New to FreeNAS - New Build Help

[Chris Hoeschen]

Ok I was all set to use a spare desktop with 8GB of RAM to build me a FreeNAS for home use. Currently I have several different drives mounted in a 2008 R2 server (also running on desktop class hardware) shared as separate shares. I store photos, ISOs, and documents on these drives so data that doesn't change much. My goal is to combine this all into 1 FreeNAS box and setup different datasets for photos, ISOs, documents, etc. with quotas (that way if I needed more space on one of those datasets I can up the quota and (if needed) reduced the quota on another.) I wanted something that can handle a drive failure without data loss as right now if I loose a drive I loose the data on that drive and need to restore from backup.

Like I said I was all set to build it with that hardware (drives are already on order) then I read the ECC vs Non ECC RAM post and that changed my mind. I'm now thinking I shouldn't switch over to FreeNAS until I get new hardware that supports ECC. I have the items suggested by Cyberjock in my wishlist waiting on more funds so I can order them. My build will consist of this:

Supermicro MBD-X9SCM-F-O
Intel Pentium G2030 3GHz (this differs from Cyberjock's suggusting of the G2020)
Kingston KVR1333D3E9SK2/16G ECC RAM
5 x 4TB WD Red
1 x 4TB Seagate (already in use, will reuse)
I will setup the drives into a 16TB RAID-Z2 array.

My questions are:
Is there a difference between the G2020 and G2030 proc that will cause an issue?

Is 16GB RAM enough? I know the suggestion is 1GB RAM for every 1TB of disk space but is that based off of usable disk space or total disk space? In my setup I will have 16TB of usable space but 24TB of total space.

Any other gotchas, tips, suggestions I need to know regarding the hardware and FreeNAS? I have built many computers before from the ground up so I'm not a noob when it comes to the hardware installs but I am a noob when it comes to FreeNAS.

 

[madik]

Hi there. Good that you actually asked about your build.
You are building it around 1.5 generation old Ivy Bridge platform. I believe that you will be better off with something more state-of-the-art.
CPU could be Intel Pentium G3220. Not sure about the board but make sure its for socket 1150!

 

[Chris Hoeschen]

Correction: I think I see your point as the 3220 processor is cheaper than the 2030 I was looking at, in this case newer is cheaper. Thanks for your help.

It is my understanding ZFS is more memory hungry than processor hungry so I went with the older and lower cost CPU. I have no plans now to run the plugins aside from possible Crashplan. This build is strictly file storage. Am I wrong on this understanding?

 

[madik]

Correction: I think I see your point as the 3220 processor is cheaper than the 2030 I was looking at, in this case newer is cheaper. Thanks for your help.

It is my understanding ZFS is more memory hungry than processor hungry so I went with the older and lower cost CPU. I have no plans now to run the plugins aside from possible Crashplan. This build is strictly file storage. Am I wrong on this understanding?

Yes thats correct. However I dont see a point of buing older platform instead of newest one. There are various improvement in performance and power efficiency for the same or lower price. Also with Socket 1150 you will have an option to upgrade CPU to newer in next few years rather then to be stuck with Socket 1155 which is no longer developed.