New FreeNAS Box

[Yatti420]

Hello everybody..

Just wanted to get some advice/input on a new freenas rig.. I am building a new box to replace the ones I've been having trouble with and because I've had a hdd failure with the cruddy WD20EARS.. The rough system is below.. Seems to be working ok with 64 bit freenas.. Would like to have a raid setup but I don't know much about it..

ASUS P5KC
2GB DDR3 - 1333mhz
2 x 2 TB Seagate ST2000DM001 Barracuda 7200RPM - New not tested yet.. Do these drives need 4k alignment enabled? How much capacity can I get with "1 drive capable of failing" do I need 5+ drives..
1 x 2 TB WD20EARS (I have it but don't know if i'm going to use it.. First one has failed a 1.8 years approx - can this even be put in raid with the seagates?)
gigabit onboard ethernet..
2gb sd card..
1 x dedicated nvidia gpu..
I also have other flash memory I would want to have mounted so I could transfer files to them..
Nice ultra 600w psu..
May go up to 4gb ram or more..

Any input would be appreciated..

 

[Yatti420]

Hello everybody..

Just wanted to get some advice/input on a new freenas rig.. I am building a new box to replace the ones I've been having trouble with and because I've had a hdd failure with the cruddy WD20EARS.. The rough system is below.. Seems to be working ok with 64 bit freenas.. Would like to have a raid setup but I don't know much about it..

ASUS P5KC
2GB DDR3 - 1333mhz
2 x 2 TB Seagate ST2000DM001 Barracuda 7200RPM - New not tested yet.. Do these drives need 4k alignment enabled? How much capacity can I get with "1 drive capable of failing" do I need 5+ drives..
1 x 2 TB WD20EARS (I have it but don't know if i'm going to use it.. First one has failed a 1.8 years approx - can this even be put in raid with the seagates?)
gigabit onboard ethernet..
2gb sd card..
1 x dedicated nvidia gpu..
I also have other flash memory I would want to have mounted so I could transfer files to them..
Nice ultra 600w psu..
May go up to 4gb ram or more..

Any input would be appreciated..

ASUS P5KC
8 GB DDR3 - 1333mhz
2 x 2 TB Seagate ST2000DM001 Barracuda - New not tested yet.. Do these drives need 4k alignment enabled? How much capacity can I get with "1 drive capable of failing" do I need 5+ drives..
1 x 2 TB WD20EARS (I have it but don't know if i'm going to use it.. First one has failed a 1.8 years approx - can this even be put in raid with the seagates?) Ideas with this? Raid 5 possible?
gigabit onboard ethernet.. or pci gigabit dlink..
2gb sd card..
1 x dedicated nvidia gpu..
I also have other flash memory I would like to have mounted so I could transfer files to them..
Nice ultra 600w psu..

 

[survive]

Hi Yatti420,

Here are my thoughts:

If you are buying new why are you going with such an old motherboard?

Assuming you are going to do ZFS you can do raidz (RAID-5ish) by making a virtual device out of 3 drives, just keep in mind you can't add drives to the existing (in your case) 3 drive vdev....you can add more drives by making another vdev. Take a look at noobsauce80's excellent presentation here: http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?t=7775 for an explanation.

Use the onboard NIC, and if it doesn't work well replace it with an Intel "CT" NIC.

A 2GB flash drive is usually a bit to small, get a 4GB card & save yourself some initial headaches.

No need for a dedicated video card if you get a new board with on-board video....save yourself the watts & heat.

Buy a quality PSU. Best long-term advice I can give you. Personally I like the Corsair VX430. With any luck your system will draw under 100W so you want a PSU with an efficiency "sweet spot" closer to where the PSU spends most (all) it's time. A good lower PSU will have plenty of start-up current available.

-Will

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

I would ditch the gpu unless it's needed. Another thing to complicate the build. Though you might need it to get video out for instillation / debugging.

The more ram the better, if you can get 8GB DDR3 sticks you won't regret it. I would probably check the force 4k alignment, I believe most newer drives are 4k aligned and preform better with this setting on.

Yes, everything can be raided, even different sized drives, raidz (equivalent to raid5) should be a good choice.

 

[Yatti420]

8GB ram DDR3 is on the way.. I'm not buying anything new.. This was my main comp but it's time to repurpose as I had some problems with a smaller setup recently.. I'm going to have to do some research regarding RAID.. I setup a small box in a mirror (I believe/hope) to play around with tonight.. 2x250gb seagate 7200.10 which still work no problem.. With a mirror setup (raid-1?) can I have a disc fail and still be ok? Is the 4gb SD for freenas os a must? GPU is needed for the p5kc.. I do have an older computer laying around but only 2x sata ports probably slower.. Most of the stuff I have at the moment has been tested and trying to avoid spending and optimally I'd like to have some "redundant" safe space in the future (drives currently have data on them)..


ASUS P5KC
CPU - ~3.00GHz Quad Core
Nice Ultra X3 600W Modular PSU..
Old Tower/Fin heatsink..
8 GB DDR3 - 1333mhz
2 x 2 TB Seagate ST2000DM001 Barracuda 7200RPM - Will verify if these are AF drives.. I believe they are..
1 x 2 TB WD20EARS - Disabled the Idle timer today with wdidle3.exe.. Might put it back in temporarily without any raid to see how it reacts now.
Gigabit onboard ethernet - Aslong as it works ill be happy..
4GB SD Card - Class 10? Can I get away with the 2GB.. What are the limitations?
1 x dedicated nvidia gpu..
I also have other flash memory I would want to have mounted so I could transfer files to them.. Important files etc.. Always seem to have problems with flash media +freenas.. Haven't tried in 8.0 + yet...
Ultra Mid-Tower.. Performance Fans..

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

FreeNAS must have a dedicated drive so an SD card should work as long as you can boot from it.

Yes with Mirror you can fail a drive and still have everything working. You also get the advantage of having 2 copies of every file so during your scrubs zfs will fix any corrupted files it finds.

 

[Yatti420]

Awesome.. The mirror box I have seems to be working fine.. It's now my parent's file server.. Very old hardware.. Going to give it some new ram and leave it for them to use as backup.. The 2gb stick seems to be working is there any reason to use 4gb min? Will this prevent updates?

 

[survive]

Hi Yatti420,

The FreeNAS install image is 2000MB and every 2GB flash drive I've seen is usually ~1.9GB, so they simplay arent big enough. The FreeNAS installer is happy to write right over the end of the kay and this leads to unpredictable results.

Here's how things usually go: User asks about Freenas not booting\acting weird -> ask them how big the key is -> they reply "2GB" -> suggest they try a 4GB -> they do -> works much better.

-Will

 

[Yatti420]

Hi Will,

Thanks for the info.. I did see the warning I believe during install.. If I save the config out and get 4gb flash medium.. Install the corresponding freenas (32bit/64bit) can I simply import the config reboot and keep going?

Thanks,

 

[survive]

Hi Yatti420,

Sure. All your settings are in the config file, the installer itself has no configuration associated with it.

-Will