Homemade NAS

[George51]

I have previously knocked together a NAS out of old parts lying around my house. It had 4GB ram, a poor MB, an i3 CPU - and as a result had speeds of no greater than 12MB/s

Subsequently I have read about ECC vs Non - ECC RAM and seen the error of my ways. Also learnt why more RAM is needed.

I am now looking at spending a bit more money:

Intent: Essentially backup/sync ~5 computers
Install the Plex plugin, and access my media (~600GB) through a roku (or simlar) on my TV/ other devices
I will require the disks to be encypted

Having done some research, this is what I propose:

Chasis: Fractal Desgin Define Mini or Corsair Obsidian 350D ~£65
Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X9SCM-F-O ~£150
RAM: 2 x Kingston 8GB ECC KVR16E11/8 ~2*£65=£130
CPU: Intel E3 1230v2 ~ £170
PSU: Fractal Design Integra R2 500w ~£40

Total:~ £555

I am unsure of what chasis to get - I really like the Fractal Node 304, but that is for mini-ITX not Micro ATX MB's. I had a look for mini-ITX server boards, found one discontinued Intel board, and the Supermicro Atom boards but no where to buy the atom chips unless I am being dense.
So ignoring the mini-ITX boards - I am looking for a case as close to the Node 304 but for a Micro ATX board. Small physical space and a fairly minimalistic approach is good for me.

Also I have a NH-L12 CPU cooler which could be used. But ideally I would like a passive cooler, would this be feasible for this kind of set up? Or would the NH-L12 be the way to go? It can be as slim as 66mm for smaller cases.

Any comments/suggestions? Am I missing anything? Or going roughly along the right lines?

Kind Regards

EDIT:

This is what was ordered following this thread

Chasis: Fractal Desgin Node 304
Motherboard: ASRock E3C226D2I
RAM: 2 x Kingston 8GB ECC KVR16E11/8
CPU: Intel E3 1230v3
PSU: Corsair RM450 450w

USB: SanDisk 8GB Cruzer

 

[jgreco]

The Supermicro Atom boards include the processor.

For mini-ITX, I believe that the ASRock Avoton board (C2550 or C2750) would be very interesting. I have one that I've been evaluating on the bench for a little while, but the performance will be less than a Xeon. Also be aware that people have had good luck popping other ECC-capable Intel i3 CPU's on the X9SCM, so you have a spectrum of options - you don't have to Xeon it unless you expect to need transcoding in Plex, in which case you should definitely consider just going Xeon and never needing to worry about it.

I have been extremely tempted to acquire one of the U-NAS mini-ITX chassis (NSC-800) and stick a C2750 in it and see how much fun that is. They make them in several capacities.

Sorry this doesn't address all your questions, just trying to fill in some blank spots for you.

 

[George51]

The Supermicro Atom boards include the processor.

For mini-ITX, I believe that the ASRock Avoton board (C2550 or C2750) would be very interesting. I have one that I've been evaluating on the bench for a little while, but the performance will be less than a Xeon. Also be aware that people have had good luck popping other ECC-capable Intel i3 CPU's on the X9SCM, so you have a spectrum of options - you don't have to Xeon it unless you expect to need transcoding in Plex, in which case you should definitely consider just going Xeon and never needing to worry about it.

I have been extremely tempted to acquire one of the U-NAS mini-ITX chassis (NSC-800) and stick a C2750 in it and see how much fun that is. They make them in several capacities.

Sorry this doesn't address all your questions, just trying to fill in some blank spots for you.

The supermicro Atom boards include the processor? Well I feel stupid but just to clarify - this has it onboard and would not need me to buy one on its own?

Comparing the C2750 with the Xeon E3 1230v2, what differences am I likely to see? In terms of Plex - there is a significant chance I will need transcoding. And would rather buy well and buy once. However, the lure of a mini-ITX board is great, a smaller case would be very useful.

With the C2750, would a passive CPU cooler be enough? It seems to be shown here with one, and it has a significantly higher max T (97 compared to E3 1230 of 67 degrees)

Any help is appreciated

Thanks

 

[jgreco]

The supermicro Atom boards include the processor? Well I feel stupid but just to clarify - this has it onboard and would not need me to buy one on its own?

Yessir, that's what the "2750" in the SuperMicro board part number is all about. I believe it is actually soldered on but haven't pulled apart an Avoton yet to check.

Comparing the C2750 with the Xeon E3 1230v2, what differences am I likely to see? In terms of Plex - there is a significant chance I will need transcoding. And would rather buy well and buy once. However, the lure of a mini-ITX board is great, a smaller case would be very useful.

I do not have that comparison available for you. I do have E3-1230's as VM hosts and FreeNAS runs swimmingly well on them. Forum users have frequently agreed with me that "this is all the CPU a home user is likely to need" which specifically includes Plex transcoding for several devices at once, though you'd have to do some forum searching to find out the exact limit.

I do have a 2750 on the bench right now which has been a bit of an odyssey due to the Kingston memory issues. It is a LOT faster than our HP MicroServer N36L that does backups. I do have a general feeling that the per-core performance of the 2750 is less than half of what the E3 is. But on the other hand the 2750 has 8 cores and the E3-1230 has 4 with 8 threads.

Someone put up some Geekbench scores for the C2750

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/search?utf8=✓&q=c2750

Says 1100 per core or 7000 aggregate.

The E3-1230v2 pulls in around 2900/12000.

The ProLiant N54L pulls in around 1100/2200.

People can run Plex without transcoding on the N54L but reports of transcoding are usually taken with a grain of salt.

So the takeaway here is that the E3 is a sure thing. The Avoton has enough extra cores that it ought to be able to do transcoding. But don't forget that FreeNAS takes some CPU oomph all by itself.

https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/to...-enough-to-do-1080p-many-streams/#entry522871

Seems to suggest you ought to be able to get some transcoding out of it.

But the Avoton is pretty pricey and I'd be tempted to go E3 myself.

With the C2750, would a passive CPU cooler be enough? It seems to be shown here with one, and it has a significantly higher max T (97 compared to E3 1230 of 67 degrees)

If SuperMicro supplies it with a heatsink, which I'm virtually certain they do, you are expected to use it as-assembled. Please make sure there's some airflow across it though.

Any help is appreciated

Thanks

 

[George51]

Yessir, that's what the "2750" in the SuperMicro board part number is all about. I believe it is actually soldered on but haven't pulled apart an Avoton yet to check.



I do not have that comparison available for you. I do have E3-1230's as VM hosts and FreeNAS runs swimmingly well on them. Forum users have frequently agreed with me that "this is all the CPU a home user is likely to need" which specifically includes Plex transcoding for several devices at once, though you'd have to do some forum searching to find out the exact limit.

I do have a 2750 on the bench right now which has been a bit of an odyssey due to the Kingston memory issues. It is a LOT faster than our HP MicroServer N36L that does backups. I do have a general feeling that the per-core performance of the 2750 is less than half of what the E3 is. But on the other hand the 2750 has 8 cores and the E3-1230 has 4 with 8 threads.

Someone put up some Geekbench scores for the C2750

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/search?utf8=✓&q=c2750

Says 1100 per core or 7000 aggregate.

The E3-1230v2 pulls in around 2900/12000.

The ProLiant N54L pulls in around 1100/2200.

People can run Plex without transcoding on the N54L but reports of transcoding are usually taken with a grain of salt.

So the takeaway here is that the E3 is a sure thing. The Avoton has enough extra cores that it ought to be able to do transcoding. But don't forget that FreeNAS takes some CPU oomph all by itself.

https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/to...-enough-to-do-1080p-many-streams/#entry522871

Seems to suggest you ought to be able to get some transcoding out of it.

But the Avoton is pretty pricey and I'd be tempted to go E3 myself.



If SuperMicro supplies it with a heatsink, which I'm virtually certain they do, you are expected to use it as-assembled. Please make sure there's some airflow across it though.

Point taken - maybe slightly ruled out the C2750 then.

I have found this board (ASRock E3C226D2I)

And was thinking that coupled with a E3 1230 v3?

With 2 x 8GB sticks of RAM it maxes it out. But 16GB should be enough? and that CPU will ensure that my Plex dreams aren't sold short, and it cures my desire for a small form (mini-ITX) case.

I haven't really heard much about ASRock boards however, I have read lots of good about supermicro which is why I started there. I havce been looking at http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/mini-itx-c226-haswell-build.15371/page-4

Seems alright, again advice would be appreciated as I may be missing something.

Regards

 

[jgreco]

ASRock is a well known desktop board manufacturer; who seems to be making intriguing inroads towards ZFS storage solutions.

I am not sure of the overall quality, since I've basically got a sample size of one to evaluate them on, but what I've seen is impressive in that it is targeted towards weak spots in the market.

They've got a 1U storage server that makes some interesting compromises but packs 12 drives into a 1U space, four of those are 48 drives in 4U - quite a feat.

They've also got an interesting 2U 12x3.5, 6x2.5 solution that I'm rather tempted to use for a next round of ESXi nodes.

Of their Avoton 2750 1U server, I can say that I am impressed with some caveats. If I were looking for a mini-ITX Haswell board, I'd certainly consider the E3C226D2I as the likely contender.

 

[George51]

Right well then my build will now look like:

Chasis: Fractal Desgin Node 304 ~£62
Motherboard: ASRock E3C226D2I ~£154
RAM: 2 x Kingston 8GB ECC KVR16E11/8 ~2*£65=£130
CPU: Intel E3 1230v3 ~ £204
PSU: Fractal Design Integra R2 500w ~£40

USB: SanDisk 8GB Cruzer ~£6

Total:~ £599

This gives me (enough?) CPU power to transcode with Plex if needed. Small form mini-ITX which I like, ECC protection and enough RAM to make it functional? Both the board and the case can cope with 6 drives - which will be enough for what I want.

 

[jgreco]

If the E3 isn't enough, well, don't expect to be able to run your own private Netflix service for dozens of transcoding clients. Heh.

 

[Dark-Sider]

Hello,

Currently I own a Synology DS2411+ NAS - I'm quite happy with the unit, except that there are only 2TB of storage left (12x 3T WD Green EZRX). Synology offers an expansion Unit but it's almost the same price as a new box. Since I also moved into a new house and I got myself a sweet 42U cabinet in the basement I'm looking at a rack-mountable NAS. I'm trying to stay below the € 1400 (all prices will include German VAT) for the Synology RS2414+.

I also posted this build on the ServeTheHome Forums: http://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/affordable-2u-12-disk-nas-build.3569/ (hopefully linking there is acceptable)

My build is Based on the 2750 Avoton:
Case: Chenbro RM23612M2-L Chenbro Micom Co., Ltd. (€ 207)
PSU: Zippy P2G-6510P 510W (€ 87)
HBA: LSI SAS 9207-4i4e (€ 202)
Expander: CHENBRO CK12803 28-Port (Used, ebay $ 109, € ~80)
Mainboard: Supermicro A1SAM-2750F Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Atom Boards | A1SAM-2750F (€ 331)
RAM: Some DDR3 ECC Modules € 80, but already got 4x4GB DDR3 ECC RAM from an old DELL Server.
Cables, flash-disks, rails etc. are not counted since I got plenty of them.

Total: € 907 approx: € 500 (€ 400 if you add wiring, rails and RAM) cheaper than the Synology box.

The box will be easily expandable, since I can just add onther disk-shelf. Basically the above components minus (Mainboard and HBA) - equals ~ € 400 compared to a € 1000 Synology expansion.

I'm planning on running ZFS with a 2 disk-redundancy.

Do you guys have any suggestions on the HBA? Are there any other good options (I'll also take used ones in consideration) if I want to keep 1 internal and 1 external SAS Port? I also might get the m1015 reflash it and use a SFF8087 to SFF8088 slot bracket.

I understand that the Avoton is not the most powerful chip in the world, but I don't need that much processing power. I have no need to convert any media on the fly. Basically the box will only be a huge file-dump.

Any other ideas on the build? Any known issues with one of my components?

regards,
Dark-Sider

 

[George51]

Right well then my build will now look like:

Chasis: Fractal Desgin Node 304 ~£62
Motherboard: ASRock E3C226D2I ~£154
RAM: 2 x Kingston 8GB ECC KVR16E11/8 ~2*£65=£130
CPU: Intel E3 1230v3 ~ £204
PSU: Fractal Design Integra R2 500w ~£40

USB: SanDisk 8GB Cruzer ~£6

Total:~ £599

This gives me (enough?) CPU power to transcode with Plex if needed. Small form mini-ITX which I like, ECC protection and enough RAM to make it functional? Both the board and the case can cope with 6 drives - which will be enough for what I want.

Okay so building on from this - I am satisfied with this build and pretty close to pulling the trigger. The thing that is stopping me is the PSU, I am looking for one with 6 SATA connectors and as low power as possible. I think 500w might be over powered? But I am having trouble finding a smaller one with 6 connectors?

I will be putting in all 6 drives, 2x WD red 1tb, 4 x generic 500gb (I will upgrade the 500gb ones one by one to 1tb - I just already have those four)

I know I can use molex adaptors but would prefer not to.

Regards

 

[jgreco]

Do not spend significant effort underpowering your power supply. Check out the guidance in the hardware suggestions sticky for reasonably calculating an appropriate power supply size. Between spin current and the max your platform could reasonably draw, 300 watts might be very tight. There is no problem using a 500 watt supply and running it at 20-30% of capacity at spun up/cpu idle state (your system would probably idle around 100). The overhead simply means you're being less stressy on your power supply.

 

[panz]

I'm using a 650W (gold) with 12 drives. It's better taking into consideration the capacitors aging.

 

[George51]

Do not spend significant effort underpowering your power supply. Check out the guidance in the hardware suggestions sticky for reasonably calculating an appropriate power supply size. Between spin current and the max your platform could reasonably draw, 300 watts might be very tight. There is no problem using a 500 watt supply and running it at 20-30% of capacity at spun up/cpu idle state (your system would probably idle around 100). The overhead simply means you're being less stressy on your power supply.

Okay point taken about 300 watts being tight, Would 400w be enough? looking at a SeaSonic X-400FL 400w, There is a X460-FL 460w, which is £50 more expensive. Otherwise I will just find a gold 500w one, looking for a quality PSU

 

[panz]

Okay point taken about 300 watts being tight, Would 400w be enough? looking at a SeaSonic X-400FL 400w, There is a X460-FL 460w, which is £50 more expensive. Otherwise I will just find a gold 500w one, looking for a quality PSU

I have a Corsair HX650 80 Plus Gold: with a Supermicro X9SCM-F + Xeon 1230V2 + IBM M1015 + Intel RES2SV240 + 32Gb of RAM – without hard drives – the power draw is only 38 Watts.

With this PSU I have plenty of room for expansion (I plan to reach a full 24 drives chassis) with a good capacitor-aging value. The chassis vendor advised me to buy a Seasonic 750 Silver (he says "they're work horses" and very reliable), but I had that Corsair just tested for 1500 hours so I opted for it.

 

[George51]

So I went ahead and ordered it today. This is what I've gone for.

Chasis: Fractal Desgin Node 304
Motherboard: ASRock E3C226D2I
RAM: 2 x Kingston 8GB ECC KVR16E11/8
CPU: Intel E3 1230v3
PSU: Corsair RM450 450w

USB: SanDisk 8GB Cruzer

Will let you know what I think when its up and running

 

[panz]

RM450 is very good; a friend of mine has one: it gives very clean and stable power. Moreover if I was you I'll get a good UPS (listed in the compatibility chart by NUT - Network UPS Tools).

 

[George51]

RM450 is very good; a friend of mine has one: it gives very clean and stable power. Moreover if I was you I'll get a good UPS (listed in the compatibility chart by NUT - Network UPS Tools).

Pleased to here that! Always reassuring.

I looked at getting an UPS, but I am finding it hard to justify - living in the SW of the UK, we rarely (not never) get bad storms/winds etc.. and I've had no issues with not using a UPS on anything so far. But I just paid a fair whack for that equipment and wouldn't want to lose it.
We rarely get power outages - and so if I was to get a UPS, all I would want is the smallest one capable of properly shutting down the FreeNAS set-up, not fussed about it running for x-minutes. The ones I liked the look of were the ones that looked like a power strip, not another box, like this APC one.

Any advice? Is it a requirement? What risks do I run without one?

Regards

 

[Shroom]

I have a Corsair HX650 80 Plus Gold: with a Supermicro X9SCM-F + Xeon 1230V2 + IBM M1015 + Intel RES2SV240 + 32Gb of RAM – without hard drives – the power draw is only 38 Watts.

With this PSU I have plenty of room for expansion (I plan to reach a full 24 drives chassis) with a good capacitor-aging value. The chassis vendor advised me to buy a Seasonic 750 Silver (he says "they're work horses" and very reliable), but I had that Corsair just tested for 1500 hours so I opted for it.

Personally, I'm getting the Corsair RM 450. Virtually silent, high quality components and cooling, zero-RPM fan mode, 80 PLUS Gold, fully modular.

Pleased to here that! Always reassuring.

I looked at getting an UPS, but I am finding it hard to justify - living in the SW of the UK, we rarely (not never) get bad storms/winds etc.. and I've had no issues with not using a UPS on anything so far. But I just paid a fair whack for that equipment and wouldn't want to lose it.
We rarely get power outages - and so if I was to get a UPS, all I would want is the smallest one capable of properly shutting down the FreeNAS set-up, not fussed about it running for x-minutes. The ones I liked the look of were the ones that looked like a power strip, not another box, like this APC one.

Any advice? Is it a requirement? What risks do I run without one?


Regards

Any UPS that has a high enough wattage rating to run your system. I plan to use a 900VA I have left over. Most people here recommend APC as they are tried and true, definitely quality.

The major risks you run without a UPS (I assume you'd at least be using a surge protector) is your system coming to a halt unexpectedly at the moment of a power outage. With a UPS, your system will have ample time to finish its tasks and shut down properly without issues. The higher the VA rating, the longer it can run without power.

Someone put up some Geekbench scores for the C2750

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/search?utf8=✓&q=c2750

Says 1100 per core or 7000 aggregate.

The E3-1230v2 pulls in around 2900/12000.

The ProLiant N54L pulls in around 1100/2200.

People can run Plex without transcoding on the N54L but reports of transcoding are usually taken with a grain of salt.

So the takeaway here is that the E3 is a sure thing. The Avoton has enough extra cores that it ought to be able to do transcoding. But don't forget that FreeNAS takes some CPU oomph all by itself.

https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/to...-enough-to-do-1080p-many-streams/#entry522871

Seems to suggest you ought to be able to get some transcoding out of it.

But the Avoton is pretty pricey and I'd be tempted to go E3 myself.

People are reporting loving the 8-core 2758 for small home-NAS setup according to that thread you linked, thanks for posting it.

I went on that first link though and looked up the 2758 and compared it to the 2750... and it has significantly lower scores. Any idea why that may be?

 

[panz]

Pleased to here that! Always reassuring.

I looked at getting an UPS, but I am finding it hard to justify - living in the SW of the UK, we rarely (not never) get bad storms/winds etc.. and I've had no issues with not using a UPS on anything so far. But I just paid a fair whack for that equipment and wouldn't want to lose it.
We rarely get power outages - and so if I was to get a UPS, all I would want is the smallest one capable of properly shutting down the FreeNAS set-up, not fussed about it running for x-minutes. The ones I liked the look of were the ones that looked like a power strip, not another box, like this APC one.

Any advice? Is it a requirement? What risks do I run without one?

Regards

There are a lot of problems of running a server without an UPS: little surges, "noise" caused in the power line by elevators or electric motor equipment, spikes, power fluctuations, etc. UPS are now cheap: get one that is in this list (look for one with maximum compatibility)

http://www.networkupstools.org/stable-hcl.html

I didn't setup FreeNAS as Master in the NUT "network"; my Master is the pfSense firewall. FreeNAS, Windows 7 machines and Macs are slave(s): NUT works like a charm!

 

[Shroom]

There are a lot of problems of running a server without an UPS: little surges, "noise" caused in the power line by elevators or electric motor equipment, spikes, power fluctuations, etc. UPS are now cheap: get one that is in this list (look for one with maximum compatibility)

http://www.networkupstools.org/stable-hcl.html

I didn't setup FreeNAS as Master in the NUT "network"; my Master is the pfSense firewall. FreeNAS, Windows 7 machines and Macs are slave(s): NUT works like a charm!

What exactly does this show compatibility for? Shouldn't any UPS that can power your system long enough to be worth its while work? I mean, it's all the same voltages and everything...