First NAS build, validating my plans

[Naamarauta]

Hi,

I am looking to build my first NAS in order to fight the ever growing problem of files in multiple places, backups being hard to maintain etc.

I have carefully read the forum suggestions about the HW and tried to accommodate them to my budget and availability of parts. I also read the Cyberjocks guide for ZFS (thanks for this doc).

I was wondering if people could give some comments & suggestions on my selections.

The main purpose of the NAS is to serve only the family members with media, private recordings, private photos, private documents.
-90% of time only 1 user
-Redundancy is important (backups are also planned)
-Media files would be served but not transcoded (transcoding in HTPC running Kodi)
-NAS storage would be accessed from Windows and Linux
-Extendability is needed (in future I want to be able to buy new HDDs with minimum hassle)
-House is wired with CAT5 siamese cable so there is 2 or more ethernet plugs in all rooms
-I foresee about 6-8 HDDs mounted in the system (various sizes)
-Encryption to be used
-Budget is an issue

The parts and their cost (at my part of the world) that I have selected are:

ASRock C2550D4I Mini ITX
-Has build in CPU Avoton C2550
-Plenty of SATA ports
-Dual Gigabit ethernet
-EEC memory support
-320€

Crucial 2*4GB 1600 MHz DDR3L ECC Reg CL9
-I was thinking to start with two slots of memory and extend if needed
-120€

Case: Coolermaster Elite 130
-Simple and cheap ITX case which has a 120mm fan at front panel
-HDDs can be mounted next to the fan with DIY rack
-60€

Power: Seasonic 360W G-360
-Has 80 PLUS Gold certificate
-4 sata power plugs but ofc more can be had with adapters (also has 3 molex)
-65€

So in total these parts would be about 560€ = 610$.

For HDDs I am planning to use what I have. I don't remember the brands but they should be ok.

2*1TB drives will form one VDEV in RAID1
2*2TB drives will form second VDEV in RAID1

Both of the VDEV are in mirror mode. These two mirrored VDEVs would then form the ZPOOL of 3TB.

I believe that this setup would give me good opportunities to expand in the future by e.g. adding two more 2TB drives as third VDEV (ZPOOL to 5TB).

I also have understood that if e.g. 1TB drive fails I can replace it with a new 2TB drive. Use it for a while and then replace the other 1TB drive with 2TB drive too and thus resulting to increased storage space


So what do you think, would this setup fly or do you see some serious problems or recommendations?

 

[anodos]

Half of your SATA ports are on a Marvell SE9220, which isn't entirely reliable on FreeNAS. I'm not sure if you'll see much power savings by using a C2550 instead of a LGA 1150 server platform. You might want to compare the price difference between the two.

As far as your zpool plans go, it sounds reasonable.

 

[SweetAndLow]

your motherboard doesn't support registered memory like you have listed. So you need different memory. You should also start with 8GB sticks and not 4GB. with 8GB you have the opportunity to expand better.

 

[Ericloewe]

Half of your SATA ports are on a Marvell SE9220, which isn't entirely reliable on FreeNAS. I'm not sure if you'll see much power savings by using a C2550 instead of a LGA 1150 server platform. You might want to compare the price difference between the two.

As far as your zpool plans go, it sounds reasonable.

Idle power is a bit lower on C2000 Atoms, but the ASRock boards' PCI-e switch eats up 10W, making it mostly a wash in the end.

Crucial 2*4GB 1600 MHz DDR3L ECC Reg CL9
-I was thinking to start with two slots of memory and extend if needed
-120€

Several issues:

• Registered RAM won't work (also, 4GB registered DIMMs? weird...)
• Going with 8GB DIMMs is strongly recommended, to keep your upgrade path easy and cheap
• 120 bucks sounds expensive. 180-200 for 16GB is normal, so 120 for 8GB sounds bad.

 

[Naamarauta]

Thanks a lot for the advice, I missed the fact that registered RAM would not work with this motherboard.

For some reason it seems that EEC + unbuffered memory is a hard combination to find. In fact after checking 3 big retailers I only can find one solution, and that's a double kit:

Kingston 16GB (8GB*2) 1333MHz, ECC but then again price is only 30e more.
http://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/KVR1333D3E9SK2_16G.pdf

anodus wrote:
"Half of your SATA ports are on a Marvell SE9220, which isn't entirely reliable on FreeNAS."

I have to read more about this. Are the problems on speeds or something more critical?

 

[cyberjock]

For some reason it seems that EEC + unbuffered memory is a hard combination to find. In fact after checking 3 big retailers I only can find one solution, and that's a double kit:

Kingston 16GB (8GB*2) 1333MHz, ECC but then again price is only 30e more.
http://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/KVR1333D3E9SK2_16G.pdf

http://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/KVR1333D3E9SK2_16G.pdf

Don't be confused. ECC memory is easy to find, as long as you don't go shopping at places that sell only desktop memory.

Likewise, don't be confused about unregistered/unbuffered being hard to find. There are way more systems out there using unbuffered RAM than buffered. But if you want unbuffered you are basically limited to 8GB sticks. So if you call 50 places looking for 16GB DIMMs that are ECC and unbuffered, you'd definitely think that ECC unbuffered is hard to find.

But it most certainly is not.

anodus wrote:
"Half of your SATA ports are on a Marvell SE9220, which isn't entirely reliable on FreeNAS."

I have to read more about this. Are the problems on speeds or something more critical?

The ports throw errors and are unreliable.