Kevin Horton
Guru
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2015
- Messages
- 730
I'm putting the parts list together for my first FreeNAS box, and would appreciate any comments. It will be the first PC I've ever built, so don't make any assumptions about my knowledge. I've read the the Hardware Recommendations in the FreeNAS docs, the various stickies in this forum and any threads that my searches found.
NAS Purpose - media storage, business document archiving, and Time Machine backup from several Macs.
The system will be configured in RAIDz2.
Case: Fractal-Design Node 804 (already purchased)
CPU: Pentium G3458 (possible future upgrade to Xeon if some future use case demands it)
Motherboard: SuperMicro X10SL7-F
RAM: Crucial CT102472BD160B (2 x 8 GB sticks)
Hard Drives: 6 x 4TB Western Digital Red (the case can support up to 10 drives, and I won't rule out going whole hog in the future)
Power Supply: Seasonic SS-500L1U, 500W, Gold certified. It can supply up to 480W on the 12V lines, so I should be good with the 12V current, as long as the total load is OK. The info I can find that actually has actual 4 TB NAS drive startup current suggest that the current per drive should be somewhere between 3A and 3.5A at 12V, or 35-40W per drive, and that peak should last 3-5s (or maybe it is half that value, as the data from another poster at the end of the thread is exactly half as much). The WD spec sheet claims a peak drive current of 1.75A at 12V, for whatever that is worth.
I hope to use this NAS for three to five years, with upgrades along the way as necessary. I want to spec the NAS to leave the option to upgrade the hardware in the future if I decide to also use it as a Plex server - hence the choice of a motherboard that can support more powerful CPUs, even though my current needs could probably be met with an Avoton C2550 or C2750 on an ASRock board.
Questions:
NAS Purpose - media storage, business document archiving, and Time Machine backup from several Macs.
The system will be configured in RAIDz2.
Case: Fractal-Design Node 804 (already purchased)
CPU: Pentium G3458 (possible future upgrade to Xeon if some future use case demands it)
Motherboard: SuperMicro X10SL7-F
RAM: Crucial CT102472BD160B (2 x 8 GB sticks)
Hard Drives: 6 x 4TB Western Digital Red (the case can support up to 10 drives, and I won't rule out going whole hog in the future)
Power Supply: Seasonic SS-500L1U, 500W, Gold certified. It can supply up to 480W on the 12V lines, so I should be good with the 12V current, as long as the total load is OK. The info I can find that actually has actual 4 TB NAS drive startup current suggest that the current per drive should be somewhere between 3A and 3.5A at 12V, or 35-40W per drive, and that peak should last 3-5s (or maybe it is half that value, as the data from another poster at the end of the thread is exactly half as much). The WD spec sheet claims a peak drive current of 1.75A at 12V, for whatever that is worth.
I hope to use this NAS for three to five years, with upgrades along the way as necessary. I want to spec the NAS to leave the option to upgrade the hardware in the future if I decide to also use it as a Plex server - hence the choice of a motherboard that can support more powerful CPUs, even though my current needs could probably be met with an Avoton C2550 or C2750 on an ASRock board.
Questions:
- is a 500W power supply enough handle possible expansion to 8 or 10 drives in the future? If I went with a larger capacity power supply now, with 6 drives, it would be running at a very low percentage of its rating, when at idle.
- Is it possible to configure the described system to do staggered drive startup? If so, I could probably get by with a smaller PSU, and try to run it more in its efficiency sweet spot during normal operations.