BUILD Need Advice and Suggestion on ZFS NAS Hardware Selection

[Cookie]

I need some advice or suggestion on making final hardware selection from narrowed down choices for ZFS NAS build.

Chipset
Large parts of hardware selections will be based on selection of the chipset, hence it is the crucial part of the decision. When making suggestion, take into consideration of future hardware outlook, such as DDR4 support, ECC SODIMM, SSD capacity increase and price drop, etc.

Intel C224 ECC Unbuffered memory Socket LGA 1150
Intel C226 ECC Unbuffered memory Socket LGA 1150
Intel C602 ECC Registered memory support Socket LGA 2011

The motherboard will have only one processor socket.

Memory
Depending on the chipset, memory will be either unbuffered or registered memory with ECC.
Price between two memory types doesn't differ much which are around 90 USD per 8GB.
Amount of memory will be either 16GB or 32GB consisting of 8GB to 16GB sticks depending on the chipset selection.

Hard Disk Drives
4 to 8 disks consisting of 2TB to 4TB HDD
They will all be enterprise HDD of SATA or SAS interface of same models.
Some of models that I am considering are.
WD SE series with 64MB cache.
WD RE series with 64 MB cache.
Seagate Constellation 128MB cache.

Processor
The selection will depend on selection of the chipset.
The processor will be quad core Xeon with ECC support costing around 200USD to 300USD.
Specs will range from 1.8GHz to 3.1GHz with 8MB to 10MB cache with no hyperthread and turboboost.


Intel C600 series chipset definitely offers better scalability overall, but will get outdated in a year and means extra cost. Intel C224 and C226 in the other hand can support more of the latest peripheral connects such as all SATA III ports.

 

[DataMover]

Hi Cookie.

although I am rookie like you, I am willing to give you a noob's advice - treat it like this ;-)

I can't see what requirements you have and I expect that will make it difficult to give a reasonable advice even for the experts. I try to draw conclusions from your setup:

- 4 to 8 disks of a fairly common model and SATA interface possible
- maybe 16 GB RAM
- one CPU

That doesn't sound like you need a speed daemon. So maybe you like to reconsider your expensive board and CPU setup. Unless you are going to run a lot of (and I mean really a lot) of jails or non-FreeNAS-related processes, you won't hardly need that much CPU power.

Even if you planned to saturate more than one Gb-Port, please bear in mind, that another component than the CPU might limit your ability to do so.

SATA III - yes, who likes to pay for old stuff like SATA II. I had the same thoughts. But again: one SATA II port is capable of handling around 300 MB/s. Can your disks deliver at that speed?

ECC memory is a good thing (well, in fact the only option....ehm that makes it an option anymore, doesn't it). 16 GB might be OK for you, 32 GB might be better, but - depending on your needs - might be an overkill, also.

Hope this gives you some more brain food.

Kind regards,
DataMover

 

[Yatti420]

You are headed in the right direction.. Just remember SATA3 can't really be maxed out yet / gigabit ethernet.. With enterprise drives and a fast xeon with lots of ram it will be a monster..

Edit: Don't forget your UPS..

 

[HarryE]

Suggesttion: HP Microserver N40L as a minimum, HP Microserver G1610 gen8 even better (IL0 + dual gigabit)

 

[Cookie]

I narrowed down the choices even more, so I can make final purchasing decision.
I think I am going to go with one of the following:

Motherboard and Chipset
Intel C226 Express Chipset
SuperMicro MBD-X10SAT-O ATX Motherboard
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C220/X10SAT.cfm

Memory
32GB of ECC Memory consisting of 4 Samsung DDR3 - 1600 8GB ECC UDIMM
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=D38GE1600S#
or
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=D38GRE160S#

Hard Disk Drives
For the hard disk drives, it was found that 3TB and 4TB drives provide the largest amount of space per dollar.
The NAS will consist of 6 drives plugged into the chipset's SATA ports. So I might go with 6 drives of one of the following models.
WD SE 3TB Enterprise NAS Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236521&ignorebbr=1
or
WD SE 4TB Enterprise NAS Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W017R1672&ignorebbr=1

Processor
With the encryption in mind, I will pick one of the following. It's around 80 USD apart.
Intel i3 4130 54W TDP
http://ark.intel.com/products/77480/Intel-Core-i3-4130-Processor-3M-Cache-3_40-GHz
or
Intel Xeon E3 1220V3 Haswell 80W TDP

USB Flash Drive
Kingston Data Traveler SE9 8GB USB 2.0 Drive
8GB was chosen because there seem to be almost no difference in price between 4GB and 8GB drives. In some cases, the prices are same, in some cases the prices are negligible difference, and in some cases 4GB drives cost more than 8GB drives.

Power
Power consumption calculation will be based on the worst case scenario.
The power consumption for each hard drive is about 10.16 Watts, so with 6 it's around 60.96 Watts
The processor TDP is 54W to 80W depending on the choice.
There will be only two fan, one 120mm case fan, and one for the processor heat sink.

With all other hardware, the power estimate come out to around 250 Watts. So anywhere from 300 Watt to 400 Watt power supply with at least 80% efficiency should do. Depending on the power consumption, right UPS will be picked accordingly

 

[indy]

Keep in mind that heat management is a lot more demanding with 7200rpm disks.
Just one case fan will most likely not be adequate.

Other things I would consider: server board, 16GB Ram