Hardware considerations - Budget build

[Vonor]

Hi all,

since this is my first Post, a short introduction first.
I'm Michael, 36yo from Germany.
Round about 20 years of Linux experience of which are about 8 in Professional environments.
With BSD I didn't have contact so far, other than trying it out very briefly in a VM here and there.

Anyway. I was reading up the last weeks about a NAS system. It shall mainly be for backing up my laptop (linux) and my wife's laptop (windows).
Additionally I could imagine it as storage for some smaller projects with SBCs (thinking docker/kubernetes currently).
Streaming a la Plex is not a topic. VMs I probably won't run on the NAS either, as I'd either set up a small SBC (arm based) system or run a VM on my laptop instead.

Currently I have a HP Microserver N54L with 4GB RAM and 4x 1TB WD RED and which I switched between openmediavault and freenas recently just for getting to know either system a bit better.
I decided against omv in favor of freenas mainly because omv (4.x) appeared a bit immature. zfs handling was a pita compared to freenas and btrfs is not an option for me (I don't trust that FS anymore) and iscsi is not available in the 4x branch.

Since the HP box is quite a pain to deal with when it comes to accessing the hardware I was considering using my old Yeong Yang Cube.
I could get my hands on a Kit including Intel Xeon E3-1230v3, 4x 8GB DDR3 PC12800 CL11 ECC UDIMM, Supermicro X10SLL-F for 220 Euro.
I think the CPU would be a bit too much for my needs, so I would replace it with a Pentium G3250 (40 euro) and sell the Xeon again (current offers in the bay are about 140 euro.) I would add a Dell H310 card, which I'd flash to IT mode (round about 50 Euro). Adding a Chieftec CBP-3141SAS cage for about 90 Euro.

So, the case, PSU and disks and sas cables I already have,
MoBo, Xeon, Ram = 220 (selling the Xeon for 140) = 80 Euro
Pentium G3250 = 40
Dell H310 = 50
HDD Cage = 90

So for round about 260 Euro I could have quite a decent NAS, don't you think?
It would also allow me to add another HDD Cage and expand the storage by another 4 HDs

Optional Parts would be
a USB Splitter for having the OS flash drives inside the case. I won't need a front panel anyway
two USB flash drives (alternatively only one from the many different sticks I already have.)

Would the Pentium be enough to handle an encrypted zfs pool or would the xeon be better suited for that?

 

[Evertb1]

Hi all,

Would the Pentium be enough to handle an encrypted zfs pool or would the xeon be better suited for that?

Nice kit you were able to buy. You know of another one for that price?

All kidding aside, FreeNAS it self is not very power hungry. I would say that as long as you stick with using FreeNAS as a file server you can't go really wrong with a Pentium. But if I were you I would stick to the Xeon. It has more cores and is multi threaded. And if you change your mind and want to toy around with VM's in the future your system will benefit of the extra cores and threads. And while it's DTP is higher then that of the Pentium I doubt you will notice much of that on your energy bill. My advice would be to keep the Xeon unless you need the money to make your budget work.

By the way: my motherboard is an X10SL7-F and I was running it with a Pentium G3250 as well until I needed a bit more power and more cores for running ESXi on it.

 

[Evertb1]

a USB Splitter for having the OS flash drives inside the case. I won't need a front panel anyway

If you can, stay away from flash drives as boot device. A small SSD will be more reliable. No week passes on the Forum without somebody complaining about a failing USB boot device. If you make copies of your config file it's not hard to reinstall FreeNAS and load your config but it can be annoying.

 

[Vonor]

Nice kit you were able to buy. You know of another one for that price?

I didn't have bought it when I asked. But now I just did Not only because of your comment, but also because of the Hardware guide PDF.
Here is the link to the Kit. The seller has one more for 219. There are others on German Ebay for 240 or so as well, same Kit as I could see.

For the time being I'll stay with the Xeon. But if I see it just idling all the time, even with crypted pools I'll probably switch to the Pentium. They are quite cheap. I saw one for 24 Euro on Ebay.

The Heatsink in the Kit is made for a Rack case. Not sure if the Xeon will be able to stay passive cooled or not. I'll probably add a fan to it.

If you can, stay away from flash drives as boot device. A small SSD will be more reliable. No week passes on the Forum without somebody complaining about a failing USB boot device. If you make copies of your config file it's not hard to reinstall FreeNAS and load your config but it can be annoying.

While I could stay away from USB drives and hear your warning, I'll still go with the USB drives. There will be two of them, so if one fails there's still the other one. Thanks for the warning though.

 

[Evertb1]

he Heatsink in the Kit is made for a Rack case. Not sure if the Xeon will be able to stay passive cooled or not. I'll probably add a fan to it.

I am not sure but I think it is possible to remove the threaded bushings for the passive cooler from the motherboard and use any aftermarket cooler available for the LGA 1150 socket. But without a doubt it is possible to jury-rig a fan on the passive cooler.