Home Storage and Plex Server

[Kingers]

Hey guys been looking into building a freenas system for awhile, was originally going to get a rack mount case and install it in my cabinet but due to length limitations of the cabinet i have abandoned that idea and decided to build it into a fractal designs nod 304 case instead.

What I'm looking to do with this at the moment is a home file storage, Plex media server (should only be 1 person streaming 1080p at a time) and next cloud.

I have had little experience with Freenas but did set it up on an old laptop to see how it works and to have a little bit of a play around with it.

Now i just need a little bit help with the ram, mobo and processor as im not sure if what ive picked is going to be over kill for what i want to do with the it.

MOBO - ASUS P10S-I Motherboard - This seems to have everything i want although it will need a mini sas hd to sata cable to connect drives, is this still suitable (im unsure if it is fine or not)?
https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Motherboards/Server-&-Workstation/67550-P10S-I

RAM - Crucial CT8G4RFS4213 8GB (1x8GB) 2133MHz ECC Buffered DDR4 x 1 or Crucial CT16G4RFD4213 16GB (1x16GB) 2133MHz ECC Buffered DDR4 x 1. Im not sure if i need to get 16gb or ram straight up or if 8gb will suffice for the moment and can upgrade to 16 later. If i should go 16gb then i would get the single 16gb stick so i can upgrade in future if needed.

https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Memory/ECC-&-Registered/57250-CT8G4RFS4213

https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Memory/ECC-&-Registered/57251-CT16G4RFD4213

CPU - Intel Xeon E3 1225 v6 - This is something i have no idea on as im not sure if its overkill and i could get away with a much cheaper CPU (i3) or not
https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/CPU/Server-&-Workstation/67919-BX80677E31225V6

Case - Fractal Design NODE 304 Black Mini ITX Case
https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Cases/Mini-ITX/47936-FD-CA-NODE-304-BL

Power supply - Corsair RM550x 550W Power Supply
https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Power-Supplies/ATX/60625-CP-9020090-AU

Drives - Western Digital WD Red 4TB, WD40EFRX x 2 (setup Mirrored) and Western Digital WD Red 3TB, WD30EFRX x 1 (by itself for PC Backup)
https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Hard-Drives-&-SSDs/HDD-3.5-Drives/51268-WD40EFRX

https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Hard-Drives-&-SSDs/HDD-3.5-Drives/46681-WD30EFRX

SAS to SATA Cable - SilverStone CPS05 50cm Mini SFF-8643 to SATA
https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Cables/SAS/64472-SST-CPS05

Boot Drive - Im unsure as to what to use, A usb or i have 3 old laptop drives i could use - 120gb, 250gb or 320gb. Im thinking that i should use the 120gb drive as the boot drive for the system rather than a usb as it should be more reliable? Is there somthing else i could do with the other 2 drives that would be useful? My only concern would be taking up of the sata ports for any future drives i may install?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

 

[melloa]

Hello and welcome.

MOBO - ASUS P10S-I Motherboard

Not sure the availability of supermicro MoBos @ AU, but your link shows $318 for the Asus. I see Supermicro X11 family for less than that @ newegg. I'd say would be a better option.

Im not sure if i need to get 16gb or ram straight up or if 8gb will suffice for the moment

I'd start with 16GB, planning to upgrade to 32GB (at least) in the future, based on you planning to run some applications on your FreeNAS.

Boot Drive - Im unsure as to what to use,

Nowadays I prefer SSDs, but as you have some laptop HDDs available you could use it. Keep in mind will use one of your SATA ports.

Food for thoughts: As those are old disks, always save your config file in case they die on you ...

Pretty sure others will provide more thoughts and again welcome to the forum!

[]'s

 

[iammykyl]

Gday.
Using a Node 304 limits your MB choice to Mini ITX. with a Socket 115x CPU choice is even less. Supermacro has non/ In AU, Asrock Rack, one I could find.
Compare, > https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...2|13-132-820^13-132-820,13-599-005^13-599-005
> https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/asrock-e3c236d2i-server-motherboard-asrock/
Consider using a Macro MB, good choice and cheaper, use a Node 804> http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/node-series/node-804
Consider a G4620 as it may be enough for your needs, >https://ark.intel.com/products/97460/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G4620-3M-Cache-3_70-GHz

 

[adrianwi]

If you only plan to have 1 person streaming 1080p at a time from Plex, the Xeon is probably overkill as it's capable of at least 5-6 transcoded streams.

 

[Eric Smith]

From origanal post Is it preferred l 1 drive for the app and than mirrored drives or raid 5 for storage? Do you guys usually use raid controllers? Can you create software raid with free nas?
Thanks in adavnce

 

[melloa]

From origanal post (1) Is it preferred l 1 drive for the app and than mirrored drives or raid 5 for storage? (2) Do you guys usually use raid controllers? (3) Can you create software raid with free nas?
Thanks in adavnce

Understand is your first post, so I'd recommend you do some reading before deciding using FreeNAS. Check the resources tab for lots of information that will help. The answers to your question, in order: (1) Not needed. You can use a second pool with an SSD to be faster, but again you can have your plugins/jails/VMs running on the main one. (2) No, as (3) FreeNAS uses ZFS.

 

[Eric Smith]

thanks. at least i know where to start now.