Hi Guys,
Visited here 4-6 months ago and read like a madman for days and days. Planned out a build but am only now getting back to it.
Wanted to run it by you to validate all looks good and get any pointers on improvement or changes since my last intense study.
My goal is to keep idle wattage as low as possible (20-50watts max) but still have lots of power for transcoding when I need it. Plan to run PLEX and get back into running virtual machines and other newer technologies like docker potentially if that's an option. Mostly will be used to consolidate 10 years of hard drives onto a truly reliable and redundant system. Host mostly family picture and videos, music, movies, my music software and samples, and run PC backups via Acronis and time machine for 5 PCs and 3 laptops.
Was considering a Synology DS916+ (8GB) for $599, but it's underpowered for transcoding and for $600 I could get more bang for my buck going with FreeNAS I believe.
So here's my build:
Supermicro Micro ATX DDR4 LGA 1151 Motherboards X11SSM-F-O https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018AX449G/?tag=ozlp-20
or
SM X11SAE-M-O https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018AX44Q4/?tag=ozlp-20
Anything better? No longer remember exactly why I chose these. Think I wanted a micro ATX build at the time. And the second one had 8 SATA connectors. I wanted a board I could throw a GTX1070 into someday should I want to watch movies in 4k@60 right from the NAS if that's an option. I know QNAP is offering onboard video now and I think its a great competitive advantage over Synology. Plus throw in my own pro audio soundcard perhaps in the PCI slot. Doesn't necessarily have to be a micro build anymore.
Intel i5-6400T to keep TDP as low as possible. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BH4XX74/?tag=ozlp-20
Love that it is Skylake. Handles ECC and has onboard video. Though I've since read that the "T" models are artifically capping performance and that other models run low power at idle as well. So is the non "T" model of this i5 a better choice? I think only the second mobo above handles the i5 CPUs? That's what the Amazon description says anyway.
16 or 32gb of ECC ram:
16gb Samsung $97 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018CZWVVU/?tag=ozlp-20
32gb Crucial https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KUSMULY/?tag=ozlp-20
4x8TB WD Red Drives $250 each (Taken out of WD external enclosures) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B6BN0Q2/?tag=ozlp-20
Or I may buy the WD dual drive NASs and take the drives out of them. That gives me two cheap alternate NAS units for $50 each that I can put old drives in. Not a bad deal?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B6BN1CU/?tag=ozlp-20
Passive CPU cooler NoFan 95 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009OXB1ZM/?tag=ozlp-20
PSU: Seasonic Fanless 520 Watt Platinum. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009VV56TO/?tag=ozlp-20
I want this build as silent as possible. I know I can't get the drives to not emit noise, but at least I can prevent everything else in the case from doing so.
I don't like the idea of booting off of USB sticks. Costs these days are not the limiting reason. To me, reliability of the boot disk is. As well as speed. So I was thinking of using M2 or just a low price SSD. I have an old Crucial 64gb SSD I'll probably use, or this one even though its size will be wasted.
Crucial MX300 275GB SSD https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IAGSD5O/?tag=ozlp-20
So my questions:
1. What do you think of my 4x8TB choice? A good one now considering cost? I thought 4 drives would keep power down over running additional smaller drives.
2. What am I forgetting/not aware of?
I was originally just going to mirror the drives to get 16tb out of 4 8tb drives. But might uze zfs if it gives me more space and a further increase in reliability and features/benefits. But I like less complexity and maintenance, so was thinking just mirroring them. That way I could get the data off of them easier in case of a major catastrophy buy just plugging them into another board? Interested in input on this. I also plan to add more drives later should I want even more storage. Up to a total of 8 drives max.
Will be connected to an UPS.
Thanks for your input!
R
Visited here 4-6 months ago and read like a madman for days and days. Planned out a build but am only now getting back to it.
Wanted to run it by you to validate all looks good and get any pointers on improvement or changes since my last intense study.
My goal is to keep idle wattage as low as possible (20-50watts max) but still have lots of power for transcoding when I need it. Plan to run PLEX and get back into running virtual machines and other newer technologies like docker potentially if that's an option. Mostly will be used to consolidate 10 years of hard drives onto a truly reliable and redundant system. Host mostly family picture and videos, music, movies, my music software and samples, and run PC backups via Acronis and time machine for 5 PCs and 3 laptops.
Was considering a Synology DS916+ (8GB) for $599, but it's underpowered for transcoding and for $600 I could get more bang for my buck going with FreeNAS I believe.
So here's my build:
Supermicro Micro ATX DDR4 LGA 1151 Motherboards X11SSM-F-O https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018AX449G/?tag=ozlp-20
or
SM X11SAE-M-O https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018AX44Q4/?tag=ozlp-20
Anything better? No longer remember exactly why I chose these. Think I wanted a micro ATX build at the time. And the second one had 8 SATA connectors. I wanted a board I could throw a GTX1070 into someday should I want to watch movies in 4k@60 right from the NAS if that's an option. I know QNAP is offering onboard video now and I think its a great competitive advantage over Synology. Plus throw in my own pro audio soundcard perhaps in the PCI slot. Doesn't necessarily have to be a micro build anymore.
Intel i5-6400T to keep TDP as low as possible. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BH4XX74/?tag=ozlp-20
Love that it is Skylake. Handles ECC and has onboard video. Though I've since read that the "T" models are artifically capping performance and that other models run low power at idle as well. So is the non "T" model of this i5 a better choice? I think only the second mobo above handles the i5 CPUs? That's what the Amazon description says anyway.
16 or 32gb of ECC ram:
16gb Samsung $97 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018CZWVVU/?tag=ozlp-20
32gb Crucial https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KUSMULY/?tag=ozlp-20
4x8TB WD Red Drives $250 each (Taken out of WD external enclosures) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B6BN0Q2/?tag=ozlp-20
Or I may buy the WD dual drive NASs and take the drives out of them. That gives me two cheap alternate NAS units for $50 each that I can put old drives in. Not a bad deal?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B6BN1CU/?tag=ozlp-20
Passive CPU cooler NoFan 95 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009OXB1ZM/?tag=ozlp-20
PSU: Seasonic Fanless 520 Watt Platinum. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009VV56TO/?tag=ozlp-20
I want this build as silent as possible. I know I can't get the drives to not emit noise, but at least I can prevent everything else in the case from doing so.
I don't like the idea of booting off of USB sticks. Costs these days are not the limiting reason. To me, reliability of the boot disk is. As well as speed. So I was thinking of using M2 or just a low price SSD. I have an old Crucial 64gb SSD I'll probably use, or this one even though its size will be wasted.
Crucial MX300 275GB SSD https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IAGSD5O/?tag=ozlp-20
So my questions:
1. What do you think of my 4x8TB choice? A good one now considering cost? I thought 4 drives would keep power down over running additional smaller drives.
2. What am I forgetting/not aware of?
I was originally just going to mirror the drives to get 16tb out of 4 8tb drives. But might uze zfs if it gives me more space and a further increase in reliability and features/benefits. But I like less complexity and maintenance, so was thinking just mirroring them. That way I could get the data off of them easier in case of a major catastrophy buy just plugging them into another board? Interested in input on this. I also plan to add more drives later should I want even more storage. Up to a total of 8 drives max.
Will be connected to an UPS.
Thanks for your input!
R
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