Noob: Just Built FreeNAS 8 Machine That Works

[pwfletcher]

Noob here ... I just built my first FreeNAS machine and it actually works. Prior to building this NAS, I had a Synology DS209 running mirrored that worked just fine, albeit a little slow, but I wanted to expand to more than two disks and needed a rack mount system. This will be used solely for streaming to 5 AppleTV 2s hubs around the house and to backup 4 home computers. I considered the Synology RS812 for $800 as I was happy with the 209 I have had for three years but decided to try a home build and to spend no more than $400. Well, with cables and all, I spent $387 to build the following box (without disks) and had it up in running in about 4 hours (first time building a NAS).


OS: FreeNAS-8.0.3-RELEASE-p1-x64 (9591) on 2GB SanDisk USB
CASE: Topower 2U Rackmount Chassis - Frys $139
PSU: Topower 350W
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-A75M-D2H - Frys $89
CPU: AMD A4-3300 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (6 x 6GB SATA III) - Frys $69
RAM: Kingston HyperX Blue 4GB DDR3-1333 X 2 (8GB Total) - Frys $39
NIC: REALTEK chipset

HDD: WD Green 4TB x 4 (16TB Total)

I am currently getting ~78MB/sec writes and ~104MB/sec reads which is MUCH faster than my DS209 ... basically I am saturating my GigE network. Stress testing the box right now by streaming 4 separate 720p mkv files to 4 separate XBMC hacked AppleTV2s and all files are playing perfectly without hiccups. So far, everything seems to working just fine ;-)

One question ... is it possible to monitor disk temp and cpu temp from within FreeNAS 8?

 

[lrusak]

As I understand disk temp may show up underneath system information. It doesn't show for me though.

I use this script to monitor temps via SSH

#!/usr/local/bin/bash
while [ 1 ]
do
cpu_temp=`sysctl -a |egrep -E "cpu\.[0-9]+\.temp"`
echo "$cpu_temp"

for i in $(sysctl -n kern.disks)
do
dev_temp=`smartctl -a /dev/$i | awk '/Temperature_Celsius/{print $0}' | awk '{print $10 "C"}'`
echo "$i: $dev_temp"
done
sleep 30
done

 

[pwfletcher]

Just for fun, I dropped in two more 1TB drives today and set them up as separate TimeMachines to back up two of my macs ... so far, everything is working fine. However, I had to mount the shares to get the macs to recognize them as TimeMachine disks.

 

[lrusak]

Just for fun, I dropped in two more 1TB drives today and set them up as separate TimeMachines to back up two of my macs ... so far, everything is working fine. However, I had to mount the shares to get the macs to recognize them as TimeMachine disks.

how is your performance with 8GBs of ram? I have 8GB and am going to experiment on speeds so I ordered 8GBs more (considering it was half price) and we'll see if that makes any difference

 

[pwfletcher]

I am currently getting ~78MB/sec writes and ~104MB/sec reads ... almost saturated GigE

 

[lrusak]

I am currently getting ~78MB/sec writes and ~104MB/sec reads ... almost saturated GigE

What did you use to measure these speeds?
Are you using CIFS?

 

[pwfletcher]

MenuMeters and Activity Monitor. See the screen grab below. It fluctuates between 100MB/sec and 110MB/sec ... that is with the three drive array. With the single drives I added afterward for TimeMachine backups I only get about 70MB/sec read.

 

[pwfletcher]

I am using AFP.

 

[ssgoku129]

Thanks for the tip, going to buy this and build a new NAS with my new 5x3TB REDs :D