BUILD Please comment my planned build

[Informatoque]

Hello,

I am planning a build for a home nas/server.
Here is my list of components that I have planned on buying. Please comment on my choices and give any advice you might have.

Motherboard: Mini-ITX Intel Server Board S1200KPR (link)
CPU: Intel Celeron G540 (Dual Core 2.50 GHz) (link)
Ram: Kingston (KVR1333D3E9S/4G) 4gb ECC (link)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 (Mini-ITX, enough space for multiple HDD) (link)
For OS storage: an internal USB adapter and a usb key as OS storage (link)
PSU: probably a Thermaltake Smart SE 530W modular (cheapest modular one I can get) (link)
For storage I am planning on using four 4TB hard drives with either the whole 16tb as storage or 8tb mirrored for backup.

The nas will mainly be used to stream video and audio files through the network via upnp/dlna. It might also be used as a torrent downloader. I think the cpu I chose should be able to do occasional transcoding when movies are accessed from mobile device like an iPad.

Please comment or give any advices on my planned build.

Thank you for reading my post :)

 

[JohnK]

1. You need 8Gig Ram for FreeNas.
2. I would recommend a smaller non modular PSU, even in a Node304
3. Don't plan on transcoding with a Celeron.

 

[cyberjock]

That CPU does NOT support ECC RAM. You can't use it.

4GB of RAM is NOT the minimum for ZFS. 8GB is the minimum and you should not go below this unless you want problems. It's covered in the hardware requirements section of the manual.

If you want transcoding you are instantly talking about something far beyond a Celeron or Pentium. You're in i3 or Xeon territory.

Might want to do more searching in the forums as nothing I've said here hasn't been said at least twice in the last 3 days. :)

 

[Informatoque]

That CPU does NOT support ECC RAM. You can't use it.

4GB of RAM is NOT the minimum for ZFS. 8GB is the minimum and you should not go below this unless you want problems. It's covered in the hardware requirements section of the manual.

If you want transcoding you are instantly talking about something far beyond a Celeron or Pentium. You're in i3 or Xeon territory.

Might want to do more searching in the forums as nothing I've said here hasn't been said at least twice in the last 3 days. :)

About the CPU and ECC, I know it doesn't say on the intel page but there is a couple links where it is mentioned that it is supported:
e.g.: https://communities.intel.com/thread/32953
There is also a couple of people on some forums that stated it worked. So I am kind of confused.

 

[cyberjock]

Yeah, I've seen those kind of comments. And since there's no sure-fire way to prove you are actually using ECC I make the assumption it doesn't work. After all, the consequences of getting it wrong are... severe.

Celerons are horrible for performance. Why you'd want a Celeron for a server is kind of beyond me. I also wouldn't understand why you think you have any chance of transcoding with a Celeron when the faster Pentium G2020 we often recommend can't even transcode. And it's only $25 more than the Celeron you are trying to order.

I'd strongly recommend against Celeron. It's not likely to work out for you if you go with it. Even with transcoding the Pentium is not going to be able to cut it. You should probably sit down and assess your expectations from the system and the amount of money you are willing to spend. Without a Xeon(those support ECC) and some i3s(if they're available on the market yet and compatible with your board) your chance of transcoding is pretty much zero.

 

[Informatoque]

Follow up to my previous post:
As for transcoding I guess I'll keep that for a future upgrade, after all as the motherboard is compatible with a bunch of Xeons and i3s I can always easily upgrade.

Edit:
Cyberjock I posted my previous post while you posted yours so I just saw it.
The reason I chose the celeron is because I read a bunch of websites and boards where people had built small nas (+ htpc for some with small graphic card) with it and were very happy with it. I could buy a slightly better cpu now or wait a year or so and be able to buy a quite more expensive and powerful one when I will have the budget. I am thinking the second option is probably the best

As for the ECC thing the link I posted was just an example and might not have been the best.
I also found this pdf from item's website: http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...latform-briefs/g540-based-platforms-brief.pdf
And also from this other forum (I hope I can post this link?): http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1191071
I guess I could contact intel directly to make sure or contact some people who posted on different forums about using this cpu with dcc if it works for them to make sure.

And about the ram I can just buy a second stick of the same one as the link so I would have 8gb. I read the ram part on the wiki but my understanding was that with less than 8gb it would still work just not optimally.

Thank you to you two for your fast answers :)

 

[cyberjock]

I don't know what other NASes you've read about, but they definitely aren't FreeNAS and they aren't ZFS. Here the cheapest chip you'll ever see recommended is the g2020.

If you read the manual it says:

If you don't have at least 8GB of RAM with ZFS or 2GB of RAM with UFS, you should consider getting more powerful hardware before using FreeNAS® to store your data. Otherwise, data loss may result.

Seems pretty self-explanatory to me. ;)

By the way.. I added that to the manual because of how many people lost data. We couldn't ignore the number of people losing data anymore from ignoring the recommendations.

To be honest, if you plan to go with 16TB of disks you should go to 16GB of RAM unless performance isn't important. At the least, I'd go with an 8GB stick minimum instead of 2x4GB sticks since you only have 2 RAM slots.

 

[Informatoque]

As my nas is going to be for quite a light usage, my understanding until now is that if I use UFS filesystem it should work no problem and with 8gb if I use ZFS it would just be a bit slow which would still be way better than the nas I have now which is a whitelight 1HDD western digital mybookworld edition with a extremely slow arm cpu.

For now the only usage would be serving files on local network. I guess worst case I could always go with OpenMediaVault given it has simpler functions but enough for the beginning for me. Right now I want a rather cheap but upgradeable solution which is why I have planned on spending more money on getting an ECC supported motherboard and ram for future usage.

You recommended at least the G2020 but intel doesn't list it as officially supprted. Wouldn't that be a problem? If it isn't then I'll get that one since it is pretty much the same price but I want the cpu to have no compatibility problems whatsoever with the motherboard. Or maybe you can recommend another mini itx ecc motherboard? The thing being that I can't buy on american website as I don't live in the US so geting "rare" hardware is quite hard.
Edit: G2020 seems to work with the motherboard I've chosen: http://forums.freenas.org/threads/s...ware-feedback-and-some-questions.14484/page-3
You can still recommend another mini itx motherboard if you have one in mind because right now with the motherboard I've chosen I'll have to run the OS (either FreeNAS or OpenMediaVault) from a usb key as the 4 data ports will be used by HDDs.

I have learned a lot of things these past couple days researching this forum and I think I have a clearer idea of what I want now and how I should do it so that I can upgrade easily later to add more power for things like transcoding. I am looking at the options I have right now and will come back and post again.

Thank you again for your fast answers and great advices :)

 

[Informatoque]

Hello again,

I though about my whole project and I have reevaluated what I want now because I can always upgrade later.
So motherboard stays the same because that is the only one I can get that support ecc and that is mini itx.
Ram would be either 4gb and UFS or I manage to find 8gb for less than 100euros.
Case stays the same.
For OS storage I'll use a small usb hdd connected inside with the adapter I have on my first message.
About the PSU, JohnK recommended a smaller PSU, I can't seem to find one on any european/french websites or on Amazon (not .com though).
And last, the CPU, cyberjock recommended at least a G2020. It doesn't seem to be on intel's compatibility list, would it still work?
If the G2020 does work, would the G2030 work as well? My main issue here is that it is not on intel's list but if it does work then I don't mind it.

Thank you again for your help :)

On a side note, you said that with a celeron you can't do any transcoding, this is probably true with freenas but I was curious and I found this guy running plex on, if I understood correctly either a modded sinology or a diy nas with sinology os on it, and he was running Plex and trascoding took the CPU from 1% usage to around 50% so it still works. Which is a great think because it means that with a G2020 and plex it should work as well. Just thought that was a fun thing to know.

 

[Dusan]

About the PSU, JohnK recommended a smaller PSU, I can't seem to find one on any european/french websites or on Amazon (not .com though).

http://www.idealo.fr/prix/3501949/seasonic-ss-360gp-360w.html

 

[cyberjock]

And last, the CPU, cyberjock recommended at least a G2020. It doesn't seem to be on intel's compatibility list, would it still work? If the G2020 does work, would the G2030 work as well? My main issue here is that it is not on intel's list but if it does work then I don't mind it.

Where are you reading its not on the compatibility list? You DO know that the motherboard is already EOL'd right? You might want to get something that is more supported. I'm not a proponent of Intel motherboards because they often have weird quirks. Not surprisingly, Intel is leaving the Motherboard market.
Thank you again for your help :)

On a side note, you said that with a celeron you can't do any transcoding, this is probably true with freenas but I was curious and I found this guy running plex on, if I understood correctly either a modded sinology or a diy nas with sinology os on it, and he was running Plex and trascoding took the CPU from 1% usage to around 50% so it still works. Which is a great think because it means that with a G2020 and plex it should work as well. Just thought that was a fun thing to know.

A Synology has nothing in common with FreeNAS except that it is another NAS product. That's literally it. You are comparing apples to oranges. What you are doing is saying that Ford's are great because Nissan's are great. Not true at all.

 

[Informatoque]

Where are you reading its not on the compatibility list? You DO know that the motherboard is already EOL'd right? You might want to get something that is more supported. I'm not a proponent of Intel motherboards because they often have weird quirks.

On intel's website: http://ark.intel.com/products/67346/intel-server-board-s1200kpr
On the left side you click on "Compatible Products" and then "Processor (Products: 42)"
The G2020 is not on the list.
BUT I have seen people on this forum saying it worked so I am going to go with the G2020 anyway because in the worst case the website I am buying from generally accepts to take products back if there is a compatibility problem.
About the intel's motherboard, I know it is already quite old but I have seen multiple example across the web of people running a has with one of those AND as I said in my previous post, getting professional/server/"rare" hardware is hard for me as I cannot buy on any US websites and I can only buy on some UK websites so getting a mini its motherboard with ecc was kind of a challenge.

A Synology has nothing in common with FreeNAS except that it is another NAS product. That's literally it. You are comparing apples to oranges. What you are doing is saying that Ford's are great because Nissan's are great. Not true at all.

I did not mean to compare the two. What I meant to say was that Plex running on a celeron is always Plex running on a celeron. Plex stays Plex. And a celeron stays a celeron.

Thank you to everyone for all your answers :)

So for anyone out there who might be interested, my final config is:
Case: Fractal Design Node 304
Motherboard: Intel Server Board S1200KPR
CPU: Intel Pentium G2020
Ram: ECC Kingston ValueRAM. 8GB at least is recommended for FreeNAS
OS Storage: a 2.5" HDD Sata3 Western Digital Blue Mobile 320GB 7mm. I am also getting a PCIe card to add 2 sata2 ports as my motherboard only has 4.
PSU: I followed JohnK advice and chose a non modular smaller PSU. I went with the 400W FSP (Fortron) AURUM S400 80PLUS Gold.
The reason I didn't go with the one Dusan recommended was that it only had 4 Sata Power Connector and I wanted to have a bit more so I went with this one that has 5.
For data storage I will probably in the end have 4 4TB HDDs but I will probably start with 2 HDDs. I will either go with Wester Digital (maybe the Green ones, I read they are good for nas) or Seagate but that is just a personal choice. For anyone reading this just choose a good brand.

Thank you for reading my post and I wish a happy New Year to everyone reading this :)

 

[Michael Wulff Nielsen]

Why waste a sata port on the os? Run freenas off a USB stick instead. Gives you one more sata port.

 

[Informatoque]

Why waste a sata port on the os? Run freenas off a USB stick instead. Gives you one more sata port.

Because I don't know if I'll stick with FreeNAS and if I ever use OpenMediaVault there is a lot more writing which would destroy the usb stick.

 

[Michael Wulff Nielsen]

With the spec'ed hardware open media vault is a better fit.

But if you decide to use freenas at least you would have a sata port.

 

[Informatoque]

I bought a PCIe sata card and a internal usb hub so that I have both possibilities. I thought it would be best to keep both options.

 

[gzartman]

That CPU does NOT support ECC RAM. You can't use it.

4GB of RAM is NOT the minimum for ZFS. 8GB is the minimum and you should not go below this unless you want problems. It's covered in the hardware requirements section of the manual.

If you want transcoding you are instantly talking about something far beyond a Celeron or Pentium. You're in i3 or Xeon territory.

Might want to do more searching in the forums as nothing I've said here hasn't been said at least twice in the last 3 days. :)

Yup. Transcoding is a CPU hog, big time! I've been running Plex server for about a month now and am surprised at how hard it hits my Xeon 5600 series CPU when it needs to transcode vids.

Why don't you have a look on ebay at some of the used Xeon servers. You can get some very good hardware off there that has ALOT of life left in it for under $500. I've purchased rack servers off ebay and they are still running strong after 5 years.

 

[gzartman]

Hello again,
On a side note, you said that with a celeron you can't do any transcoding, this is probably true with freenas but I was curious and I found this guy running plex on, if I understood correctly either a modded sinology or a diy nas with sinology os on it, and he was running Plex and trascoding took the CPU from 1% usage to around 50% so it still works. Which is a great think because it means that with a G2020 and plex it should work as well. Just thought that was a fun thing to know.

If that's all the CPU Plex is taking up, it probably isn't transcoding. Transcoding really depends on the client. If your friend has any kind of decent XBMC or similar client, Plex won't need to transcode the vid (and it won't). With that said, most of the Synology boxes don't support transcoding because of the low end CPUs. Have a look:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhqU12yGv_OxdC1VYjYtMmRiSlVReVZhNVBLZ0JxSmc#gid=0

Well maybe some support 480p transcoding, but who wants to watch 480p on a 60" flat panel TV.

Synology makes some nice NAS boxes for home use, but they aren't cheap. I would't run Plex on a Synology box. They typically have just a couple gigs of RAM (or less) and ATOM processors. Plex can easily drag the NAS to a crawl.

 

[Informatoque]

If that's all the CPU Plex is taking up, it probably isn't transcoding. Transcoding really depends on the client. If your friend has any kind of decent XBMC or similar client, Plex won't need to transcode the vid (and it won't). With that said, most of the Synology boxes don't support transcoding because of the low end CPUs. Have a look:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhqU12yGv_OxdC1VYjYtMmRiSlVReVZhNVBLZ0JxSmc#gid=0

Well maybe some support 480p transcoding, but who wants to watch 480p on a 60" flat panel TV.

Synology makes some nice NAS boxes for home use, but they aren't cheap. I would't run Plex on a Synology box. They typically have just a couple gigs of RAM (or less) and ATOM processors. Plex can easily drag the NAS to a crawl.

About the guy with plex and a celeron: My understanding was that he built a nas with a celeron as CPU and he was running Synology OS on it (Xpenology I think) and he showed in a video how he was able to transcode some files. He tried it with 480p files and also a 720p file.

 

[cyberjock]

Well, like I said.. Synology is NOT FreeNAS. It doesn't run the same OS, and it doesn't use the same file system.

It's your money, spend it how you like. I'd never consider anything less than a Xeon for transcoding though.