BUILD NEW - First FreeNAS, Help?

[NicolasVin100]

Hi everyone!

I’ve been reading through the forums, but this is my first time posting! There’s quite a lot of information to read and digest. I’ve been trying to be a figure out my build all by myself, but I still have questions (read doubts) and would really benefit and appreciate any suggestions or validations you can offer me. I Appreciate your feed back!

After reading through everything, I feel like FreeNAS is the right solution for me. Now, here are my reasons for this build :

- Plex (Movie, TV shows and music. Multiple clients, but I don't think there will be more then 2 simultanious stream [1080p])
- I’m curious about Sickbeard/Sickrage, Couch Potato, Headphones, Transmission and some of the other plugins...
- VPN (PIA)
- Jails to seperate the plugins and my data (non media) and secrity/encryption (advices??)
- OwnCloud (access to my content via the web)
- Backup for my Windows computers

Disk Size:
I envision this unit someday holding 12-20TB of data (Is mirrored nessesary for RAIDZ2??). I’m not sure if there’s any dangers using larger drives (I was thinking either go at 3, 4 or 6TB).

Am I wrong to think I should go with RAIDZ 2?

I’ve spent hours and hours reading through RAIDZ posts and trying to understand the benefits and issues of each.. I don't want to do this built to lose all my data!

Is WD Reds are the best way to go for the drives?

Should I back up my NAS with Crashplan Central (cloud service if anything happens to the house) or another service (suggestions?) or even plan for external HDD backup?

So far, this is what I was thinking of using :

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1240 V5 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor

CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X11SSL-F-O Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

Memory: 2x Crucial 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: 4x Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Titanium) ATX Mid Tower Case

Power Supply: SeaSonic X Series 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

UPS: CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD UPS


Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and any feedback you can provide me!

EDIT : Forgot! I understand that FreeNAS 10 or something seems to be available, but I only see posts for FreeNAS 9 or lower... Is there something I'm missing? Should I go for FreeNAS10 or FreeNAS 9?


Any comments on the plugins (Owncloud, SickBeard, CouchPotato, ...) and backup function??

Nic
(Sincerely, anyone who took the time to read ALL of this, I really do appreciate it!)

 

[nojohnny101]

Welcome to the forums!

I'll get right to providing some info and asking some additional questions:
What have you read so far in your research? From some of your comments, it seems you have a good start but are mixing up some terms (referencing RAID, FreeNAS actually uses RAIDZ, similar but different). I ask what you have read because I don't want to point out things you have already read but the resources section on this forum is a great place to start. At the very least, start with Cyberjock's noob slideshow

- Plex (Movie, TV shows and music. Multiple clients, but I don't think there will be more then 2 simultanious stream [1080p])

FreeNAS is used commonly for plex, is fairly easy to setup and even easier to manage. I followed this guide (great step by step)
Plex FreeNAS Guide

- I’m curious about Sickbeard/Sickrage, Couch Potato, Headphones, Transmission and some of the other plugins...

I don't have personal experience with the above but I know many many people on here use them successfully in FreeNAS (through jails). If you search the forums you should find guides.

- VPN (PIA)

While this is possible on FreeNAS, most people would not recommend. It is generally recommended to separate out this function to an off the shelf router that has built in VPN capabilities or if you are up to it, you can get a lot more bang for the buck by building your own, such as a dd-wrt router.

- Jails to seperate the plugins and my data (non media) and secrity/encryption (advices??)

Jails are the recommended way to install plugins (such as plex, and all the other ones you mentioned). I'm not sure what you mean by "security/encryption" but if you are referring to encrypting the drives, while FreeNAS does support this natively it is not recommended unless you have a legal obligation. Two reasons: most people don't fully understand how it works and so they lose their encryption key at some point (maybe during a rebuild, drive install, etc) and then they lose all their data because it is locked. Second, it complicates other standard processes such as replacing a failed drive, etc. So unless you are very sure you want it and are very sure you understand how it works, then go ahead. Reference this recent discussion for some opinions (many more threads you can search for): encryption thread 1 and encryption thread 2 and so forth

- OwnCloud (access to my content via the web)

That is supported through jails in FreeNAS and many people have success with it. It does require a bit of web knowledge but there are guides.

- Backup for my Windows computers

Of course, FreeNAS handles this through shares (reference manual)

Disk Size:
I envision this unit someday holding 12-20TB of data (Is mirrored nessesary for RAIDZ2??). I’m not sure if there’s any dangers using larger drives (I was thinking either go at 3, 4 or 6TB).

It is not necessary to mirror a RAIDZ2 vdev, and in most circumstances wouldn't make sense. The only factor you have to consider when choosing larger drives is this: when a drive dies, you go and buy another one, pull the old one, stick in the new one, then FreeNAS resolvers the drive (read about this in the manual). This resilvering process is very IO intensive on the drives and stresses them. This relates to drive size because the larger the drive, the higher the chance of another drive in your system throwing errors during the resilvering process. It is not even a high chance of happening, but for simplicity sake, if you have a pool of 3TBs that resilver when you put in a new drive, they are less likely to encounter errors during that process than a pool of 8TB drives. That make sense?

Am I wrong to think I should go with RAIDZ 2?

RaidZ2 would be a good choice. It is a popular choice because it is a good balance between speed and redundancy. RaidZ2 means you can have up to 2 drives fail in a pool without losing your data. The protects you from the scenario I described above so that is why most recommend now to not select a RaidZ level below 2 because of increased drive sizes these days. Starting off with 4 drives, you are losing 50% to parity so that would be the same as running a mirror (but difference in performance). If you would start off with a 6 drive vdev RaidZ2 then you would only lose 33% to parity.

I’ve spent hours and hours reading through RAID posts and trying to understand the benefits and issues of each.. I don't want to do this built to lose all my data!

The manual is a good place to start for this as well as the slideshow I linked to above.

Is WD Reds are the best way to go for the drives?

These are popular drives on these forums. It is generally recommend to get any branded NAS drive as they are built for 24/7 operation. They also have a slower rotational speed which helps with power consumption and heat (and really provides very little/no cost in performance in most scenarios).

Should I back up my NAS with Crashplan Central (cloud service if anything happens to the house) or another service (suggestions?) or even plan for external HDD backup?

Great you asked this question! Having raid redundancy is NOT a backup. This is stressed over and over on these forums and people still do not backup their data because they believe it is safe behind raid and then lose their pool because of a major hardware failure, fire, power spike, etc. There are many options, crashplan is certainly one of them. For my needs, I wanted to keep everything in my control and not have to pay a monthly fee so I built a very basic second FreeNAS box that I store at a friend's house. My main FreeNAS box replicates to the backup box every night. FreeNAS has great snapshot and replication support built in and make backing up to any ZFS enabled system a breeze.

So far, this is what I was thinking of using :

(https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/FLBzWX)

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1240 V5 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor

CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X11SSL-F-O Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

Memory: 2x Crucial 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: 4x Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Titanium) ATX Mid Tower Case

Power Supply: SeaSonic X Series 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

UPS: CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD UPS

Your build looks good. I think you could save some money in some areas though:
- The 1240 is probably way overkill for your needs. Someone was actually thinking about this same process just today in another thread, you can reference that for the relevant discussion (and it seems you have share similar purposes for the boxes you are building)
- Also you can start off with only 16GBs of RAM, for your needs staring out you won't need more than that. More RAM always helps (I'm sure you've read how RAM hungry FreeNAS is) but because of the storage you are starting out with and the fact that you're not running any VMs, 16GB is fine.
- You can save some money by getting a cheaper SSD. I am assuming you are using that for the OS (to install FreeNAS on) so don't waste too much money on it. This is a good one for around $40: SanDisk 120GB
- Your power supply is over specs it seems for what you are staring off with. It is a delicate balance because if you buy over speced, then your PSU is actually less efficient. If you buy too little, then you leave no room for expansion. So I'll leave it at that, but here is a great thread that we often point people on here to, it provides some guidance on sizing your PSU: PSU thread

Good luck!

 

[NicolasVin100]

What have you read so far in your research? From some of your comments, it seems you have a good start but are mixing up some terms (referencing RAID, FreeNAS actually uses RAIDZ, similar but different). I ask what you have read because I don't want to point out things you have already read but the resources section on this forum is a great place to start. At the very least, start with Cyberjock's noob slideshow

I've been reading forums (a few sites) and trying to gather what I could, mostly!... I'm still reading and trying to fully understand every aspect of RAIDZ (For the Raid vs Raidz in my text, it was a typing error).

While this is possible on FreeNAS, most people would not recommend. It is generally recommended to separate out this function to an off the shelf router that has built in VPN capabilities or if you are up to it, you can get a lot more bang for the buck by building your own, such as a dd-wrt router.

For the VPN, It's mostly for security and avoid problems while using SickBeard or Couchpotato and other. Since I don't know much about routers, I'm didn't even know that could be done. Other issue, I'm not living alone (roommates) and we already have a router (from internet provider), I don't think I could get their approval for this...

Jails are the recommended way to install plugins (such as plex, and all the other ones you mentioned). I'm not sure what you mean by "security/encryption" but if you are referring to encrypting the drives, while FreeNAS does support this natively it is not recommended unless you have a legal obligation. Two reasons: most people don't fully understand how it works and so they lose their encryption key at some point (maybe during a rebuild, drive install, etc) and then they lose all their data because it is locked. Second, it complicates other standard processes such as replacing a failed drive, etc. So unless you are very sure you want it and are very sure you understand how it works, then go ahead. Reference this recent discussion for some opinions (many more threads you can search for): encryption thread 1 and encryption thread 2 and so forth

I see... well, I might hold a little on encrypting my drives then! But what can I do to ensure max security on this device? Anything threads or articles I can read? (Firewall and other)

It is not necessary to mirror a RAIDZ2 vdev, and in most circumstances wouldn't make sense. The only factor you have to consider when choosing larger drives is this: when a drive dies, you go and buy another one, pull the old one, stick in the new one, then FreeNAS resolvers the drive (read about this in the manual). This resilvering process is very IO intensive on the drives and stresses them. This relates to drive size because the larger the drive, the higher the chance of another drive in your system throwing errors during the resilvering process. It is not even a high chance of happening, but for simplicity sake, if you have a pool of 3TBs that resilver when you put in a new drive, they are less likely to encounter errors during that process than a pool of 8TB drives. That make sense?

Indeed it does! So I will aim at something more along the lines of 3 or 4 TB then, to avoid complications.

RaidZ2 would be a good choice. It is a popular choice because it is a good balance between speed and redundancy. RaidZ2 means you can have up to 2 drives fail in a pool without losing your data. The protects you from the scenario I described above so that is why most recommend now to not select a RaidZ level below 2 because of increased drive sizes these days. Starting off with 4 drives, you are losing 50% to parity so that would be the same as running a mirror (but difference in performance). If you would start off with a 6 drive vdev RaidZ2 then you would only lose 33% to parity.

So, If I get this right, I get :
4 x 3 TB = 6TB usable
4 x 4 TB = 8TB usable
6 x 3 TB = 12TB usable
6 x 4 TB = 16TB usable

Then, since I wanted about 12 or 16TB, I gotta go with at least 6 drives... (either 3 or 4TB)

These are popular drives on these forums. It is generally recommend to get any branded NAS drive as they are built for 24/7 operation. They also have a slower rotational speed which helps with power consumption and heat (and really provides very little/no cost in performance in most scenarios).

That's what I though (after reading on it), but always nice to have confirmation!

Great you asked this question! Having raid redundancy is NOT a backup. This is stressed over and over on these forums and people still do not backup their data because they believe it is safe behind raid and then lose their pool because of a major hardware failure, fire, power spike, etc. There are many options, crashplan is certainly one of them. For my needs, I wanted to keep everything in my control and not have to pay a monthly fee so I built a very basic second FreeNAS box that I store at a friend's house. My main FreeNAS box replicates to the backup box every night. FreeNAS has great snapshot and replication support built in and make backing up to any ZFS enabled system a breeze.

Since I'm at the very beginning (and have a certain limit to the budget), I'll have to consider my option. On one had, I don't like giving away my data (even though I already do so with OneDrive). On the other hand, I know I won't have that many data (personal data for now [I think 500GB would already be too much]) and media data will be the major need of storage(in the near future), causing me to question the need of a mega backup plan.

Your build looks good. I think you could save some money in some areas though:
- The 1240 is probably way overkill for your needs. Someone was actually thinking about this same process just today in another thread, you can reference that for the relevant discussion (and it seems you have share similar purposes for the boxes you are building)
- Also you can start off with only 16GBs of RAM, for your needs staring out you won't need more than that. More RAM always helps (I'm sure you've read how RAM hungry FreeNAS is) but because of the storage you are starting out with and the fact that you're not running any VMs, 16GB is fine.
- You can save some money by getting a cheaper SSD. I am assuming you are using that for the OS (to install FreeNAS on) so don't waste too much money on it. This is a good one for around $40: SanDisk 120GB
- Your power supply is over specs it seems for what you are staring off with. It is a delicate balance because if you buy over speced, then your PSU is actually less efficient. If you buy too little, then you leave no room for expansion. So I'll leave it at that, but here is a great thread that we often point people on here to, it provides some guidance on sizing your PSU: PSU thread

CPU - I've got no idea on this one, I went with what I had read... (2 x 1080p stream, transcoding, ...) + I thought I could run a VM to separate media and personnal data (thoughts??)
-> I will definitively read that thread and see if I need to edit this present post!

RAM - Again, same thing has the CPU, I understood there was a real need for lots of RAM when running Plex (transcoding and streaming) and FreeNAS + depending if I should do that VM or not.

SSD - I wasn't sure which one were reliable... but If I can save and get the same use, then excellent!

PSU : I will definitively try to find something closer to my needs... but i was going for that 30-50W per drive + the TPD of the components (from PCPARTPICKER). Thought I didn't look if the site took HDD Watts need in consideration!
-> I will definitively read that thread and see if I need to edit this present post!

Thank you for your help and advice, really appreciate it! :)

 

[ccssid]

Nicolas.

I know you are trying to get your bearings. You are doing a good job so far.

Take a look at my signature. I am using my unit for a plex server and storage.

Originally , I used....

1 x SanDisk 16GB Cruzer Ultra 16G SDCZ48 USB 3.0 Flash Pen Thumb Drive

for a boot drive and worked out fine. I have since changed to this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VX82PJC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

cheap and works.

Having talked to the tech support people at seasonic, I chose the ssr550 as per their recommendation (plus a healthy rebate at the time). If I had to do over I would go with the ssr650.......which I still may do anyways even though there are no problems with my system.

I cannot comment on your other proposed plugins......but an option may be ...if you have the availability.....would be to use a separate computer with a vpn and merely transfer your docs back over to your "shares" on the FreeNAS box.

 

[nightshade00013]

A good chunk of people are using mirrored usb flash drives for the boot os. As far as a SSD a cheapo is fine, you will not be doing a lot of writes to the boot drive. If you are worried about it just mirror a couple small cheapo's and call it good.

As far as the VPN there is no need to try and offload to a router with ddwrt. FreeNAS can handle it no problem, I use a plugin jail with Transmission installed and then setup the vpn software and connected to the VPN. There is a tutorial for it and once it's up and running it is very stable. Plus there is no trying to take a low cpu powered router and tell it to number crunch a bunch of encrypted data. https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...g-up-transmission-with-openvpn-and-pia.24566/

Until FreeNAS 10 enters the stable branch you will want to stick with FreeNAS 9.10, especially if you want to preserve your data.

As far as streaming goes how much horsepower needed will depend on the amount of transcoding required. Most of my stuff loves MP4 with AAC audio so I make sure that everything is encoded that way. This means little to no transcoding unless I am displaying subtitles via SRT or I am at a remote location and I need to drop the quality down from 1080p to something much lower. However if you want to transcode multiple streams at the same time you will need a cpu with more power. I believe that 1080p streams need a cpu mark around 2000 to transcode that and I would not go with anything below 6000 for two streams and the system to do it's background housekeeping. That means if you want to have other jails running the cpu mark should be higher. As a reference I am running dual e5640's with a cpumark around 5300 each http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5640+@+2.67GHz and together around 8900 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5640+@+2.67GHz&id=1251&cpuCount=2

Otherwise on the CPU you could save a ton by going with something older. Honestly from e3-1245v3 to e31240v5 the only differences are minor, you get a 100mhz bump in cpu speed and a minor passmark bump though you can get a used v3 for about 100 bucks less used. There are a ton of decommissioned servers on ebay and you may be able to find something in a 3u or 4u chassis that is ready to go minus hard drives.

I can transcode 3 to 4 streams easily with multiple jails in the background and it will throttle the cpu's up to max the rest of the time the system idles around 5%.

As far as VM's that is not what you are doing with FreeNAS at this point. When it goes to 10 the jail system will change to docker and be closer to vm's but you still will not have the data in a jail or docker. You will put a folder on the pool which you can then link into the jail or docker so that it has access to it. Nuke the jail or docker and all you should lose is the data and configs of the container.

Your math on the drives is mostly correct but you lose some space to overhead and a few other things. I have a RaidZ3 with 7 x 4TB drives and have a little under 16TB of space. I chose RaidZ3 over RaidZ2 as I plan to increase my space later on by adding another vDev of 7 drives to the pool and since those drives will be larger in size they will also be more likely to have a read failure during a rebuild of the pool.

16GB of ram for the system and a jail is fine to start off with but the more the better, FreeNAS itself because of ZFS LOVES it's RAM.

Encryption is only going to do some good if you power down the system and have it so you must input the password to initialize the pool. If it's always running your router will be your main defense from the internet along with setting up strong usernames and passwords and file access control.

As far as Jails, I use Plex, Transmission with OpenVPN, OpenVPN server, Murmur (mumble server), and Syncthing.

Another thing you were looking at is owncloud and I have not dealt with it but everything I have has a syncthing client so I just have certain files sync automatically. If my wife or I take a picture syncthing automatically uploads it to the server and we each have a folder that sync's files we need on our computer, tablet and phone from the server. Can't say enough about Syncthing really, I have a FreeNAS that some of my media is sync'd to that is in Phoneix, AZ and Hayward, CA right now it's at about 2TB of data and 1300 files. Since it uses bittorrent protocols if I add a file on one device it uploads a part to each client which then shares the rest between the others as they get it. I literally have my "Own Cloud" using Syncthing this way

 

[NicolasVin100]

Thank you all for your inputs and sorry for the delay!

As far as the VPN there is no need to try and offload to a router with ddwrt. FreeNAS can handle it no problem, I use a plugin jail with Transmission installed and then setup the vpn software and connected to the VPN. There is a tutorial for it and once it's up and running it is very stable. Plus there is no trying to take a low cpu powered router and tell it to number crunch a bunch of encrypted data.

Thanks! That's pretty much what I had in mind!

Until FreeNAS 10 enters the stable branch you will want to stick with FreeNAS 9.10, especially if you want to preserve your data.

FreeNAS 9.10 it is!... for now ;)

As far as streaming goes how much horsepower needed will depend on the amount of transcoding required. Most of my stuff loves MP4 with AAC audio so I make sure that everything is encoded that way. This means little to no transcoding unless I am displaying subtitles via SRT or I am at a remote location and I need to drop the quality down from 1080p to something much lower. However if you want to transcode multiple streams at the same time you will need a cpu with more power. I believe that 1080p streams need a cpu mark around 2000 to transcode that and I would not go with anything below 6000 for two streams and the system to do it's background housekeeping. That means if you want to have other jails running the cpu mark should be higher. [...] Otherwise on the CPU you could save a ton by going with something older. Honestly from e3-1245v3 to e31240v5 the only differences are minor, you get a 100mhz bump in cpu speed and a minor passmark bump though you can get a used v3 for about 100 bucks less used.

The Xeon E3-1230 V5 3.4GHz seems to score at least 9000. That should be OK then... and it was about 120$ cheaper!
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E3-1230+v5+@+3.40GHz

Your math on the drives is mostly correct but you lose some space to overhead and a few other things. I have a RaidZ3 with 7 x 4TB drives and have a little under 16TB of space. I chose RaidZ3 over RaidZ2 as I plan to increase my space later on by adding another vDev of 7 drives to the pool and since those drives will be larger in size they will also be more likely to have a read failure during a rebuild of the pool.

For my needs I guess RAIDZ2 should be ok (see list below), so about 16TB in theory... I gave myself room to expand, just in case thought!

16GB of ram for the system and a jail is fine to start off with but the more the better, FreeNAS itself because of ZFS LOVES it's RAM.

I'll go for 32gb then, to have a little room and place to expand if needed!

If it's always running your router will be your main defense from the internet along with setting up strong usernames and passwords and file access control.

Ok, is there a place where I can learn to make the rooter more secure or the NAS itself more secure?

Another thing you were looking at is owncloud and I have not dealt with it but everything I have has a syncthing client so I just have certain files sync automatically. If my wife or I take a picture syncthing automatically uploads it to the server and we each have a folder that sync's files we need on our computer, tablet and phone from the server. Can't say enough about Syncthing really, I have a FreeNAS that some of my media is sync'd to that is in Phoneix, AZ and Hayward, CA right now it's at about 2TB of data and 1300 files. Since it uses bittorrent protocols if I add a file on one device it uploads a part to each client which then shares the rest between the others as they get it. I literally have my "Own Cloud" using Syncthing this way

I'll look into that, thanks! ... Question : Is it has secure has, exemple, Owncloud claims to be?

I've change a few things (Had to add SATA controller), any thoughts??

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V5 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X11SSL-F-O Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

Memory: 2 x Crucial 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: 6 x Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Titanium) ATX Mid Tower Case

Power Supply: Corsair RMx 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

UPS: CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD UPS
Other: SYBA SI-PEX40071 PCI-Express 2.0 x2 SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) 8-Port Card

 

[gpsguy]

I wouldn't buy that controller.

Get a proper LSI HBA or it's equivalent and flash it to IT mode. The IBM M1015 is popular.

SYBA SI-PEX40071 PCI-Express 2.0 x2 SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) 8-Port Card

 

[NicolasVin100]

I wouldn't buy that controller.

Get a proper LSI HBA or it's equivalent and flash it to IT mode. The IBM M1015 is popular.

Yeah I read about that one... Issue is to find one here in Canada at reasonable price! (Amazon = 300$, Newegg doesn't have it and not sure I can trust eBay on that one...)

 

[nightshade00013]

Buy it from the US and have it shipped. If you are having problems with someone shipping it to you I am sure SOMETHING can be figured out to get it to you. As far as ebay not being trustworthy read the reviews and don't buy one being shipped from china.

 

[Stux]

Instead of buying an HBA for the boot drive! Step up to an X11-SSM-F and get 8 Sata ports. Or just go for a dual USB cruiser fit boot drives and stick with the SSL.

Then, when you want to add another vdev add an HBA too

1230 is a good choice for plex.

 

[SCS]

For VPN capability I'd look at running a pfSense box as its also freebsd based like freenas. Setup is dead easy, alternatively you can run the OpenVPN appliance as a Windows or VMware VM with this link:

https://openvpn.net/index.php/access-server/download-openvpn-as-vm.html

I'm in the process of deploying my first proper FreeNAS after breaking about all the rules the last few years with my current rig. I picked up a set of used Dell H310 (Dell branded OEM 9211-8i, same thing as IBM M1015) off eBay from a US seller for about $35/each. Just need flashing. Both of mine worked fine when I tested them in my windows box as I haven't flashed them yet.

Also realize that if you use that SSD for the OS any unused space on the SSD will not be usable by the system for storage. For that reason I decided to go with a set of flash drives for the OS that I'm going to Mirror to save on SATA/SAS ports and redundancy.

The SuperMicro SSD DOM's are and interesting modules that are ssd's that plug directly into the SATA ports (no cable needed) I believe your mb would support powering them over the yellow SATA connectors onboard.


Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

[NicolasVin100]

Also realize that if you use that SSD for the OS any unused space on the SSD will not be usable by the system for storage. For that reason I decided to go with a set of flash drives for the OS that I'm going to Mirror to save on SATA/SAS ports and redundancy.

After reading on the subject, seems better to stick to SSD... even if there's just one.

UPDATE (changing the board avoid the HBA... for now at least) :

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V5 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X11SSM-F-O Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: 2 x Crucial 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: 6 x Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Titanium) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair RMx 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

UPS: CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD UPS

Any comments on the UPS?

 

[nojohnny101]

Any comments on the UPS?

Cyberpower is a popular brand. When considering size for a UPS, decided if you are going to be running anything else off the UPS or just your FreeNAS box and then ask yourself if you want the UPS to simply provide enough time to power down your FreeNAS or if you want it to keep it running for x hours, protecting you from maybe short but frequent power cuts.

You can save money and buy a smaller size one if you don't need uptime and don't mind the UPS just keeping the FreeNAS box running for 10 minutes or so incase power quickly "flashes on and off". Otherwise, the UPS just gives the FreeNAS box time to shutdown safely, which obviously takes very little time once the command is sent.

 

[NicolasVin100]

The UPS should keep the NAS up for 1-2 hours and if the power is not backup afterward, then shutdown the FreeNAS and then shut itself down.

 

[SCS]

CyberPower is a great value, 2 of my 4 UPS's are CyberPower and they work great.

The added power panel capability is fantastic as well.

 

[NicolasVin100]

So, with many research and thanks to all of you (and unless a major change, this will be my build!!) :

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V5 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X11SSM-F-O Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: 2 x Crucial 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory

Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: 6 x Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Titanium) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair RMx 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

UPS: CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD UPS


Thanks again for everyone's help!! :)

 

[SCS]

So, with many research and thanks to all of you (and unless a major change, this will be my build!!) :

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V5 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X11SSM-F-O Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: 2 x Crucial 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: 6 x Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Titanium) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair RMx 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

UPS: CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD UPS


Thanks again for everyone's help!! :)

Whats your intention with the 250gb ssd?

For a boot drive its a terrible waste of space, and your aren't using enough ram for using it as an L2ARC.

 

[NicolasVin100]

Whats your intention with the 250gb ssd?

For a boot drive its a terrible waste of space, and your aren't using enough ram for using it as an L2ARC.

I know I can't use it has cache, but I'll take it has boot... maybe I'll try to find smaller, but they are really cheap... just trying to find cheap, around 32gb from a good brand and new 9not used for many reasons)

 

[Stux]

I know I can't use it has cache, but I'll take it has boot... maybe I'll try to find smaller, but they are really cheap... just trying to find cheap, around 32gb from a good brand and new 9not used for many reasons)

It will work fine, but it's just overkill for a boot drive, even a 120GB would make more sense

 

[NicolasVin100]

It will work fine, but it's just overkill for a boot drive, even a 120GB would make more sense

Well, I read that for boot, SSD are much better then USB sticks... And well... looking for a brand, size and price now