Review of setup

[Neilz]

I'm new to FreeNAS but is considering setting up a home server. My main areas of interest would be as a back-up server for the other computers, phones and so forth, plex media server, a VPN tunnel for the network, a cloud service and torrenting.

I think that the parts I've chosen might be a bit over the top for my needs (as the home network don't include that many clients), but I would like the system to be future proof in the sense that it's expandable and won't be short in power in a few years.

Fractal Design Node 304
Be-Quiet Straight Power BQT E9 CM 480W
Supermicro X10SL7-F
Intel Core i3 4150 3,5 GHz
2x Samsung Server DDR3L PC12800/1600MHz ECC CL11 LV 8GB
3x WD Red WD30EFRX 64 MB 3TB
SanDisk USB 3.0 Cruzer Extreme 16 GB (or if USB 3.0 is a bad choice a similar USB 2 stick)

Is there something I should think about related to the above? Is it perhaps taking water over my head thinking that there are guides for all of my needs that I can follow as I have no past knowledge of the system?

Thankful for all the help you can give me!

 

[Ericloewe]

3 drives... that means you're planning RAIDZ1? Bad idea. RAIDZ2 is much more reliable.

I'd also go with a better PSU, like a Seasonic G-Series. Be Quiet isn't known for quality or reliable PSUs.

 

[jgreco]

Also the SL7 is expensive because of the added LSI controller. The chassis you've selected is probably limited to six disks and the X10SLM can support up to six drives.

I fully approve of the better board but the added feature might not ever be useful.

 

[marbus90]

Also and the most important thing: the X10SL7 doesn't fit in the Node 304. ASrock E3C224D2I or E3C226D2I is pretty much the only choice for that chassis with socket 1150.

 

[jgreco]

oh, good catch @marbus90

 

[Neilz]

As you assumed I was planning on going with RAIDZ1, but after your comment I'm leaning towards RAIDZ2 after some additional reading. Would it be possible to start out with a four drive solution (I know it would be the same as mirroring, but still) and expand the setup? Or is it better to wait and buy five drives, or more, at once?

I've now changed the case to a node 804 which should be compatible with the motherboard. With regard to the motherboard, I've decided to keep the SL7 as there is greater possibilities to expand the number of drives.

It all boils down to a discussion about keeping down the initial cost without restricting the possibility of expanding in the future. With that in mind would you change anything of the above or is this a reasonable setup?

 

[jgreco]

You can do four drives in RAIDZ2, which gives you the capacity of two drives but the ability to withstand the failure of up to two drives. That means you can add another four drives as a second vdev later giving you two more drives worth of space down the road.

Find a good power supply and err on sizing it a bit bigger than the 480. The power required to spin up a hard drive is about two amps, two times eight drives times twelve volts is 192 watts which can hit as a surge on top of the system's normal running power. Power supplies are typically fairly efficient from about 20-70% utilization, so if your system is burning 120 watts while running, a 600 watt supply would be running at 20% utilization to maintain that, and you won't be stressing the power supply at all.

 

[marbus90]

Advice is to max out all SATA ports first and replace the smaller drives with bigger ones. that's the only way you can expand a single vdev. If you want to stick with that board, you could however plan for 6drive z2 and add another 6drive z2 later on. But seeing that you want to start out with 3TB drives, you'll have plenty of expansion space in a 6bay chassis. 8TB drives are out there somewhere already, 10TB's are coming up - thus resulting in 32-40TB with raidz2 in a single small Node 304.

 

[Neilz]

Okey, when I see how you reason in the matter I'm questioning whether I should choose a mini ATX board instead and stick with the node 304 as I have a hard time seeing that I would need more space than you're writing about above.

Although buying six drives feels like a substantial initial investment, but if it isn't possible to expand an vdev by adding more drives along the way than that might be the only way.

 

[jgreco]

The other way is to replace the individual drives one at a time using the ZFS autoexpand functionality. The problem with this is that it ends up leaving you with a bunch of smaller unused disks when the process is complete. Looking at things from a total cost per delivered TB, that could be bad. It is also a strong argument against 3TB drives unless you're certain that'll be sufficient space for a long time.