BUILD First NAS Build - Please verify I have this right

[Danny TW]

Thanks for the guidance (I asked in this post).
I've decided to spend a little bit more on the outset and not have to upgrade for a while.
Booting off of some of the recommended SanDisk USB thumb drives.
I'd like a sanity check before I pull the trigger on purchasing all of this.

CPU: Xeon E3-1230 v5
Mobo: SuperMicro X11-SSM-F
RAM: Samsung 16GB (PN: M391A2K43BB1-CPB)
Case: Fractal Node 804
PSU: SeaSonic X Series 560W 80+ Gold ATX (PN: SS-560KM Active PFC F3)
HDD: I already have some WD Red drives for storage

Thanks for all of the help.

 

[tvsjr]

I'd swap the USB sticks to small SSDs for your boot pool - faster and far more reliable. Since you're planning to run a few fairly demanding jails, I'd also suggest bumping the RAM to 32GB minimum so you'll have room for FreeNAS, the jails, and some amount of ARC. Personally, I'd max it out... RAM's pretty cheap.

 

[Dice]

check: ok

I'd do a search on the forum regarding the NODE 804, there are some tweaks people have reported about that vastly improve performance.
my personal opinion about the case - I love the looks and the idea of a box-NAS. However I'm indeed skeptical to its performance compared to other well functioning Fractal Design cases. For example the R5. I'd pick that 11/10 times over the Node.

 

[Danny TW]

Awesome! This is exactly the feedback I was looking for. Maxing out the RAM and moving to the R5. I was trying to stay svelt with the 804, but I'd rather have something that just does it's job out of the box.

Thanks everyone. Time to spend some $

 

[DrKK]

Well if you want my two cents, based on your original post, I think you're buying way way too much CPU, and I disagree with the advice to buy more RAM. 16GB should be plenty for the pool sizes you're talking about, *AND* jails. And if it's not, you can always buy more. I think the advice on the case is sound.

But personally, I think you're committing what I think is by far the most ubiquitous mistake: buying too much CPU.

Everyone talks about "future proofing" their NAS, but that's really crap. My NAS (similar configuration/use case to yours) has run on a G3220 and X10SLM with 16GB of RAM without even remotely breaking a sweat.