BUILD Home made NAS instead of QNAP TS-451

[Aikimaniac]

Hello folks,

first of all hello. and im new here but i wont use this fact as excuse. Im fan of everything free and open sourced.

Lets start. I have right now all possible stuff on several HDDs and decided to get NAS since its mess. First i started to look on QNAP devices but didnt like the limitations and prices of any of those products. Ive been reading several times some stickies and finally decided to register on forum to confirm, by me selected configuration for home NAS. I understand that NAS is not a backup system, so for family stuff and documents i will use two simple USB HDDs like WD Essential or similar.

Purpose:

• LAN streaming of movies on 1-3 devices (TV, Laptop, Tablet) at same time,
• storage for family photos, videos
• download station for torrents
• cloud for PC/Tablet/Smartphone
• maybe some Virtualization for home mail or webserver?
• under 500€ (lower is better so if under 300€ or 400€ is possible, i would be happy)

After reading the HW recommendations and So you want some HW suggestions threads, ive decided to go with following HW build. I would like to build 4-6 HDD based NAS box. Here we go:

Configuration:

Motheboard: €190 Asrock E3C226D2I
CPU: 102€ Intel® Core™ i3-4160 Processor(3M Cache, 3.60 GHz)
RAM: €207 2x Crucial 8GB DDR3 1600MHz CL11 ECC Unbuffered
PSU: €83 Seasonic G Series 450W
CASE: €67 Fractal Design Node 304 Black
USB: €5 Cruzer Fit™ USB Flash Drive
---------------------
TOTAL: € 654

For HDD im not decided yet but i consider WD Red 2TB or 3TB vs Seagate Constellation 2TB or 3TB (will see how much money i can put int HDDs)

TOTAL: €708 for 6x Western Digital Red 3000GB 64MB cache

I welcome any opinion on this, even YES or NO for the config is alot. Thanks for any suggestions and sorry if i double posted or something not by the book.

best regards

Aiki

EDIT: Updated config

 

[Ericloewe]

Hello folks,

first of all hello. and im new here but i wont use this fact as excuse. Im fan of everything free and open sourced.

Lets start. I have right now all possible stuff on several HDDs and decided to get NAS since its mess. First i started to look on QNAP devices but didnt like the limitations and prices of any of those products. Ive been reading several times some stickies and finally decided to register on forum to confirm, by me selected configuration for home NAS. I understand that NAS is not a backup system, so for family stuff and documents i will use two simple USB HDDs like WD Essential or similar.

Purpose:

• LAN streaming of movies on 1-3 devices (TV, Laptop, Tablet) at same time,
• storage for family photos, videos
• download station for torrents
• cloud for PC/Tablet/Smartphone
• maybe some Virtualization for home mail or webserver?
• under 500€ (lower is better so if under 300€ or 400€ is possible, i would be happy)

After reading the HW recommendations and So you want some HW suggestions threads, ive decided to go with following HW build. I would like to build 4-6 HDD based NAS box. Here we go:

Configuration:

Case: € 66,24 Fractal Design Node 304
Motherboard: € 194,00 Supermicro X10SLL+-F
CPU: € 48,46 Intel Pentium G3220
RAM: € 103,16 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800 Unbuffered ECC 1.35V 1024Meg x 72
PSU: € 59,63 Corsair CS450M
---------------------
TOTAL: € 472

For HDD im not decided yet but i consider WD Red 2TB or 3TB vs Seagate Constellation 2TB or 3TB (will see how much money i can put int HDDs)

I welcome any opinion on this, even YES or NO for the config is alot. Thanks for any suggestions and sorry if i double posted or something not by the book.

best regards

Aiki

Note that the motherboard won't fit in that case.

Other than that, I'd say everything is in order. You'd probably want to upgrade to 16GB RAM when feasible.

 

[Fraoch]

Sounds good, but:

LAN streaming of movies on 1-3 devices (TV, Laptop, Tablet) at same time,

Will you be just streaming or transcoding? If you will be transcoding, I believe the CPU you selected is on the low end of being able to do this. A Core i3 would be better. I could be wrong here.

maybe some Virtualization for home mail or webserver?

You definitely won't have enough RAM to be able to do that and still operate FreeNAS reliably. Increase your RAM to at least 16 GB if you want to do this. Plus a dual-core, dual-thread CPU doesn't have enough spare threads to run virtualization instances well. Again, a Core i3 would be better.

Also you may have big problems running FreeNAS virtualized, especially if you're a newbie.

 

[Aikimaniac]

Note that the motherboard won't fit in that case.

Other than that, I'd say everything is in order. You'd probably want to upgrade to 16GB RAM when feasible.

Damn it...didnt checked that one... ive based the case selection on recommended HW thread ive mentioned in my first post..thanks for hint..

Sounds good, but:



Will you be just streaming or transcoding? If you will be transcoding, I believe the CPU you selected is on the low end of being able to do this. A Core i3 would be better. I could be wrong here.



You definitely won't have enough RAM to be able to do that and still operate FreeNAS reliably. Increase your RAM to at least 16 GB if you want to do this. Plus a dual-core, dual-thread CPU doesn't have enough spare threads to run virtualization instances well. Again, a Core i3 would be better.

Also you may have big problems running FreeNAS virtualized, especially if you're a newbie.

1) To be honest..no idea about what transcoding means..ive meant it like i download to NAS some movie and via DLNA or XBMC watch it on TV with access to LAN directly..1-3 was like 3 different people in 3 different rooms can watch different movies at once...

2) 16GB is planned but as i mentioned, its question of money right now...

3) Virtualization was meant to run some webserver or mailserver as separate..but its not necessary...have Odroid U3 for that crap right now and its sufficient.. :)

 

[cyberjock]

Since you said you plan to stream to a tablet, that makes me thing you are going to use Plex. If you do plan to run jails, you should be using 16GB of RAM to start. My Plex jail uses almost 1GB of RAM with nobody logged into it.

If you plan to be having Plex do the transcoding, then that CPU is horribly underpowered. You need to look at either a higher end i3 or a Xeon. I'd recommend the E3-1230v3 as that's got lots of power and can do transcoding with ease.

Edit: You posted right when I did. If you plan to do DLNA, then "good luck". There's a reason everyone gave up on DLNA years ago. It doesn't work as well as you'd like it to. In short, if the video file isn't a format that is compatible with your device, then the video can't be played.

And your choice of words with mentioning XBMC leads me to believe you haven't used it yet. You should probably set that up and try to use it a little before jumping on this train. There are potential limitations and such that you may not appreciate if you haven't used the software before. Notably, playing videos on the tablet.

 

[Fraoch]

1) To be honest..no idea about what transcoding means.

Can you play the files in their native format, i.e. the format you downloaded them in, or do your devices need some other format to play them? Transcoding is converting a file to another format on-the-fly. It can be quite CPU intensive.

Plex is the transcoding server that can be run from within FreeNAS.

http://www.techopedia.com/definition/973/transcoding

 

[Aikimaniac]

Since you said you plan to stream to a tablet, that makes me thing you are going to use Plex. If you do plan to run jails, you should be using 16GB of RAM to start. My Plex jail uses almost 1GB of RAM with nobody logged into it.

If you plan to be having Plex do the transcoding, then that CPU is horribly underpowered. You need to look at either a higher end i3 or a Xeon. I'd recommend the E3-1230v3 as that's got lots of power and can do transcoding with ease.

Edit: You posted right when I did. If you plan to do DLNA, then "good luck". There's a reason everyone gave up on DLNA years ago. It doesn't work as well as you'd like it to. In short, if the video file isn't a format that is compatible with your device, then the video can't be played.

And your choice of words with mentioning XBMC leads me to believe you haven't used it yet. You should probably set that up and try to use it a little before jumping on this train. There are potential limitations and such that you may not appreciate if you haven't used the software before. Notably, playing videos on the tablet.

Tablet was just an example but my idea was simply open at some network area movie file and watch it...like you would watch movie from samba on windows box. Regarding Xeon, i cannot afford it and even 500€ is alot over my theoretical budget. Same way watching movies goes for TV as well..since i have LAN at home, speed isnt imo problem. Somehow i thought that FreeNAS would be a cheaper way than some ready from store NAS like Synology or QNAP.. the TS-451 QNAP costs 490€ right now...the TS-421 is like 340€ :-(

 

[Fraoch]

Somehow i thought that FreeNAS would be a cheaper way than some ready from store NAS like Synology or QNAP.. the TS-451 QNAP costs 490€ right now...the TS-421 is like 340€ :-(

Unfortunately you'll find it isn't. You do get better data security and much more control over how it works, but a prebuilt NAS device is usually cheaper.

However most of the budget ones can't transcode, or can't transcode very well. The high end devices use Intel Atom or Celeron CPUs.

 

[cyberjock]

Yeah, FreeNAS isn't cheaper unless you already own the hardware and just want to use it. If cost is a major factor you might want to look at the Synology or QNAP. Keep in mind that, like @Fraoch said, they are often very limited in their performance and can't do alot of things that FreeNAS can do easily.

Many people come to FreeNAS from store-bought NAS solutions because they want/need more than those offer. Others come to FreeNAS for the reliability as the store-bought NASes have been known to just up and die and take your data with it.

Still others go to the store-bought NAS because they are cheaper and easier to setup.

Only you can decide what is worth your money and what you ultimately want. ;)

 

[Aikimaniac]

Thanks to all for now...will take some time to think about all this...possibly i revive this thread if there are no objections :)

 

[Aikimaniac]

Sooo...after some hours of browsing and figuring out what power in NAS i need, it looks i do it with this HW since its mITX board and ill do the movie watching part with simply Raspberrypi based XBMC station on all 3 TVs.

Case: € 67 Fractal Design Node 304
Motherboard: € 85 Supermicro X10SLL+-F
CPU: € 85 ASUS H97M-PLUS
RAM: € 207 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800 Unbuffered ECC 1.35V 1024Meg x 72
PSU: € 60 Corsair CS450M
Total: €504
HDD: proly WD Red 2 TB cause what ive read its reliable for home usage.

Previous idea with buyNready NAS was to use RAID 6 but since ZFS is much better, im curious if i will have with 4 HDDs on ZFS 4000GB capacity with spare hdd or if there is on ZFS necessary to have spare HDD in system..etc. I do want to buy more HDDs in Q1/2015.

I hope my questions are not that stupid as i feel about them when i place them here :)

regards

Aiki

 

[Fraoch]

You're almost there, but a few issues...

since its mITX board

It's microATX actually, so that case will not work.

and ill do the movie watching part with simply Raspberrypi based XBMC station on all 3 TVs.

Double-check that it will play the format your movies are in. I believe XBMC can handle many formats, but it means the difference between having to get a Pentium and having to get a Xeon.

Case: € 67 Fractal Design Node 304

Consider the Node 804 for that motherboard.

CPU: € 85 ASUS H97M-PLUS

Seems to be a typo here. ;)

PSU: € 60 Corsair CS450M

Corsair is kind of a midrange power supply company but this is among the lowest-quality power supplies they make. Your NAS will be on 24/7 and if you're investing in equipment that supports ECC and hard drives in redundant ZFS RAID, this is the weak link in the chain. A failing power supply can destroy hard drives.

SeaSonic is the top manufacturer and their lower-end offerings shouldn't be much more than this Corsair one.

im curious if i will have with 4 HDDs on ZFS 4000GB capacity

With 4 X 2 TB Western Digital Red drives I have about 3.5 TB usable capacity after making a RAID-Z2 zpool.

if there is on ZFS necessary to have spare HDD in system..etc. I do want to buy more HDDs in Q1/2015.

RAID-Z2 uses two drives for parity. One can fail and you still have redundancy. When two drives fail you have no more redundancy - your NAS will still work but with no more protection for your data. You can get away with using RAID-Z2 with 4 drives - if one fails, you will have to wait for a replacement and while you wait you will have less redundancy. If another drive fails during this time you'll have no redundancy though. For that reason many recommend keeping a spare drive on hand just so that you have full protection while you wait for a replacement drive. When you finally do get a replacement drive, the rebuild process can be quite stressful on drives so the possibility of a marginal one failing is high. So it might be useful to have a replacement drive on hand, but it's not totally necessary.

If you test your drives thoroughly to weed out any defects, you won't have to replace any drives by Q1/2015. Just make sure to thoroughly test them and don't trust your NAS with any non-replaceable data until it proves itself.

 

[Aikimaniac]

For some reason i didnt replaced the motherboards link correctly. Can the Asus board serve its purpose in NAS sufficiently instead of the Supermicro MB? Its cheaper and has 6 SATA3 ports. I know that its recommended to get SuperMicro but this will be poor mans NAS :)

Case: € 67 Fractal Design Node 304
CPU: € 49 Intel Pentium G3220
Motherboard: € 85 ASUS H97M-PLUS
RAM: € 207 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800 Unbuffered ECC 1.35V 1024Meg x 72
PSU: € 58 Seasonic G360
Total: €466
HDD: proly WD Red 2 TB cause what ive read its reliable for home usage.

When i would have the Z1 RAID, i can survive with 1-2 days without NAS accessibility since the shop im buying from is like 3 km away and they replace defect HDD immediately when i bring them the broken one for new. Its for home usage so no big deal when few days i have decreased power consumption at home :)

 

[Ericloewe]

For some reason i didnt replaced the motherboards link correctly. Can the Asus board serve its purpose in NAS sufficiently instead of the Supermicro MB? Its cheaper and has 6 SATA3 ports. I know that its recommended to get SuperMicro but this will be poor mans NAS :)

Case: € 67 Fractal Design Node 304
CPU: € 49 Intel Pentium G3220
Motherboard: € 85 ASUS H97M-PLUS
RAM: € 207 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800 Unbuffered ECC 1.35V 1024Meg x 72
PSU: € 58 Seasonic G360
Total: €466
HDD: proly WD Red 2 TB cause what ive read its reliable for home usage.

When i would have the Z1 RAID, i can survive with 1-2 days without NAS accessibility since the shop im buying from is like 3 km away and they replace defect HDD immediately when i bring them the broken one for new. Its for home usage so no big deal when few days i have decreased power consumption at home :)

That motherboard doesn't support ECC RAM, so it's a very poor choice. Besides not being remotely server-grade.

 

[Fraoch]

Can the Asus board serve its purpose in NAS sufficiently instead of the Supermicro MB? Its cheaper and has 6 SATA3 ports. I know that its recommended to get SuperMicro but this will be poor mans NAS :)

You'll lose the benefit of ECC since that board will not support ECC. https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/ecc-vs-non-ecc-ram-and-zfs.15449/

If you're not going with ECC, there's no point with redundant ZFS either, since an error as the data traverses the memory will silently be written to the disks. You can still use FreeNAS without ECC of course, but that will make the whole system about as secure as a regular NAS - just more expensive.;)

Case: € 67 Fractal Design Node 304

Again, that case is mini-ITX and won't support microATX boards like the Supermicro board you first quoted plus the ASUS board you're considering.

CPU: € 49 Intel Pentium G3220

Fine for general storage and streaming, but no transcoding.

PSU: € 58 Seasonic G360

Much better and a little cheaper as you see. Gold efficiency too, which makes a difference when the server is running 24/7.

When i would have the Z1 RAID, i can survive with 1-2 days without NAS accessibility since the shop im buying from is like 3 km away and they replace defect HDD immediately when i bring them the broken one for new. Its for home usage so no big deal when few days i have decreased power consumption at home :)

RAID-Z1 is less secure than RAID-Z2. The shop must be able to replace the drive immediately because you won't have any more protection at all when 1 hard drive fails. Plus, as you rebuild it, you have a very good chance of another hard drive failing - so much so it's a mathematical certainty if you have the drives long enough:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/162

Better make sure the shop has two drives on hand then.:D

 

[Aikimaniac]

Damn it...you crashed my sand castle.. :D need to reinforce and then im back :)

 

[Fraoch]

Heh heh...do keep in mind that FreeNAS's strongest points are:

1. Data security.
2. Flexibility.
3. Data security.
4. Features.
5. Data security.
6. Stability.
7. Data security.

It does cost more for the security.

 

[Aikimaniac]

Was trying to find some Supermicro Mini ITX board and got this...will this work with FreeNAS maybe or should i strictly stick with Supermicro ? :)

http://b2b.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4841#sp

 

[Ericloewe]

Was trying to find some Supermicro Mini ITX board and got this...will this work with FreeNAS maybe or should i strictly stick with Supermicro ? :)

http://b2b.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4841#sp

Hmm, didn't know about that board. There's a similar one from ASRock which is used by a few people around here.

Supermicro has a lot of miniITX stuff, but it's all Avoton.

 

[gpsguy]

A number of forum users have the: ASRock E3C226D2I Mini ITX

If you go the Gigabyte route, you can be the pioneer.

Was trying to find some Supermicro Mini ITX board and got this...will this work with FreeNAS maybe or should i strictly stick with Supermicro ? :)

http://b2b.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4841#sp