BUILD Need Help on Choosing Build!

[JHyunS06]

Hello FreeNAS forum!

I have to build that I have to choose between and I need your opinions on which one I should choose!

- Pentium G3258 Build
> CPU: Intel Pentium G3258
> Motherboard: Supermicro X10SLL-F
> RAM: Crucial DDR3-1600 ECC 8GBx2 kit
> HDD: WD Red 3TB x 2 OR HGST Deskstar NAS 4TB x 2
> Case: Fractal Design Node 804
> PSU: EVGA 550W G2

- Atom Avoton C2550 Build
> CPU: Intel Atom C2550
> Motherboard: Asrock Rack C2550D4I
> RAM: Crucial DDR3-1600 ECC 8GBx2 kit
> HDD: WD Red 3TB x 2 OR HGST Deskstar NAS 4TB x 2
> Case: Fractal Design Node 804
> PSU: EVGA 550W G2

As far HHDs, I might get HGST's Deskstar NAS 4TB which for some reason has better reputation over the WD Reds.

Any opinion or advice is welcome and thank you so much for the help in advance!

EDIT;
1. Primary purpose of this system?
> Strictly NAS/File Server for my home.

2. How many people are planning to use?
> I will probably be only "active" user who will store and access to the system on a daily basis. But there is a potential for my other family to using it later on. In this case, it could go up to 3-4 users. But I speculate even if they start to use, they wont be accessing it on daily basis.

3. How am I planning to set storages?
> I am planning to do mirror configuration in order to minimize the complication of adding more HDDs.

4. Do I care about noise?
> No. I am planning to put the system in the living area on the main floor so I do not care. I also do not care about power consumption.

5. How much data am I storing?
> I currently have about 2TB of files on my desktop. Main purpose is to transport those in to NAS. I can only imagine space I need will keep grow up since I am also planning to do regular back up of all my systems on NAS after buidling it.

6. What kind of files am I storing?
> Mostly pictures. Some media files such as music and videos. Documents as well. I am planning to do something like streaming videos off from my NAS to my laptop and connect it to TV in the basement.

 

[joeschmuck]

To give you a good answer you will need to specify what you want your FreeNAS system to do. Also do you need low power.

 

[JHyunS06]

To give you a good answer you will need to specify what you want your FreeNAS system to do. Also do you need low power.

Hello!

My FreeNAS system will strictly be a NAS/file server.

And I am not sure what you mean by low power.

Thanks!

 

[Nick2253]

You'll need to explain more than that:

My FreeNAS system will strictly be a NAS/file server.

How many people will be using it? How often? What kind of files are you serving?

And I am not sure what you mean by low power.

Do you care about power consumption? Do you have a power envelope you are trying to stay in?

Other questions: do you care about noise? What are you growth plans? How much data are you storing? Basically, help us walk through your needs and through process.

Also, it really helps if you list your build items in the OP. It's a pain to have to click on links to see your hardware choices. You'll get better feedback about your hardware choices if it's easier to see what you're looking at.

 

[JHyunS06]

Thanks for the feedback :)

I updated my initial post to show detailed information on each build and answered your questions.

Thanks again!

 

[Nick2253]

Based on the information provided, I would go with the Pentium build. The main advantages to the Atom are its power use and size. And since you don't care about either of those, there's no reason to pay for them.

 

[JHyunS06]

Based on the information provided, I would go with the Pentium build. The main advantages to the Atom are its power use and size. And since you don't care about either of those, there's no reason to pay for them.

Thanks for the advice.

Would the Atom build's low power consumption be worth the extra 150 CAD?

And which HDD (WD vs. HGST) would be a better choice?

 

[joeschmuck]

I too would recommend the Pentium build but let me ask another question first...

You say you will be streaming media eventually. The other users in your home, would they also be streaming media possibly at the same time (2 or more streams)? Are you planning to use Plex as well? I believe your Pentium CPU could handle the load but you may need to upgrade it later if you stream too many things at one time. Otherwise it will be fast enough for a simple NAS.

With respect to your storage, Mirrors are fine and you can get started that way but if you are looking at storing at a minimum 2TB right now, then you are going to need 4TB drives minimum. Rule of thumb: Design your storage capacity for 50% of what you expect over a 3 year period. Yea, I just made that up but it's very true and what I recommend to everyone. You should think about how much storage you might need in 3 years time and purchase for that because most warranties last 3 years and you should plan to buy more hard drives at that point in time. That doesn't mean your drives will fail after that 3 year point, but you will have to pay out of pocket for a drive should it fail. A mirrored setup would not make sense at that time for your needs but you could still start with it. My advice is you try and purchase at least four 4TB drives and configure for RAIDZ2. You could buy two drives now, place them in a mirror and then buy two more later. The save off your data and destroy you r mirror and create a RAIDZ2 pool. Yea, sounds like a lot of work but it's not bad. If you save your data to an external USB hard drive then it will be easy to copy the data back at a reasonable speed.

Would the Atom build's low power consumption be worth the extra 150 CAD?

Nope, not at all. It would take you many many years to recover $150 in electricity saved.

 

[JHyunS06]

Thanks for the reply!

The other users in your home, would they also be streaming media possibly at the same time (2 or more streams)?

> Probably not! If there ever is, it is probably going to be my brothers watching movie in the basement while me just loading the file directly from NAS.

Are you planning to use Plex as well?

> I am not so familiar with Flex but I will look into it!

configure for RAIDZ2

> I read this: http://jrs-s.net/2015/02/06/zfs-you-should-use-mirror-vdevs-not-raidz/. Isnt mirror better?

Nope, not at all. It would take you many many years to recover $150 in electricity saved.

> Thanks!

I do have another question about FreeNAS' overall reliability.
Would I be better off to just build a another windows machine to share the drive as network drive if I am concerned about vdevs/pools suddenly getting destroyed? (I havent really studied FreeNAS that much but it seems like if one of those gets doomed, whole data will be gone. Correct me if I'm wrong.)
The whole purpose of this NAS is to save family photo archives and some documents and if it would be less reliable then HDDs attached to normal Windows machine, I wouldnt be able to justify FreeNAS at all.
I also wanted to "distribute" access depends on the user where lets say my parents would have access to certain folder while rest of my brothers dont.
And possibly making it accessible from external network.(Prob not whole data but selectively.)
I am so sorry for bombing you with questions.

But thank you so much for youe help!

 

[CraigD]

For documents and videos streaming with 4-10 drives RAIDz2 is great

Mirrors are faster but not needed in your use case

4 drives in RAIDz2 or 2 mirrors yield the same usable space but differ greatly, one has more reliable, one is faster

RAIDz2 is slower than the mirrors, but offer more redundancy, you can lose ANY 2 drives and have your data, but if both drives in a mirror fail your data is gone

 

[JHyunS06]

For documents and videos streaming with 4-10 drives RAIDz2 is great

Mirrors are faster but not needed in your use case

4 drives in RAIDz2 or 2 mirrors yield the same usable space but differ greatly, one has more reliable, one is faster

RAIDz2 is slower than the mirrors, but offer more redundancy, you can lose ANY 2 drives and have your data, but if both drives in a mirror fail your data is gone

Thanks for the reply.

But how is the possibility of having two HDDs (out of all other drives) that contain same data?

The reason why I am opting in for mirrored structure is to be able to have ability to upgrade.

As of right now, I am the only one who will likely to use the NAS.

But I can only imagine users increasing because as my brothers grow up, and get their own computers, they will be needing storage.

With ZRaid2, I wouldn't have ability to expand the storage size, unless I reconstruct whole Raid.

 

[CraigD]

Pools can be increased (you can't add a drive to a vdev and I think the same goes for turning two way mirror into a three way mirror)


-Adding RAIDz vdevs, and mirrors to the pool it grows instantly

-Replacing existing drives one at a time with larger drives, once the last drive in the mirror or RAIDz is silvered the pool grows

Mirrors grow after two larger drives are swapped in and again after a further two are swapped in

RAIDz pools only increase in size after all larger drives are swapped in

@cyberjock explains it best

Have Fun

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

The reason why I am opting in for mirrored structure is to be able to have ability to upgrade.

Mirrors definitely offer more flexibility. The case for mirrors for home users was made eloquently here:
http://constantin.glez.de/blog/2010/01/home-server-raid-greed-and-why-mirroring-still-best
The article linked earlier in this thread is much poorer quality.

 

[JHyunS06]

Replacing existing drives one at a time with larger drives, once the last drive in the mirror or RAIDz is silvered the pool grows

Hanks for the suggestion but my "plan" of expanding the storage size is by adding the drive not replacing. From what I can understand what you are suggesting is to replace the existing drives with bigger sizes which is not the case for my situation. And silvered process (although it still will take a while) will be significantly longer for RAIDz.

Correct me if I am wrong though :).

 

[JHyunS06]

Adding RAIDz vdevs, and mirrors to the pool it grows instantly

I just read basic introduction to ZFS file system and it seems like as long as I add more vdevs to zpool, I should be able to expand the storage size without the limitation of what kind of redundancy option I use.

 

[joeschmuck]

The more I read your posts, the more I'm convinced that FreeNAS is not for you. You might be happier with a Windows Server or some other off the shelf NAS unit. I would like you to be happy with your storage product and if you go with FreeNAS, I suspect that you will be posting a lot of complaints the first time you upgrade your storage. I don't mind hearing complaints but if you could be happy the entire time, I think that would be the goal. This forum isn't all about selling you on how great FreeNAS is, or at least I'm not. I do like FreeNAS a lot and I could never see going with a commercial product over the reliability and speed of this product.

So, before you pull the trigger and start buying hardware for a FreeNAS system, maybe you should run FreeNAS in a virtual environment and practice adding virtual hard drives to see how this is done and you can also remove these virtual hard drives to simulate a failure.

As for mirrors or RAIDZ, for your usage as everyone has said, RAIDZ2 is the way to go.

Good luck.

 

[JHyunS06]

So, before you pull the trigger and start buying hardware for a FreeNAS system, maybe you should run FreeNAS in a virtual environment and practice adding virtual hard drives to see how this is done and you can also remove these virtual hard drives to simulate a failure.

That is a brilliant idea. I will do it for sure :)

As far your concern about my potential complaints around the first time of my storage expansion, I LOVE learning new stuff :) It could be harder than other things that I tried and learned (and could cost my data..), but as a future computer engineer (currently in uni), and eventually want to expand my knowledge in these field, I would rather tackle it and make this experience as value of myself.

I will follow your suggestion and fiddle around with it since I have some time before my planned time frame to build a NAS.

Thanks again joeschmuck! :)

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

as long as I add more vdevs to zpool, I should be able to expand the storage size without the limitation of what kind of redundancy option I use

Yes, you can expand a pool by:

1. adding a vdev, or
2. replacing all the drives in a vdev with larger drives

 

[JHyunS06]

Yes, you can expand a pool by:

1. adding a vdev, or
2. replacing all the drives in a vdev with larger drives

Got it!

Thanks for the reply :)

 

[Stux]

Any particular reason you're not looking at a skylake (i.e. X11) based system?

When I've compared, the cost difference between haswell and skylake is negligible, and you normally get 2 extra Sata ports and 64GB ddr4 ram capacity. And it's current.