FreeNAS questions for new build

[MadMan3353]

Hello all i have a couple questions in regards to building my first FreeNAS system.
System setup
Intel Core i5-8400 Coffee Lake 6-Core 2.8 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo) LGA 1151 (300 Series)
ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel Z370
Crucial MX500 2.5" 500GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR4 2133 MT/s (PC4-17000) DR x8 Unbuffered DIMM 288-Pin Memory(might get non-eCC)
Seasonic FOCUS series SSR-450FM 450W 80 + Gold Power Supply,
Fractal Design Core 500 Black Mini-ITX Small Form Factor Computer Case

1st question is will this be enough if not overkill?
2nd question i will be using this for a media center/cloud/ local back up of data. i currently have three HDD in my computer 2x300GB and 1x500GB both have various music,videos,pictures and data files. eventually i will be buying bigger HDD to consolidate the data. I will be purchasing a 4TB drive now and from this point on all new drives will be 4TB.when i get to three 4TB i will transition to a raidz, time frame is dependent on HDD sales. With freeNAS can i set up my current drive to be individuals so that i do not have to pool them and the data being reduced to the smallest drive?
3rd Can i set up a torrent client for downloads and seeding since the NAS will be on 24/7?
4th What plays nice with freeNAS so i can do on the fly trans-coding to devices both on the network and remote access.
5th with the initial 4TB HDD will i be able to set up snapshot for all three drives for periodic back up?

Thank you for the help

 

[m0nkey_]

ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac LGA 1151

The motherboard will accept ECC however it will operate in non-ECC mode.

Intel Core i5-8400 Coffee Lake 6-Core 2.8 GHz

That CPU does not support ECC.

Suggest you check out the hardware recommendations guide: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

 

[MadMan3353]

The motherboard will accept ECC however it will operate in non-ECC mode.

That CPU does not support ECC.

Suggest you check out the hardware recommendations guide: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

i have read that FreeNAS does not require ECC ram as this NAS wont be holding critical data i don't think i would be needing that level of security

 

[Inxsible]

i have read that FreeNAS does not require ECC ram as this NAS won't be holding critical data i don't think i would be needing that level of security

FreeNAS will work with non-ECC RAM. I quote

I say this becasue there has been some clarification on how ZFS work and ECC RAM is not required and the added risk is minimal, or so we are told. However you will find that most of the users here will still highly recommend ECC RAM, for peace of mind mostly.

However, if & when you do have problems with your install or pool, and you request help on the forums, be sure to indicate that you are using a non-recommended configuration.

 

[Inxsible]

Having said what I wanted to about ECC, lets handle some of your other questions.

Crucial MX500 2.5" 500GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

What is this for? boot? If so, then its way way way too big. Consider a 32GB or 64GB SSD

Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR4 2133 MT/s (PC4-17000) DR x8 Unbuffered DIMM 288-Pin Memory

(might get non-eCC)

If you are getting a board and CPU that do NOT support ECC, then you should get non-ECC RAM too. No point wasting money on ECC RAM when your board and CPU don't support it.

Seasonic FOCUS series SSR-450FM 450W 80 + Gold Power Supply,

You might want to reconsider this based on how many drives you will be putting in now and in the future. You don't want to be under-powered. Check online PSU calculators.

Fractal Design Core 500 Black Mini-ITX Small Form Factor Computer Case

Any reason it has to be mini-ITX? Server grade boards usually have more options in m-ATX & ATX form factor. I know you are not choosing a server grade board BUT ITX also has less expandability. In the future you might want to add more drives, you might need more than 1 PCIE slot for the HBAs etc etc. Think about all you current use cases and some of the future ones too.

1st question is will this be enough if not overkill?

Depends. What are you planning on doing with it other than a backup?

2nd question i will be using this for a media center/cloud/ local back up of data. i currently have three HDD in my computer 2x300GB and 1x500GB both have various music,videos,pictures and data files. eventually i will be buying bigger HDD to consolidate the data. I will be purchasing a 4TB drive now and from this point on all new drives will be 4TB.when i get to three 4TB i will transition to a raidz, time frame is dependent on HDD sales. With freeNAS can i set up my current drive to be individuals so that i do not have to pool them and the data being reduced to the smallest drive?

You cannot change existing vdevs. You might have to blow everything away and start from scratch if you intend to change from a mirror to RAIDZ or even RAIDZ1 to RAIDZ2. What do you mean "current drive to be individuals"?

3rd Can i set up a torrent client for downloads and seeding since the NAS will be on 24/7?

Yes.

4th What plays nice with freeNAS so i can do on the fly trans-coding to devices both on the network and remote access.

Plex & Emby. I am sure you could do more within jails. But Plex and Emby are easy since plugins are available. You will need the paid account with whichever one you choose if you want remote access.

5th with the initial 4TB HDD will i be able to set up snapshot for all three drives for periodic back up?

You cannot just have 1 4TB drive. Where is the redundancy? You need to read up on ZFS and FreeNAS in general a bit to understand how the storage is set up either by using mirrors or RAIDZx configuration.

Thank you for the help

You are welcome. Let us know if you have more questions.

 

[MadMan3353]

Thank you for the information. I was looking at the micro itx because I wanted to stay with a small case. I don’t foresee my self needing more than 4 drives. The nas will be used as a media server and a centralized location for the house hold information also cloud services so I can access my information anywhere. The 500GB SSD is for cache pool. I will boot the OS of a USB.

 

[Inxsible]

The 500GB SSD is for cache pool.

From your use case, you don't need one. Do not complicate things when they don't need to be.

 

[MadMan3353]

Any decent ECC supported cpu compatible/MOBO recommendations decent price?

 

[Inxsible]

Any decent ECC supported cpu compatible/MOBO recommendations decent price?

Define "decent price" !

 

[MadMan3353]

I’m 500 for both around that range. I’m trying to keep my NAS build under 900

 

[danb35]

You cannot just have 1 4TB drive.

Of course you can; ZFS will operate just fine without redundancy. A disk failure will result in loss of data, of course, but it's still a perfectly valid configuration.

Any decent ECC supported cpu compatible/MOBO recommendations decent price?

Supermicro X11SSL-F
i3-6100

If you must have mini-ITX, the options get much narrower. The best I can find is the ASRock E3C236D2I, using the same CPU.

 

[MadMan3353]

Of course you can; ZFS will operate just fine without redundancy. A disk failure will result in loss of data, of course, but it's still a perfectly valid configuration.

Supermicro X11SSL-F
i3-6100

If you must have mini-ITX, the options get much narrower. The best I can find is the ASRock E3C236D2I, using the same CPU.

Is there a higher core count processor without going into the 300 dollar range. I’m assuming not?

Eventually there will be more HDD just starting to start out with media and centralized storage before expanding to cloud/streaming service and backup services

 

[danb35]

Is there a higher core count processor without going into the 300 dollar range

Why do you think you need more cores? The E3-1220v6 is $199 right now and has four cores, but for $70 more, the E3-1230v6 adds 500 MHz in clock speed and hyperthreading.

 

[MadMan3353]

Why do you think you need more cores? The E3-1220v6 is $199 right now and has four cores, but for $70 more, the E3-1230v6 adds 500 MHz in clock speed and hyperthreading.

As of right now since it will be a centralized storage more cores wouldn’t matter. However when I start streaming videos transcoding, running a torrent client, doing backups from multiple users on the network or remotely I would assume the higher core count would?
benefit me

 

[danb35]

Well, the issue really isn't how many different things you'll be doing, but how much of them you'll be doing at the same time. Storage/SMB has pretty low overhead, whether it's for backups or anything. How much torrent bandwidth do you expect to use? How many videos at the same time? What kind/resolution? Transcoding, or direct streaming? But in any event, I wouldn't be focusing on core count as such, but on overall performance. A 4-core, 2-GHz part isn't going a significant improvement, in most cases, over a 2-core, 4-GHz chip, but there are always lots of variables.

 

[Inxsible]

I’m 500 for both around that range. I’m trying to keep my NAS build under 900

Going with an X9 based board like Supermicro X9SCM-F will be much cheaper. Plus DDR3 ram will be cheaper than getting DDR4 RAM currently because DDR4 is very expensive. The processor -- whichever one you choose, for eg. Xeon E3-1240 v2 -- will be cheaper too compared to v6 versions

 

[Inxsible]

Of course you can; ZFS will operate just fine without redundancy. A disk failure will result in loss of data, of course, but it's still a perfectly valid configuration.

Agreed, but given the OP was using non-recommended hardware initially --- and having no redundancy just compounds the problem.

 

[danb35]

Going with an X9 based board like Supermicro X9SCM-F will be much cheaper.

That's a good point. I tend to favor buying current-generation hardware if I'm buying new anyway, but in this case there's a significant cost delta for DDR4 RAM.

 

[Inxsible]

That's a good point. I tend to favor buying current-generation hardware if I'm buying new anyway, but in this case there's a significant cost delta for DDR4 RAM.

My current FreeNAS on Node304 (in sig) was all new components at that time. But now I feel you get more value when you buy 1 or 2 generation older hardware. So much so, that I am currently building a second FreeNAS box where I went with all used components except HDDs.

Going older than 2 generation doesn't bring that much because it will become obsolete soon if it isn't obsolete already. But a generation or 2 older will last you for a long time especially for home users.

 

[MadMan3353]

My current FreeNAS on Node304 (in sig) was all new components at that time. But now I feel you get more value when you buy 1 or 2 generation older hardware. So much so, that I am currently building a second FreeNAS box where I went with all used components except HDDs.

Going older than 2 generation doesn't bring that much because it will become obsolete soon if it isn't obsolete already. But a generation or 2 older will last you for a long time especially for home users.

Thanks will look into it. I’m not too familiar with the Xeon family what is the 2 year old generation?