Hello. Hoping to build a NAS

[ersmiller]

Hello all.

After another HDD crash I've decided it's time to make a NAS. My needs aren't heavy so I'm hoping for a cheap unit that has room to grow. I've looked around a bit on my own and found a few items that look alright and I was hoping to run them by some people in the know before making any purchases.

CASE & POWER SUPPLY

Xion ATX MidTower USB 3.0 LED Fan Hot Swap Tool-less Gaming PC Case
Total of 9 bays (many are hot swap)

SHARK 750-watt ATX/EPS 12V Active PFC PCI-Express Power Supply
4 Right-angle SATA power connectors
4 Four-pin molex connectors that I can later get SATA adapters for

$121.71 (65.75 + 55.96 Shipping)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-USB-3-...009824?hash=item3f77552aa0:g:AAsAAOSw4A5YwySE

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MOTHERBOARD

MSI H270M MORTAR ARCTIC LGA 1151 Intel H270 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

6 SATA ports
2 PCIex16 slots
2 PCIex 1 slots

Max RAM: 64MB with 4 slots

$101.98 ($99.99 + 1.99 Shipping)
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813144001&ignorebbr=1

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CPU

Intel Pentium G4400 Skylake Dual-Core 3.3 GHz LGA 1151 54W BX80662G4400 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 510

$57.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117625&ignorebbr=1

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RAM

G.SKILL Aegis 16GB 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Intel Z170 Platform / Intel X99 Platform Desktop Memory Model F4-2133C15S-16GIS

16GB in 1 slot

$165.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820232249&ignorebbr=1

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HARD DRIVES

3 x WL 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Desktop Hard Drive (For PC/Mac/DVR) w/1 Year Warranty

$179.85 ($59.95 x 3)
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5AD3KE4290&ignorebbr=1

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THUMBDRIVE (For the OS)

New Sandisk Cruzer Fit 8GB16GB 32GB 64GB USB Flash Pen Drive SDCZ33 CZ33 Mini Memory Disk
(32GB version)

$15.7 (12.75 + $2.95 Shipping)
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA12K2PD7560&ignorebbr=1

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TOTAL $643.22
6TB of storage space in RAID 5
Ability to easily add 5 more drives and 46GB of RAM later on.

I was hoping the starting build would be under $500 but I suppose this isn't bad.

I've built computers before but not in over a decade, and never a for NAS so any help would be appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[joeschmuck]

First of all, Welcome to the FreeNAS Forums.

I can see a lot of things wrong in your build. First of all, please do not watch any trust any videos you see on the internet. Too many of these are outdated and just plain wrong.

Terminology is important to us, for example you use the term RAID5 which means that you have not done any real investigation on what FreeNAS is nor the file system. ZFS is the file system and it has a lot of restrictions. Then you stated that you could easily add 5 more drives and that makes me thing that you again don't understand ZFS. You need to understand what you are getting into and how to build a reliable system or you will be met with problems and you will likely see postings that seem a bit hostle about your hardware selection, and we do not intend to be hostile, some times we just choose the wrong words.

I will not dive into and research your hardware for you because they are not server quality parts. I'm not saying that your system will not work, I'm just saying it's not worth an hour of my time because I don't currently promote parts that are not server quality, but I will provide some advice that you can act on, it should help you out.

1) Ensure the NIC is and Intel chip, anything less such as RealTek will have compatibility issues during use such as slow data transfer speeds and the network dropping off.
2) Understand the ZFS file system before you leap into this. Link provided.
3) In our "Resources" section is a list of recommended hardware. While your hardware may work just fine, it's worth reading.
4) How important is the data you are storing? That is important. If this is just ripped DVD content then I say not important, but if this is your financial info, complete photo library of your family, data that is irreplaceable, then you might want a better piece of hardware.
5) What is your intentions for FreeNAS? Is this just simple storage, you you expect to run VMs on this hardware (if yes they you need the correct hardware that supports virtualization). I ask because the use-case is very important. If you just need simple storage then I'd recommend 16GB RAM, anything more is a waste of money.
6) Re-think your boot device, a single SSD is more reliable and cost effective in the long run.
7) How much storage do you need? Your selection of three 3TB drives would provide you 5.5TB @ RAIDZ1, then subtract 20% (1.1TB) to maintain a healthy pool and you are left with 4.4TB of storage. Use a RAID calculator.
8) The hard drives you selected might be fine but I would not recommend them for a NAS.

I've only touched on some of the major items. One other issue is hard drive cooling, this will make or break the life of your hard drives. Keep in mind that FreeNAS was designed to run 24/7. The hard drives will likely spin all the time and while you can make the hard drives sleep, it comes at a cost to the life of a drive.

Please do some more reading we look forward to hearing from you.

Good Luck!

 

[ersmiller]

Thank you for responding. Yes, I was expecting at least some of what I selected wasn't going to cut the mustard, but I'm not really trying to make a professional unit. I've addressed your points below.

2) I've done research on FreeNAS and ZFS but that was years ago when I first thought about trying to build a NAS but never ended up doing so (clearly that old research didn't remain strong in my memory). I know that RAID5 isn't really what I would be using in FreeNAS, I put that down as an example of what type of setup I am hoping for, i.e. the ability to lose 1 drive and keep going long enough to get a replacement before losing data.
3+6) When I signed up to this forum I got an email with this resource link in it. The boot device I chose is listed in it, so is the CPU. So at least those 2 should be OK, right?
4) I'm not going to store anything incredibly important. More important than DVD rips, but anything crucial is already backed up in more than one location (cloud drives & etc.). This is just going to be a lot of personal files, including videos, game backups, writing, and other documents.
7) I don't need a lot of storage right now. Just 2TB might be enough (though I'd prefer more). However, I want the ability to add storage as I go.
8) The quality of the starting drives isn't huge as I hope to add and replace with better drives over time. I'm hoping to keep the initial cost low. Under $500 was my hope.

5) My goals for NAS are:
a) Stop having to worry about a HDD going bad and losing time recovering data at random and sometimes crucial moments.
b) Stop worrying about running out of space by adding a new drive to the NAS when I need to.
c) Be able to access files on my NAS over the web so I can make use of those files through my laptop away from home. (I'm not talking media server here, just file uploading and downloading.)

 

[joeschmuck]

Based on your responses then there is one major thing you must consider which is the ZFS pool. Other than the hardware the other major consideration when building a ZFS system is how your hard drives will be configured and how you plan to add capacity in the future. Make sure you understand how this is done, you cannot simply add an additional hard drive and your capacity is increased, if you do then you did it wrong and your data will be at high risk. We promote a RAIDZ2 level here a lot but if your data is already backed up then you are at a lower risk of data loss running at RAIDZ1. I always advise people to purchase the drives they are going to need for the next 3 to 5 years because the WD Red drives (and many other NAS drives) will typically last 3 to 5 years running non-stop. Then you need to figure what is the capacity you feel you will need over that period of time and add 20% more for a healthy pool.

So for an example, let's say you desire a minimum of 2TB right now but you know you will need more over the next 3 years, so double that. Let's put you at 5TB of storage. You have a few ways to handle this as you could create a two drive mirror using two 6TB drives. Or you could run four 2TB drives in a RAIDZ. I would elect the four 2TB drives because of scrub and resilvering times are very long on a 6TB drive. Now lets say you need more capacity in 3 years, you have the options to add a second vdev to your pool (another RAIDZ set of drives), destroy your pool and add an addition drive and rebuild your pool and put the data back, or you could choose the most popular way which is to replace the hard drives one at a time with a larger capacity drive and once all drives have been replaced then your capacity will show. So you could add 4TB drives to the replace the 2TB drives and basically double your capacity. The smart way to do this is to identify that you will have a shortage and then replace the drives as they fail, or as you can afford to replace them.

While FreeNAS has a lot of advantages, it also has some shortcoming which is what I've already discussed, however there is something coming in the future (could be many years) to allow adding single drives to properly expand a pool.

If the ZFS pool is not what you want then I'd recommend any other software that supports RAID5 and that may be a better fit for you. I'm not trying to chase you away, I just like to be up front with people as ZFS isn't for everyone.

The FreeNAS GUI is nice and makes things much easier and I think people are drawn to that.

Access to your files over the internet is not really a FreeNAS feature, it is more of a firewall thing. I use Sophos UTM for my firewall and I can access my network over VPN. It wasn't easy to set up at all but once done, I like it a lot. Don't get me wrong, you could very easily open up an FTP port on your firewall and setup FTP on your FreeNAS and access it across the internet but it would not be very secure.

 

[ersmiller]

From what you've said, and according to this announcement, it sounds like the ability to add 1 disk at a time is coming, but like you said, may not be available for a long time. Until then, the only ways to increase storage with RAIDz would be to replace existing drives with larger capacity drives 1 at a time until they are all replaced or to add groups of drives in the same configuration as my starting set. I'm OK with both of those currently available solutions and might not even need that much extra space until after the expansion project is complete anyway.

As for remote access, I was under the impression I could use plugins such as Transmission, btsync, and OwnCloud for that. I just want the ability to access files on my NAS when I'm away from home. Currently I use Dropbox, GoogleDrive, MEGAsync, and OneDrive for that. I plan to keep these services as additional backups for the more important data, but it would be nice to have everything accessible at once.

 

[joeschmuck]

Transmission is a Bit Torrent software.
btsync is again, a Bit torrent software.
OwnCloud is the software you could use to access your files remotely. It will do what you desire but you will still need to make a minor firewall modification to pass the proper ports directly to your OwnCloud jail. It's not difficult but you just need to know that you have to do it.

 

[ersmiller]

So what would you suggest? I was hoping my initial cost would be under $500, I don't have need to for a very large amount of space starting out, nor do I expect to put a lot of strain on the NAS. The data will be accessed by multiple devices, but usually by just one device at a time and usually only by myself.

I mostly just want more reliability to avoid losing all my data with a HDD crash (the most important data will have additional backups besides the NAS), and to be able to have everything stored on one system rather than multiple separate drives/services. I also want to be able to access data while not at home.

Am I barking up the wrong tree with FreeNAS? Should I be looking more at something like Amahi or openmediavault?

 

[joeschmuck]

So what would you suggest? I was hoping my initial cost would be under $500,

A lot of people would like that too but it rarely is limited to that low of a cost. But you can use non-server hardware if you desire, it should work fine but you need to have hardware that will run FreeBSD 11.

If you buy a system that you think supports FreeNAS then it will likely support other options if you find out FreeNAS is not going to work for you. You also have NAS4Free as an option to look at, you can also run up Windoze Server or Ubuntu Server. There are a lot of options but not many with a nice GUI to make things just a little bit easier. Regardless the way you go you will need to research your options and likely dedicate a lot of time to learn the system. I'm not trying to put you off of any of these options, if learning all the ins and outs of the OS then you should invest in a prebuilt NAS unit that you can just slap a few hard drives into however you will pay a lot of money for any fast unit.