MythTV backend to Freenas server?

[tumblingthrough]

Hi


Like so many others, I’d like an experienced eye run over ‘my first Freenas build’, though this is more of a conversion than a new build.


A bit of background. I’ve been using linux as the OS of choice for my machines for about ten years now (my business is not computer-centric, so I’m a proficient user, but can’t code etc). In around 2011 I built a Myth TV backend with a XBMC (Kodi) frontend. When I say ‘built’ I put in the HDDs having got pcspecialist.co.uk to put together the rest as I had a young kid and little time. On the backend I set up a RAID5 using three 1TB disks. All worked pretty well, though Myth TV can be b&*£h. I had originally wanted to have all our other local machines backed up to the backend, but never had enough space. At some point later I hooked up another 1Tb disk, but could never work out how to add it to the lvm set up. Everything is backed up in the cloud using CrashPlan.


So, here we are in 2016, we’ve moved house and things have moved on, I’ve got three young kids and even less time! The front end is still in a box as we use an Amazon firestick with Plex to access our media. We no longer bother recording tv, so the tv card in the backend is redundant.


We haven’t used Myth TV in over a year, and now I feel the need for a proper NAS and Freenas with it’s ZFS compatibility looks like a no-brainer. Much as I’d like just to buy a ready-made machine, I do have all this kit that I feel should be able to continue to serve me well.


My question is, out of the following, can I have a decentish NAS running Freenas? What would you keep? What would you change? What could be reconfigured?


The following is a breakdown of the present backend hardware (without the disks), I’ve added questions / comments where I have them:


Case - COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 (http://www.coolermaster.com/case/mid-tower/sileo-500/) - apparently 4 internal and 1 external 3.25” bays, so plenty for what I need.

Processor - Intel® Celeron® DualCore E3400 (2.6GHz) 800MHz FSB/1MB Cache

Motherboard - ASUS® P5G41TM LX: MICRO ATX (https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5G41TM_LX/) - presently fitted with 2Gb RAM but link says it can go up to 8 Gb, though there is some note about Windows only recognising up to 3Gb, which I guess is irrelevant to discussion here. Expansion slots: 1 x PCIe x16; 1 x PCIe x1; 2 x PCI. Southbridge storage: 1 xUltraDMA 100/66/33; 4 xSATA 3 Gb/s ports. I don’t know my PCIe from my UltraDMA, all I really want to know is, can I have four HDDs in ZFS RAID plus an SDD for the Freenas OS and the DVD reader all running off this board?

Power Supply - 350W Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan - I have no idea if the motherboard etc is efficient, or if I could run with much less power using a different set up.
Processor Cooling - INTEL SOCKET LGA775 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Wireless/Wired Networking - ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options - 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS)
TV Card - PCTV SYSTEMS DUAL TUNER TV CARD

There is also DVD reader.


Out of interest, the following is the frontend hardware, is any of this useful, could any of it replace anything in the above?


Processor (CPU) Intel® Atom™ DualCore Processor D525 (1.8GHz) 667MHz FSB/1MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® AT5IONTI: NVIDIA® ION™, HDMI 1080P, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM) 2GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 2GB)
Graphics Card Integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M mGPU + HDMI & DX10 Support


Am happy to spend some money if it’ll radically improve the set up, but if there’s no need to, why would I?


Thanks for reading this far. Hoping to heard from you.


Jim

Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

 

[danb35]

out of the following, can I have a decentish NAS running Freenas?

I'm going to have to say no, sorry. The FSB on the CPU is going to kill any kind of performance. The motherboard maxes out at the bare minimum RAM to run FreeNAS, and doesn't support ECC (a highly-recommended, though admittedly not essential, feature). The good news is that there are some low-end servers out there that are quite suitable for a basic FreeNAS box and very reasonably priced, at least in the US. Two popular options are the Dell PowerEdge T20 (under $200) and the Lenovo TS140 (around $300, IIRC). They use server-grade hardware, including an appropriate chipset for ECC RAM support, and all you have to do is add some RAM (the base configuration is 4 GB, I think), pop in your drives, and install FreeNAS.

 

[tumblingthrough]

I'm going to have to say no, sorry. The FSB on the CPU is going to kill any kind of performance. The motherboard maxes out at the bare minimum RAM to run FreeNAS, and doesn't support ECC (a highly-recommended, though admittedly not essential, feature). The good news is that there are some low-end servers out there that are quite suitable for a basic FreeNAS box and very reasonably priced, at least in the US. Two popular options are the Dell PowerEdge T20 (under $200) and the Lenovo TS140 (around $300, IIRC). They use server-grade hardware, including an appropriate chipset for ECC RAM support, and all you have to do is add some RAM (the base configuration is 4 GB, I think), pop in your drives, and install FreeNAS.

Dan

Many thanks for taking the time to reply. I guess I could replace the motherboard, but not a value option, though perhaps more fun.

Jim

Hi


Like so many others, I’d like an experienced eye run over ‘my first Freenas build’, though this is more of a conversion than a new build.


A bit of background. I’ve been using linux as the OS of choice for my machines for about ten years now (my business is not computer-centric, so I’m a proficient user, but can’t code etc). In around 2011 I built a Myth TV backend with a XBMC (Kodi) frontend. When I say ‘built’ I put in the HDDs having got pcspecialist.co.uk to put together the rest as I had a young kid and little time. On the backend I set up a RAID5 using three 1TB disks. All worked pretty well, though Myth TV can be b&*£h. I had originally wanted to have all our other local machines backed up to the backend, but never had enough space. At some point later I hooked up another 1Tb disk, but could never work out how to add it to the lvm set up. Everything is backed up in the cloud using CrashPlan.


So, here we are in 2016, we’ve moved house and things have moved on, I’ve got three young kids and even less time! The front end is still in a box as we use an Amazon firestick with Plex to access our media. We no longer bother recording tv, so the tv card in the backend is redundant.


We haven’t used Myth TV in over a year, and now I feel the need for a proper NAS and Freenas with it’s ZFS compatibility looks like a no-brainer. Much as I’d like just to buy a ready-made machine, I do have all this kit that I feel should be able to continue to serve me well.


My question is, out of the following, can I have a decentish NAS running Freenas? What would you keep? What would you change? What could be reconfigured?


The following is a breakdown of the present backend hardware (without the disks), I’ve added questions / comments where I have them:


Case - COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 (http://www.coolermaster.com/case/mid-tower/sileo-500/) - apparently 4 internal and 1 external 3.25” bays, so plenty for what I need.

Processor - Intel® Celeron® DualCore E3400 (2.6GHz) 800MHz FSB/1MB Cache

Motherboard - ASUS® P5G41TM LX: MICRO ATX (https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5G41TM_LX/) - presently fitted with 2Gb RAM but link says it can go up to 8 Gb, though there is some note about Windows only recognising up to 3Gb, which I guess is irrelevant to discussion here. Expansion slots: 1 x PCIe x16; 1 x PCIe x1; 2 x PCI. Southbridge storage: 1 xUltraDMA 100/66/33; 4 xSATA 3 Gb/s ports. I don’t know my PCIe from my UltraDMA, all I really want to know is, can I have four HDDs in ZFS RAID plus an SDD for the Freenas OS and the DVD reader all running off this board?

Power Supply - 350W Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan - I have no idea if the motherboard etc is efficient, or if I could run with much less power using a different set up.
Processor Cooling - INTEL SOCKET LGA775 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Wireless/Wired Networking - ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options - 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS)
TV Card - PCTV SYSTEMS DUAL TUNER TV CARD

There is also DVD reader.


Out of interest, the following is the frontend hardware, is any of this useful, could any of it replace anything in the above?


Processor (CPU) Intel® Atom™ DualCore Processor D525 (1.8GHz) 667MHz FSB/1MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® AT5IONTI: NVIDIA® ION™, HDMI 1080P, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM) 2GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 2GB)
Graphics Card Integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M mGPU + HDMI & DX10 Support


Am happy to spend some money if it’ll radically improve the set up, but if there’s no need to, why would I?


Thanks for reading this far. Hoping to heard from you.


Jim

Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

 

[danb35]

I guess I could replace the motherboard, but not a value option, though perhaps more fun.

Really, the only parts of your current system that would be salvageable for a FreeNAS build would be the drives, and perhaps the case and PSU. One of the servers I mentioned would likely be more economical than swapping parts on your current system.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

I set up a RAID5 using three 1TB disks

I hooked up another 1Tb disk, but could never work out how to add it to the lvm set up

You won't be able to expand your storage this way with your shiny new FreeNAS either. Make sure you do lots of homework on ZFS to understand why, so you can plan your build properly. The basic fact is, you can grow a ZFS storage pool by adding vdevs, but you can't grow a ZFS vdev by adding disks.