Questions for a Dedicated TrueNAS Build (NAS Only/Video Editing)

[jerryks95]

Hello! For some time now I have had the need to expand my digital storage due to the growth of my business (videographer) and I have been considering migrating from the typical external SSDs to a NAS/DAS.

I have ruled out the DAS issue since I believe that in the future, in terms of expansion and connectivity, a NAS is better.
Also due to price (it seems excessively expensive to me compared to the power they offer) I have ruled out NAS from brands like Synology or QNAP.

Having said that and together with the fact that one of my hobbies is tinkering with technological devices or building a PC, I have decided to start my first adventure with a TrueNAS server.

Regarding the use that I plan to give it, it would be entirely like a NAS, I am not interested in VM or Dockers.

Additionally, I would like it to be connected to two devices, a Windows PC and a Mac Studio.

For me, the issue of energy consumption is an important issue, since my electricity supply is through a battery (photovolcaic installation in the home) although in principle it would not be a limitation unless it was a very high consumption.

I would also like an ATX form factor at least since I would be interested in the option of scalability in the future through PCIe lines.

Another thing I would like would be to use a conventional computer tower (I had the Fractal Design Define 7 XL in mind) instead of racks since I do not have a rack frame nor do I think I would use it in the future, apart from the fact that Space in that case could be a problem for me.

For the rest of the team I had these components in mind:

- Supermicro X10SLL-F
- Intel Core i3-4160 (2x 3,60 GHz)
- 4x 8 GB 32 GB DDR3 ECC UDIMM RAM
- Corsair RM750x 80 PLUS Gold
- Fractal Design Define 7 XL

My idea would be to start with 5x10TB hard drives in Raid-Z2.

I have made the choice of these specific components to keep costs under control and to be able to invest in 10GBe networks to be able to edit on the TrueNAS unless you tell me that the specifications fall short.

Regarding the NICs, I would like to buy these 2x540-2T NICs that I found on Amazon for what I think is a good price (100e) but I am open to recommendations.
One would be for the Windows PC and another for the TrueNAS Build since the Mac Studio already has a 10GBe NIC integrated.

Where I don't quite understand the information I've read and asked for advice is about SAS disks and HBAs.

This especially interests me because I would like to buy hard drives on eBay from a store that sells used ones with a 5-year warranty and I understand that they are business hard drives, that is, SAS.

In this case, would I need to complement the TrueNAS with an HBA or would the motherboard ports work for me?

I appreciate if you can clear up my doubts as well as any criticism about the construction or possible improvement.

 

[sretalla]

Regarding the use that I plan to give it, it would be entirely like a NAS, I am not interested in VM or Dockers.

Maybe consider TrueNAS CORE then... storage performance and stability are still on that version.

energy consumption is an important issue

Supermicro X10SLL-F

You're going to be limited to older generations of CPU with potentially higher TPU values due to that older board, so maybe not compatible with your objective there.

would I need to complement the TrueNAS with an HBA or would the motherboard ports work for me?

I would like to buy hard drives on eBay from a store that sells used ones with a 5-year warranty and I understand that they are business hard drives, that is, SAS.

SAS drives will require a SAS controller (HBA).

You can use SATA motherboard ports for SATA drives with no issue on most motherboards where the chipset typically provides the ports... older boards and some small boards do implement port multipliers though, so beware. (supermicro is more-or-less safe in that regard though)

SAS controller compatibility with SATA drives works, but not the other way around.

SAS drives won't necessarily be the best choice for your use case (especially if they force you to implement an HBA you would otherwise not need).

SATA drives are almost as reliable if you go for the Pro or enterprise variants (which typically come with 4 or 5 year warranties)... but paying more to chase a warranty isn't necessarily great either if you can just buy a 6th disk for the extra money and have a cold spare already onsite.

Regarding the NICs, I would like to buy these 2x540-2T NICs that I found on Amazon for what I think is a good price (100e) but I am open to recommendations.
One would be for the Windows PC and another for the TrueNAS Build since the Mac Studio already has a 10GBe NIC integrated.

You'll need the right kind of switch to put all that together as you're best using Fiber where you can (to reduce energy consumption and heat) and avoiding 10G-BaseT (although that's what you have in the Mac already, so no choice about it).

I've found my iMac Pro has issues if connected to a Ubiquiti switch with their Transceiver (or an Intel one), meaning just after waking from sleep, the connection drops for about a minute. It's fine when using it in the built-in 10G port on a Netgear MS510TX, with a Fiber Transceiver back to the Ubiquiti.

Hopefully some of that helps you.

 

[jerryks95]

You're going to be limited to older generations of CPU with potentially higher TPU values due to that older board, so maybe not compatible with your objective there.

What motherboard would you recommend that is not too expensive? I chose this Motherboard + Ram + CPU combo based on a video I saw from Hardware Haven, and that it edits video on the NAS as the only user and suggests that the consumption was not crazy (42W Idle - 70W UnderLoad).

SAS drives will require a SAS controller (HBA).

You can use SATA motherboard ports for SATA drives with no issue on most motherboards where the chipset typically provides the ports... older boards and some small boards do implement port multipliers though, so beware. (supermicro is more-or-less safe in that regard though)

SAS controller compatibility with SATA drives works, but not the other way around.

SAS drives won't necessarily be the best choice for your use case (especially if they force you to implement an HBA you would otherwise not need).

SATA drives are almost as reliable if you go for the Pro or enterprise variants (which typically come with 4 or 5 year warranties)... but paying more to chase a warranty isn't necessarily great either if you can just buy a 6th disk for the extra money and have a cold spare already onsite.

This would be the hard drive I had in mind to buy:

- Seagate ST12000NM0127 12TB 256MB 7200RPM 3.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s Enterprise Hard Drive
(I just decided on 12TB units since it seems to me that the price per TB ratio is better.)

I thought that being Enterprise meant it was SAS but now I understand from your explanation that it is SATA, right?

You'll need the right kind of switch to put all that together as you're best using Fiber where you can (to reduce energy consumption and heat) and avoiding 10G-BaseT (although that's what you have in the Mac already, so no choice about it).

I've found my iMac Pro has issues if connected to a Ubiquiti switch with their Transceiver (or an Intel one), meaning just after waking from sleep, the connection drops for about a minute. It's fine when using it in the built-in 10G port on a Netgear MS510TX, with a Fiber Transceiver back to the Ubiquiti.

Regarding the NICs, I considered SFP+ instead of the option I listed, but I saw on reddit that Macs normally have problems with those ports and that's why I didn't consider them. Maybe two NICs in the TrueNAS Build, SFP+ for connection to Windows PC + 10G-BaseT for apple device or would it be too much?

I would like to thank you for taking the time to respond to me and explain to me the issue of SAS and HBA, which is already clear to me.

I am also grateful for your quick response.

 

[Etorix]

HDDs in a single raidz2 vdev may not be suitable for editing directly on the NAS.

For the network, it seems you intend to have two distinct NICs to have two direct links. You can do that with two ports on a single NIC, provided that the links are in different subnets, but the best solution is a single link and a 10G switch. For instance, a Mikrotik CRS305 or CRS309 for a SFP+ network (with a single RJ45 transceiver for the Mac), or a QNAP M408 if there are multiple clients on 10GBase-T and/or if you want to integrate your legacy 1 GbE network on the same switch.
Intel 540 are good, but you can have Chelsio T520 or Solarflare SF7122F NICs for half the price on eBay.

I would also like an ATX form factor at least since I would be interested in the option of scalability in the future through PCIe lines.

To advise on alternative motherboards, we'd need to know what kind of "options" you may want to have in the future.

 

[jerryks95]

HDDs in a single raidz2 vdev may not be suitable for editing directly on the NAS.

What hard drive configuration would you recommend then? I normally edit video files in 4K 4:2:2 with a bitrate of about 450mb/s. Normally with an 800mb/s external SSD I could edit without problems.
Maybe add a raidz1 vdev of SSDs for editing projects?

HDDs in a single raidz2 vdev may not be suitable for editing directly on the NAS.

For the network, it seems you intend to have two distinct NICs to have two direct links. You can do that with two ports on a single NIC, provided that the links are in different subnets, but the best solution is a single link and a 10G switch. For instance, a Mikrotik CRS305 or CRS309 for a SFP+ network (with a single RJ45 transceiver for the Mac), or a QNAP M408 if there are multiple clients on 10GBase-T and/or if you want to integrate your legacy 1 GbE network on the same switch.

Thank you very much for the recommendation. I just ordered the Mikrotik CRS309 from a store near me.

Intel 540 are good, but you can have Chelsio T520 or Solarflare SF7122F NICs for half the price on eBay.

I want to limit my purchase on eBay to the European Union since I am from the region and I cannot find those cards for an acceptable price. Even so, I'll search a little more to see if I'm lucky and find something. Are they better for compatibility reasons or something similar?

To advise on alternative motherboards, we'd need to know what kind of "options" you may want to have in the future.

Well, basic needs for the future like some extra PCIe links to add an HBA or NICs.
I would like to have x16 lanes that divide into x4x4x4x4 (to add an m.2 expansion card via pcie) but I know that with my requirement of low energy consumption it is almost incompatible adjusting to my budget since I saw that almost all those motherboards that have several x16 and are cheap usually have dual CPUs like the SuperMicro X10DRi -T4+ right?


Thank you very much for taking the trouble to write to me and give me recommendations.

 

[Etorix]

What hard drive configuration would you recommend then? I normally edit video files in 4K 4:2:2 with a bitrate of about 450mb/s. Normally with an 800mb/s external SSD I could edit without problems.
Maybe add a raidz1 vdev of SSDs for editing projects?

The issue is not throughput for the bit rate, which you may have, but the IOPS for random access from the multiple files you're editing from…
A raidz# vdev has the IOPS of a single drive, which for a HDD is not much—and absolutely not on par with a single SSD.

I want to limit my purchase on eBay to the European Union since I am from the region and I cannot find those cards for an acceptable price. Even so, I'll search a little more to see if I'm lucky and find something. Are they better for compatibility reasons or something similar?

Solarflare NICs are known to run quite coll. Otherwise, the main reason is just price, even if one has to wait a bit more to receive the card from China.

Well, basic needs for the future like some extra PCIe links to add an HBA or NICs.
I would like to have x16 lanes that divide into x4x4x4x4 (to add an m.2 expansion card via pcie) but I know that with my requirement of low energy consumption it is almost incompatible adjusting to my budget since I saw that almost all those motherboards that have several x16 and are cheap usually have dual CPUs like the SuperMicro X10DRi -T4+ right?

Then you're in a "pick ANY TWO" situation.
You want low idle power, x4x4x4x4 bifurcation (possibly multiple PCIe slots as well), and your application appears to be serving files through SMB (single threaded by client, so high clocks are better than high cores).
Embedded board, such as the (revision 2) X10SDV series (Xeon D-1500) are low power and can bifurcate their x16 slot all the way to 4x4, but may not be the highest performers. Core CPU and Xeon E3/E-2000 have high clocks and low idle power but cannot bifurcate x4x4x4x4. Xeon E5/Scalable can bifurcate their multiple PCIe slots to x4x4x4x4, low cores/high clock parts would fit your application well, but idle power would be higher.