BUILD Proposed low-energy NAS

[Ericloewe]

Thanks, unfortunately the case manual is one page and doesn't reveal anything about fan hookups. Guess I'll deal with that when I see it.

What hardware sticky?

http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

This sticky.

 

[Fraoch]

What hardware sticky?

This one: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/ but I thought it had recommendations for capacities with a given number of hard drives (maybe I saw that elsewhere, maybe I imagined it?) Sorry.

 

[Glorious1]

As for sizing, I typically recommend 60W+30W per drive.

That would put me at 360 watts. In addition to the 450 watt G-series, I see they also have a 400 watt fanless model that looks interesting (80+ platinum). Unfortunately the same length as the G series. What's this "Haswell ready" and "Haswell compatible" business? Maybe I should pay attention to that since I'm getting a Haswell cpu?

Re sticky, duh, I'm easily confused. I thought you were talking about a sticker on some hardware I did read that way back when, but this is probably a good time to review it. Thanks!

 

[DKarnov]

Haswell CPUs have very low power draw modes that can (in certain cases) freak out the voltage regulation on PSUs not designed to accommodate them, potentially causing dangerous voltage increases. An up-to-date PSU has no problem. First Google hit: http://techreport.com/review/24897/the-big-haswell-psu-compatibility-list

 

[Ericloewe]

The tl;dr is that any non-group regulated PSU will do fine.

Any DC-DC PSU (anything rated gold or higher) won't give a damn at all.

 

[sremick]

That would put me at 360 watts. In addition to the 450 watt G-series, I see they also have a 400 watt fanless model that looks interesting (80+ platinum).

For what it's worth, I have that 400W fanless Seasonic, 6 HDDs and a high-end Xeon E3. I draw about 60W idle, and if I try really really hard I can maybe get it to 120W under artificial stress.

 

[Gnome]

Any reason you don't just use this combo:
Motherboard: http://amzn.com/B00FM4M7TQ
IBM M1015: http://goo.gl/6Py31v

You get your low power and the highly regarded LSI 8 port SAS controller.

 

[Glorious1]

Thanks Gnome. Hmmm, well, not knowing anything about cards I guess I hadn't explored that option. That's a RAID controller, can it just present the raw disks as I understand FreeNAS needs? Looks like it would fit in that case. I just ordered everything this morning, though it's probably not too late to pull the plug and change gears.

 

[Gnome]

Thanks Gnome. Hmmm, well, not knowing anything about cards I guess I hadn't explored that option. That's a RAID controller, can it just present the raw disks as I understand FreeNAS needs? Looks like it would fit in that case. I just ordered everything this morning, though it's probably not too late to pull the plug and change gears.

EDIT: To answer your question, yes it can read the disks raw, just like a normal motherboard controller. You flash it to IT mode which will make it like any normal controller. There are many tutorials available online for that. Check the link below from this forum on that RAID card.

The RAID card, IBM M1015 is likely the most popular RAID controller in the entire NAS community (not just FreeNAS). The drivers are still updated fairly regularly and it is supported in every OS. I have two of them and just about every guy on here with a lot of NAS experience has it. Read here for more: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/confused-about-that-lsi-card-join-the-crowd.11901/

Of the two recommendations that is the one I would strongly endorse. You won't have issues with that RAID card and it is super cheap.

That specific motherboard I haven't used myself, but it has gotten some stellar reviews. Supermicro server boards are quite highly regarded in the online community. Don't think you'll find many people that wouldn't recommend them.

 

[Glorious1]

You convinced me Gnome. There's also the advantage of support here on the forums using a board that people recommend and have a lot of information on. But crap, Newegg locked my order after less than two hours, so now I will have to RMA the ASRock board, ship it back after I get it, and pay a 15% restocking fee. I was able to cancel the CPU I had ordered at NewBiiz.

Looks like I have to change the Crucial order too. The SuperMicro takes 204-pin instead of 240-pin RAM.

Anyway, thanks for the tip and a big THANK YOU to everyone who has helped me learn so much. Happy Thanksgiving for those in the US or otherwise celebrating it!

 

[Gnome]

Ouch, that sounds expensive...

Either way, if you are convinced, this guy did the build I've wanted to do for some time now (found it today by accident). Which has the same motherboard and RAID controller I'd recommended.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/silverstone-ds380-and-m1015.19255/

Even with all the black Friday deals I can't bring myself to spend the money required to build that. (CPU + RAM + Case + PSU together is close ~$900). But a man can dream right :)

 

[Glorious1]

Gnome, I'm not sure if you're talking about my build or the restocking fee sounding expensive. The build is certainly more expensive than I first planned. At least Newegg chat now told me I won't have to pay restocking if I don't open the ASRock motherboard before returning it. So hopefully the change will just cost return shipping for the board and Crucial RAM. Oh, and the new board with CPU plus the card are $48 more than the ASRock plus CPU.

Actually, the build in your link is quite similar to mine as it stands now, except I'm using SuperMicro A1SRi-2758F instead of SuperMicro A1SAi-2750F. Honestly I'm not sure what the difference is between those, other than the latter is ~$40 more. They're both 2.4 GHz 8-core Atom processors and other specs on the boards seem the same. Other than that the Lian Li PC-Q26 case should be roomier with room for the card and a few more drives.

After getting the main parts, I'm now thinking of waiting until I get all that together, do all the software stuff which is still a big unknown to me, and just make sure everything is running right before buying the expander board and adding that to the complexity.

 

[Jailer]

Actually, the build in your link is quite similar to mine as it stands now, except I'm using SuperMicro A1SRi-2758F instead of SuperMicro A1SAi-2750F. Honestly I'm not sure what the difference is between those, other than the latter is ~$40 more. They're both 2.4 GHz 8-core Atom processors and other specs on the boards seem the same.

The major difference between the Avoton and Rangeley parts are:

• Avoton (C2750) has turbo boost, Rangeley (C2758) does not
• Rangeley has QuickAssist, Avoton does not
• Rangeley is meant for embedded and telecom applications, so it will be produced much longer than Avoton
• QuickAssist means Rangeley has additional export restrictions outside of the US

http://www.servethehome.com/Server-detail/intel-atom-c2758-benchmarks-8-core-rangeley-tested/

 

[Gnome]

Gnome, I'm not sure if you're talking about my build or the restocking fee sounding expensive. The build is certainly more expensive than I first planned. At least Newegg chat now told me I won't have to pay restocking if I don't open the ASRock motherboard before returning it. So hopefully the change will just cost return shipping for the board and Crucial RAM. Oh, and the new board with CPU plus the card are $48 more than the ASRock plus CPU.

Oh, I meant the restocking and shipping back and forth and such. The price you are paying for the setup is pretty much on par for a top quality NAS imo.

Actually, the build in your link is quite similar to mine as it stands now, except I'm using SuperMicro A1SRi-2758F instead of SuperMicro A1SAi-2750F. Honestly I'm not sure what the difference is between those, other than the latter is ~$40 more. They're both 2.4 GHz 8-core Atom processors and other specs on the boards seem the same. Other than that the Lian Li PC-Q26 case should be roomier with room for the card and a few more drives.

Yeah I posted that link because of the similarity. And I was going to go for the same board I recommended. I don't believe the $40 increase is justified by the few difference between them (listed in post above).

After getting the main parts, I'm now thinking of waiting until I get all that together, do all the software stuff which is still a big unknown to me, and just make sure everything is running right before buying the expander board and adding that to the complexity.

Sounds like a solid plan. There are a lot of those IBM M1015's available. I see even Amazon are selling them now, albeit at a higher price of $160

 

[Glorious1]

The major difference between the Avoton and Rangeley parts are: . . .

Thanks for that info Jailer. I'm guessing QuickAssist provides no benefit for our application, I guess nothing in FreeNAS takes advantage of it? So the 2758 processor has a small advantage in cost, and a small disadvantage in performance. Seems like it makes little difference.

 

[DKarnov]

Anyone else looking at this may benefit from picking up the Black Friday deal PC-Q25 for $35. If I didn't already have my stuff packed into a Node 304 I'd be on this.

 

[Glorious1]

Wow, that is an amazing price. Too bad it's not a PC-Q26.

 

[Glorious1]

Parts are starting to arrive. That little 8-GB Sandisk Cruzer Fit is CUTE! Even smaller without the cap - just basically a USB terminal with barely enough stub to pull it out with.

I have a question I haven't found an answer to in all my reading, including the manual. Is it possible to have the internal drives divided into two sets, one for the FreeNAS server per se (the pool), and one to back it up? It sounds like rsync is just for backups across the network?

I don't fully understand the manual presentation of snapshots. Where are snapshots stored if you don't replicate them? Can you put snapshots on those other drives that are not part of the pool?

 

[Fraoch]

I have a question I haven't found an answer to in all my reading, including the manual. Is it possible to have the internal drives divided into two sets, one for the FreeNAS server per se (the pool), and one to back it up?

Well yes, you could divide the drives up into two vdevs...but why? If it's to protect against drive failure, the proper use of RAID-Z2 and ECC will give you as much protection as possible. It's best not to store two copies of the same data on the same machine anyway - a catastrophic power supply failure may take out all the drives (unlikely, but possible) and it doesn't protect against fire, flood or theft.

The best backup is offsite, either to a cloud backup service or to a dedicated machine.

It sounds like rsync is just for backups across the network?

Yes, the intention is to rsync to another FreeNAS server.

I don't fully understand the manual presentation of snapshots. Where are snapshots stored if you don't replicate them? Can you put snapshots on those other drives that are not part of the pool?

I believe they're stored in the dataset which they're snapshotting. You can't store them anywhere else - in fact you can't move them, all you can do is clone them, destroy them or roll back to them.[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[rogerh]

I don't fully understand the manual presentation of snapshots. Where are snapshots stored if you don't replicate them? Can you put snapshots on those other drives that are not part of the pool?

You certainly can replicate snapshots, see the manual under replication. Though as others have discussed it is usually more useful to do this on another machine.