BUILD Mini-ITX C226 Haswell build

[joelmusicman]

Ugh what a pain. I wanted to do a similar thing, start with 4 HDDs in RAIDZ2 and add 2 more later, but all that data moving would be such a pain. Hopefully I'll have enough external storage to fit all the stuff in the pool while I upgrade.

Not sure how comfortable you'd be doing this, but you could pull one of the disks out of the RAID array during the copy. You'd still need an extra disk laying around to create the new pool, but it's an option if your RAID disks are significantly larger than others you have around. The other option is to do mirrored pairs, though with 6 disks you'd wind up with 3 for data instead of 4.

 

[Shroom]

Not sure how comfortable you'd be doing this, but you could pull one of the disks out of the RAID array during the copy. You'd still need an extra disk laying around to create the new pool, but it's an option if your RAID disks are significantly larger than others you have around. The other option is to do mirrored pairs, though with 6 disks you'd wind up with 3 for data instead of 4.

Interesting. Hopefully the cumulative capacity of all the hdds/flash storage I have laying around should be sufficient for ~3TB of data, but it sounds like the safest (albeit most painstaking) way of keeping the data. Might just be worth it to wait until I have the cash to get all six drives. Or buy the 4 and mess around learning FreeNAS and ZFS before buying the other 2 drives and actually copying my data over

 

[bloomo]

I've ordered the following parts for my first FreeNAS build...

CPU: Intel i3-4130
PSU: SeaSonic SSR-360GP
HDD: 6x 3TB Western Digital Red (configured in RAIDZ2)
RAM: Kingston 16GB ValueRAM 1333 MHz ECC CL9
Case: Fractal Design Node 304
Mobo: ASRock E3C226D2I LGA 1150 Mini-ITX

So this ASRock mobo... there is also a C224 variant (supposedly) but I couldn't find it for sale anywhere. Even this variant is only at a couple of non-mainstream sites (www.superbiiz.com is where I found it). Basically, it's the only mITX Haswell board with ECC that I could find, period. On paper, it's almost an exact clone of the Supermicro X10SLM+-F, just shrunk down. Only 2 RAM slots, but I won't need more than 16 GB of RAM for my system... since I'm filling up the case and board SATA slots (yes, there are actually 6 SATAIII ports on this board) I won't need any expansion card either.

So the obvious risk is that I haven't found a single case of this board being used for FreeNAS... but it does list FreeBSD 9.1 on the list of compatible OS's, and the Intel GigE chipsets have worked for other builds. So I'll be the guinea pig! But I figured there might be some interest out there with regard to a Haswell mITX board. It's a little pricier, but I decided it was worth it to have a smaller system instead of just another mid tower (let's be honest... uATX cases aren't really all that small).

Hey the_tox, just wanted to say thanks for inspiring my build and testing the waters on this board. I've just finished my build and currently am burning her in.

I can say that the Crucial 1.3V CT2KIT102472BD160B works really well and both memtests (86 and 86+ versions) have run 12+ passes with no errors. I'm using the Intel Pentium G3420. Other than these differences, my build is identical.

IPMI and BIOS needed updating from 1.70 and 0.12.0, but IPMI worked out of the box after setting it up in the BIOS. (although use firefox, other browsers are weird with the java plugins).

So far really really happy and the system is super speedy. Running CIFS and Plex I have not noticed any lag with the G3420 and am getting read writes of 109mb/s using CIFS (testing on a hackintosh running OSX 10.9.2).

 

[madik]

I am wonder about the fan speed control on Asrock C226. All of the on-board fan connectors are 4 pins but my two additional fans in my case are just 3 pins. I am used to that even those 3 pins fans are not problem to adjust their rpm to silent levels in normal desktop boards. But on the ASROCK board no matter what i set in the bios the fans are running on full speed. Do i have to buy a fans with 4 pin connectors in order to adjust their rpm?

 

[bloomo]

To my understanding you won't get any speed reporting with a 3 pin via pwm but the motherboard should do voltage regulation (you should be able to adjust speed but not monitor it). Have you downloaded the latest bios? I know that fan speed control was one of the updates in it.

Sent from my T0LTE using Tapatalk

 

[madik]

The fans are reporting the speed. Speed reporting is one of the 3 pins in the connector next to 12V and and ground wire. The 4th pin is for PWM regulation which is not supported by my fans.
I dont have access to the MB now due to replacing for malfunction (fingers crossed) so i cant doublecheck it. And yes i had older bios (1.70 i believe).

Anyway i already ordered one 120mm and one 140mm fan with PWM for my Lian Li PC-Q25, however I can still cancel the order If someone confirms working fan speed regulation with 3pin fans. Thanks!

 

[bloomo]

Yup, on my splitter the 3rd pin was missing but I had a fourth, so my fan wasn't reporting speed but was recieving PWM. I would be very surprised if the board did not support voltage regulation (as rock support email:)?.
I did notice on the new bios 1.8 that you can set the formula of how every fan works. Prior to 1.80 it was just the cpu fan that did that...Hmmm, I see that there is now a v2.0 BIOS - I'm off to do that now!

 

[Herrvonundzu]

Hey Fellas!

I bought mine E3C226D2I at Amazon. The dealer was 'blue-e'.
For These who ask where to get it.

This board is pretty perfect for my NAS idea. Want 6x 3TB like bloomo but I tink a Pentium/Celeron DC/QC would be enough or?
Don't want to explode my Budget. What do u guys say? :)

 

[bloomo]

Hey Fellas!

I bought mine E3C226D2I at Amazon. The dealer was 'blue-e'.
For These who ask where to get it.

This board is pretty perfect for my NAS idea. Want 6x 3TB like bloomo but I tink a Pentium/Celeron DC/QC would be enough or?
Don't want to explode my Budget. What do u guys say? :)

Depends what you're doing with the system. I have a dual core Pentium G3420 with only one thread per core and it's fine for what I need it to do. Which is read and write files constantly from two clients and stream media to another. Streaming media (if you're using Plex) will hog a single core entirely if you're transcoding on the fly. Copying files will push a single core to around 20-30% with 100mb/s throughput (as far as I have noticed). So for me, a dual core pentium is enough. The reality is that in my house we're never (or rarely are) doing the two tasks simultaneously. So I have enough bandwidth in my processor.

One day, when I need to be running torrents, a cloud and possibly any other gizmos that FreeNAS adds I cad upgrade my processor to a Xeon – I like the ability to upgrade it. Right now my budget said it wanted a $70 processor and not a $230 one. So that is really your deciding factor. In my mind the decision was to spend a decent chunk on a good MB and ECC Ram was a must, the money was more worthwhile there.

 

[madik]

Its actually very simple. You have three options.
- Pentium G series is perfectly sufficient for NAS system for few users or small offices with plenty of running plugins.
- Core i3 is required only if you want to use Encrypted pools since it supports AES-IN which greatly reducing CPU load and making pretty much no performance impact on the system with encrypted pools.
- Xeon i3 is quad core and therefore its performance can be used for virtualizations or other specific use case scenarios thats are beyond just a NAS system.

I chose Core i3 because of the AES-IN feature which Pentium cpus doesnt support. If you dont need encrypted pools then you will be better of with Pentium cpu since they are cheaper.

 

[Herrvonundzu]

These are good arguments, thx bloomo. I just want to use the NAS like a oldschool NAS. No Streaming. I just want to save my files, films, Music and so on on it. Maybe with remote, would be cool. A technician at my Job heard about a new Album. He just went with remote on his NAS and started download this Album over iTunes. Thats my plans with it and I think I will just use a Pentium first. Is this remote ability processor performance hungry? Dont know now, if quad core or dual...

 

[bloomo]

Do you mean remote access? If so, I would be surprised if it is processor hungry. I would be surprised if it even taxed a single core more than 5% because your throughput would be so low.

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[Herrvonundzu]

Yeah I just want to control it from anywhere with my Notebook or over another pc.

Like I said, on work or something, typing an adress in the browser with password and then I want to get on the 'desktop' of my NAS.
Do I have to change any extravagant settings to use this how i said or can i use it instantly after installing the NAS?

 

[bloomo]

No it does not automate remote access. This is advanced setup that will require additions to the core Freenas system unless you are just going to VPN in. You'll need a good understanding of networking as well - port forwarding, etc.

Search the forums for your answers to these other questions as this is moving off topic. It's not that I don't want to answer you, but you'll find plenty of answers in here.

Also, get to grips with what Freenas is in the documentation. There is no "desktop" environment. Freenas runs like a server.

Reading is your friend.

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[Herrvonundzu]

Ahh okay, no i understand i truely could open my own thread but i read this here and just wrote :D

I will try this. The remote ability is just luxurious for me so it's not that important.

Thanks for all your help!!

 

[beltet]

I also have this board and are really satisfied with it. Love the ability to use IPMI.
But have anyone got Wake On LAN to work?
I need it besides IPMI to start my server through my mobile phone who doesn't handle java good that's a requirement for IPMI.
If you got it working, what setting have you used?

 

[Herrvonundzu]

Did you enabled it in BIOS?
I think there was an Option to Change..

 

[beltet]

Yeah. I have done it. Tested all three options.
But found on nas4free forum that there are some problems with the drivers for FreeBSD.
Anyway I found a mobile app that can give wake function over IPMI. Using that till their are another solution.

 

[Herrvonundzu]

Ahh okay, Drivers...
An app for a Smartphone or pc?
Which app? :)

Would be great to know!

 

[beltet]

This one:
https://www.megarac.com/xms/?page_id=429

You have to download and install. It wasn't on play store.
Why I don't know... Maybe because they steal all my data. Anyway it worked for my basic needs with waking.
So what I do is connect to my network over VPN and start the server over the app, do what I need to do. Then shut down over the web interface.