BUILD (Military Member) Needs help with first FreeNAS Build

[Mani]

Good day to all.
Need Help!
I am planning my first attempt on a NAS build. I've been through the drawing phase and done my brief research but the only thing I am sure of is the Case, CPU processes, EEC and FreeNAS software I want to use.

Illustration as to how the server will be used:
Plex Media Server (Transcoding Required)
Time Machine backups, file-sharing,
Probably some web hosting
Used for iTunes and backups
Run a torrent client, like transmission
Save photos, videos, ( blue ray Movies) music to DLNA enabled devices
Allow upload of photos, videos, music and backups from Iphone, Ipad,

Main requirements:
Enough CPU to do transcoding to three devices at the same time.
Gigabit Ethernet (2)
Run Open VPN server in virtualized environment (Maybe jails or virtualbox)
Supports 8 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s and SSD

Secondary requirement (if possible):
Serve music, videos, movies and picture to/and support Apple TV
My biggest problem has been figuring out which motherboard to use; I see that the non-server motherboard like the newer consumer boards and even many of the prosumer boards have many of the things I am looking for in a board. But however I have read many posting here where many of you are against using theses boards for servers. So now I am lost as to what board to use because some of these new prosumer boards are looking more like server boards with more to expand in the future. HELP ME I AM LOST!

What I have Sofar:
Case: Cooler Master HAF 935 Stacker ATX Modular & Expandable Chassis ( Yes I know too much case, but it was a Christmas gift so to me it is the perfect case (free))
Board: I was thinking of using the ASRock C216 WS ATX Server Motherboard LGA 1155 Intel C216 DDR3 1600/1333/1066 (please give me feedback) CPU: I want to use an I5
RAM: ECC a must!

 

[enemy85]

WARNING: for what I know, intel I5 does not support ECC ram...

 

[Z300M]

Good day to all.
Need Help!
I am planning my first attempt on a NAS build. I've been through the drawing phase and done my brief research but the only thing I am sure of is the Case, CPU processes, EEC and FreeNAS software I want to use.

Illustration as to how the server will be used:
Plex Media Server (Transcoding Required)
Time Machine backups, file-sharing,
Probably some web hosting
Used for iTunes and backups
Run a torrent client, like transmission
Save photos, videos, ( blue ray Movies) music to DLNA enabled devices
Allow upload of photos, videos, music and backups from Iphone, Ipad,

Main requirements:
Enough CPU to do transcoding to three devices at the same time.
Gigabit Ethernet (2)
Run Open VPN server in virtualized environment (Maybe jails or virtualbox)
Supports 8 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s and SSD

Secondary requirement (if possible):
Serve music, videos, movies and picture to/and support Apple TV
My biggest problem has been figuring out which motherboard to use; I see that the non-server motherboard like the newer consumer boards and even many of the prosumer boards have many of the things I am looking for in a board. But however I have read many posting here where many of you are against using theses boards for servers. So now I am lost as to what board to use because some of these new prosumer boards are looking more like server boards with more to expand in the future. HELP ME I AM LOST!

What I have Sofar:
Case: Cooler Master HAF 935 Stacker ATX Modular & Expandable Chassis ( Yes I know too much case, but it was a Christmas gift so to me it is the perfect case (free))
Board: I was thinking of using the ASRock C216 WS ATX Server Motherboard LGA 1155 Intel C216 DDR3 1600/1333/1066 (please give me feedback) CPU: I want to use an I5
RAM: ECC a must!

I've seen advice not to get a WS motherboard, because it usually has power-consuming stuff that's not needed for FreeNAS, such as sound and fancier graphics.

There's a lot less information about the suitability of ASRock motherboards for FreeNAS. Supermicro are the most highly recommended, and that's what I'm aiming for when I move to a system with ECC memory.

I've read that the LGA1155 CPUs use more power when idling than the later LGA1150 ones.

 

[jgreco]

You might also want to ascertain if a workstation board requires your CPU to have on-board graphics. This will typically eat extra power for no good purpose.

We typically suggest the Supermicro boards with something like a Xeon E3-1230 as an uncompromising solution, it is not top end, but aside from a little speed it does not vary in features or functionality from the fastest E3's ... but is much less expensive. No one has reported problems with supporting both ZFS and Plex transcoding to multiple devices on such a platform.

Selecting a board with IPMI allows for total manageability over the network - a quality that doesn't seem all that important until you're used to it. Once you get used to managing your infrastructure from your desk rather than having to go hook up keyboards and monitors and insert CD's and stuff like that, spending the extra ten bucks seems totally worth it...

The 1150's may be more efficient. Haven't had an opportunity to do a fair comparison. However, the 1150's are also a little unstable with respect to things like USB3. A 1155 E3-1230 (v1) with a good power supply idles around 45 watts. I wouldn't hesitate to buy anything Sandy or newer as the cost recovery time on small amounts of power saved is pretty high.

 

[HoneyBadger]

WARNING: for what I know, intel I5 does not support ECC ram...

Correct. You'll have to stick to the i3's or jump up to the Xeon E3 series as jgreco recommended.

 

[Yatti420]

If you don't need to transcode you don't need a xeon..

 

[Mani]

Hey guys; thank you very much for the input and advise I am now clearer as to what direction I am going with my choice of motherboard/ build. As I am currently deploy, in my down time which is very limited I am doing more research, reading, and planning my build. This should start on or about the first week of May. I will create a log of my build and post. Again thank you all for the support. By the way have any used FreeNAS and Apple TV to play with each other?

 

[jgreco]

AppleTV only likes to play with itself.

But if you can stick a copy of iTunes up to act as a gateway, you can host a large amount of content through it that is stored on your NAS.

 

[Mani]

AppleTV only likes to play with itself.

But if you can stick a copy of iTunes up to act as a gateway, you can host a large amount of content through it that is stored on your NAS.

jgreco, thanks much.

 

[Mani]

What motherboard would you recommend from Supermicro or some other manufacture that will support 8 SATA 6.0Gb/s

jgreco, thanks much.

 

[cyberjock]

Mani, when you get to the point of wanting to spend money, give me a PM. I'll help you pick out stuff. Us military(and ex-military) gotta take care of each other. ;)

 

[HoneyBadger]

What motherboard would you recommend from Supermicro or some other manufacture that will support 8 SATA 6.0Gb/s

None of them on the LGA1155 socket do, I believe. You're better off getting an IBM ServeRAID M1015 and flashing to IT mode. Yes, it's "only SATA 3.0Gbps" but unless you plan on hanging SSDs off each port you aren't going to see a bottleneck at SATA 3.0Gbps

Edit: Derp, the M1015 is 6Gbps for both SAS and SATA, buy one, flash, enjoy.

 

[Mani]

Mani, when you get to the point of wanting to spend money, give me a PM. I'll help you pick out stuff. Us military(and ex-military) gotta take care of each other. ;)

Will do! thanks for the offer cyberjock.

 

[jgreco]

None of them on the LGA1155 socket do, I believe. You're better off getting an IBM ServeRAID M1015 and flashing to IT mode. Yes, it's "only SATA 3.0Gb/s" but unless you plan on hanging SSDs off each port you aren't going to see a bottleneck.

Um Error.

The M1015 is 6Gbps SAS/SATA.

The Supermicro boards have mixes of 3 and 6. Your last sentence is dead correct about 3 vs 6. Only problem is I can't think of any boards with more than six ports, except the X10SL7 which ought to be a killer NAS board.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Um Error.

The M1015 is 6Gbps SAS/SATA.

Right you are, not sure why I had it in my head that it wasn't 6Gbps capable. Must have been thinking of another controller that for some asinine reason was 6Gbps SAS/3Gbps SATA (HP, I'm looking in your direction.)

 

[cyberjock]

M1015 doesn't compromise on anything. It's just freakin' amazing! There's no reason to avoid an M1015 unless you need bandwidth that PCIe 8x can't provide. And at that point you are probably talking about such a big fast expensive server you'll gladly buy 2, 3, or 10 M1015s.

 

[jgreco]

10 watts for unused silicon to do basic RAID. Minor compromise. Heh.

 

[cyberjock]

10 watts for unused silicon to do basic RAID. Minor compromise. Heh.

Ok, I guess that one. May not even be a compromise for some if they are forced to buy addon cards though. :P

 

[Mani]

After more research, downloading and studying http://forums.freenas.org/threads/slideshow-explaining-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/ by cyberjock: (by the way thanks, super job on putting the presentation together, great help). with that this is what I have so far.

Please give me your input and suggestion one any of the hardware.

CPU: Intel Intel Xeon E3-1230V3 Haswell 3.3GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1150 80W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80646E31230V3
CASE: Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935 - Full Mod-Tower Computer Case with Windowed Side Panel and Modular Dual Compatible with bitcoin mining
MOTHERBOARD: SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SL7-F-O uATX Server Motherboard LGA 1150 Intel C222 DDR3 1600
RAM: Kingston 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1600 Server Memory w/TS Model KVR16E11K4/32
HDD: 4X Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD30EFRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

 

[Yatti420]

It's a tank.. Raidz2 for your drives?