Need guidance on build

[JJack]

Hello all,

I'm new to FreeNAS (expert in linux and windows environments) and I'm new to NAS boxes in general (although, I always have a data redundant RAID solution on any machine that I build). I would like your help for choosing the best option for my needs. There is great diversity in opinions and needs for NAS boxes. I'm trying to decide if it's worth the money for my use cases.

Design requirements: quiet, low power. This machine will be strictly a repository for data. No ripping. No bit torrent. No media capabilities for this device. Only data access over wifi.

Use case #1: Editing photos over wireless via Macbook Air (very large files from DSLR) with Adobe lightroom. She will also be editing HD video filmed with the DSLR. My wife uses external USB hard drives right now. I recently bought a TP-LINK Archer C7 AC1750 (to replace my aging WRT54G router). Is editing large photos over wireless practical? Or will it be inconveniently, excruciatingly, prohibitively slow to save/load in comparison to her current external HD solution? If the answer depends on the hardware of the NAS, then please see build below.

Use case #2: Editing .WAV files with Audacity. Is it practical to edit .WAV files (mixing/mastering tracks) over wireless internet? Basically, same question as use case #1 but with (sometimes huge) .WAVs instead of huge image files.

Use case #3: Playing MP3s and Movies (avi, etc.) using a remote PC.

Basically, I'm interested in a redundant array which is accessible from Windows, linux, and Mac: a centralized location for all of my data and my wife's data. The NAS machine will be expected to do essentially no heavy duty processing. Do my use cases even require a custom NAS? That is, do I really need to spend ~500-800 (before HDs) to have a centralized location for large photo and large audio files to be remotely accessed and manipulated? Or...

Right now, Amazon has 3TB external WD hard drives for $92. So, I could buy two of those (have one be a mirror only). That's a WAY cheaper solution. How can I (or even should I) convince my wife (and myself) that the $92 external hard drive should be replaced with a $,$$$ NAS? We use CrashPlan for offsite backups, so if the two $92 externals died, we could recover our data--albeit painstakingly slow. I could even go with a simple and cheap WD My Cloud (but I hear some people complain about some things [even iTunes] taking a long time to load). If I spend $500 and my wife cannot simply edit photos at the same speed/rate as she did with her external hard drive, then I'll be in some serious trouble... ;)

Given that the box is only for data storage and access (nothing CPU intensive). How does the setup below sound? Is it completely ridiculous overkill for my use cases? Should I just slap two 3-4TB external hard drives into the two USB ports on my router and call it a day?

Lian Li PC-Q25B $119
ASRock E3C224D2I $193.99
Intel Pentium G3220 $56.99
8GB Kingston KVR16LE11/8KF 2x$68.99
Flashstick (for FreeNAS OS)
High efficiency power supply (have not decided which one yet--typically, I prefer Antec)
Aftermarket quiet cooler for Pentium G3220?
Some combination of WD and HGST Hard drives (probably start with 3-4 3TB drives). Here are my options:
3TB WD, Red, NAS, $118.99 Amazon (2TB = $95, 4TB = $159, 5TB = $209.99, 6TB = $266.77)
3TB WD, Green, Lowpower, $97.94 Amazon (4TB = $135, 5TB = 189.99, 6TB = 229.99)
3TB WD, Purple, Intellipower, $118.99 Amazon (2TB = $88.99, 4TB $173.99, 6TB = $262.99)
3TB HGST, NAS, $124 Amazon (4TB=$184, 5TB = $219, 6TB = $300)
4TB HGST, $167.15 Amazon
4TB HGST, NAS, $162.99

Thanks!

tl;dr version--for my use cases, is a NAS worth it? Or should I just plug two external hard drives (one a mirror of the other) into my router for $184 and count on crash plan as the backup for those two drives?

-JJ.

 

[hugovsky]

My opinion is that if you're looking for a place to store and keep(think archive) photos and videos safe, freenas will probably be ok to you. Edit photos/wav/video over wifi is just not pratical. Better keep usb solution. The box you sugested is nice.

(probably start with 3-4 3TB drives

This is not a good ideia. Drives that size should be used with raidz2. You should use/start with 3+2. Be aware that you can not "just add" another drive to a vdev. You create a new vdev or start from scratch. You should pay a visit to this to get the picture and remember: Freenas is not meant to be a low-end hardware platform.

 

[hugovsky]

oh... and welcome!

 

[Bidule0hm]

Your build meets the requirements and seems good for your needs (and thanks for reading/learning before posting/buying, really) ;)

I think the problem will be the wireless network: wifi is just slow and unreliable if you're not next to the AP (which kind of negates the concept of being mobile...). You're sure you can't use cables?

Anyway, the NAS will be far better than an external drive, now it's up to you to chose between the two :)

NB: I agree with @hugovsky for the drives ;)

 

[JJack]

Thanks a bunch for your responses!

Your build meets the requirements and seems good for your needs (and thanks for reading/learning before posting/buying, really) ;)

Yes, I noticed people trying to ask hardware questions about 4GB setups, non-ECC, etc. Pretty annoying when people ignore very basic requirements. :)

I think the problem will be the wireless network: wifi is just slow and unreliable if you're not next to the AP (which kind of negates the concept of being mobile...). You're sure you can't use cables?

In theory, I could run some cabling under the house from the den (where the internet and potential NAS would live) to the living room (where my desktop lives and wife does most editing). Mount an ethernet port in the wall. I bet my wife's MacBook Air would require a stupid adapter to get to the ethernet.

This is not a good ideia. Drives that size should be used with raidz2. You should use/start with 3+2.

I thought that I could just make a single VDev with some 3TB drives and have that be my entire zpool. Then, if I want to add in the future, I'd just buy a few drives to make a second VDev. What is a 3+2? Does this mean a 3 drive VDev1 + a 2 drive VDev2?

Alas, it seems like a dedicated FreeNAS box might be overkill for my uses (without actually allowing me to directly manipulate files without running cords). I have a powerful desktop system with some extra SATA ports. Maybe I'll just create a new RAID1 array in that system for data archiving and have my wife use the external HDs (which will need to be periodically backed up on the new RAID1 array). The desktop goes to sleep, so I won't have the "always-on" capacity of a FreeNAS. But, "always-on" is not necessarily worth $,$$$ to me.

 

[Bidule0hm]

What you want to do is stripping the drives, which is possible to do, but if you lose only one drive (and you will sooner or later...) you'll lose the pool because you don't have any redundancy.

3+2 here probably means a 5 drives RAID-Z2 so 3 drives for data and 2 for parity ;)

I'd not say it's overkill because my needs aren't far from yours and my NAS is a very big improvement for me, but I just warn you about the wireless limitations. If you know your wireless is working then you'll not have a problem and it's just a matter of money, but I think that about 550-600 $ isn't that big for a good quality NAS, look at the price of the Synology NASs for example (and they have crappy hardware and F/W...) :)

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

I agree that WiFi is the weak link here. I doubt your wife will enjoy editing photos over WiFi as much as she does with an attached USB drive. Gigabit ethernet, however, would not be a bottleneck. Maybe high end Wireless-AC would be OK, I have no direct experience of that.

I bet my wife's MacBook Air would require a stupid adapter to get to the ethernet.

Yes, it will, I have one, it works very well.

To be honest, the FreeNAS box I run is very hard to justify in financial terms, but I really like having it.

 

[russnas]

macbook air on 5ghz, the fastest i can achieve is 18-22MB/s it was not practical transferring/editing large files for me
modems tested on asus n55u and n65u - would be nice if you could test your TP-LINK Archer C7 AC1750

i dont really know how reliable usb on modems are, i tried it a few times, files wasn't written to disc so i discontinued and due to a asus router exploit at the time
http://arstechnica.com/security/201...e-been-pwned-thanks-to-easily-exploited-flaw/

i got given a wd my cloud 6tb,the performance was disappointing for me to use it long term, i ended up trading it for bare drives.

i assume your macbook air has usb 3.0 - i use my air for everything so i ended up getting a usb to gigabit adapter and putting a cable across to another room, its been the most productive thing since.

It is expensive to set one up be comparing it to other nas options it can be cheaper, having a reliable top performing device beats whats available on the market.

 

[Ericloewe]

High efficiency power supply (have not decided which one yet--typically, I prefer Antec)

Antec hasn't had any noteworthy models for a while now. For low-power systems, the Seasonic G-Series is probably the best option. A G-450 should be fine, G-550 if you want to expand in the future.

3TB WD, Purple, Intellipower, $118.99 Amazon (2TB = $88.99, 4TB $173.99, 6TB = $262.99)

Don't bother with the Purples, they're just Reds with different firmware.

Aftermarket quiet cooler for Pentium G3220?

Generally unnecessary.

The solution to editing images over WiFi is to copy the image to local storage, edit it, and copy it back. Anything else won't be a pleasant experience.

If you need/want data safety, you can't really compare FreeNAS to loose external USB drives or home gateway-served shares or even off-the-shelf NAS solutions. FreeNAS (and other OSes with ZFS, but FreeNAS is the most popular) is several levels above all those.

 

[russnas]

I have a corsair rm450 , 135mm fan is ment to kick in at 40% load but can have thermal issues if you have poor air circulation
alot of brands now op for inferior chinese capacitors like capxon, seasonic is generally the best so you want good circulation to increase lifespan.

Psu database
www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/PSUReviewDatabase.html

The intel stock fan has improved but if it idles alot you could look into a heatsink
I salvage an old artic cooler lga775 heatsink and got lga1155 mounts to run it passive and use the case fans to draw any hot air out.