BUILD Newbie / First FreeNAS build

[majorjake]

Hey,

I've been lurking and reading as much as I can before posting. I'm starting to buy bits and pieces as they go on sale so I thought that now would be a good time to get some Community oversight of my proposed build / usage.

Disclaimer: I'm new to FreeNAS.

Use: I'm primarily going to use the system for media (movies + stills) storage, Plex streaming for up to three devices (mix of Chromecast, iOS, Android and Windows devices), Usenet tools, and maybe some virtualization down the road.

I'm trying to keep the costs down but I don't want to set myself on a path to inevitable upgrades. I prefer to do things right the first time.

Here's what I've got on my list so far:

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Supermicro X10SL7-F Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (purchased)
Memory: Crucial 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Western Digital Red 5 x 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (RAIDZ2)
Case: Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (purchased)
Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Boot device(s): 2x SUPERMICRO SSD-DM016-PHI SATA DOM (SuperDOM) Solutions

1. I get the feeling that the Xeon is overkill, have considered an i3.

2. I'm looking for the most cost effective way to get reliable 10TB (ballpark) of usable storage. I missed out on the $99 deal for WD 3TB reds @ Newegg so I'll likely wait a while longer.

3. I opted for the boot DOMs because I've had crap luck with USB sticks. I assume 16gb is plenty of space? Does the speed vs the faster 32gb DOMs make much of a difference?

Thoughts, suggestions, opportunities to save money without straying too far from a solid / somewhat futureproof build, are appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[ethereal]

i would suggest the stock cpu cooler will be adequate and superdom are expensive - can you use an ssd ?

 

[majorjake]

i would suggest the stock cpu cooler will be adequate and superdom are expensive - can you use an ssd ?

I didn't know that the processor came with a stock cooler, nice surprise. Thanks.

I can do SSD but I don't have any lying around. I don't think I'll find any cheaper than $50, and I'd like to mirror them.

 

[ethereal]

intel 320 ssd 40 GB second hand - about $25 - mine still had warranty. intel calculates the number of writes not when it was purchased.

 

[ethereal]

just checked ebay - 2 intel 320 ssd - 40 GB - $43 buy it now free shipping

 

[majorjake]

just checked ebay - 2 intel 320 ssd - 40 GB - $43 buy it now free shipping

The idea of a used drive goes against my better judgement but I'll take a look. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Mirfster]

The idea of a used drive goes against my better judgement but I'll take a look. Thanks for the advice.

As long as:

1. Seller has a decent warranty
2. You burn in the drive properly
3. Check the SMART results

You are pretty safe. I don't think I have purchased a new drive in over 5 years. All of my drives are "used" and mainly from eBay. I think I only had one that was DOA which got replaced pretty fast by the seller.

Just avoid buying from overseas and sellers with low or bad ratings and you will pay a lot less. Just my opinion. ;)

 

[danb35]

The idea of a used drive goes against my better judgement but I'll take a look. Thanks for the advice.

In the case of the boot device, the risk really is minimal. As long as you have a saved copy of your config file, install whatever replacement boot device you want, do a clean install to that, and upload your saved config file. You'll be up and running just fine.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

1. Whether an i3 will suffice likely depends on what resolution you plan to stream and whether transcoding will be involved.
2. You'll need more than 5 x 3TB in RAIDZ2 to get 10TB usable. Nominally that would give you 9TB, ignoring overhead. Not using more than 80% of raw, you'd be down to about 7TB. Both numbers will be lower when overhead is accounted for.

 

[majorjake]

1. Whether an i3 will suffice likely depends on what resolution you plan to stream and whether transcoding will be involved.
2. You'll need more than 5 x 3TB in RAIDZ2 to get 10TB usable. Nominally that would give you 9TB, ignoring overhead. Not using more than 80% of raw, you'd be down to about 7TB. Both numbers will be lower when overhead is accounted for.

1. There will likely be some transcoding in the mix, not the rule of thumb though. Most media will be 1080.
2. Yeah, I had used one of the calculators to figure 9TB out of the 5 3tb drives. I hadn't factored the overhead. I think I've got some more reading to do on ZFS.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

1. My guess is an i3 will be sufficient. For reference, my G3220 is mostly idle and rarely runs above 20%, except when I launch multiple VMs at the same time.
2. Your case is supposed to accommodate 8 x 3.5", so the obvious solution to capacity is 6 x 3TB, for roughly 9TB usable (see script by @Bidule0hm).

You could drop to RAIDZ1, but then the ZFS police won't give you a pony ;)

What's your plan for backups?

 

[majorjake]

1. My guess is an i3 will be sufficient. For reference, my G3220 is mostly idle and rarely runs above 20%, except when I launch multiple VMs at the same time.
2. Your case is supposed to accommodate 8 x 3.5", so the obvious solution to capacity is 6 x 3TB, for roughly 9TB usable (see script by @Bidule0hm).

You could drop to RAIDZ1, but then the ZFS police won't give you a pony ;)

What's your plan for backups?

1. You're transcoding on it as well? I was going to go for the i3-4370 if I went that route.
2. Yeah, any money saved will go into drives.

I was going to have a crack at the Crashplan plugin for backups, just the important stuff.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

1. Transcoding occurs whenever the media file format is not natively playable on the client. A significant portion of our media files are MKV or AVI, and playback is on OS X via Plex Home Theater or the web client, so yes, transcoding is not uncommon. Plex server briefly uses all available CPU cycles when playback starts (but at low priority, so it doesn't bog the system down), to fill an initial buffer, then it settles down to steady state to maintain the buffer. We don't stream anything above 720p.

I'm a fan of CrashPlan as a client backup solution, but there are frequent reports of issues with it on FreeNAS, where it is not natively supported. Do a forum search and figure out if you want to deal with it.

There are alternatives that can be made to work from within FreeNAS, e.g. rclone. Again, try a forum search for 'offsite backup' and 'cloud backup'.

Some people backup "the important stuff" from a client machine that has access to it via sharing. Most commercial 'unlimited' cloud backup providers don't support this, because they don't want people paying $50-$60/year for terabytes of storage, so you need a storage-agnostic solution. This is where I always plug Arq Backup.

 

[majorjake]

1. Transcoding occurs whenever the media file format is not natively playable on the client. A significant portion of our media files are MKV or AVI, and playback is on OS X via Plex Home Theater or the web client, so yes, transcoding is not uncommon. Plex server briefly uses all available CPU cycles when playback starts (but at low priority, so it doesn't bog the system down), to fill an initial buffer, then it settles down to steady state to maintain the buffer. We don't stream anything above 720p.

I'm a fan of CrashPlan as a client backup solution, but there are frequent reports of issues with it on FreeNAS, where it is not natively supported. Do a forum search and figure out if you want to deal with it.

There are alternatives that can be made to work from within FreeNAS, e.g. rclone. Again, try a forum search for 'offsite backup' and 'cloud backup'.

Some people backup "the important stuff" from a client machine that has access to it via sharing. Most commercial 'unlimited' cloud backup providers don't support this, because they don't want people paying $50-$60/year for terabytes of storage, so you need a storage-agnostic solution. This is where I always plug Arq Backup.

I just don't want to go with the i3 and find that it's not cutting it and then end up being stuck with an i3 that I need to get rid of.

Yeah, I had read that CrashPlan was basically a community supported plugin but it seemed like people who put the time in to RTFM had success.

I'll take a look at Arq Backup though, if it's better supported it may be worthwhile.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

I chose to put my money in to RAM instead of CPU, mainly because I frequently run multiple VMs, but you should do the thing that makes you comfortable. I haven't studied benchmarks to know exactly what each CPU can do, I just know mine does everything I need and is mostly idle.

Arq Backup is a commercial product that runs on the client (OS X or Windows), so it's a completely different beast from the CrashPlan FreeNAS plugin.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Here's an example of a transcode on my T20. I think this was something my wife was streaming last night. Notice the high CPU usage at the start, but it's "nice", which means it won't interfere with a normal or high priority task. Then, it settles down to less than 20% steady state.

 

[majorjake]

Here's an example of a transcode on my T20. I think this was something my wife was streaming last night. Notice the high CPU usage at the start, but it's "nice", which means it won't interfere with a normal or high priority task. Then, it settles down to less than 20% steady state.

Thanks for sharing that.

 

[majorjake]

I hadn't even considered going to Skylake for this build, is that a safe direction or is Haswell still preferred?

 

[diedrichg]

1. There will likely be some transcoding in the mix, not the rule of thumb though. Most media will be 1080.

You will want a Passmark score of at least 6000 for three simultaneous 1080p transcodes.