BUILD Newbie building his first NAS (mini-ITX)

[morxy49]

After a weekend of approximately 20 hours of reading on forums and manuals, I think I finally have the required knowledge to start a "newbie thread" here on the forums :)

For a couple of years I have always wanted a NAS, but never took the time to read about it, so the project never began. But this weekend I seriously started to look at some hardware and almost clicked the order button. Then I realized – maybe I should check if FreeNAS actually supports this hardware, and boy am I glad I checked!
Turns out the hardware was catastrophic (well, not catastrophic, but it sure wasn’t good). I had chosen a motherboard with Realtek NIC and I hadn’t even thought about ECC on any of the components. As for the CPU, I just took something cheap from AMD.

Well, as I said, now I think I have the knowledge to at least start a thread here and get some recommendations and some questions answered. Let’s begin.

My first wish for this project is that the NAS is as compact as possible, and I love the Fractal Design Node 304 chassis which is mini-ITX, so that’s why I’m stuck at mini-ITX motherboards. If anyone has any recommendations on another chassis that has space for six to twelve drives, has good ventilation, is compact and has a clean look, please notify me!
My second wish is that it’s as cheap as possible. But of course I still want my data secure, so I have to find something relatively cheap, but still secure.

Keep in mind that the NAS is for a single at-home user, with one desktop and a HTPC (which isn’t built yet, but it’s coming), so there’s no need for 64GB RAM and a 5 GHz octa CPU etc.

The NAS is mostly going to be used as a media streaming server for my upcoming HTPC, and until then a media streaming server for my desktop. I am going to store movies, music and other replaceable media on it, but I am also going to store photos, important documents and school assignments, so it has to be relatively secure against data loss.
The NAS is also going to run OwnCloud 24/7, so there has to be performance enough for that.


The hardware I’ve chosen so far is:

Chassi: Fractal Design Node 304
PSU: SilverStone 600W that came with Sugo SG08B (so I already have this at home)
Motherboard: AsRock C2550D4I
CPU: already on motherboard
RAM: 8GB/16GB ECC (this is where I need your help, how much and what brand/model should I buy?)
HDD: I have a bunch of WD Green drives in my desktop which I’m going to use.



So what I really need help with is…

1.)Motherboard; I’ve read some threads about this already and most of you seem really excited about it. It’s compact, has twelve (twelve!) SATA ports. But none of you seem to know if it’s compatible with FreeNAS/FreeBSD yet. Any updates? And also, how good will this motherboard/CPU perform under home usage, single user?

2.)PSU; How trustworthy is this PSU I have? As I said, I already have it at home, so I can definitely spare some cash if I can use this.

3.)RAM; It seems that 16GB is minimum recommended RAM. Which brand/model should I use? NOTE: It has to be available in Sweden or ship to Sweden for a cheap price.

4.)UPS; I have thought about buying a UPS: FSP Group Nano 600 which is available for 80$ in Sweden, and that’s pretty reasonable. Do I need this? Is 360W/8 minutes enough? Is this a good choice of UPS?

5.)If I consider adding a Plex media server later on, how good will it perform? NOTE: I probably won’t add it, but I want to know just in case.

 

[Cupcake]

As for RAM I went for the Kingston DDR3 1333 2x8 GB ECC, which in my opinion has a very reasonable price. Often one 16GB stick will be significantly pricier than 2x8 sticks. With 16GB you are certainly safer when you suddenly decide to run even more servers like owncloud on your machine. Suddenly you'll find applications for your freenas which you wouldn't have thought of (someone here on the forum put a teamspeak server on it for instance).

 

[JohnK]

1.)Motherboard; I’ve read some threads about this already and most of you seem really excited about it. It’s compact, has twelve (twelve!) SATA ports. But none of you seem to know if it’s compatible with FreeNAS/FreeBSD yet. Any updates? And also, how good will this motherboard/CPU perform under home usage, single user?

I think we are all waiting for some newbie to come along and buy it/ test it! ;)

3.)RAM; It seems that 16GB is minimum recommended RAM. Which brand/model should I use? NOTE: It has to be available in Sweden or ship to Sweden for a cheap price.
.

Though 8gb ram modules should be just fine, the motherboard supposedly can take 64gb of ram (which makes it real desirable), that would mean 16gb modules. The question is which models? The tested ECC modules on ASRock website seems unobtainable.

 

[morxy49]

I think we are all waiting for some newbie to come along and buy it/ test it! ;)

Though 8gb ram modules should be just fine, the motherboard supposedly can take 64gb of ram (which makes it real desirable), that would mean 16gb modules. The question is which models? The tested ECC modules on ASRock website seems unobtainable.

Have some new questions i'd like to get answers to, please :)
I'm now thinking of running 8x3TB hard drives in RAIDz2, which would mean 2 redundace disks + 6 data disks. I've heard that you should try to have 1, 2, 4, 8... data disks for maximum performance.
Is this true? And if so, how big performance difference does this make? I've also heard that i don't get maximum storage space with this disk configuration. Is this also true?

And another question that i know have been answered many times, but only in a yes or no perspective, not in numbers.
I know that i do get better performance with 2x8GB RAM modules running dual channel than i get from 1x16GB RAM module running single channel. But how big is the difference?

 

[indy]

16GB ram is always registered as far as I know, you would have to check for compatibility.
Any reason for not going 2x 8GB?

My planned system will (most likely) use 8x 3TB in raidz2 as well.
I tried to read up a lot on the implications and it is pretty inconclusive.
Benchmarks dont seem to show odd drive numbers at a disadvantage however.

 

[morxy49]

16GB ram is always registered as far as I know, you would have to check for compatibility.
Any reason for not going 2x 8GB?

My planned system will (most likely) use 8x 3TB in raidz2 as well.
I tried to read up a lot on the implications and it is pretty inconclusive.
Benchmarks dont seem to show odd drive numbers at a disadvantage however.

I don't think you understood my question about the RAM, or maybe i don't understand your answer :P
I know it's always 16GB, but if you run dual channel you will run faster than on single channel.

As for the 8x3TB question - thank you :P i'm a bit relieved now ;)
But my biggest concern isn't about the performance, it's about the storage space. Do you know if i can use my 18TB full out, even though i'm running 6 data disks, which isn't one of the "golden numbers"?

 

[indy]

I meant that your cpu/mb might not even work with 16gb sticks.

Unfortunately I cant tell you anything else about uncommon vdev configurations.
But my impression is that disadvantages are more of a theoretical nature and dont matter in usage.

 

[morxy49]

I meant that your cpu/mb might not even work with 16gb sticks.

Unfortunately I cant tell you anything else about uncommon vdev configurations.
But my impression is that disadvantages are more of a theoretical nature and dont matter in usage.

oh, ok. yeah, maybe there's no reason running 16GB sticks after all. i think i'll go for 2x8GB.