Newbie needs advice & guidance

[Drouinhomebuilders2]

Hi guys,
Im new to all this & somewhat out of my confidence zone.

I had a recent incident where I lost 11 days of work due to my last backup being corrupt; I recovered all, but lost a bit from the 11 days.
So I had wanted a NAS for some time & this recent incident help push it forward.

I plan to back up everything I do in 6 hourly increments & when I have too many incrementals, will delete some if needed.

This will be 1 of 2 large backup sources that I intend to keep.
I have read the forum extensively, I’m not a techno guru by any means, I’ve built plenty of desktops over the years, but never NAS or server items.

I read the following articles & have based my reasoning on these following articles

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/optimal-vdev-size.36467/

http://jrs-s.net/2015/02/06/zfs-you-should-use-mirror-vdevs-not-raidz/

https://www.delphix.com/blog/delphi...or-how-i-learned-stop-worrying-and-love-raidz

https://pthree.org/2012/12/13/zfs-administration-part-viii-zpool-best-practices-and-caveats/

My use for the box will be the following:-
I have an extensive Movie & Music collection, a lifetime of pictures, CAD files some being 2-300mb and all the regular things we all need backups of.

I purchased my components & am about reading to put it together
I was thinking I would build a single zpool of 1 vdev of 8 disks in raidz2...
Apparently 4k alignment is no longer advocated with compression?….

Here is my configuration
-Silverstone - DS380
-ASRock- C2750D4I
-Corsair SF450, modular SFX PSU
-2 x SanDisk Cruzer Fit CZ33 16GB USB
-2 x Samsung 750 EVO - 120GB
-Crucial 32GB Kit (8GBx4) DDR3/ CT102472BD160B
DDR3L-1600MT/s (PC3-12800) DR x8 ECC
-10 x Silverstone Tek 300mm Ultra Thin cables
-8 x Western Digital Green 2TB, with "wdidle3 /s300”

I have 5 x 4TB WDC Reds that in the near future will expand my initial vdev pool
I cant see any point in multiple vdevs, just wanna keep it simple, clean & easy, with as little stress as possible.
Can yall please look over what I propose & set me straight with anything I have overlooked.
Once assembled, I would memtest & stress test the box before putting anything on it.

Am I thinking correctly?

Again Im far from being a guru, so please advise me what else I need to do, especially in regards to gettings & proper configeration.

Much appreciated guys
Peter
TEXAS

 

[nojohnny101]

welcome to the forums!

This will be 1 of 2 large backup sources that I intend to keep.

so this freenas machine you're building is going to be primarily as backup? if not will it be accessed with shares and/or do you plan on installing plugins?

looks like you did a good amount of homework (good on you) so your build is solid from what I can see. The only thing I would advice is to check your PSU. Here is great size that will walk you through making sure your PSU is sufficient for your demands:
PSU Sizing Guide by jgreco
And also don't forget that if you do plan on expanding (as you stated by adding more drives) then you should build that buffer into the PSU you select so you don't end up having to buy another PSU as your storage demands increase.

I have a Silverstone DS380 and it is a good little case that fits a great number of drives into a small space. but it has some caveats.
1) it does not have great cable management and is tight to work with when installing. this just means it might take you a bit longer to get everything the way you want it and if you have giant hands, beware.
2) the cooling setup for the drives is poor. currently i have 4 old 2.5" (2 TB I think) in it with a ASRock c2550d4i (see signature) and the drives would spike over 40C when doing scrubs. dangerous temps for hard drives. There is a relatively simple fix that I did and all my temps dropped by about 8-10C and now sit at high 20s during idle and only reach mid 30s during scrubs (good safe range). NOTE: I am still using the stock fans that came with the case. Here is the fix and it took me all of 30 minutes.
Silverstone DS380 Cooling Mod
So up to you if you want to spend the time to do the mod or look for another case. Either way would be fine but just know that the DS380 as it comes is not adequate for cooling your drives.

I have 5 x 4TB WDC Reds that in the near future will expand my initial vdev pool
I cant see any point in multiple vdevs, just wanna keep it simple, clean & easy, with as little stress as possible.

I think you might be a little confused. Once you create a pool, you can't change it. you can add additional vdevs to it. If you end up buying more drives later your simple options are:
1) backup all data, destroy your current vdev and create a new, larger one that include the new drives
2) add another vdev with the drives to the existing pool (WARNING, your redundancy is only as strong as your weakest link. IE if you have a raidz2 vdev and a raidz1 vdev and you lose 2 drives in the raidz1 vdev, you lose all data on the whole pool!!!)
3) replace all the drives in the current vdeve with larger capacity drives and once you have them all replaced, the vdev will auto-expand and your capacity will increase.

Have you gone through @cyberjock 's noob presentation? I highly recommend:
Read here

Good luck!

 

[Spearfoot]

Hi guys,
Im new to all this & somewhat out of my confidence zone.

I had a recent incident where I lost 11 days of work due to my last backup being corrupt; I recovered all, but lost a bit from the 11 days.
So I had wanted a NAS for some time & this recent incident help push it forward.

I plan to back up everything I do in 6 hourly increments & when I have too many incrementals, will delete some if needed.

This will be 1 of 2 large backup sources that I intend to keep.
I have read the forum extensively, I’m not a techno guru by any means, I’ve built plenty of desktops over the years, but never NAS or server items.

I read the following articles & have based my reasoning on these following articles

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/optimal-vdev-size.36467/

http://jrs-s.net/2015/02/06/zfs-you-should-use-mirror-vdevs-not-raidz/

https://www.delphix.com/blog/delphi...or-how-i-learned-stop-worrying-and-love-raidz

https://pthree.org/2012/12/13/zfs-administration-part-viii-zpool-best-practices-and-caveats/

My use for the box will be the following:-
I have an extensive Movie & Music collection, a lifetime of pictures, CAD files some being 2-300mb and all the regular things we all need backups of.

I purchased my components & am about reading to put it together
I was thinking I would build a single zpool of 1 vdev of 8 disks in raidz2...
Apparently 4k alignment is no longer advocated with compression?….

Here is my configuration
-Silverstone - DS380
-ASRock- C2750D4I
-Corsair SF450, modular SFX PSU
-2 x SanDisk Cruzer Fit CZ33 16GB USB
-2 x Samsung 750 EVO - 120GB
-Crucial 32GB Kit (8GBx4) DDR3/ CT102472BD160B
DDR3L-1600MT/s (PC3-12800) DR x8 ECC
-10 x Silverstone Tek 300mm Ultra Thin cables
-8 x Western Digital Green 2TB, with "wdidle3 /s300”

I have 5 x 4TB WDC Reds that in the near future will expand my initial vdev pool
I cant see any point in multiple vdevs, just wanna keep it simple, clean & easy, with as little stress as possible.
Can yall please look over what I propose & set me straight with anything I have overlooked.
Once assembled, I would memtest & stress test the box before putting anything on it.

Am I thinking correctly?

Again Im far from being a guru, so please advise me what else I need to do, especially in regards to gettings & proper configeration.

Much appreciated guys
Peter
TEXAS

I agree with @nojohnny101 that the power supply you've selected is inadequate for so many drives.

You mention a pair of USB flash drives; I assume you plan to install FreeNAS on one or both of these. What are your plans for the pair of 120GB Samsung 870 SSDs?

 

[gpsguy]

To add to what nojohnny101 said, I might suggest two other options.

1) Buy 3 more 4TB WD Red's. Replace the 2TB drives one by one and double your storage space, with just 8 drives. Do you really want to power and cool 13+ drives?

2) Rather than create your initial pool with 8x2 TB drives, scale it back to 6x2TB drives in RAIDz2. Buy an additional 4TB drive and stripe a second 6x4TB vdev to your existing volume.

I have 5 x 4TB WDC Reds that in the near future will expand my initial vdev pool

 

[Drouinhomebuilders2]

Dear nojohnny101,

I looked at your mods and yes already was aware of the case heat problems, Ive ordered 4 x 120mm Noctua PWM 2000rpm, 1 x Noctua PWM 3000rpm & 2 x Noctua 60mm PWM 3000.....
Im going to modify the drive cage on the intake side & mount 2 x 120's on the intake side of the cage....
also replace the original side intake fans with 2000rpm PWM's & replace the back exhaust fan with a 3000rpm PWM & Im either going to put the 2 x 60mm's either on the back side of the cage, or in the back wall above the 120mm fan to suck the exhaust out, and hopefully control all these fans via bios management?
Ive spent more on fans than the case, may seem silly, but love the case & it matches a Silverstone TJ07 desktop case that I have... cant go past Noctua fans either, cost more but Ive got their fans 7-8yrs old & still going strong & quiet

Just looking at the "drive rails" formed in the sides of the drive cage, I cant see a problem taking out a middle section of those guide rails as long as the rear of the drives sit on the "formed rails" at part of front & part of back, the front of the drive cage clips into the side.

I need to have a good look at your PSU calculations, looks like Im light on?

I appreciate your advice & help & will let you know how I go, I have "mocked it all up" & splurged on those 300mm thin Silverstone sata cables, they have helped keep cable management in order, there aint much room in there at all...

Once I have some time in it & are confident in what I & it can do, I will probably upsize the 2TB's with 4TB's & double pool size.

I just want to make sure all is 100% first, its primary storage at this time, but will add some plugin's down the way

Thank you again guys & yes I will look at those PSU calculations

All the best

Peter

 

[SweetAndLow]

What are the sdds for? You probably don't need them. And if they are for a write cache those are not a good choice.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Drouinhomebuilders2]

Dearv"nojohnny101,

here's my PSU Calculations'
What have I missed? are they correct?

PSU CALCULATIONS

2 X 750 EVO's @ 2.5 watts each. 5
8 X 2TB WD Green @ 35. 280
Motherboard & CPU 20
4 sticks ram @ 6 each. 24
5 X 120mm fans @ AV 3 watts 15
SAY TOTAL WATTS AS A WHOLE. 345 watts

80% of 450 = 360 watts
75% of 450 = 337 watts


Peter

 

[Drouinhomebuilders2]

SSD' are for
ZIL and L2ARC in FreeNAS
If the 750 SS Egos are no good what do I need?

2 X 8gb thumbs are for mirrored FreeNas O/S in rear US
B Ports

 

[danb35]

Nothing in your use case shows that you have any need for an SLOG device (what you call a ZIL), and you don't have enough RAM to benefit from an L2ARC.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Your system and workflow will not benefit from those sdds. Maybe you could use an l2arc since you have 32GB of memory but you would have to test it because it could decrease performer. Don't bother with either and save your money.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk