First Intel build - Will it FreeNAS?

[rcnut]

A while back I decided I wanted to build a FreeNAS box for my small personal network. I have various files on multiple drives that I hotswap. That's really getting old.
I've never built an Intel system before, always built AMD. But I want to do this right with ECC memory. Also will set up with two parity drives.
I might want to add ownCloud later.
I've been buying 4TB drives as I can over the past several months (I'm now up to six drives) and need to start buying other system components.

Here's what 'm looking at
motherboard: Supermicro-X10SL7-F-O
cpu: Xeon 1220 V3 3.1
hard drives: WD 4TB (4 red, 2 blue so far, probably shouldn't use the blue)
boot drive: Crucial SSD 64GB (already have)
memory: Crucial 16GB (2x8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600 (later I can add another 16GB)
power supply: Seasonic FOCUS Plus Series SSR-650FX 650W
case: unknown (I want to have silent 120mm fans blowing across the drives)

opinions?

edit: added PSU

 

[Inxsible]

Should work !

For PSU -- Look at Seasonic or Corsair RMx series.
Case would depend on how many drives you eventually plan to have.

 

[Chris Moore]

2 blue so far, probably shouldn't use the blue

There is a utility to turn off the auto head parking. Search the forum for wdidle3 and I am sure you will find a link to download it and instructions to use it..

 

[Chris Moore]

case: unknown (I want to have silent 120mm fans blowing across the drives)

opinions?

Do you want hot-swap drive bays? Do you want rack mount? What is the target budget? I really like the 48bay 4U rack mount case I am using. Not too loud either.

 

[rcnut]

There is a utility to turn off the auto head parking. Search the forum for wdidle3 and I am sure you will find a link to download it and instructions to use it..

I didn't know what might be a problem using the blue drives. I just suspected that since they weren't rated NAS or even Surveillance, they might be a bad choice. I remember reading somewhere to avoid using green.
Thanks for the info. I'll definitely look into it.

 

[Chris Moore]

I didn't know what might be a problem using the blue drives. I just suspected that since they weren't rated NAS or even Surveillance, they might be a bad choice. I remember reading somewhere to avoid using green.

Western Digital kind of did a sneaky thing and re-badged the "Green" drives as Blue drives and what used to be Blue drives are not being made any more. So, all the things that used to apply to Greens are now applicable to the Blues. The Blue/Green drives don't have TLER which means they will continue to try to read an unreadable spot on the drive which will slow the NAS down where a Red drive would timeout and continue. That is inconvenient but probably livable. The other issue is that they will (by default) park the head any time there is no activity for a short time. This will cause the head load / unload count to go up very quickly and the drive is only rated for a certain number of those in the entire life of the drive. @DrKK made a post about that recently because he used a couple of the Blue drives in his backup NAS.
I use desktop drives in my NAS to save money but I do suggest the NAS drives as being a better option, especially in the long term.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...unt-nightmare-and-solution.62691/#post-447984

 

[rcnut]

Do you want hot-swap drive bays? Do you want rack mount? What is the target budget? I really like the 48bay 4U rack mount case I am using. Not too loud either.

Wow, 48bay would be so far out of my budget, I would need a telescope to see it!
I don't use rack mount. It's just a home environment and the target budget is low as possible.
I don't need hot-swap bays since I'm retired and have time to change a drive. I hope that's not very often. No one but me would be waiting for the server to be back up.
I plan to just find a large enough cheap box that can mount several drives with fans. I may even screw the drives to some external metal plate and run the cables out of the case.
Real computers don't have covers :)

 

[Chris Moore]

Real computers don't have covers :)

Like this?



Seriously, sometimes covers are needed to get proper airflow over the drives and other components.
The drive temperatures go up quickly if I run my 48bay server with the cover off the drive bay.
What ever case you choose, it needs to have great airflow over the drives to keep them in the vicinity of 35 °C.
This Fractal design case is a popular option :
https://www.neweggbusiness.com/product/product.aspx?item=9b-11-352-051

 

[Chris Moore]

PS. I bought a couple of these to use for bulk erasing hard drives and they work well to keep the drives cool, but it isn't really cheaper than buying a computer case once you buy a couple of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Sans-Digital-HDDRACK5-5-Bay-Organizing/dp/B001LF40KE

 

[rcnut]

Like this?

View attachment 23784

Seriously, sometimes covers are needed to get proper airflow over the drives and other components.
The drive temperatures go up quickly if I run my 48bay server with the cover off the drive bay.
What ever case you choose, it needs to have great airflow over the drives to keep them in the vicinity of 35 °C.
This Fractal design case is a popular option :
https://www.neweggbusiness.com/product/product.aspx?item=9b-11-352-051

That was just a joke we used to say years ago.
The case referenced looks interesting. And almost affordable.

 

[Chris Moore]

That was just a joke we used to say years ago.

I get it. That is why I posted the photo. I think it is hilarious.

 

[rcnut]

PS. I bought a couple of these to use for bulk erasing hard drives and they work well to keep the drives cool, but it isn't really cheaper than buying a computer case once you buy a couple of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Sans-Digital-HDDRACK5-5-Bay-Organizing/dp/B001LF40KE

This is similar to what I was thinking I could hack together.
If you layed it on it's side with only one sheet of metal under the drives and have two 120mm fans side by side blowing across them, I could mount 8 drives with about 1/4 spacing.
I agree buying a case would be the better option to two of these.

 

[Chris Moore]

I agree buying a case would be the better option to two of these.

Unless you are really handy with the cutting and drilling and such. Take a look at this:
https://ibuildit.ca/projects/design-and-build-a-wooden-computer-case/

If I had the tools, and knew how to use them, I would love to build my own.
Because of my lack of craft skills, the effort wouldn't come out very nice looking.

 

[rcnut]

Unless you are really handy with the cutting and drilling and such. Take a look at this:
https://ibuildit.ca/projects/design-and-build-a-wooden-computer-case/

That is an interesting project. Using particle board makes it a bit heavy.
I could go that route but I don't think it would be worth the effort required. I think it would be easier to put everything except the storage drives in an old case and put the drives on top.
Hey, there's the piece of sheet metal to mount the drives on. Just drill holes in the top of the case!
Yeah, I know. Redneck computer engineering.

 

[Chris Moore]

Just drill holes in the top of the case!
Yeah, I know. Redneck computer engineering.

Then there is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fs4jQh2iCQ

If you decide to have the drives on top, just be sure to have some constant airflow, maybe a box fan?

 

[rcnut]

Then there is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fs4jQh2iCQ

If you decide to have the drives on top, just be sure to have some constant airflow, maybe a box fan?

I like the size of that project. As mentioned before, I was thinking of using two 120mm case fans blowing air across/between the drives. Like these.

 

[rcnut]

There is a utility to turn off the auto head parking. Search the forum for wdidle3 and I am sure you will find a link to download it and instructions to use it..

Okay, I found the link to the download and instructions.
Been reading as much as I could about the problem. The thread at Wdidle3 not working on new BLUE drives ;-( Any help?
is a bit discouraging. It sounds like it won't work on the more recent blue drives and the apparent solution is to run a script to keep the drives busy.

 

[Chris Moore]

is a bit discouraging. It sounds like it won't work on the more recent blue drives and the apparent solution is to run a script to keep the drives busy.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...unt-nightmare-and-solution.62691/#post-451349
I don't have any WD blue drives in my NAS. In fact, all my drives are Seagate drives, but even at work I have the WD Gold (data center) drives ore WD Red Pro drives or HGST, or even some Seagate Constellation drives but no Blue drives. You might get an answer from someone else but you would likely need a new thread with the Blue question in the title.

 

[rcnut]

I'm thinking I might just use the blue drives for something else.

 

[joeinaz]

A while back I decided I wanted to build a FreeNAS box for my small personal network. I have various files on multiple drives that I hotswap. That's really getting old.
I've never built an Intel system before, always built AMD. But I want to do this right with ECC memory. Also will set up with two parity drives.
I might want to add ownCloud later.
I've been buying 4TB drives as I can over the past several months (I'm now up to six drives) and need to start buying other system components.

Here's what 'm looking at
motherboard: Supermicro-X10SL7-F-O
cpu: Xeon 1220 V3 3.1
hard drives: WD 4TB (4 red, 2 blue so far, probably shouldn't use the blue)
boot drive: Crucial SSD 64GB (already have)
memory: Crucial 16GB (2x8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600 (later I can add another 16GB)
power supply: undetermined
case: unknown (I want to have silent 120mm fans blowing across the drives)

opinions?

For your case, what is the maximum number of disks you could expect to eventually have?