Repurpose PC as home FreeNAS server

[esilberberg]

I was about to buy a synology but realized my PC needs an upgrade more. It's my current plex server and handles the in home transcoding well enough thus far.

What do folks think of this build as a home server?


Usage goals. 3 TB plex folder, 3 TB backups, 3 TB mixed use file and VM space. Would like to run 2-3 vm’s on it. Probably use as my torrent client.


Case: NZXT Tempest which holds 3 ( up to six 5.25" ) External 5.25" Drive Bays 8 Internal 3.5" Drive Bays. The NZXT Tempest features four 120mm fans, two in the front, one at the rear and one in the side, as well as dual 140mm top fans for efficient ventilation and effective system cooling.

MOBO: MSI P55-GD65 MB MSI P55-GD65 1156 RT 7 x SATA 3Gb/s

CPU: I7-860 2.8 ghz Lynnfield

RAM: 12 gig ddr-3 ram I can probably get to 16 gig of ram by digging through friends junk piles.

PSU: Zalman 750-HP modular PS

Boot: Sandisk 32gb ssd boot OR, mirror some old 500 gig boot drives and use the 32 gig ssd as cache?

CPU FAN: Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo

Storage: 4 WD Red NAS drives. Also have a couple 1,2,4 TB miscellaneous drives I could add. Pool layout TBD

I have not yet purchased the drives but figure that if FreeNAS doesn't meet my needs, or my hardware isn't up to snuff I could land a qnap or synology later.

 

[Chris Moore]

Your system is certainly able to be a starter system, but it isn't exactly ideal.

I would suggest getting the RAM if you can because 8GB basically needs to be dedicated to FreeNAS for what it does and you want to run some VMs. With VMs, you want as much RAM as you can get. Speaking of RAM, if you review the Hardware Recommendations Guide, you will see that ECC is preferable, but you can get a start with this. Later, you will probably want more RAM, but you can get a new system board, processor and RAM and keep everything else the same. FreeNAS works well across platforms because it is not specifically tied to the hardware like other platforms.

I suggest just keeping that 32GB drive for a boot drive. For most home users, the workload the system is processing does not need any cache.

I didn't look up the specs on that system board, but you will want an Intel NIC if you can get it. They just work more reliably.

I use desktop grade hard drives in both of my NAS builds and have had no problems. I would suggest the Seagate Desktop model. I use the 2TB model, but you can get the size you like. The 4TB units are the best size to price and I am buying those to upgrade with. You can also mix brands and models, but it is best if all the drives are the same size. A kind of "sweet sot" for drive configuration is 6 drives in RAIDz2 and with 4TB drives, that would get you between 14 and 16 TB of usable storage.

I am not sure how much research you put in before asking, but if you have any questions please put them to us. Someone will try to help you out.

 

[Chris Moore]

PS. I would not use the "new" Barracuda model from Seagate. They revised the firmware in that model and the reviews show it has a slower transfer rate. I have experience with the Seagate Desktop drives and they work fine in a NAS. I have been using them for over five years. I have not tried the revised version of the Barracuda. The information that they are measurably slower comes from a product review that I watched on YouTube. The model numbers are different too, the Seagate Desktop is model # ST4000DM000 where the Seagate Barracuda is model # ST4000DM005.