Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 FTW

[Philip Robar]

Hello, I'm an ex-Sun Microsystems jack-of-all-trades software engineer currently self-banished to Central Michigan, who has been using FreeNAS/ZFS on and off for many years—going back well before its iXsystems days. I had switched to EON (and for a little while Linux based ClarkConnect/ClearOS), as it is Solaris based, but since it seems to have stagnated I switched back to FreeNAS. I've stayed with FreeNAS as opposed to an illumos based solution like Nexenta mostly because of FreeNAS's plugins and good documentation.

My current server:

FreeNAS 9.10.1 Stable
Lenovo ThinkServer TS140
Intel C226 chipset
Intel Core i3-4330 (Specified as a 4130, but who I am I to complain about a free upgrade?)
16GB ECC RAM (4x4GB, 32GB max)
Built-in audio & video, USB3 (Seems stable and really makes backups go quickly.)
LSI SAS3041E-R 4x SATA/SAS PCIe HD Controller (Flashed to IT mode, 2TB limited.)
3TB: 2x3TB mirror (WD Green with fixed idle, Seagate ST3000DM001 [Fingers crossed. ;-)])
2TB: 2x2TB mirror
500GB: 2x500GB mirror

Usage: SMB file sharing, Time Machine Backups, Jail: Plex Media Server & SiliconDust DVR

The barebones Lenovo TS140 with either the Core i3 (low price $220) or Xeon (low $300's) is currently (mid-2015) the best value available for most SOHO or Home Server DIY users as long as you're happy with a small tower case. It's nearly silent. It uses an Intel server chipset, supports 5 drives and ECC memory and it's cheap — you literally can't build it yourself for less. Don't go with a SuperMicro, etc. solution unless you're absolutely sure that you need to. Yes, I really wanted to build a from-scratch-system using a cool U-NAS case and a mini-ITX/Avoton motherboard, but I just couldn't justify the extra cost. An Avoton motherboard alone, with no memory, costs more than the TS140.

The TS140 could also be the basis of a very nice desktop machine as it has audio and 2 Display Ports (and VGA) for video.

Notes:

1. Lenovo's drive cages are grossly overpriced and ruin the value proposition of the TS140. I wouldn't bother with them as you can easily hack three drives into the upper drive cage.
2. If you really need easy access to, or hot plugging of, the storage drives the case could be hacked to fit an X in Y drive cage.
3. To use the out of band remote admin features you have to use a Xeon CPU.

Old Server (Soon to be a build machine or perhaps a Hackintosh)
Supermicro X7DCA-L in a 1U case (purchased used for a great price)
2xIntel Xeon L5420 (Low power, 2.5 GHz, 2x4=8 cores)
1x8GB DDR2 ECC RAM (Max 6x8=48)

Geekbench 3 Single-core: 1414
Geekbench 3 Multi-core: 9314 (Good enough to transcode 1080P in Plex)

It's currently being used to rename, remux and transcode all of my WTV/MPEG2 TV recordings to MKV/h.264 via MCEBuddy and Handbrake 0.10.x. Handbrake scales linearly to all 8 cores giving me roughly the same performance as my Core i5-2500s iMac (4 cores).

Phil

 

[travanx]

I have been really happy with my TS140 running in a closet for the last year. I was pricing different parts out last year, and this solution was about $150 cheaper than going with a supermicro mb and piecing something together. I just took a HD cage from another case and mounted the hard drives in that so some fans blew across the cage.

Is there a way to add more hard drives to this? Would be nice to run another pool of 5-6 drives without buying another server.

 

[flyinfitz1]

I agree. I bought my TS140 (i3) about 2 months ago and other than the wonky drive layout I love it. You literally cannot beat the price and quality. Im still burning in drives but can already see its a massive upgrade to what I was using before.

 

[alexg]

Ditto, i have two of them now. One FreeNAS and second one runs XenServer

 

[Philip Robar]

... I just took a HD cage from another case and mounted the hard drives in that so some fans blew across the cage.

Is there a way to add more hard drives to this? Would be nice to run another pool of 5-6 drives without buying another server.

I'm confused, are you using the cage from another case inside the TS140? In addition to the 2 drives in the lower front part of the case you can easily add three more drives to the existing upper cage by removing the optical drive and putting three drives in it.

Anyway, since you're already thinking of more drives, one solution would be to replace the existing drives with bigger drivers (5-8TB) and then sell the smaller drives to partially offset the cost.

A second possibility would be an external drive case combined with a SATA card that both support port multiplying. The drawback to this solution is that FreeBSD's driver support for port multipliers is not great. You'd have to do some research to find supported hardware. Also with port multiplying you're limited to the bandwidth of the single port the drives are connected to.

Another option would be one or more eSATA cards and a bunch of external eSATA cases.

Finally, you could do what I did with my old 1U server: Run SATA cables out the back of the computer via a card slot. I used a cage from another case for the external drives, sat a fan behind it blowing air over the drives and powered the drives with a spare power supply. [To get an ATX power supply to start without it being hooked up to a motherboard you short the green pin 14 (PS_ON) to any black (COM) pin with a piece of wire or paperclip. See this Instructables page for details.]

For a more elegant variation on this theme consider Sans Digital's Hard Drive Organizing Rack HDDRACK5 ($30):

"The Hard Drive Rack HDDRACK5 is the latest innovation product for hard drive storage and organization. Each HDDRACK5 unit houses up to five hard drives by using easy to install turnbuckle screws. Designed with a 4.7” cooling fan and a hollow aluminum frame, the HDDRACK5 provides the most efficient heat dissipation. The HDDRACK5 is built with an ON/OFF power switch, which controls the power of hard drives, when a 20-pin or 24-pin ATX power supply is connected. The HDDRACK5 is expandable to 10-bay by stacking an additional unit on top and securing it with a tool-less screw. The ease of use and versatility of the HDDRACK5 makes it an advanced hard drive organizer."

 

[travanx]

I don't remember a fan being at the top where the optical drive was, so I wasn't up for monkeying around up there.

 

[Philip Robar]

I don't remember a fan being at the top where the optical drive was, so I wasn't up for monkeying around up there.

Thanks for the picture.

What I did was put an 80mm fan between the front bezel and the HD cage, and left the optical drive slot in the bezel open for airflow. It sits on things sticking out of the bezel, but fans are so light that it would be fine just hanging from its cord.

Here's my drive temperatures at room temperature (probably a little below 70º F if I recall correctly):

ada0: 33 C - ST3000DM001-1E6166 (W1F4WAJ5) - SPINNING
ada1: 31 C - WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0 (WD-WCC1T0825525) - SPINNING
ada2: 27 C - SAMSUNG HD501LJ (S0MUJ1PP481480) - SPINNING
ada3: 35 C - Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632 (ML0221F307AA8D) - SPINNING
ada4: 28 C - SAMSUNG HD753LJ (462111CQ135216) - SPINNING

The first two are 3TB drives (Seagate Desktop @7200 RPM [aka Barracuda] and a WD Green) in the drive slots at the bottom of the case. The last three are in the upper cage. I'm pretty sure the 2GB Hitachi (variable speed with "CoolSpin") is on the bottom of the cage and getting the least amount of airflow, but even so it's still within normal operating range. In cooler weather the upper two drives border on being too cool (below 25º, based on Backblaze's data).

Drive temperatures after running overnight with the fan blowing over the drives in the upper cage turned off (Room temperature was probably a few degrees F warmer at this point.):

ada0: 34 C - ST3000DM001-1E6166 (W1F4WAJ5) - SPINNING
ada1: 34 C - WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0 (WD-WCC1T0825525) - SPINNING
ada2: 42 C - SAMSUNG HD501LJ (S0MUJ1PP481480) - SPINNING
ada3: 40 C - Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632 (ML0221F307AA8D) - SPINNING
ada4: 41 C - SAMSUNG HD753LJ (462111CQ135216) - SPINNING

And a couple of hours after turning the fan back on:

ada0: 34 C - ST3000DM001-1E6166 (W1F4WAJ5) - SPINNING
ada1: 34 C - WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0 (WD-WCC1T0825525) - SPINNING
ada2: 28 C - SAMSUNG HD501LJ (S0MUJ1PP481480) - SPINNING
ada3: 40 C - Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632 (ML0221F307AA8D) - SPINNING
ada4: 30 C - SAMSUNG HD753LJ (462111CQ135216) - SPINNING

So the two drives in the lower drive slots that have air ducted over them stayed pretty much the same (as would be expected), the two coolest drives with the most airflow in the upper cage (both 7200 RPM) warmed up the most (again no surprise), and the variable speed "CoolSpin" drive with the least airflow warmed up the least. And also no surprise, the Hitachi "CoolSpin" drive is not cooling back down as fast as the others.

Note: The upper cage fan is hooked up to a speed controller which is on the slowest setting.

 

[bmcclure937]

I don't remember a fan being at the top where the optical drive was, so I wasn't up for monkeying around up there.

I am looking to get the Lenovo TS140 - thanks for sharing this photo. What upgrades did you purchase from the barebone TS 140?

I am looking at getting the Core i3 TS140 (4GB RAM) and adding 16GB of ECC RAM.

I would like to start with 3x3TB drives in RAIDZ1 and can expand the storage later, if needed, by adding additional 3TB drives to the RAIDZ1 pool.

Question: I see you have 2x USB drives? What is the purpose of this instead of just running a single USB drive?

Thanks for the picture.

What I did was put an 80mm fan between the front bezel and the HD cage, and left the optical drive slot in the bezel open for airflow. It sits on things sticking out of the bezel, but fans are so light that it would be fine just hanging from its cord.

Here's my drive temperatures at room temperature (probably a little below 70º F if I recall correctly):

ada0: 33 C - ST3000DM001-1E6166 (W1F4WAJ5) - SPINNING
ada1: 31 C - WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0 (WD-WCC1T0825525) - SPINNING
ada2: 27 C - SAMSUNG HD501LJ (S0MUJ1PP481480) - SPINNING
ada3: 35 C - Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632 (ML0221F307AA8D) - SPINNING
ada4: 28 C - SAMSUNG HD753LJ (462111CQ135216) - SPINNING

The first two are 3TB drives (Seagate Desktop @7200 RPM [aka Barracuda] and a WD Green) in the drive slots at the bottom of the case. The last three are in the upper cage. I'm pretty sure the 2GB Hitachi (variable speed with "CoolSpin") is on the bottom of the cage and getting the least amount of airflow, but even so it's still within normal operating range. In cooler weather the upper two drives border on being too cool (below 25º, based on Backblaze's data).

Drive temperatures after running overnight with the fan blowing over the drives in the upper cage turned off (Room temperature was probably a few degrees F warmer at this point.):

ada0: 34 C - ST3000DM001-1E6166 (W1F4WAJ5) - SPINNING
ada1: 34 C - WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0 (WD-WCC1T0825525) - SPINNING
ada2: 42 C - SAMSUNG HD501LJ (S0MUJ1PP481480) - SPINNING
ada3: 40 C - Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632 (ML0221F307AA8D) - SPINNING
ada4: 41 C - SAMSUNG HD753LJ (462111CQ135216) - SPINNING

And a couple of hours after turning the fan back on:

ada0: 34 C - ST3000DM001-1E6166 (W1F4WAJ5) - SPINNING
ada1: 34 C - WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0 (WD-WCC1T0825525) - SPINNING
ada2: 28 C - SAMSUNG HD501LJ (S0MUJ1PP481480) - SPINNING
ada3: 40 C - Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632 (ML0221F307AA8D) - SPINNING
ada4: 30 C - SAMSUNG HD753LJ (462111CQ135216) - SPINNING

So the two drives in the lower drive slots that have air ducted over them stayed pretty much the same (as would be expected), the two coolest drives with the most airflow in the upper cage (both 7200 RPM) warmed up the most (again no surprise), and the variable speed "CoolSpin" drive with the least airflow warmed up the least. And also no surprise, the Hitachi "CoolSpin" drive is not cooling back down as fast as the others.

Note: The upper cage fan is hooked up to a speed controller which is on the slowest setting.

Awesome info. I am looking to get the TS 140 and this will be helpful in making my decision.

 

[travanx]

I bought an 8GB stick of ram to make a total of 12GB. I was on a budget at the time and wasn't sure if I would stick with Freenas for the longterm so I just maxed out the drives with 3TB in Raidz1. At the time 3TB was the sweet spot for what I could afford. If I was doing this again I would go with 4TB in Raidz2. I did have 1 red drive fail within the first year. The way I dealt with Raidz1 is by going with crashplan on the directories I do not want to lose if the pool goes bye bye.

I want to expand the pool with more drives but am unsure of how to do this. Is it buy an external case with a new card? Or are people just using larger cases?

The 2 USB drives are to mirror the boot drive. I bought cheap USB drives when I upgraded to 9.3 and had one USB drive fail within the first month. So I just had an error alert until I fixed it. Learned my lesson and went with 2 new sandisk USB drives.

As to upgrades, if you buy the case you can probably figure out a good place to mount a new fan. The odd thing about this is that the hard drive that failed was the one that looked like it would be the least likely one to fail from the picture. I can't remember which as it was a while ago.

Again its not the end of the world if I lose some of the data, and crashplan is backing up what I do care about. At this exact moment I have more money than time and wish I could magically have a box with 30-40TB as Freenas turns out to be much more useful than I originally thought it would be.

 

[alexg]

My TS140 has 3 drive raidz1, 4th drive for replication, and esata connected external drive for rsync. I accepted the risk of running raidz1 but with 3 level backup strategy that works well for me. Daily zfs replication to local drive, weekly rsync to esata, and crashplan backing up to the cloud

 

[flyinfitz1]

My TS140 was upgraded to 12GB RAM (adding one stick of 8GB) and 4x3TB WD Red Drives. Keep in mind you typically want 1GB of RAM per 1TB of storage. I setup my system in RAIDZ2 and am running CIFS, MineOS, and Plex to 3 local clients and one remote. Havent had an issue of the box being the bottleneck yet. Most of my issues center around client compatability in PLEX, WiFi or WAN upload bandwidth. Im super happy with my purchase, you cant even tell its running most the time!

 

[bmcclure937]

My TS140 was upgraded to 12GB RAM (adding one stick of 8GB) and 4x3TB WD Red Drives. Keep in mind you typically want 1GB of RAM per 1TB of storage. I setup my system in RAIDZ2 and am running CIFS, MineOS, and Plex to 3 local clients and one remote. Havent had an issue of the box being the bottleneck yet. Most of my issues center around client compatability in PLEX, WiFi or WAN upload bandwidth. Im super happy with my purchase, you cant even tell its running most the time!

My rig will end up being very similar to yours! Still debating about using 4x3TB WD Red in RAIDZ1 or RAIDZ2...

 

[flyinfitz1]

All the documentation on here says RAIDZ1 is dead and RAIDZ2 is the way to go. I feel very confident in my redundancy even though I lost half my usable storage. One thing I wish I would have done is buy my drives at different times or from different retailers.

 

[travanx]

I split my drives up from tigerdirect and newegg. Next time would add amazon to the mix. Would also go for 5x3TB in Raidz2.