New to FreeNAS - about to put together my first build and would love some advice

[Vivan]

Hello! I've been lurking here for a few months now and finally bought the parts (all decided after months of research) for my new NAS. The purpose of this NAS is to act as a Plex media server.

Here are the parts:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1241 V3 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Supermicro X10SL7-F Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Western Digital Red 6TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red 6TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red 6TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red 6TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red 6TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red 6TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red 6TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital Red 6TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Gold 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Case Fan: Fractal Design GP14-WT 68.4 CFM 140mm Fan

All chosen in accordance with the hardware recommendation thread. Thanks also to @Pheran for his build log which was very similar to my build and so which was very useful!

So I now have all the parts - I was planning on using the stock CPU cooler, will that be sufficient to handle it if the CPU is under load for an extended time? It's unlikely that it will be transcoding all that much, but I'd like to be prepared.

Assembly is pretty straightforward, though I'm a little lost on how to get started on the installation/ configuration. I guess I need two USB sticks to do the installation - is a FreeNAS installation the best place to do my testing/ burn-in from? I plan on doing at least 24 hours of memtest and a full badblocks (and SMART) test on all the drives. I've never used FreeNAS so I'm not comfortable with how it all works, particularly how to actually do things on the box. I'm used to Ubuntu where I just SSH in and do what I want - is it pretty straightforward?

I know a UPS is highly recommended and I will be purchasing one shortly. Is there anything else I should get? I was thinking about a small SSD to hold my Plex jail, as metadata takes up a lot of space and will likely be written frequently. Is two USB sticks in a mirror configuration the best way to hold my OS, with backups? I've seen some comments saying that now that the boot device runs ZFS, a small SSD might be better.

Any other tips and advice greatly appreciated! I'm still a little lost but I've read all the tutorials so hopefully I should be able to sort this out.

 

[BigDave]

I was planning on using the stock CPU cooler, will that be sufficient to handle it if the CPU is under load for an extended time?

It should be, yes

is a FreeNAS installation the best place to do my testing/ burn-in from?

Yes

I'm used to Ubuntu where I just SSH in and do what I want - is it pretty straightforward?

FreeNAS will require some use via SSH, but most of your tasks/config will use the GUI.

I know a UPS is highly recommended and I will be purchasing one shortly. Is there anything else I should get?

I would print out a copy of the manual, you will be refering to it alot.

Is two USB sticks in a mirror configuration the best way to hold my OS, with backups?

I run a single 32GB Intel X25-E SSD drive, I prefer this over USB mirrored flash drives.

 

[Nick2253]

Unless downtime is a serious concern, mirrored USBs are overkill. They won't necessarily switch cleanly (depends on what caused one USB to fail). If you backup your config, you'd be fine with just one USB stick.

If speed or reliability is a concern (USB sticks are slow, and they will eventually crap out), then I'd go with a dedicated drive for the OS. Check out the SuperMicro SuperDOMs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816139089

 

[Vivan]

I would print out a copy of the manual, you will be refering to it alot.

Is there a nice PDF copy somewhere? All I can find is the web version.

 

[Haysden Smart]

I tried mirrored USB drives, I now use a single 16GB USB, with a hot spare backed up every time I change and test the configuration.

The issue I had with mirroring was when I made an error, it was then saved on both drives providing no real redundancy at all. A single hot spare works as it can contain two different configurations, excellent for learning, then I simply select the preferred boot device from bits. Therefore still reduced downtime.

Speed is of little concern. Only boot speed will be altered as the OS drive is rarely accessed after boot.

Remember, there is no Zfs protection of the boot drive.

I run 2 240GB SSD's striped for my plugins and I have 8 x wd red 2TB drives on a M1015 cross flashed. I love the Wd reds and doubt I will ever purchase a different drive for Nas

 

[jgreco]

with mirroring was when I made an error, it was then saved on both drives providing no real redundancy at all.

You must have a very unusual definition of redundancy, then. That is exactly what happens in a redundant system.

Remember, there is no Zfs protection of the boot drive.

The FreeNAS boot device has been ZFS for quite some time. Certainly if you were mirroring the boot device, you were running ZFS on it.

 

[Haysden Smart]

No, my definition of redundancy is smack on. The data was ok but settings were wrong and saves to both mirrors so system would not boot.

With using a manually mirrored system, I swap boot device and manually backup the earlier correct configuration.

There are many ways to skim a cat. I am simply explaining what has been a better function for me.

On a production system, I would use three drives as Zfs1. However being USB I doubt it is a mission critical system and Like I have said, I have had far more errors with errors in configuration than in faults with USB flash devices.

 

[jgreco]

No, my definition of redundancy is smack on. The data was ok but settings were wrong and saves to both mirrors so system would not boot.

Your definition of redundancy doesn't match what's commonly understood as redundancy in computing.

"redundancy
Having a secondary peripheral [...] that takes over when the primary unit fails. See fault tolerant, mirroring, RAID, hot standby and backup types."

Storing incorrect information on both units at the direction of a user is not considered a "failure" in this context. It might be considered PEBCAK.

What you're looking for is the ability to back out an errant change. That's normally done through a process that involves duplicating the firmware and configuration ("backup/restore").

With using a manually mirrored system, I swap boot device and manually backup the earlier correct configuration.

There are many ways to skim a cat. I am simply explaining what has been a better function for me.

So you backup a copy of the firmware and a working configuration and then restore it. Around here we would call that a good idea, but it is not redundancy. The two ideas are related in some ways but are very different things. A ZFS system may have a lot of redundancy built in, for example, but we encourage users to back up their systems because redundancy is not the same thing as a backup. That link explains further, in case my explanation is insufficient to the task.

On a production system, I would use three drives as Zfs1. However being USB I doubt it is a mission critical system and Like I have said, I have had far more errors with errors in configuration than in faults with USB flash devices.

I have no idea what "Zfs1" is.

 

[gpsguy]

See my signature for a link to download it as a PDF. I try to build one every other week as a convenience to the community.

For background, see: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/new-format-for-publishing-docs.23557/

Is there a nice PDF copy somewhere?

 

[CaptainSensible]

All looks good to me, your CPU will hardly get warm.

Mirror USB is a waste of time.

BTW what are you doing with 8 X 6TB reds?

Porn?

 

[depasseg]

The issue I had with mirroring was when I made an error, it was then saved on both drives providing no real redundancy at all. A single hot spare works as it can contain two different configurations, excellent for learning, then I simply select the preferred boot device from bits. Therefore still reduced downtime.

Following this logic, do you manually copy files from individual disk to disk, instead of using some sort of RAID-Z2 fault tolerance?

The point of the mirrored boot devices is like any other mirror - to protect the data on the mirror in the case of a device failure. It is not to provide 2 separate boot environments like on a Cisco switch or EqualLogic controller that you manage separately. What's that saying...RAID isn't backup?

 

[CaptainSensible]

If the boot device say the USB fails, it doesn’t really matter, your data on a zpool is still valid.

Never seen a mirrored boot device give any sort of warning.

You may have to type in config shit, but all your data is safe.
You are confusing Hardware with software.

 

[jgreco]

Yes, the redundancy in boot devices is to make sure you don't have to "type in config shit" when a boot device fails, because some of us actually use these things in high-uptime business environments. Paying for redundant SATA-DOM's was really a no-brainer for the most recent filer we deployed. Years ago, some of the home/hobbyist users here had a rough time figuring out why we'd put a ServeRAID BR10i and two cheap 30GB SSD's in a box (this was before FreeNAS natively supported redundant boot devices).

 

[Vivan]

See my signature for a link to download it as a PDF. I try to build one every other week as a convenience to the community.

For background, see: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/new-format-for-publishing-docs.23557/

Thanks for that. I notice a lot of blank pages - is that to allow for double sided printing to work well?

 

[gpsguy]

Sorry, I can't answer that. I participated in the thread I mentioned and just run the commands (script) neccessary to produce a PDF and upload it to my FTP server.

 

[jgreco]

gpsguy means he likes making you kill trees. ;-)

 

[Vivan]

Mannn if I'm going to print this I might as well get it bound nicely. Is it recommended to go to 9.3.1 or should I stick with 9.3? I notice that a lot of users here haven't upgraded.

 

[jgreco]

There's nothing wrong with 9.3.1 that I'm aware of other than the LSI firmware jump from P16 to P20.

 

[Nick2253]

Really, IMO, there's no reason to print the manual. The online manual is significantly easier to use, what with search and all ;)

 

[gpsguy]

I like having the PDF as an offline resource. I don't print them.

Vivan, if you'd like a 9.3.0 version of the PDF, I can make it available. I keep a backup of each one I generate.


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