-576159).

 

[Inxsible]

Those are the EFAX drives, so you will run into the problem with SMR (https://www.ixsystems.com/community...egarding-drive-replacement.83314/#post-576159).

@sretalla would you happen to know if FreeNAS/ZFS ever intends to support SMR drives. Because I see a lot of new people just buying WD Red because it's kinda synonymous with NAS drive. Hell, they are marketed as such anyway. This would cause a lot of confusion among newbies leading to unnecessary bad press for FreeNAS.