Please Review my Build

[Jorsher]

OK, here's what I'm looking at. I will explain the justification behind my choices. Feel free to slap me and suggest otherwise if I'm making some decisions that could be improved ;)

• Case: U-NAS NSC-810A Server Chassis $219.99 - This has 8 hot-swap bays, a single 2.5" SSD location, and supports Micro-ATX boards. Reasonably small footprint with a reasonable price. I will likely upgrade the case fans to Noctuas.
• Motherboard: SuperMicro X11SSH-CTF $434.44 - Supports up to 64gb ECC ram, has 2 x 10gbe Intel X550 ports (which I understand may not be at 100% support yet, but I'm patient), 8 x SATA3 (2 are SuperDOM), 8 x SAS3 (via LSI 3008), IMPI 2.0 (HTML5, no more Java!)
• CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1275v6 $362.99: Best performance/dollar value that's a newer 14nm process. I may look into the i3 or the Xeon-D as well. Suggestions?
• Boot Drive: 2 x SuperMicro 64gb SuperDOM $84.99 - I know it's a little on the high-side for boot storage, but it improves read speeds and will allow room for expansion. With this I will only lose 2 x SATA ports without taking up additional space in the small case.
• RAM: 2 x Crucial 16gb DDR4 2133 ECC/Registered $235.99 - I will start with 32gb and see how it performs. I can always add more -- unless you all think I will definitely need 64gb (or more).
• RAIDZ2 Storage: 8 x Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS $252.05 - I'm an HGST fan, but I've heard positive things about the IronWolf drives and they are currently the cheapest.
• PSU: SeaSonic SS-350M1U $59.99 - Really there aren't many options here. The case only allows for 1U Flex sized UPSes. I trust SeaSonic. This unit only has 4 SATA power connectors, but I understand there are ways around this with Molex adapters.

Total price (disk-less): $1,719.37
Total price (disks inc): $3,735.77

Considering the prices for the appliances with the big brands (with prettier GUIs, though), I'm pretty pleased!

After looking at the prices for an Intel DC P3700 for SLOG use, I decided I will wait to see if I really need one. One thing I'm curious about that wasn't mentioned in the hardware guide (but is likely in the forum) is why battery-backup cannot be replaced by a quality UPS. I assume the brief power drop may cause an issue? Perhaps, as an alternative, assuming battery-backed SSDs exist, I can use my extra SATA ports to do a hardware RAID of SSDs for SLOG? Maybe there a M2 NVMe expansion card with battery? I'll revisit if I need it.

I will primarily use this device for:
- Storage of personal photography I would not want corrupted or lost.
- Storage of less-important media (tv, music, movies) that I will stream from Plex
- Torrent server to seed/download torrents, with a web interface
- Possibly run a VPN server if I'm unhappy with the performance from my quad-core router.
- Local backups that are synced to cloud and remote backup (once I get my home FreeNAS server back up d'oh)

Suggestions? Things I'm missing? Just want to say hi?

 

[wblock]

I would choose normal SSDs over those expensive DOMs, and maybe only one. Mounting SSDs is not super critical, given that they have no moving parts. In other words, they don't require a real drive bay, just some solid mounting so they don't flop around.

That power supply seems small for eight drives and 32G.

 

[kdragon75]

RAIDZ2 Storage: 8 x Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS $252.05 - I'm an HGST fan, but I've heard positive things about the IronWolf drives and they are currently the cheapest.

Thats getting wide for 8TB drives but it all depends on the level of acceptable risk. It's not insane but I would want a spare drive on hand to swap if needed.

PSU: SeaSonic SS-350M1U $59.99 - Really there aren't many options here. The case only allows for 1U Flex sized UPSes. I trust SeaSonic. This unit only has 4 SATA power connectors, but I understand there are ways around this with Molex adapters.

I have heard of several people having issues with power splitters/adapters and this PSU is under specced... I would shoot for 500 watts minimum. I have a 570 in my server (also 8 drives) and while it reports only 230 watts peak, that's averaged over something like 10 seconds so the peaks are much higher.

After looking at the prices for an Intel DC P3700 for SLOG use, I decided I will wait to see if I really need one. One thing I'm curious about that wasn't mentioned in the hardware guide (but is likely in the forum) is why battery-backup cannot be replaced by a quality UPS

You don't need one unless your using NFS. This is based on your stated usage. Sama will not use the SLOG and samba will not use synchronous writes. You can force this and some people do but if your this paranoid, you also NEED a power loss protected SLOG.
A power failure is only one of many potential reasons a system may unexpectedly go offline. What id you undersized PSU fails? What if there is a kernel panic causing a reboot? Lots of bad things can happen. Again it's all about the level of acceptable risk.

 

[Chris Moore]

Location?

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[kdragon75]

- Possibly run a VPN server if I'm unhappy with the performance from my quad-core router.

Have you tried pfSense with AES-NI? It should be plenty fast depending on you clock speed as many VPN softwares in FreeBSD only run on a single thread.

Storage of personal photography I would not want corrupted or lost.

Keep backups outside of your PC and outside of FreeNAS.

Torrent server to seed/download torrents, with a web interface

If your OCD about performance and plan to fill your pool beyond 60% you may consider a separate POOL (even just a junk SSD) for this and have transmission (or what ever) move the files over once done downloading.

 

[Jorsher]

I would choose normal SSDs over those expensive DOMs, and maybe only one. Mounting SSDs is not super critical, given that they have no moving parts. In other words, they don't require a real drive bay, just some solid mounting so they don't flop around.

That power supply seems small for eight drives and 32G.

Will consider replacing the DOMs. Just hate extra wires and it would free up some extra power cable requirements. I've got 4 2.5" drives attached to my home server with tape -- so no problem with creative mounting :)

My case limits the PSU options. I won't allow the case to dictate whether I have a proper power supply, but I'll definitely do more investigation before deciding. This is the PSU that U-NAS sells with this case. Staggering the spin-up should negate any huge peaks at boot, right? 73w TDP for the processor, 8 x 30w for the drives, 5w per DIMM (est), am at just over 330w (not including fans, motherboard) assuming everything was at peak. Definitely tight, but staggering drive spin-up and the CPU not running at peak, I think it will be OK -- without much headroom. Will keep digging for 450-500w like I was originally aiming for...

 

[kdragon75]

330 on a 350 watt PSU is more than close, its WAY off. You should always plan to have at least 33% reserve onder peak conditions. Power supplys degrade over time and will start introducing reduced output and ripple. This will fry you components and cause phantom issues.

 

[Jorsher]

Thats getting wide for 8TB drives but it all depends on the level of acceptable risk. It's not insane but I would want a spare drive on hand to swap if needed.

Would you recommend RAIDZ3? That would still leave me with 40TB which at this time is plenty. I'm not sure the time required to rebuild a pool this large.

I have heard of several people having issues with power splitters/adapters and this PSU is under specced... I would shoot for 500 watts minimum. I have a 570 in my server (also 8 drives) and while it reports only 230 watts peak, that's averaged over something like 10 seconds so the peaks are much higher.

Thank you. I will look for a power-meter that averages over a shorter period and see what it's peaking at. What is the TDP of your processor compared to the 73W of the one I'm considering? SeaSonic has been great, and the reviews I've read on that unit are positive as far as the quality of the power it provides. My home server that has many more drives -- 26 if I remember right, double the DIMMs, double the processors, etc idle's around 180-200w. I'm a little curious what the peak is, but it was on a spare 80+ Titanium 850w SeaSonic I had.

You don't need one unless your using NFS. This is based on your stated usage. Sama will not use the SLOG and samba will not use synchronous writes. You can force this and some people do but if your this paranoid, you also NEED a power loss protected SLOG.
A power failure is only one of many potential reasons a system may unexpectedly go offline. What id you undersized PSU fails? What if there is a kernel panic causing a reboot? Lots of bad things can happen. Again it's all about the level of acceptable risk.

Don't intend to use NFS with this build. Thanks.

 

[Jorsher]

Location?

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Iraq.

 

[Jorsher]

Have you tried pfSense with AES-NI? It should be plenty fast depending on you clock speed as many VPN softwares in FreeBSD only run on a single thread.

Nope, but that's a great idea ;) I'll see how the router performs first, and try this route if it's not sufficient. I only use VPN to manage/access my home hardware. Nothing too fancy.

Keep backups outside of your PC and outside of FreeNAS.

Of course. It will all be synced with two cloud providers and my home (remote) server. Only the irreplaceable data.

If your OCD about performance and plan to fill your pool beyond 60% you may consider a separate POOL (even just a junk SSD) for this and have transmission (or what ever) move the files over once done downloading.

I was wondering what I could do with the extra SATA ports. I think I found my answer ;)

 

[Chris Moore]

Iraq.

Is there a cool place for the system to run? High ambient temperature could impact drive longevity.

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[Jorsher]

Is there a cool place for the system to run? High ambient temperature could impact drive longevity.

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I'll be moving from my shared air-conditioned little room to an air-conditioned apartment soon with a job change. Cooling will be fine. It's the dust that gets annoying

 

[pschatz100]

Why are you considering the U-NAS NSC-810A? I have no experience with this case, myself, but it does not look like a good solution for warm climates. And 1u-flex power supplies tend to have poor cooling which is why they are not readily available in larger wattages. My big concern with your configuration would be keeping everything cool.

I don't think that motherboard supports Registered memory.

As has been previously mentioned, booting off an SSD will be sufficient.

 

[Jorsher]

Why are you considering the U-NAS NSC-810A? I have no experience with this case, myself, but it does not look like a good solution for warm climates. And 1u-flex power supplies tend to have poor cooling which is why they are not readily available in larger wattages. My big concern with your configuration would be keeping everything cool.

I don't think that motherboard supports Registered memory.

As has been previously mentioned, booting off an SSD will be sufficient.

According to the internet, it cools fine. If I find out otherwise, I'll replace the case. I like it for the smaller footprint. Stateside, I would get a rackmounted enclosure, but it's not reasonable here. The climate doesn't matter much -- it'll be the same temperature indoors as if I was in the USA.

You are right about the memory. Nice catch!