Need advice for processor and HDD

Status
Not open for further replies.

AlexMata

Dabbler
Joined
Aug 31, 2017
Messages
12
Hi everyone!

After spending many hours reading the forum and the Freenas documentation I have decided to build a Freenas server for my home. My usage is expected to be file/video/picture storage that will be accessed by 2 computers and Plex streaming 1080p to 1 TV. I have gigabit network in my house.

I have a limited budget so I am going to use a lot of recycled hardware.

This is what I have until now:

Motherboard: Supermicro pdsme+ really old and limited to 4 sata and 8GB of RAM but it cost me 0€ and supports ECC.

RAM: 8GB DDR2 ECC that I bought for 40€

Processor: I have 2 options Xeon 3060 2x2.4 GHz 65W (10€) and Xeon X3220 4x2.4 GHz 105W (15€), will have to choose one.

PSU: BeQuiet! 530W modular – recycled 0€

Case: Antec P182 – recycled 0€

Storage: 1X3TB Toshiba DT01ACA300 – recycled 0€

I know that this hardware is pretty obsolete but I think it will suit my needs fine. I only have 2 concerns.

The processor: I would like to use the dual core Xeon because of lower TDP but I am not sure if it will be capable of streaming 1080p. It is basically a core2duo. What do you guys think?

Storage: Now I have a 4TB external HDD and I want to copy all that data to the NAS. Beside I need an additional 1TB for future use. I have available one 3TB HDD from my PC that I no longer use. My idea was to buy 2 more 3TB HDD and use RAID5 but from what I have read that is not recommended. I only have 250€ to spend on storage. What combination of HDD can I make to get the 5TB of data I need?
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
Processor: I have 2 options Xeon 3060 2x2.4 GHz 65W (10€) and Xeon X3220 4x2.4 GHz 105W (15€), will have to choose one.
You will want the Xeon X3220 4x2.4 GHz if you want to be able to run Plex and stream video.

Storage: 1X3TB Toshiba DT01ACA300 – recycled 0€
You will need a minimum of two drives if you want to protect your data at all from a drive failure. I would suggest getting four total if there is any way at all for you to afford it. In FreeNAS (which uses ZFS) the equivalent of what you are suggesting is RAID-Z (also sometimes called RAID-Z1) but the recommendation for drives larger than 1TB is RAID-Z2. That gives 2 drives for redundancy in case of drive failure. If you can squeeze 3 x 3TB drives into your budget (with the one you already have) and set the four drives in a RAID-z2 configuration, it should give you the 5TB you need and give you the ability to suffer a drive failure without loss of redundancy.

Don't forget to get a USB stick to install you boot image on.

It will be a very low capability system. No guarantee about it being able to handle Plex streaming.
 

danb35

Hall of Famer
Joined
Aug 16, 2011
Messages
15,456
Xeon X3220 4x2.4 GHz 105W
Plex recommends a Passmark score of 2000 per 1080 stream to transcode, ignoring anything else that might be using CPU time (like running the system). This chip scores 3000. You might be able to run a single stream with it, or perhaps not. The fact that you're looking at using DDR2 RAM means you'll have a front-side bus, which will slow things down even more.

Bottom line: nothing about this is really suitable for FreeNAS.
 

Inxsible

Guru
Joined
Aug 14, 2017
Messages
1,123
Bottom line: nothing about this is really suitable for FreeNAS.
On the other hand, almost everything in the system is available for free. As long as you have the backup of your data, then go ahead and try it out. The most you lose is the cost of the CPU if everything flames out. That is what about 15euros. Worth taking the chance, I'd imagine.

You can always reutilize the HDDs in a newer system, if things don't work out with this one.
 

AlexMata

Dabbler
Joined
Aug 31, 2017
Messages
12
Thank you for your answers guys!
Inxsible, you are right. I need the drives anyway. So I will take Chris Moore advice and go for the Xeon X3220 and see if I can find 3 x 3TB drives for the money I have.
 

Inxsible

Guru
Joined
Aug 14, 2017
Messages
1,123
Thank you for your answers guys!
Inxsible, you are right. I need the drives anyway. So I will take Chris Moore advice and go for the Xeon X3220 and see if I can find 3 x 3TB drives for the money I have.
Older Seagate 3TBs have had issues, IIRC. I am not sure what the rates in Spain would be. But I recently got 2x6TB Seagate Ironwolf drives on sale. Turns out, per TB, they were the cheapest. $30/TB whereas the 4TB and the 3TB were expensive at around $33/TB and $36/TB. Something to think about.
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
Older Seagate 3TBs have had issues, IIRC. I am not sure what the rates in Spain would be. But I recently got 2x6TB Seagate Ironwolf drives on sale. Turns out, per TB, they were the cheapest. $30/TB whereas the 4TB and the 3TB were expensive at around $33/TB and $36/TB. Something to think about.
True, used 3TB Seagate drives are probably not the thing to do, but if you can find an excellent deal on 4TB drives, that would be great.
You can only utilize the size of the smallest drive, but mixed drive size is not a problem.
I have seen good 4TB drives for $60 on eBay.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk
 

Stux

MVP
Joined
Jun 2, 2016
Messages
4,358
Definitely go the Xeon.

If nothing else, you'll have a nice backup machine one day, since 8GB is fine in a backup.

Think it's fair to say your board/spec is coasting along the min requirements :)

I have a Core 2 Quad, 8GB RAM, and 5 3TB drives in Raidz2 in my backup NAS. It's only job is to receive periodic replication streams. Yeah it pages sometimes, but it still works.
 

Inxsible

Guru
Joined
Aug 14, 2017
Messages
1,123
I have seen good 4TB drives for $60 on eBay.
Those are not NAS drives are they? Cause I have never seen 4TB NAS drives that cheap. Or were you talking about used NAS drives. I am confused.
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080

Inxsible

Guru
Joined
Aug 14, 2017
Messages
1,123
Have any of the used drives you bought given you SMART errors when you check them out ? Would you be able to return them in case they are DOA or throw up a shitload of errors?
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
Those are not NAS drives are they? Cause I have never seen 4TB NAS drives that cheap. Or were you talking about used NAS drives. I am confused.

This is the list of drives in one of my two NAS systems:
Code:
   da0:   30C [2.00TB]  Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (AF) (ST2000DM001-1ER164)
   da1:   31C [2.00TB]  Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (AF) (ST2000DM001-1ER164)
   da2:   30C [2.00TB]  Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (AF) (ST2000DM001-1ER164)
   da4:   29C [4.00TB]  Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST4000DM000-1F2168)
   da5:   31C [4.00TB]  Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST4000DM000-1F2168)
   da3:   29C [4.00TB]  Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST4000DM000-1F2168)
   da6:   31C [2.00TB]  Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (AF) (ST2000DM001-1ER164)
   da7:   29C [2.00TB]  Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (AF) (ST2000DM001-1ER164)
   da8:   29C [2.00TB]  Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (AF) (ST2000DM001-1ER164)
   da9:   30C [4.00TB]  Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST4000DM000-1F2168)
  da10:   31C [4.00TB]  Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST4000DM000-1F2168)
  da11:   30C [4.00TB]  Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST4000DM000-1F2168)
  ada2:   28C [5.00TB]  Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST5000DM000-1FK178)
  ada4:   28C [5.00TB]  Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST5000DM000-1FK178)
  ada3:   28C [5.00TB]  Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST5000DM000-1FK178)
  ada5:   28C [5.00TB]  Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST5000DM000-1FK178)
  ada0:   36C [40.0GB]  FUJITSU MHW2040BS
  ada1:   35C [40.0GB]  FUJITSU MHW2040BS
 

Stux

MVP
Joined
Jun 2, 2016
Messages
4,358
I personaly don't eff around with second hand or refurbished drives, or even non NAS drives. Some do.

Your choice
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
Have any of the used drives you bought given you SMART errors when you check them out ? Would you be able to return them in case they are DOA or throw up a crapload of errors?

It is luck of the draw with used drives. About half of them last more than a year. In the long run, it is probably a better deal to buy new ones because they last much better. It is just down to what budget you have.
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
I personaly don't eff around with second hand or refurbished drives, or even non NAS drives. Some do.

Your choice
It is down to the budget you have. If you can afford to spend $1000 on a 400GB PCIe flash drive, you probably don't bat an eye at spending $350 each for six 8TB Iron Wolf Pro NAS drives. Not everyone can afford that, even if they want to.

The 5TB drives in that list above were all extracted from external USB enclosures. They have been working great.
The 4TB drives were originally sold in Dell Workstations but were replaced with SSD and the owner just wanted to unload them because they had no use for them. Sometimes you can find a deal. The 4TB drives were technically used, but with very low hours.
 

Stux

MVP
Joined
Jun 2, 2016
Messages
4,358
Iron Wolf vanilla btw ;)

Some great deals can be had by shucking drives, and I would do that, if they were NAS drives on the inside
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
Some great deals can be had by shucking drives, and I would do that, if they were NAS drives on the inside
I have been told that you often get lucky that way with the Western Digital USB drives.
 

Inxsible

Guru
Joined
Aug 14, 2017
Messages
1,123
I had a very old WD My Book 500GB drive which I thought had died, because it wouldn't power up. I am glad I got the itch to break open the case just for shits and giggles. I found out that the drive was perfectly ok. only the case's power button had gone bad. I am still using that 500GB drive in my SFF desktop(which originally came with a 80GB drive) since the last 6 years.
 

AlexMata

Dabbler
Joined
Aug 31, 2017
Messages
12
OK, so I got the quadcore Xeon and I have bought an identical 3TB Toshiba HDD. During the weekend I have put everything together and now it's ready to install the OS. Can I configure now Raidz2 with only 2 drives and add another 2 later?
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
OK, so I got the quadcore Xeon and I have bought an identical 3TB Toshiba HDD. During the weekend I have put everything together and now it's ready to install the OS. Can I configure now Raidz2 with only 2 drives and add another 2 later?
No, you must have all the disks present when you establish the array.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top