BUILD Noob building first home NAS - help selecting hardware!

[Raiz]

I've recently found this site and have been reading reading reading a ton before I start buying parts. First, I'll tell you what I want to do with the NAS.

Desired Capabilities:
1. Act as a storage of personal music, movies, pictures, and backups/images of home computers.
2. Ability to play back up to 3 streams of movies/music to devices around the house (Amazon FireTV on each TV in the house). I also have Plex installed on each Amazon FireTV.
3. Low power consumption. I'm not made of money. Is 20W idle power draw possible?
4. Ability to access collection when away from home would be awesome. Not a requirement, but I'd love it.
5. Futureproof - transcoding of 4k 3D movies MKV, MP4s.... is it possible with current hardware?

Available Hardware:
1. Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 motherboard, I5-2500k Sandy Bridge processor, 8gig non-ECC RAM, Corsair HX650W PSU.
2. Storage - 2TB WD Green (2 total), 2TB Samsung HD204UI drives (4 total), 2TB WD WD2002FYPS "Enterprise Storage" (3 total), 16GB USB 2.0 Stick, 128GB Crucial M4 SSD.
3. Cavalry 4 bay ESATA Raid enclosure http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822101083 (is this thing worthless?)

Goals
1. Low power consumption
2. Reuse existing hardware to save money IF it makes sense. If it draws enough power that it will be cheaper to buy another product and break even in 1 years time, then I'd rather get the other product. Please guide me.
3. At least 4TB of storage after Raid setup is complete. Hoping for more.

My current plan was to scrap everything I currently own except the 2TB hard drives and use them for the raid. I don't think the Cavalry enclosure would work since the PSU inside it probably isn't powerful enough once I add a motherboard/RAM. If you guys think I could reuse ANY of the available hardware, please let me know. My I5 2500k does a great job transcoding now, but maybe it's too much of a power hog for a NAS?

Proposed Build - here is where you tell me why I'm an idiot.
1. Either a Supermicro or Asrock Avaton motherboard. Update: Supermicro X11SSH-F / E3-1230V5 -
2. Crucial 16GB ECC kit - $119 on Amazon right now. Update: 2x Samsung 16GB DDR4-2133 M391A2K43BB1-CPB
3. Reuse 16GB USB 2.0 stick, and run FreeNAS in RAID Z2 with 4-6 of the hard drives. Update: 128gb Crucial M4 SSD
4. EVGA 430W power supply - $9.99 after rebate at newegg. Update: Seasonic SSR650RM
5. Reuse old SilverStone case.


Well, what do you think? Is it ok to mix and match the 2TB hard drives? Which motherboard is the right one? How much power will this setup draw at idle? Can I reuse the I5-2500k or Extreme3 Gen3 mobo? What am I missing/overlooking?

Thanks so much for helping me out! I need to decide pretty quickly since the wife and the family are asking what they should get me for Christmas!

 

[nightshade00013]

The Atom c2550 CPU's are decent but I think 4K will stomp them for transcode on the fly.

Plus you can probably get a better cost vs performance with a Supermicro X10SLM+-F with the Pentium G3220 or G3258. It will use a little more power than the Atom but you will be more able to handle the transcoding of streams. I have not dealt with a lot of 4K but it is a whole other beast compared to anything else.

BTW your I5 does not support ECC ram so it's use would not be recommended. It would be more powerful than the G3258 by a bit but also use more power. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Pentium-G3258-vs-Intel-Core-i5-2500K

As far as the RAM it's better to go by the hardware verified list or let someone else do the testing and go by what they have used with the exact same board.

Seasonic PSU's are recommended by most here. At the very least do you want to rely on a PSU that cost 10 bucks for your data? There is a reason why they can get that cheap with a rebate and it's not a good one for data.

Reuse the case if you like. That is the one place you have a multitude of options. Just remember that if the case does not have enough airflow over the drives and they cook your data will suffer. Most cases rack the drives one on top of the other with one fan to cool them all with little to no airflow making it through.

The eSATA is not something you will want to use as it a RAID enclosure, one eSATA input for multiple drives is bad. Leave it for a desktop of someone you don't like.

I have no clue on the use of the drives since they are all aged, depends on the start stop count among other things. Why build a nice new system and rely on old drives? You can do it but be prepared to swap some out at some point and run at least raidZ2 if not raidZ3.

 

[Raiz]

Appreciate the feedback nightshade. I've been going over and over this stuff for the last week and am learning so much.

The I5-2500k has been an absolute workhorse for me and I think I'm just looking for reasons not to retire it.... but I concede. Time to get a new processor that is ECC compliant. Is 16GB of ECC enough?

The G3258 is $60 at Newegg. The processor I was looking at was the E3-1231V3B. It's a Xeon quad core processor vs the dual core G3258. Would the Xeon give me my future-proof setup for 4k 3D? It's $170 more...

Also curious about your motherboard selection. The X10SLM+-F is roughly the same price as the X10SL7-F but has a lot fewer SATA ports. Something I'm having trouble understanding as a noob is the different controllers (marvel vs intel?), the speeds and types of SATA ports, and how it will affect my end build. I did my best going through the X10 stickies in this forum.

Everyone keeps telling repeating seasonic seasonic seasonic so it looks like I'll go with the seasonic G-450. That's finally been pounded into my head. Was just hoping to save some money.

Last question (for tonight). How difficult is it to move up from 2TB drives to 4TB drives once your system is already full of 2TB drives? I'm assuming you have to start all over again?

 

[nightshade00013]

On the 4k front I honestly don't know what is enough. I know that to stream over a cellular connection Plex will have to transcode 4K down and I can only guess at how much work that will be. In the home there should be little need to transcode for most devices but it's still a possibility for older devices. Since there isn't a lot of 4K content out there it's hard to say how much will be enough. I guess I need to get some content added and see what it takes.

16GB or ram is good enough to start off and you can always double it later.

Marvel makes some controllers and is a different company from intel, they are often found on enthusiast boards so not much of a worry there. The Supermicro boards you have listed are both intel ones. The X10SL7-F board has a LSI SAS controller, it's a little different from SATA but will work with SATA drives so no need to worry. If you are thinking about in the future adding more storage it would not be a bad thing to look at though. As far as the port speeds, nothing to worry about with spinning disks. They can't even fill the SATA one connection let alone the SATA two or SATA three.

As far as increasing the pool size, there are a couple options and the x10sl7-f board gives more. You could setup a single vDev and then later on swap out all the disks one at a time until they are all of a larger size. Each drive will have to resilver so it will be a slightly slow process with a lot of shutdowns but when done the pool will grow to the available space. The other option is to add more drives in a second vDev then add it to the pool. Adding a second vDev has the advantage of allowing the two vDev's to work together increasing the speed at which files can be served. To add more drives however you will have to have more SAS or SATA ports, that is where the SL7 comes in, the SLM+ will require an add on HBA which is more money, all things being equal I went with a board that has the built in SAS controller for my setup.

 

[Ericloewe]

I'm not sure a G3258 can handle a 4k stream while transcoding.

 

[Raiz]

I keep thinking about the future and not wanting to relearn everything in a couple years (when my server might need an upgrade). The cheapest place I could find an E3-1231v3 for was $250. The Skylake equivalent (E3-1230v5) is $255.48 at provantage.com.

For $5 more, is it worth it to go with a Skylake processor and 1151 socket board?

 

[Jailer]

1151 is new and unproven hardware and as a new user I would not recommend you build on unproven hardware. Leave that to the pioneers that are able to debug the problems that may be encountered.

 

[Raiz]

1151 is new and unproven hardware and as a new user I would not recommend you build on unproven hardware. Leave that to the pioneers that are able to debug the problems that may be encountered.

But what about dual 10G Base-T LAN? M.2 connector? DDR4? 2 SuperDOMs!
...and what about my feelings of inadequacy?

 

[Jailer]

...and what about my feelings of inadequacy?

Only your therapist can help you with that.......

 

[Ericloewe]

But what about dual 10G Base-T LAN? M.2 connector? DDR4? 2 SuperDOMs!
...and what about my feelings of inadequacy?

I doubt that model will only cost you an additional 5 bucks...

Besides, M.2 can be had with adapters, the fancy new 10GbE controller doesn't have a FreeBSD driver yet and DOMs are crazy expensive.

That said, I'm vaguely planning an X11 build around February. If it goes ahead, I'll make sure everyone is kept up to speed on the juicy details.

 

[Raiz]

Is the SSR-650RM a good power supply?
Everyone recommends a G-series (which this is), but there is also the S12G-650, which also seems to be a G-series power supply. From what I'm reading, it's ok to go overkill a bit on the PSU. In this case, I found the 650W was the same price as the 450W, even though I only needed a 450W.

 

[Ericloewe]

S-12G is not G-Series. It's a lower-end variant. While not bad, the G-Series is only slightly more expensive and has a more slightly more modern design with better components.

 

[Raiz]

Awesome. Thank you Eric. Looks like I'm picking up the SSR650RM unless someone can tell me a reason to get a smaller PSU.

I think I'm also going to go with the Fractal Define R4 or R5 case. Still holding out on whether to get the Haswell or Skylake chip. When are the Supermicro Skylake MOBOs supposed to come out? If I've got to wait 4 months, I'll just go with what's available, but if the new MOBOs are coming out next week, I'll just wait.

 

[Ericloewe]

Awesome. Thank you Eric. Looks like I'm picking up the SSR650RM unless someone can tell me a reason to get a smaller PSU.

I think I'm also going to go with the Fractal Define R4 or R5 case. Still holding out on whether to get the Haswell or Skylake chip. When are the Supermicro Skylake MOBOs supposed to come out? If I've got to wait 4 months, I'll just go with what's available, but if the new MOBOs are coming out next week, I'll just wait.

The popular models are out now, but they may take a while to show up at your usual distributor.
There are a few issues that need to be clarified regarding Skylake, before most of us are comfortable endorsing the new stuff, too.

 

[Raiz]

Looks like they've shown up at 1 distributor. I might be a guinea pig, but I think I'm going to place an order for the following config. Anyone see why I shouldn't? This config doesn't have the 10Gbase-T ethernet, so I shouldn't have to worry about driver support. The mobo still has the M.2 connector and 2 powered SuperDOMs slots.

Supermicro X11SSH-F-O LGA1151/ Intel C236/ DDR4/ SATA3&USB3.0/ V&2GbE/ MicroATX Server Motherboard MB-X11SHF $219.99
Intel Xeon E3-1230 v5 Quad-Core Skylake Processor 3.4GHz 8.0GT/s 8MB LGA 1151 CPU, Retail E3-1230V5B $253.99
Crucial DDR4-2133 16GB/2Gx72 ECC/REG CL15 Server Memory CTD421R16G $115.99

 

[Ericloewe]

The X11SSH-F should be fine. There are some whispers about XHCI being a requirement, which would complicate USB boot, but I haven't heard anything definitive from a reliable source.

 

[Raiz]

For anyone interested, here is a pretty good review of the E3-1230v5. You have to translate to English, but it has a lot of good info.
http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.ph...36881-test-intel-xeon-e3-1230-v5-skylake.html

The PassMark score of 10735 puts it above the E3-1285v3 by 1% and the E3-1231V3 by 9%.

As far as the XHCI requirement, worst case scenario I could get a couple of SataDOMs to boot from, correct?

I'm trying to think of the limitations of getting the X11SSH-F over the X10SL7-F. The X10 has a couple more SATA plugs but what other advantage is there?

The X11 comes with:
M.2 connector
DDR4 RAM expandable to 64GB instead of the X10's 32GB
A couple more USB 3.0 ports (which I'll probably never use)
Lower power using, faster processor options
2 SuperDOM ports (powered SATADOM)
....and it ends up being slightly cheaper.

 

[Ericloewe]

As far as the XHCI requirement, worst case scenario I could get a couple of SataDOMs to boot from, correct?

Or SSDs, yes.

 

[Raiz]

I think I goofed. I checked on the RAM again and realized that the CTD421R16G is registered ECC RAM. The X11SSH-F motherboard says it takes unbuffered ECC RAM.

Will registered RAM work on a motherboard that takes unbuffered RAM?

 

[Ericloewe]

Will registered RAM work on a motherboard that takes unbuffered RAM?

LGA115x platforms do not support RDIMMs or LRDIMMs.