Newbie build spec

[daccy]

Hello. FreeNAS newbie here. I’ve read a bunch of stuff already, but newbie questions remain! (Sometimes I’ve found conflicting answers, which is one of the great joys of the Internet.) I’d like to invite comments about my proposed NAS build.


The NAS will be for home use: Storage for PCs; Streaming audio and video; database for a low-traffic blog, backing up home PCs and some other servers (only as part of a backup strategy, not the only component). It will have relatively light use. I want about of 4TB of usable capacity by the end of the first year. It could start smaller, as it will take some time to ingest my CD/DVD/photo collection, but I’d also like an easy-ish upgrade path to approx 8TB as it’s hard to predict future use (or… I could start with 8TB from the beginning and not have to worry about upgrading capacity in the near future, but that might cost more).


I already have a Lenovo ThinkServer TS200 type 6522 with a Quad Core Xeon X3430 @2.4Ghz and 8GB RAM to donate to this project. This is ~6 years old, but it’s slightly more enterprise-grade than consumer-grade hardware. The motherboard in this server looks like it has 6 SATA connections, and there are 2 PCIe x8 connectors with an IBM ServeRAID M1015 card in one of those. The case easily has room for 4 drives, or 6 if I use the space for the floppy and second optical drive (or 7 if I remove the optical drive). There is one internal USB connector on the motherboard which looks like it will be useful!


Things I think I need to buy:

Disks: I’m thinking of either 4 disks (WD Red 2TB, or 3TB, 4TB) or 6 disks (WD Red 2TB), perhaps using RAIDZ2 although I’ve read some interesting arguments in favour of just using pairs of mirrored disks instead of RAIDZ2, which might mean a lower initial spend of just 2 disks.

RAM: I haven’t checked if the RAM I already have is ECC… if not I’ll replace it (the CPU can support it). I might also increase the RAM to 16GB.

PSU: I don’t know the power rating of the PSU (I haven’t found the sticker yet… it’s hiding out of sight) but it might not have much headroom for spinning up 6 disks at once.

USB drive: I’m sure I’ve got some cheap no-brand thumbdrives, but I’ll probably buy a quality branded one for this.


Here come the questions!


Am I heading in a sensible direction?


Is my 6 year old TS200 with Xeon XX3430 going to be powerful enough to run a home NAS?


Is there any advantage to using the M1015 RAID card? Let’s assume that I’ll re-flash this so that it’s just an HBA rather than a RAID controller. I know some of you like these cards, but there are 6 SATA ports on the motherboard already.


That question leads to: would I ever need an optical drive in the box after the initial installation (because there wouldn’t be a spare SATA port for it if I use all 6 SATA ports on the motherboard and remove the M1015) ?


Thanks in for your help!

 

[Mirfster]

Lenovo ThinkServer TS200 type 6522 with a Quad Core Xeon X3430 @2.4Ghz

Per the System Specs, it looks like ECC is supported. Same goes for the CPU.

Disks: I’m thinking of either 4 disks (WD Red 2TB, or 3TB, 4TB) or 6 disks (WD Red 2TB), perhaps using RAIDZ2 although I’ve read some interesting arguments in favour of just using pairs of mirrored disks instead of RAIDZ2, which might mean a lower initial spend of just 2 disks.

Can this fit 4 disks? Hard to tell from the manual

Hard disk drive expansion bays(depending on the model):
One of the following configurations:
• Two 3.5-inch hot-swap SAS or hot-swap SATA hard disk drive bays
• Two 3.5-inch simple-swap SAS hard disk drive bays

RAM: I haven’t checked if the RAM I already have is ECC… if not I’ll replace it (the CPU can support it). I might also increase the RAM to 16GB.

RAM would have to be ECC, since the MB doesn't look like it will support non-ECC. Note that it has a maximum capacity of 32 GB

Types: PC3-8500 or PC3-10600R-999 (single-rank or double-rank), 1066, and 1333 MHz, ECC, DDR3 registered or unbuffered SDRAM DIMMs only

PSU: I don’t know the power rating of the PSU (I haven’t found the sticker yet… it’s hiding out of sight) but it might not have much headroom for spinning up 6 disks at once

Per the Manual (looking a bit low on the power side to me):

Power supply: One 351-watt power supply or one 351-watt high efficiency power supply with Active Energy Manager depending on your model.

Is there any advantage to using the M1015 RAID card? Let’s assume that I’ll re-flash this so that it’s just an HBA rather than a RAID controller. I know some of you like these cards, but there are 6 SATA ports on the motherboard already.

You are fine with the SATA ports. HBA is only needed when you don't have enough ports or want to expand.

That question leads to: would I ever need an optical drive in the box after the initial installation (because there wouldn’t be a spare SATA port for it if I use all 6 SATA ports on the motherboard and remove the M1015) ?

Nope should not need it.

 

[daccy]

Per the System Specs, it looks like ECC is supported. Same goes for the CPU.

Hi Mirfster, Thanks for taking the time to reply and for finding those links.

Can this fit 4 disks? Hard to tell from the manual

Yes it will, but I can see what you mean about the manual - bits of it are wrong or confusing or perhaps relate to different versions of the server in different configurations - another section gives the physical dimensions of a 1U rack-mounted server when this is a tower, but the picture on manual page 128 (which is page 136 of the pdf) gives a view of the front of the server with all the plastic bezels removed and you can see 4x 3.5 inch drive bays, and it should be possible to squeeze a few more disks in the floppy bay and the 5.25 inch bays.

RAM would have to be ECC, since the MB doesn't look like it will support non-ECC. Note that it has a maximum capacity of 32 GB

Thanks. The sticker on the RAM tells me "4GB 2RX8 PC3-10600E - 9 - 11 - E0" which I think decodes to 4GB, Dual Rank, PC3-1333, Unbuffered with ECC. There are 2 of those, and I think with UDIMMs it is limited to 16GB (the manual you linked, manual page 148), or I could swap to RDIMMs to go above that. For the storage size I'm looking at it sounds like 8GB or 16GB of should be okay, I think.

Per the Manual (looking a bit low on the power side to me):

I just took the PSU out - the sticker was hiding against the side of the case - and it says 400W, although adding up the separate numbers for the 12V and 5/3.3V buses only adds up to 360W. That's probably good for a couple of disks but not many more... I'll have to do some sums!

You are fine with the SATA ports. HBA is only needed when you don't have enough ports or want to expand.



Nope should not need it.

Well, taking out those parts saves a few watts. :)

Thanks again for your help. Very appreciated.

 

[daccy]

I already have a Lenovo ThinkServer TS200 type 6522 with a Quad Core Xeon X3430 @2.4Ghz and 8GB RAM to donate to this project. This is ~6 years old, but it’s slightly more enterprise-grade than consumer-grade hardware.

My experience with this so far: Installation (from CD or USB stick) claims to be successful but then the USB drive it tries to boot from doesn't seem to be bootable. I'm still in the process of debugging this, but my current theory is that perhaps this motherboard won't boot from a GPT partitioned USB stick (although... it's EFI rather than BIOS so I thought this should work). More news when I have some.

Has anyone else got a Lenovo ThinkServer TS200 to work with Freenas 9.3 ?

 

[Mirfster]

I believe that it should work. May need to see what other settings you have in the BIOS and make sure that the boot order is set correctly.

 

[daccy]

I believe that it should work. May need to see what other settings you have in the BIOS and make sure that the boot order is set correctly.

"should work" is encouraging. I'll keep trying.

To rule out some more fundamental problems I tried installing FreeNAS 9.2.1.9... and that works. That doesn't really tell me much, although if it had failed it might've given some new clues.

Boot order was DVD/CD then USB Storage. I've added "Legacy only" to the end of that list, but that didn't help either.

Trying to install FreeNAS 9.3 again... from CD, onto a freshly wiped 16GB Toshiba. ... Still not bootable after a successful install.

I see that some people claim success by messing around with gdisk and making a hybrid MBR. I'll investigate that next (after this beer).

 

[daccy]

I see that some people claim success by messing around with gdisk and making a hybrid MBR. I'll investigate that next (after this beer).

Oh! That worked! Now I have something that boots into FreeNAS. :)

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

after this beer

Must've been a Heineken ;)

 

[daccy]

Must've been a Heineken ;)

It was definitely one of those problems where "have a beer" was a crucial step to resolve. There was also a pizza.

I made some notes and I'll go through them later and see if I can recreate it. I might have (temporary) access to a more modern Lenovo Thinkserver to see if the problem exists there as well.

 

[Mirfster]

Could always forget the USB and use an old SSD instead. That is my preferred setup; using two mirrored. If you have the ports and power of course.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Maybe you're too young ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFn-jSSrBPQ

 

[daccy]

Could always forget the USB and use an old SSD instead. That is my preferred setup; using two mirrored. If you have the ports and power of course.

I don't even have a new SSD! Sounds like a good idea, though, so I'll keep it in mind.

 

[Mirfster]

I don't even have a new SSD! Sounds like a good idea, though, so I'll keep it in mind.

New? Who's talking new... I grab all of mine from eBay. Just the older 32 GB Intel works great. Should be able to grab two for ~$30.00 for the pair. ;)

 

[daccy]

I made some notes and I'll go through them later and see if I can recreate it.

I've spent a few hours trying different options in gdisk (part of GPT fdisk by Rod Smith) and the only method I can make work is to replace the Protective MBR with a Hybrid MBR with GPT partition 2 added to it. Here are some steps that worked for me in case it's useful to anyone else in a similar situation, but there are some dire warnings about the perils of using Hybrid MBRs in the GPT fdisk documentation that are worth a read.

Problem: FreeNAS 9.3 installs to USB drive but does not boot on a Lenovo Thinkserver TS200. That's a server with uEFI and not BIOS, but it doesn't want to boot the GPT-partitioned USB stick that the FreeNAS installer creates for some unknown reason.

Workaround:
Do a fresh install. Move the USB stick to a machine with gdisk.
Run gdisk (make sure it's on the right disk! I did this on a macbook where I used "diskutil list" to identify the disk and the "sudo gdisk /dev/disk2" to run it ) and use these commands in gdisk:
d,1,r,h,2,n,<enter>,y,n,w,y,

(d,1, which deletes the first partition, is optional but we're not using that partition any more. also, "p" at the beginning will list the partitions and "?" in various places will show what commands are available)

Move the USB stick back to the Lenovo server... and it boots!