BUILD Powerful & beautiful mITX build - looking for comments!

[whiskeyjack]

Hi all,

My trusty DNS 323 is getting old and I figured a new NAS would be a nice project. I discovered FreeNAS and, imo, have compiled a powerful mITX build that should see me covered for the next few years. I'm interested in any comments or suggestions. Maybe I can still improve on it!

• Case with 6 drive bays: Fractal Design Node 304
  Beautiful case with room for up to 6 drives, making it future proof
• PSU 250W: Seasonic SS-250SU
  This should be powerful enough, even with 6 drives, according to the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator and is also very efficient (80 Plus Bronze)
• mITX mb: Asus P8H77-I
  Turns out not too many mITX boards have 6 sata ports and none have that with an Intel nic
• CPU: Intel® Core™ i3-3210 Processor (3M Cache, 3.20 GHz)
  I first picked the Intel Core i3 2120, but the newer 3210 has almost the same specs and runs cooler
  Powerful enough to fill the gigabit line, run transmission, sabnzbd and maybe transcoding (if I want to start toying with that)
• CPU cooler: Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B
  Not very expensive and should keep the noise level down
• Memory 16GB DDR3: Corsair CMV16GX3M2A1333C9
  Since I plan on using ZFS seems 16GB will be well used
• Intel NIC: Intel Gigabit CT Desktop Adapter
  Read that performance is better with an Intel Nic (the onboard nic is Realtek) and it is only € 24
• USB stick 8GB: HP v165w 8GB Blue
  To run the OS on, small and with plenty room
• Hard drives 3x: Western Digital Red WD30EFRX, 3TB
  These seem to run cooler and with less power than other 3GB drives, while still maintaining excellent performance. Red is also the Western Digital specific NAS hard drive line. For now I only need 3 disks (in Z1), but down the road I can add another 3

What do you think? Did I forget anything? Think something can be improved?

Edit: For those that consider the same build, be aware that the PSU is a flex atx format and the case is not equipped for those. I secured the PSU with an additional screw through the bottom and some carton, but if you're buying new, consider a normal or itx format PSU.

 

[daeron]

Hi I also have build a NAS similar to yours, here is mine:
ASUS Intel H77 mini ITX Motherboard - P8H77-I
Intel Core i3-3225 stock fan
Kingston Technology HyperX 16 GB Kit (2x8 GB) 1600MHz DDR3L PC3-12800 Non-ECC CL10 DIMM 1.35V Low Voltage XMP Desktop Memory KHX16LC10K2/16X
Fractal Design Node 304
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200 3 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s ST3000DM001
Corsair 650W PSU

I'm no expert at all but there are something I could share with you:
- I only bought 2 HDD thinking that I could increase the capacity later. This is wrong, with ZFS you cannot add more disk to the zpool, you could another zpool but in my case I used mirror config and that means if I buy 2 more disk I will have a capacity of 6Tb instead of 9Tb as each pool will have 1 drive as mirror. To achieve the full 9Tb I would have to destroy the pool that I have and create a new raidz1 pool with the 4 disks.

- I use my NAS as a media server for 5 XBMC boxes (appleTV and android boxes mix), to backup files from 8 PCs but very exporadically, as a MySQL server for 2 of the XBMC boxes, Sickbeard, CouchPotato, Maraschino, and transmission. All of these task I though would need of a big CPU but indeed I can see my CPU utilization graph to not go up more than 8% at all times, so you could probably go with a Celeron CPU without any issues. Although I could said that before I had a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ with a Sparc CPU and 512MB of Ram and the web pages from sickbeard, couchpotato,etc where painfully slow to navigate, with this new build the run as smooth as they possibly can.

- I didn't install any additional NIC and I'm getting a 89MB/s transferring a file from a Windows 7 PC to the NAS. I use a Cisco E3000 that has 1GB ports but by no means is a fancy switch

That's all is you have any question or test about my build I will try to help you out

 

[whiskeyjack]

Thanks for the comment!

I did think about the ZFS configuration, and the transition from 3 to 6 drives is not too bad. I would have to destroy the current pool to be able to make use of Z2, but I could also add another pool and would end up with the same amount of storage. But that would mean sacrificing redundancy. Still, the build is expensive enough as it is for the moment, so I'll cross that bridge when I get there ;-)

With regard to the cpu, it is good to know your results. Maybe I can save some cash there, but I do like (too much...) power.

Good to know of the NIC too, maybe I'll skip that one then. 89MB/s is a very decent throughput indeed, doesn't seem there is much to win with an Intel NIC then.

 

[cyberjock]

Regarding the Realtek NIC, there seem to be 1 or 2 models(or firmwares.. something extremely rare) that work decently in FreeBSD. For the rest of us poor souls that don't get that "one" NIC we're stuck with buying an Intel NIC. They're cheap and have fixed many people's performance problems. I recommend builders just buy an Intel NIC outright and assume the onboard is crap because only 2 posters have had good performance with Realtek that I've seen. Not to mention many NICs just don't work on FreeBSD at all.

 

[whiskeyjack]

Regarding the Realtek NIC, there seem to be 1 or 2 models(or firmwares.. something extremely rare) that work decently in FreeBSD. For the rest of us poor souls that don't get that "one" NIC we're stuck with buying an Intel NIC. They're cheap and have fixed many people's performance problems. I recommend builders just buy an Intel NIC outright and assume the onboard is crap because only 2 posters have had good performance with Realtek that I've seen. Not to mention many NICs just don't work on FreeBSD at all.

Ok, thanks, they're cheap so I'm not going to take chances on that then.

daeron, your PSU seems a bit overpowered, did you have a specific reason for that? I figured 250W should do the trick, even with 6 drives.

 

[daeron]

daeron, your PSU seems a bit overpowered, did you have a specific reason for that? I figured 250W should do the trick, even with 6 drives.

It is overpowered, I just had it from other PC builds and use it. Do note that the Node 304 doesn't have much space for cables and with a non modular PSU I had some troubles making them fit

 

[Alchete]

120W will do the trick, even for 6 drives. :)

My 120W PS build here:
http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?11451-BUILD-2013-i3-22nm-16GB-ECC-RAM-18TB-Pico-PS-34W-Idle

More PS power is ok, you'll just throw away idle power. My tests with a Kill-A-Watt show a 120W Pico PS saves 6W at idle over a 450W 80+ PS.

Nice build Whiskeyjack. I wanted to go m-ITX because the form-factor is awesome, but I couldn't find an ECC RAM MB.

Your aftermarket CPU cooler is unnecessary but won't hurt. :)

 

[whiskeyjack]

120W will do the trick, even for 6 drives. :)

That is good to know, although 120W is shaving it a bit too close for my taste. But I will be very safe with 250W then. Thanks for sharing your measurements as well.

And you are right about the cooler. I added it more out of habit than necessity. I'll try the stock cooler first and see (hear) what noise levels it produces before looking to replace it.

 

[whiskeyjack]

Updated the CPU to the new Ivy Bridge 22 nm Core i3-3210. It runs at 3.2 GHz instead of 3.3 GHz, but it otherwise similar and runs a lot cooler.

 

[ryanhast]

Hi all,

[*]CPU cooler: Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B
Not very expensive and should keep the noise level down


What do you think? Did I forget anything? Think something can be improved?

Just a heads up. I just bought everything on your list, with the exception of putting an i5 chip in mine.

That scythe heatsink is HUGE. List of problems I ran into because of the Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B:

1. I installed it, then realized I couldn't get my RAM in, so I had to take it off, install ram then put it back on.
2. The Shuriken covers the PCI slot, so the Intel NIC does not fit. I guess I will just donate that thing. Wasn't too expensive.
3. Trying to get all the cables under the overhang of the Shuriken is annoying, but not impossible.

If I could go back a couple hours, I would have just installed the stock heatsink that came with the chip.

FYI!!

 

[cyberjock]

Now you know why I stick with the stock heating and fan unless I'm overclocking or trying to build an ultra silent machine.

Do some aftermarket heatsinks perform better than the OEM heatsink? Absolutely.

But you have to also consider the fact that the CPU shouldn't be overheating with the stock even if your CPU is at 100% loading, your CPU most likely won't be operating at 100% loading all of the time, and there a rather large margin for heat transfer and removal versus heat load.

Generally, I've found that friends that use aftermarket heatsinks while I use OEM heatsinks don't really see any "benefit". Big deal if your CPU is 100F instead of 110F. Your CPU won't work any better or be any faster than mine. Plus they ALWAYS fit. :P

 

[whiskeyjack]

These days I'm only using aftermarket coolers to keep noise levels down, but now that I read Ryanhast's experience I will definitely use the stock cooler. Thanks for the heads-up!

 

[tingo]

For the last few years I have only used stock cpu coolers. They are quiet enough.

 

[whiskeyjack]

For those considering a similar build, I added a warning in the first post about the flex atx format of the PSU that does not go well with the case. Also, the stock cooler seems quiet enough at the moment.

I'll make a post later with the definitive list of components. First I'm going to play around with the configuration :)

 

[Bairesman]

Hi Whiskeyjack, just wondering what is your feedback from the build? Are you happy with the choice of your motherboard? Is there anything you would change if you could do it again?

 

[whiskeyjack]

I'm very happy with it. Had only one hickup: the usb stick died on me within a week, so I had to do the configuration twice. But after that all was good.

The system is plenty fast and the transfer speeds to my Windows workstation have increased at least tenfold! Used to be around 5MB/s with my old NAS. Also, the case looks nice, but is bigger than I expected.

What I would do differently:

• Other motherboard? Maybe. I primarily picked this one for the small form factor and number of SATA ports. For a new build I would check if there is a board that in addition has an Intel network controller (small chance though).
• The PSU/case. Turns out the case supports a full size PSU and I have a very small (efficient) one. No problem power wise, but that specific small form factor is not supported by the case. So I had to improvise a bit when installing it. And also this results in wasted now empty space. So next time I would get a PSU with a form factor that is supported by the case and/or have a look around if there are smaller cases supporting a smaller PSU but will still also support 6 drives. This case is very slick though.

Can't really think of anything else at the moment. It has been running quietly in a closet for a few months now without me having to look at it, so it is doing a good job.

 

[Bairesman]

Thanks for getting back to me whiskeyjack. Unfortunately your transfer improvements are not much of a gain for me as my current HP Mediaserver EX490 transfers at about 70/80MB/s and it is at least 3/4 years old. Since I posted the question I decided to switch to mATX as there is a much broader selections of motherboards. I love the case but I am not sure I want to be stuck in the mITX world...
Once again, thanks for getting back to me.
Martin

 

[whiskeyjack]

You made a good build back then! I've seen my transfers go over 100MB/s, but never did any thorough tests to see if I could sustain that speed. But that being said, if I had had 70/80 I probably would not have upgraded either and if I remember correctly gigabit won't allow for much higher than 100MB/s anyway.

 

[Bairesman]

LOL, it was HP who made the build not me, I just upgraded the CPU :)
Main reason for the new NAS is to move away from WHS V1 into a more updated platform and also to improve on the hardware as the existing case does not have the best ventilation so HDs tend to go bad every two years. Other than that it has been serving it's purpose by providing reliable backups of my PCs (I had to rebuilt 2 PCs over the last 4 years due to lost data)