BUILD How is this build?

[DGenerateKane]

So i kinda shot myself in the foot going by several guides I found online about hardware, and ordered desktop parts. I since learned they were outdated and were for the old version of FreeNAS. Oh well, almost everything will work for an HTPC which I was planning to build soon anyway. So, I've since read over the stickies in this forum, but even so they left some parts without any specific recommendations. So, this is what I've chosen.

SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SL7-F-O uATX Server Motherboard LGA 1150 Intel C222 DDR3 1600
Intel Core i3-4150 Haswell Dual-Core 3.5GHz LGA 1150 54W Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4400 BX80646I34150
Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) ECC Unbuffered Server Memory Model CT2KIT102472BD160B
SeaSonic G Series SSR-550RM 550W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply New 4th Gen CPU Certified Haswell Ready
NZXT Source 210 Elite Black Steel with painted interior ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Norco 5.25" to 3.5" HDD Cage
2x WD Red WD60EFRX 6TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" NAS Hard Drive Bare Drive
5x Samsung 2tb Desktop Drives
2x 3tb Desktop Drives (2 different manufacturers)

So, there it is. Anything I should change? Money is an issue unfortunately, I'm already spending more than I wanted. My goal is to eventually use all 6 SATA and 8 SAS ports, slowly adding drives as I can afford them. I'll also eventually add another 2 sticks of RAM bringing it up to the max 32gb once money permits. I realize the 7 desktop drives are probably going to be frowned upon, but I'd like to be able to reuse them. They're what all my data is on right now, and once I transfer everything to the 6tb drives, I will stick them in the NAS and make a new pool. I'll only store data that will be accessed rarely on them, and plan on setting them to sleep after a very short period of time. Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

 

[DGenerateKane]

Anyone? I changed the case and PSU, and added a HDD Cage.

 

[danb35]

Slowly adding disks isn't something that works very well with ZFS--take a look at cyberjock's powerpoint on how volumes work, because you can shoot yourself in the foot if you aren't careful.

For your pool layout, I can see two options: 2x 6 TB mirrored, 5x 2 TB + 2x 3 TB RAIDZ2 (net capacity of ~16 TB); or 2x 6 TB mirrored, 2x 3 TB mirrored, 5x 2 TB RAIDZ2, with a net capacity of ~15 TB.

The first layout will tolerate the loss of any two of the 2TB or 3TB drives, and one of the 6TB drives, without any loss of data. It "wastes" about 1 TB on each of the 3TB drives (because the capacity of a RAIDZ vdev is based on the capacity of the smallest disk in it), but you can later upgrade the 2TB disks to 3TB disks to increase the capacity of your pool.

The second layout will tolerate the loss of one of the 6TB disks, one of the 3TB disks, and any two of the 2TB disks, without any loss of data. All the disk space is being used for the pool, but the net capacity is lower due to the increased redundancy.

Your choice of disk layout might be driven by how much data you have to put on the server. If you have less than 6TB, you can set up your new 6TB disks as a mirror, copy the data to them, then add the remaining disks as a RAIDZ2 vdev. If you have, say, 8TB of data, you'd want to set up the 6TB disks as a mirror, move all the data from the 3TB disks, then add them to the pool as another mirror, then move the data from the remaining disks and add them to the pool. If you have more than about 8-9 TB of data to go on the server, it's going to get more complicated.

 

[DGenerateKane]

I see. I'll definitely have to read it, as I know almost nothing about FreeNAS in general. I certainly don't understand the different types of pools. I've never even ran a RAID before really, I only set one up once many years ago, and lost all my data when both drives died almost simultaneously only 1 month after I got them.

I'm really not sure how I'll set them up. I've estimated that on the 5 2tb drives I have just over 7tb of data. On the 2 3tb drives, I have only about 1.5tb, but it is all also stored on two other drives that won't be going in the NAS, so I don't need to transfer it from the 3tb drives. I could transfer as much as I could fit on the 6tb mirror, and then just spread the remaining data onto several other drives I've got, until I get the 2tb drives setup. I have 2 320gb, 1 750gb, 1 1tb, and 2 1.5 tb drives all with data that I will eventually want to transfer over to the NAS in addition to what I already mentioned. So I will have a lot of data on it fairly quickly. Maybe I should bite the bullet and get two more 6tb drives to start with?

I won't be ordering the parts until early next month, so I will be doing a lot of reading until then. Oh, I read the sticky about burn-in and testing. I don't know if I can wait six week to use it. :/ My question is would I need to run tests on the 2tb and 3tb drives I've already been using? The 2tb drives are close to 3 years old I believe, and 4 of them probably have a decent number of hours of use, while the 5th one probably a good 20% less. The 3tb drives have a lot less use, simply because I use them in a dock and so they are only on when I need them. I'll have to check the actual number of hours later when I get a chance.

So the rest of my hardware choices are good? I've seen several threads with the RAM and motherboard, and the brand and series of PSU, though I don't think I've seen the processor. I contemplated the G3220, but I think I may want to try Plex at some point which it apparently isn't good for.

 

[danb35]

Extensive burn-in probably isn't necessary on disks that you've used a fair bit previously. I'd still think it would be worth, at a minimum, a long SMART test on each of them (which can run simultaneously), and if you have the time running through badblocks would still probably be a good idea.

On the pool design, cyberjock's presentation (http://forums.freenas.org/index.php...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/) is going to have a lot more detail (and a lot more pretty pictures), but I'll hit the high points.

First, the terms. The main terms/concepts are disks, vdevs, and zpools. A disk is pretty obvious. A vdev consists of one or more disks, possibly (though not necessarily) in a redundant configuration. A zpool consists of one or more vdevs, and is what FreeNAS calls a "Volume". One of the design goals of ZFS is that users would add all their storage to a single zpool, and then divide it up with datasets as necessary. That said, you can create more than one zpool.

Vdevs are where the RAID happens. You can set up a 3-disk RAIDZ1 vdev, a 10-disk RAIDZ2 vdev, etc. Once you've done this, you can't change that vdev by adding or removing disks. You can replace disks (and even increase the capacity by replacing all the disks with larger disks), but the number of disks in a RAIDZ vdev can't change.

Vdevs are also where mirrors happen. Mirrors are a little more flexible than RAIDZ vdevs, because you can add disks to them and remove disks from them--you can change your 2-disk mirror into a 3-disk mirror, and back into a 2-disk mirror. You can even change a single-disk vdev into a mirror. However, mirrors are not as space-efficient as RAIDZ vdevs--you're going to use at least half of your total storage for redundancy. You can increase the capacity of mirrored vdevs by replacing disks with larger ones, similar to RAIDZ.

ZFS has no way to convert a mirrored vdev into a RAIDZ vdev, or change the RAIDZ level of a vdev (RAIDZ1 to RAIDZ2, or vice versa). A mirror will always be a mirror; a RAIDZ2 will always be a RAIDZ2.

A zpool consists of one or more vdevs. If it contains more than one vdev, all the vdevs are striped together. You can freely add vdevs of any type (vdev types within a zpool don't have to match) to a zpool, but once a vdev has been added, it cannot be removed. If any vdev in a zpool fails, the entire pool will fail and your data should be considered unrecoverable.

So, what do you do when you want to expand your zpool? The first option, mentioned above, is to replace the disks in your RAIDZ or mirrored vdev with larger disks. For example, if you have a 6x 2TB RAIDZ2 vdev, it will have a net capacity of about 8 TB. If you replace each of those disks with 4TB disks, your vdev will grow to about 16TB. The other option is to add another vdev. In the previous example, rather than replacing your 6 disks, you can add 6 more disks (as long as your case and controller have room for them), and your net pool capacity will grow from 8 to 24 TB.

Your motherboard is fine, and your CPU looks like it should do fine as well. I can't speak to the case or power supply.