BUILD Home Build Questions, Sanity Check

[mxmerz]

Hi everybody,

first post here, finally! I’ve been lurking on this forum for a while now, reading the stickies and the constant stream of “proposed build” threads – and now I want to build my own FreeNAS system for home use. This is the first time I’m building a computer myself, so I still got some noob questions – please go easy on me :)

The FreeNAS I want to build should mainly host my media collection (Movies, TV Shows, Music, Photos) and make it available to me, family, and friends (network shares, Plex, ownCloud,…). That will probably result in a total of about 10-25 persons – of course they wouldn’t watch movies the whole day, but I’d like the system to be able to handle a few streams.
Besides the media collection, this would be the first and only server I have in the foreseeable future, so I’d also like it to keep my Time Machine backups and to have a bit of headroom for future use cases (eg. personal GitLab instance, small personal website,…)
Ah yeah, and I am in the lucky position that most of the system’s users and I live in a student dorm with 1Gb/s uplink, 1Gb/s between the apartments, and an electricity “flatrate” included in the rent.

Build:

• CPU: Intel Xeon 1230v5, Xeon 1220v5, or i3-6100 (ARK comparison)
• Motherboard: Supermicro X11SSH-LN4F
• RAM: Samsung M391A2K43BB1-CPB (16GB, ECC)
• PSU: SeaSonic G-550
• Case: Fractal Design R5 Black
• Drives: 6-8 WD Red 3TB

I would like to remain in a budget of about 1500€ (prices in Germany) and I already own two WD Red 3TB drives.

Questions:

• CPU: As said above, I’m currently unsure of whether to buy the Xeon 1230v5 (≈ 270€), Xeon 1220v5 (≈ 215€), or the i3-6100 (≈ 175€) (ARK comparison). All of them have ECC and AES-NI support, the difference seems to be in the number of cores, hyperthreading support, and the included graphics in the i3 – and, of course, in the amount of money I have to spend. Is the difference between the E3-1230 and the i3 high enough to warrant the 160€ price difference, and do I need the E3?
• Motherboard: I could probably save about 50-100€ with a X11SSL-F, is that a good idea? How would I connect 8 drives to that board, I guess PCIe? Are there any forum recommendations?
• Skylake: There were a few threads about problems with Skylake and Supermicro boards, are those still current? Should I look into X10 or X9 Supermicro boards? (I didn’t, because the price difference to Skylake isn’t that big and “newer is always better”… ;))
• RAID-Z2: If my calculations are correct, I could use 8 drives with 3TB each in a RAID-Z2 for usable 14.4 TB (2 drives parity, use only 80%). Is RAID-Z2 enough for this setup or should I go for RAID-Z3? (I’m asking because of the “RAID-Z1/RAID5 is dead” thing.) Because then I think I’d rather pay less and stay with RAID-Z2, 6 or 7 drives, and less usable space.
• Of course, I’d be happy about a general sanity check of this build and/or any other tips :)

 

[Sakuru]

CPU: It depends on how much transcoding your Plex server ends up doing. You'll be fine with the i3 unless you do a bunch of transcoding.
Motherboard: If you want to attach more than 6 drives to the X11SSL-F, you will need an HBA. You can find ones like the Dell PERC H310 on eBay for about $50, but I think I would recommend just getting the X11SSH-LN4F.
Skylake: Is fully supported as of 9.10.
RAIDZ2: I run an 8 drive RAIDZ2. It works quite well for me. I don't know if you would run into the IOPs constraint with multiple Plex streams. I only occasionally transfer files to mine, so I'm not doing anything even remotely IOPs intensive. The more VDEVs you have, the more IOPs you get.
Boot: What do you plan to use for boot drives?
Make sure you do a burn-in test on your hard drives.
Make sure you set up scrubs, snapshots, and SMART tests.

 

[mxmerz]

Thanks for the response!

RAIDZ2: I run an 8 drive RAIDZ2. It works quite well for me. I don't know if you would run into the IOPs constraint with multiple Plex streams. I only occasionally transfer files to mine, so I'm not doing anything even remotely IOPs intensive. The more VDEVs you have, the more IOPs you get.

Oh okay, now I’m reading through ZFS performance articles…

Boot: What do you plan to use for boot drives?

I bought two SanDisk Ultra Fit 16GB USB sticks a while ago, I would use them?

Make sure you do a burn-in test on your hard drives.
Make sure you set up scrubs, snapshots, and SMART tests.

Aye aye!

 

[ChriZ]

Instead of the X11SSH-LN4F, you can look for the -presumably- cheaper X11SSH-F which has 8 sata ports. That way you can create an 8 drive raidz2 and use the usb sticks for boot.

 

[Sakuru]

I bought two SanDisk Ultra Fit 16GB USB sticks a while ago, I would use them?

Correct. Those are good sticks.