Not my First Rodeo..BUT this Bull is wild

[PonyExpress]

Howdy Folks

Looking to put together a FreeNAS server with the following objectives of importance:

1. Unit to be quiet, not draw a lot of power
2. Provide safety to my Pictures, and media, RaidZ2.
3. Have a server that is capable of expanding as my needs grow
4. Edit gopro
5. PLEX
6. Maybe VM, be nice to separate os from my media.

I have jumped on this ride and nodded my head; I am hoping the crowd (y'all folks) can coach me a bit as I ride this beast. I have 2 retired pc's and 2 hard drives from dead laptops, and had an external drive fail about a year ago, but managed to get most my pictures and media back. I have one operating pc, with a minimal motherboard with one only hard drive in it and doesn't appear expandable--never let the wife pick the pretty one. I have stuff scattered from east to west so to speak and I literally need to get my s**t together. Anyway, have been reading about NAS, raid arrays, and PLEX; and have started a big build yesterday. I have built a pc in the past, so somethings are familiar, but this is the first server. I do work with computer programming, and UNIX is not unfamiliar. I think FreeNAS is my future.

Purchased:
Motherboard: supermicro dual processor LGA 2011 with SAS2 8 Port via LSI2308 chipset x9dre-ln4f
CPU: 2 Intel-Six-Core-E5-2640 V1-Processor
RAM: 4 NEMIX RAM 4GB PC3-10600 Registered Memory for Supermicro X9DRE-LN4F Motherboard
Heatsink: 2 supermico SNK-P0057PS

I guess I have committed myself to those things. The Motherboard with the LSI2308 chipset should give me the ability to run IT mode for ZFS according to the seller. I noticed most people seem to want fan coolers for the CPU's, where I chose heatsinks, this may be a bump on my noggin but I got them cheap.

Still thinking about the following, any suggestions are welcome:
1. Power Supply-- 500W is what a calculator online said, but supermicro that the MOBO come from are in the 750 to 920 range
2. Chassis--Thinking of Fractal Design Define XL R2 Tower
3. Ethernet Card ??maybe in one my old pc's if I am lucky
4. Wiring ??No clue what I will need--Assume power wires to harddrives and fans ;and cabling to MOBO?
5. Fans --Fractal Design Case seems to allow 3 up front and a couple in back so 5? Fans either fractal or Noctua, I think quiet is important as power consumption
6. Harddrives--I was going to get a couple big ones, but after reading the FreeNAS manual, I think I will get 4-1TB to start off with for a zdev (I probably have about 1 TB of junk I am guessing), the case I picked should be able to get 12 HD into it. I plan to gradually grow it up in 3 arrays of 4 drives.
7. Am I missing something?????

Software, I am all ears. Maybe Linux and VM?? No idea about configuring this yet. Seems many use small SSD for plexing, and forum suggests a small one for freeNAS. I am reading that FreeNAS as a thumbdrive is setting yourself up for disaster. Anyway, I wouldn't mind hearing about those kind of configurations if you can point me in the right direction. I am really interested in keeping OS and my stuff apart so if I have to reload the OS, my media is safe.

Thank you partners.

Pony

 

[Chris Moore]

That power supply is barely enough for the system board much less hard drives and other things. You're going to need a better power supply than that.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Ericloewe]

Motherboard: supermicro dual processor LGA 2011 with SAS2 8 Port via LSI2308 chipset x9dre-ln4f
CPU: 2 Intel-Six-Core-E5-2640 V1-Processor

Sounds like massive overkill to me, and massively at odds with:

Unit to be quiet, not draw a lot of power

I noticed most people seem to want fan coolers for the CPU's, where I chose heatsinks, this may be a bump on my noggin but I got them cheap.

Passive heatsinks will require more noise to be produced by the server than active CPU heatsinks. The latter allow you to spin the chassis fans at more reasonable speeds.

2. Chassis--Thinking of Fractal Design Define XL R2 Tower

No, you can't combine a random chassis with the passive CPU heatsinks. If you want to use those, you need a Supermicro chassis with the plastic air guide for your specific motherboard.

Ethernet Card ??maybe in one my old pc's if I am lucky

The motherboard has GbE onboard...

1. Power Supply-- 500W is what a calculator online said, but supermicro that the MOBO come from are in the 750 to 920 range

Way too low for serious expansion. 750W might work with some 10 disks or so, with that motherboard, so that should be your lower target.

Wiring ??No clue what I will need--Assume power wires to harddrives and fans ;and cabling to MOBO?

Fans connect to the motherboard. The PSU includes the power cabling.

You will need SATA and/or SAS breakout cables... Hold on. The motherboard you linked does not have an SAS controller. You won't need one until you're past 8 disks or so, but you need to be aware of this.

6. Harddrives--I was going to get a couple big ones, but after reading the FreeNAS manual, I think I will get 4-1TB to start off with for a zdev (I probably have about 1 TB of junk I am guessing), the case I picked should be able to get 12 HD into it. I plan to gradually grow it up in 3 arrays of 4 drives.

Four-drive vdevs are relatively space-inefficient. If you're using RAIDZ2, you can double your available storage by going with six-disk vdevs.

 

[PonyExpress]

Sounds like massive overkill to me, and massively at odds with:

Ya, I know its overkill; I would have purchased a box, but this sounded like a fun thing to try. After its built, it can only be worth more than I have in it. I have owned 4 pc's and 2 laptops in the past 20 years. I Hope this system lasts the next 20.

Passive heatsinks will require more noise to be produced by the server than active CPU heatsinks. The latter allow you to spin the chassis fans at more reasonable speeds.

No, you can't combine a random chassis with the passive CPU heatsinks. If you want to use those, you need a Supermicro chassis with the plastic air guide for your specific motherboard.

Great tip, slower fans less noise.

I have been in server rooms, and know how loud servers can be. The change in chassis was to combat noise by using larger slower fans, the energy efficient comment was for developing a plan of attack with efficient use of fans. The chassis design was in the back of my mind, I may get some coolers, maybe I can find some that are quiet. My thought was moving air with 5 big fans would be enough, but targeting the air movement to critical areas has to be part of my design, thanks.

Way too low for serious expansion. 750W might work with some 10 disks or so, with that motherboard, so that should be your lower target.

I had some suspicion of the number generated by the calculator and the comments seem to support my gut feeling. I see some folks are doing redundant PSU's, is this important?? In all honesty my experience in computer failures is hard drives and windows os being corrupted so I am inclined to think not. I suppose those failures are from errors written from RAM. FreeNAS manual emphasized the importance of ECC, and I believe it.

Four-drive vdevs are relatively space-inefficient. If you're using RAIDZ2, you can double your available storage by going with six-disk vdevs.

That advise was a gift, thank you. Unfortunately, its more of a capital outlay for RAID then I imagined. Yesterday opened my eyes to this reading the FreeNAS manual, which led me to 4, but I think I will follow your advice with 6, and do some more research on this. Anyone have some old NAS drive laying around, I am in the market.

 

[Chris Moore]

That advise was a gift, thank you. Unfortunately, its more of a capital outlay for RAID then I imagined. Yesterday opened my eyes to this reading the FreeNAS manual, which led me to 4, but I think I will follow your advice with 6, and do some more research on this. Anyone have some old NAS drive laying around, I am in the market.

If you are willing to purchase second hand hardware, you can get some really excellent retired server gear that has a lot of life remaining. Would you like some suggestions.

 

[PonyExpress]

If you are willing to purchase second hand hardware, you can get some really excellent retired server gear that has a lot of life remaining. Would you like some suggestions.

Absolutely. I like riding the broke in mares too. Note not broken. Haha

 

[LTCM]

Please don't think I am being rude, but you are all over the place. Personally, I'd recommend you hide your wallet before you buy anymore hardware. Many of your goals are at odds with what you've already purchased and I fear you will be disappointed with the results if you go down the route you are traveling.

 

[Chris Moore]

Harddrives--I was going to get a couple big ones, but after reading the FreeNAS manual, I think I will get 4-1TB to start off with for a zdev (I probably have about 1 TB of junk I am guessing), the case I picked should be able to get 12 HD into it. I plan to gradually grow it up in 3 arrays of 4 drives.

I would suggest starting with the number of drives you plan to have in the end, even if that leaves you with 'extra' capacity for now.

You could use a system like this, which is a workstation but it comes with the Xeon CPU and ECC memory that you need, so it is ready to go with just a couple of modifications.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Preci...on-6-Core-2-66GHz-X5650-12GB-RAM/171815306266
Add to that computer this SAS controller, which is conveniently already flashed with the IT mode firmware that FreeNAS needs to have:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-H310-...0-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162834659601
And in the front 5.25 bays, you don't need the CD drive, so clear those spaces out and use these adapters that include fans to mount your hard drives:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/EverCool-D...o-Triple-3-5-in-HDD-Cooling-Box-/253129580230
You can put 6 hard drives in the front bays using those adapters and the SAS controller is able to run 8, so the other nice thing about that chassis is that it has four more 3.5 bays on the inside to give you options.
The last part of the puzzle is the SAS cable to go from the SAS controller to the SATA dives. This listing includes two, which is what you need.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-2-M...-Forward-Breakout-Internal-Cable/371681252206
That computer does not include a video card, but FreeNAS doesn't need much. You can put any old card you happen to have laying around. The local console on FreeNAS is just text and you will likely only use it during the initial install and if you have certain errors that need local troubleshooting.
I use one of these systems at work for a development and test server and it is quiet, and reliable. It is a relatively inexpensive starter system.
I would suggest that you get new hard drives though. When I started my FreeNAS journey, I built my first NAS with used drives and had many failures because the used drives were already old. In any given batch of new drives, you can (likely will) have failures in the first year but after that the drives that survive will likely go to around 4 or 5 years before they start to die. I have a big server at work that I commissioned last year and in the first 12 months of service, 4 of the 60 hard drives have needed to be replaced for bad sectors. There is a burn-in process that is recommended, and if you do that, it is likely that any manufacturing defects will be discovered during burn-in and you can replace the drive before you put your data on the array.

 

[PonyExpress]

Please don't think I am being rude, but you are all over the place. Personally, I'd recommend you hide your wallet before you buy anymore hardware. Many of your goals are at odds with what you've already purchased and I fear you will be disappointed with the results if you go down the route you are traveling.

Respectfully, I don't agree.

I want a solid server, I want it quiet, I want the fans to scale with load, ie, efficient. I want my data to be safe. I want server to be scalable, MOBO can handle many more HD with cards, and if better processors are needed, can go V2 or 2690 and about double my power. The chassis is limited in size, but I have several pc boxes that may be added later as a storage rack.

The only thing I missed in my vision was hard drives for a raid, going to cost me a bit more there. Was hoping to start with about a budget of $300 on HD, but I think it maybe double that, unless I can find a good source.

Still working out cooling, maybe water, air, or just heatsinks. People are advising against heat sinks; likely to test this before moving on. Initially with not all hard drives in box, I think the air flow will be pretty unrestricted, and I can direct the airflow to the processors. Future HD upgrades may force additional fans on CPU's.

I think comments to date have suggested the build is overkill, and I have found the comments extremely helpful; but no one has said it will not freeNAS so I will probably move forward.

 

[Chris Moore]

I think comments to date have suggested the build is overkill, and I have found the comments extremely helpful; but no one has said it will not freeNAS so I will probably move forward.

Well, they didn't say it wouldn't FreeNAS, because it absolutely will, it is just not in accord with your stated requirements.
You can attache an 80mm fan to the top of those heat sinks to make them active and you will need active heat sinks, we are not lying about that.
The form of the Supermicro system board is not perfectly in compliance with 'standard' size/shape, so you may have trouble mounting it in the chassis you desire. It is usually best to us a Supermicro chassis with a Supermicro board, but even then you must check the compatibility list.
The 500 watt power supply needs to be bumped up to a 750 at the minimum, but you also need to ensure that the power supply has two CPU accessory power connectors as that system board has one 24 pin power connector and two 8 pin power connectors (one for each CPU) and the system may not work properly if all the power leads are not connected. The integrated network interface on the board is all you will need unless you want 10GB network connectivity, is that part of the plan?
Where are you at with purchasing?

 

[PonyExpress]

Where are you at with purchasing?

Nothing different purchased, still doing due diligence with the chassis; lots of choices out there and I am critiquing other ones at the moment. I have found the EVGA SuperNOVA 850 GS, G2, or G3, in order of preference. Looks like its has the connections and comes with all the cabling for the 2-8 pin connectors.