BUILD My Build

[sirjorj]

This has been a long time coming (I've been playing with the motherboard for over a year), but my FreeNAS build is finally complete!

***

SuperMicro A1SAi-2750F (8-core Atom)

• This is a fantastic low-power motherboard.
• I am using the 6 onboard SATA ports for my pool.
• It only has 2 USB2 ports, which makes installation interesting.
  • I had keyboard and target drive connected, and installed from a SATA HDD that I dd'ed the image to.
  • I can't wait until FreeNAS supports USB3 again!

Kingston KVR16LSE11/8 8G 1600MHz SODIMM (x4 for 32G)

• It's ECC RAM... it works... not much to say about it!

Norco RPC-2008 2U Case

• This case is pretty good for how cheap it is. The trays are a bit flimsy but it works.
• The activity lights did not work with some of the 2.5" drives I tested with - the WD Reds work fine though.
• The 4 fans that came with the case are very noisy so I replaced them with quieter ones (ARCTIC F8 PWM PST).
  • The new fans have 4-pin connectors so I couldn't use the nice 3-pin connection mechanism that is built into the case's fan mounts.

SeaSonic SS-400L2U 400W Gold Power Supply

• I really wanted a Platinum PS but couldn't find any available in a 2U form factor.
  • the ones I found were OEM only so I couldn't get just one - i did submit it to newegg though.

USB drive for OS

• Nothing fancy here.

WD Red 6TB (x6)

• I was planning on 4TB drives but decided to go bigger at the last minute.

***

This system at idle pulls ~55W.
Writing at pretty much full gigabit speed using afp, it pulls ~63W

I plan on testing and learning more about FreeNAS/ZFS before I commit my data to it.
Currently, I have it running the latest 9.3 version and running RAIDZ2 for 23TB of space.

*** UPDATE ***
Out of curiosity, I swapped out the motherboard with a 2550 (4-core) version that is soon to be my router.
At idle, it pulled about 1 watt less than the 2750, and at full write load, it pulled about 2 watts less. At full write load, the CPUs were at about %50 utilization. Since the power difference was so small, I'm keeping the 8-core board in there for more room to grow.

 

[Fuganater]

If you have any questions with HDD burn-in or setup let us know! Glad you got it all setup.

 

[Kevin Horton]

I'll eventually be looking for a low power NAS to backup my main server, so I'm interested in this. How loud is it? Would you be happy working next to it, or does it need to be well away from anyone? What temperatures are the hard drives running at, as reported by smartctl?

 

[sirjorj]

I'll eventually be looking for a low power NAS to backup my main server, so I'm interested in this. How loud is it? Would you be happy working next to it, or does it need to be well away from anyone? What temperatures are the hard drives running at, as reported by smartctl?

The original case fans were pretty bad but the ones I replace them with helped a lot. They way it is now, I would have no problem working beside it.

To get HDD temps, I ran this: sysctl -a |egrep -E "cpu\.[0-9]+\.temp"
The numbers I got were in the 46-48 C range, though it shows 8 drive temps and I have 6 drives attached.

Hope this helps.

 

[gpsguy]

Since you have an 8 core Atom, those are probably your CPU temperatures. ;)

For both CPU and HDD temperatures, consider using @Bidule0hm 's excellent scripts. See: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/scripts-to-report-smart-zpool-and-ups-status-hdd-cpu-t°-hdd-identification-and-backup-the-config.27365/

To get HDD temps, I ran this: sysctl -a |egrep -E "cpu\.[0-9]+\.temp"
The numbers I got were in the 46-48 C range, though it shows 8 drive temps and I have 6 drives attached.

 

[sirjorj]

Since you have an 8 core Atom, those are probably your CPU temperatures. ;)

For both CPU and HDD temperatures, consider using @Bidule0hm 's excellent scripts. See: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/scripts-to-report-smart-zpool-and-ups-status-hdd-cpu-t°-hdd-identification-and-backup-the-config.27365/

Wow. Quite the brain fart on my end there! I even got that script from one of the pages you listed!

Anyway, I tried a different script and after tweaking it for my system I got this (sn's removed):

[root@freenas ~]# sh tempscript.sh

CPU 0: 48 C
CPU 1: 47 C
CPU 2: 47 C
CPU 3: 47 C
CPU 4: 45 C
CPU 5: 45 C
CPU 6: 47 C
CPU 7: 45 C

ada0 x: 30 C
ada1 x: 32 C
ada2 x: 34 C
ada3 x: 34 C
ada4 x: 33 C
ada5 x: 34 C

 

[gpsguy]

Those drive temperatures look a lot better now!

 

[Kevin Horton]

The original case fans were pretty bad but the ones I replace them with helped a lot. They way it is now, I would have no problem working beside it.

Thanks so much for the info. I'll file this away as an option for when I build the backup NAS.