Looking for a little advice

[ZMaNFaRLee]

Hello All. New member here. This place has been amazing for research over the past month and I think I have the information I need to move forward but if I could get a "yep that sounds right" seal of approval I would really appreciate it. Basically I want to confirm that based on my needs either of the following would be fine for me:

Option 1 - Buy a Dell T30 when it goes on sale and install FreeNas and some HDD's
Option 2 - Any synology or qnap

I just bought 4 8tb WD external hard drives that are reportedly easy to shuck for their Red Label or White Label (but essentially red drives) when Ebay had their sale. I want to build a local library and not rely on streams as heavily going forward.

I am looking for ease of use as this will be my first NAS but I am good at researching and following directions from when I used to flash roms on phones or put together my computer.
My needs are simple. Need to stream music from NAS to phone for car drives and then need to stream movies (up to 4k eventually) from NAS to shield tv.

As I understand it since the shield and eventually tv should be able to handle most 4k files (as long as I am careful about containers) then I should be fine with either with the t30 costing more to run but allowing for more flexbilty if I want to stream movies over the internet that may require transcoding (I would be ok knowing I cant stream 4k over the internet but only locally).

That's it really. I am trying to keep it simple and I think the t30 is best from a flexibility standpoint but if I want super easy I can go with a synology.

I could do a self build but honestly the t30 just looks like an easy put together option. Does the above seem right?

Thanks in advance. I have searched a ton on this which leads me to believe the above is correct. I am guessing people would say don't do the synology if you are comfortable learing FreeNas (setting up alerts/etc). I do think though if the synology is dead simple then their is a value in just having that and replacing every 5-6 years.

 

[MatthewSteinhoff]

Option 1 - Buy a Dell T30 when it goes on sale and install FreeNAS and some HDD's

That's what I'd do, given those choices. FreeNAS gives you flexibility you won't have in an embedded NAS.

A single 4K transcoded stream will likely work from the T30 since it can do three or for HD streams. In checking the Synology Knowledge Base, I'm not sure if any of their devices can transcode 4K to 4K. That may be a tipping factor for you.

Otherwise, you came to a FreeNAS forum, so we tend to recommend FreeNAS. So, take this advice with a grain of salt.

Cheers,
Matt

 

[ZMaNFaRLee]

That's what I'd do, given those choices. FreeNAS gives you flexibility you won't have in an embedded NAS.

A single 4K transcoded stream will likely work from the T30 since it can do three or for HD streams. In checking the Synology Knowledge Base, I'm not sure if any of their devices can transcode 4K to 4K. That may be a tipping factor for you.

Otherwise, you came to a FreeNAS forum, so we tend to recommend FreeNAS. So, take this advice with a grain of salt.

Cheers,
Matt

I know I am at a freenas forum but it sounds like I am right that I can get the t30 and get a little more useability. I was already leaning that way (hence i ask here). One follow up, I believe I read I can install the freenas on a usb 3.0 128gb usb tab and that should work? Is it better to put on an ssd?

Huge thanks!

 

[MatthewSteinhoff]

I can install the freenas on a usb 3.0 128gb usb tab and that should work? Is it better to put on an ssd?!

Yes, FreeNAS will run from USB sticks. Since they are so inexpensive, use two and mirror them. Don't bother with 128G sticks; 16G is plenty and 64G is overkill.

SSDs are more reliable than USB sticks. Their additional speed is irrelevant since the boot drive is really only used once on startup. Very low write.

The primary advantage to using USB for boot is that you don't use up a SATA port. SATA ports are far more valuable for your data pools.

If you have spare SATA ports and can pick up a dirt cheap 32/64G SSD, go that route. Otherwise, a pair of 16G USB sticks is what we use for our production server with more than a hundred users.

Cheers,
Matt

 

[ZMaNFaRLee]

Yes, FreeNAS will run from USB sticks. Since they are so inexpensive, use two and mirror them. Don't bother with 128G sticks; 16G is plenty and 64G is overkill.

SSDs are more reliable than USB sticks. Their additional speed is irrelevant since the boot drive is really only used once on startup. Very low write.

The primary advantage to using USB for boot is that you don't use up a SATA port. SATA ports are far more valuable for your data pools.

If you have spare SATA ports and can pick up a dirt cheap 32/64G SSD, go that route. Otherwise, a pair of 16G USB sticks is what we use for our production server with more than a hundred users.

Cheers,
Matt

Awesome and Thank you! I was worried that transcoding would cause issues on a smaller drive but it sounds like it is just for boot and can be handled (I don't really know much about transcoding I just tinker). Thanks!

 

[Inxsible]

Option 1 - Buy a Dell T30 when it goes on sale and install FreeNas and some HDD's
Option 2 - Any synology or qnap

Option 3 - Buy a HP ML10 when it goes on sale and install FreeNAS, 4GB RAM and some HDDs

I don't know what the T30 costs and where you are looking for a sale, but the HP ML10 is usually available for as low as $165 USD with 4GB ECC RAM. Add another stick of 4GB ECC RAM and you have a great starting point for FreeNAS.

 

[ZMaNFaRLee]

Option 3 - Buy a HP ML10 when it goes on sale and install FreeNAS, 4GB RAM and some HDDs

I don't know what the T30 costs and where you are looking for a sale, but the HP ML10 is usually available for as low as $165 USD with 4GB ECC RAM. Add another stick of 4GB ECC RAM and you have a great starting point for FreeNAS.

Thank you I have looked around for that too. The t30 goes on sale for $300-$330 as I understand it sometimes and the ML10 would be fine as long as I got another 4gb stick of matching ram. I would think the match would likely cost $60-$80 so the price would be closer but still HP would likely be a little better I guess. When memorial day sales happen I'll take which one presents itself.

DO you know how much the extra ecc ram would cost about? It's very tough to get good pricing info.

 

[Inxsible]

When memorial day sales

Good time to buy computer hardware & peripherals.

ine as long as I got another 4gb stick of matching ram.

TBH, I have never checked RAM matching. I just use the same frequency when I am buying an additional stick. Personally, I have never had problems.

DO you know how much the extra ecc ram would cost about? It's very tough to get good pricing info.

That depends on how much RAM you want in the end. If you are only going up to the minimum recommended by FreeNAS -- which is 8GB -- then you only need an additional 4GB stick. However, if you feel like adding more than the minimum, you will need to buy according to the max DIMM size supported by the motherboard and also the total number of DIMMs on your motherboard.

 

[Inxsible]

It also depends on what type of ECC RAM your board requires -- There's Unbuffered RAM vs Low voltage RAM vs Registered, So you need to see what your board is compatible with and then buy accordingly.

 

[MatthewSteinhoff]

I prefer the HP brand to Dell but the T30 supports 64G RAM while the ML10 tops out at 32G. So, for growth, the T30 seems a solid choice if VMs/plugins/jails/docks are a thing that might be used.

By the time you add memory to the ML10, there's not much more than a coin flip between the machines.

Neither of these machines are a bad choice.

Cheers,
Matt

 

[ZMaNFaRLee]

I prefer the HP brand to Dell but the T30 supports 64G RAM while the ML10 tops out at 32G. So, for growth, the T30 seems a solid choice if VMs/plugins/jails/docks are a thing that might be used.

By the time you add memory to the ML10, there's not much more than a coin flip between the machines.

Neither of these machines are a bad choice.

Cheers,
Matt

Memorial day will decide it then. Right now it seems a lot of sellers try to sell the lower end non xeon model for the xeon sale price when there are no sales going on. Tricky tricky. I don't think I would ever get that crazy with VM's but I'm sure that's what everyone started off saying.

 

[LIGISTX]

I run an ml10 gen 9, and added 16 GB more RAM to it for a total of 20. The ram cost me more than the ml10! Lol. But even so, it was worth it by a lot shot. All in minus the cost of drives I think was about 500-550 bucks, including an eBay LSI HBA.

It’s worked like a champ for my 10x4TB Z2 pool, a couple very low impact VM’s and a couple jails. And if in the future as you grow and want more out of the box and the i3 isn’t quite enough (hasn’t present any issues for me) you can always throw a few bucks at a Xeon.


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[ZMaNFaRLee]

I run an ml10 gen 9, and added 16 GB more RAM to it for a total of 20. The ram cost me more than the ml10! Lol. But even so, it was worth it by a lot shot. All in minus the cost of drives I think was about 500-550 bucks, including an eBay LSI HBA.

It’s worked like a champ for my 10x4TB Z2 pool, a couple very low impact VM’s and a couple jails. And if in the future as you grow and want more out of the box and the i3 isn’t quite enough (hasn’t present any issues for me) you can always throw a few bucks at a Xeon.


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Awesome. Definitely going to be one of those two it looks like.

 

[Inxsible]

Good luck. Let us know how it works out by Memorial Day !

 

[ZMaNFaRLee]

Good luck. Let us know how it works out by Memorial Day !

Lol you'll know when I come with real problems ha! But yes I will tell you all.

 

[Zredwire]

DO you know how much the extra ecc ram would cost about? It's very tough to get good pricing info.

I had an HP ML10 which ran Freenas up until about a month ago. I upgraded the ram to 12GB. At the time I purchased RAM (in December or so) 8GB was about $110 and 4GB was about $60.

 

[ZMaNFaRLee]

[QUOTE="ZMaNFaRLee, post: 455394, member: 85757"
DO you know how much the extra ecc ram would cost about? It's very tough to get good pricing info.

I had an HP ML10 which ran Freenas up until about a month ago. I upgraded the ram to 12GB. At the time I purchased RAM (in December or so) 8GB was about $110 and 4GB was about $60.[/QUOTE]

Very helpful!