Low Power Home NAS

[JuanV]

I notice the gap now and I think for the price it is still a good option since I am planing on only using 4 drives max 5 If I take the ODD. I will be adding another RAM stick for a total of 8 or 12gb so I should be fine thank you all.

 

[ser_rhaegar]

You can fit 5 drives in it (ODD is useless in FreeNAS) and for the price it is a damn good starting point for someone looking to enter FreeNAS on the cheap. Add another stick of RAM and you're good to go. Also has 4 RAM slots, 3 PCIe slots, and can upgrade to a Xeon. If you eventually upgrade to a Xeon you get the Intel AMT for remote management as well.

 

[jgreco]

Gap, meet Dremel.

 

[JuanV]

I think I'm going to order one of them and see how it goes it should be fun. Do you guys think it will work fine with FreeNAS

 

[jgreco]

Nothing obvious wrong with it.

 

[JuanV]

Okay thank you for the tips. I will tell you all how it goes.

 

[ser_rhaegar]

My only concern would be if the motherboard only supports RAID or supports AHCI mode.

 

[JuanV]

Does it matter if mismatched RAM is used for example a 4GB module and an 8gb module from a different manufacturer?

 

[joelmusicman]

Nope, as long as it's compatible. I used this one...

 

[JuanV]

okay thank you so much for the tip.

 

[Ames]

Is the Lenovo server a working solution for freenas? The core i3 processor seems to cost less than the Supermicro motherboard w/o RAM or CPU I was considering. Looking to rebuild a new server with ECC RAM. Is this the ticket?

 

[Ames]

The Lenovo server has one notable distinction from the Amazon reviews. The motherboard/PSU are a matched pair meaning the server does not use a standard PSU cause the motherboard/PSU does not use a generic power plug. So if that's a consideration for one day the PSU gives up the ghost, one will need to replace it with a Lenovo PSU.

 

[ser_rhaegar]

You can use a standard PSU with:
http://www.moddiy.com/products/IBM-...4%2dPin-to-14%2dPin-Adapter-Cable-(30cm).html

 

[joelmusicman]

You can use a standard PSU with:
http://www.moddiy.com/products/IBM-Lenovo-PSU-Main-Power-24%2dPin-to-14%2dPin-Adapter-Cable-(30cm).html

I actually still have this cable from my brief foray with the TS140. PM me if you want it...

 

[alexg]

Never mind. I figured out how to use rufus to burn dd image and it worked.

 

[Ames]

I ordered the Lenovo TS140 for specifically running FreeNAS with the additional 8 Gb of ECC RAM as detailed in this thread and could not be more pleased. The server comes with 3 x 3.5 and 2 x 5.25 drive bays with a CDROM. I had to get a 5.25-to-3.5 adapter from a legacy PC to mount the 4th 3.5 inch drive. The server runs silently and draws hardly any power which makes for a great home NAS which can sit in the livingroom. With 4 x 4 Tb drives, it has 14.5Tb raw storage in the pool, and 6.9Tb when configured as a RAIDZ2 volume with lz4 compression.

I didn't realize the server came with remote power management feature over the NIC, use ctrl-p during boot to configure. There was one quirk that I have not been able to figure out. The server can boot headless but requires a keyboard to be connected, otherwise it goes through the boot cycle repeatedly looking for a boot drive. I haven't found a way to configure the server to ignore missing keyboard during boot like I've seen on other systems. The server also has eSATA port that may be used to expand storage with a an external eSATA RAID tower like this one (i.e. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111456 ).

Total server cost was $280+ 8Gb RAM $85 ~=$365

 

[ser_rhaegar]

Do you have a power meter to measure the watts used while running? Just curious about the wattage during load and idle.

 

[alexg]

I think AMT only works with Xeon and not with i3

 

[Ames]

Do you have a power meter to measure the watts used while running? Just curious about the wattage during load and idle.

I just placed a kill-a-watt meter on the server and rebooted it. During boot up, I saw spikes of around 83watt, and after the server settled down, it hovered right under 49watts (0.4amp) idle.

In trying to create load against the server, I tried to copy a file from my laptop via CIFS over wifi to the server and saturated my wifi network dropping all internet access (doh!). Also found that TimeMachine didn't work in 9.2.1.2 (*facepalm*), so not ready for prime time IMHO. I tried to copied 9Gb directory over wired network with server load around 1, the CPU drew around 62W (0.52amp). Seems like the cure I'm looking for is in 9.2.1.3. Hmmm have to learn to update the USB.

The performance of this new server seems rather poor with previous experience, not sure how much of this is the version difference.
Comparing Freenas 8.3.1.0-16Gb RAM-RAIDZ1-AMD(A4-3400)
to Freenas 9.2.1.2-12Gb RAM-RAIDZ2-Intel(core i3-4130).

 

[jgreco]

Time Machine is working here under 9.2.1.2...

Code:

# uname -v ; ls -aln
FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE-p3 #0 r262572+825d682: Sat Mar  1 10:02:19 PST 2014     root@build.ixsystems.com:/home/jkh/checkout/freenas/os-base/amd64/tank/home/jkh/checkout/freenas/FreeBSD/src/sys/FREENAS.amd64
total 2097
drwxr-xr-x  3 10002  10002     8 Mar 23 16:39 ./
drwxr-xr-x  4 10002  10002     6 Mar 23 16:39 ../
-rwxr-xr-x  1 10002  10002   499 Mar  2 15:05 Info.bckup*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 10002  10002   499 Mar  2 15:05 Info.plist*
drwxr-xr-x  2 10002  10002  6751 Mar 21 19:34 bands/
-rwxr-xr-x  1 10002  10002   445 Mar 23 16:39 com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.bckup*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 10002  10002   445 Mar 23 16:39 com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 10002  10002     0 Mar  2 15:05 token*