Seeking feedback on new build list

[wcravens]

Hello community,

I'd like to get feedback on the following build idea/s for my first FreeNAS so that I don't shoot myself in the foot on hardware. I have read about the concerns and trade-offs of non-ecc memory so I've spec'd both with and without. The whole system and data will be regularly backed up separately so I'm feeling comfortable with non-ecc memory. The $300 difference in base build costs will pay for the disks, which is very attractive to me at the moment. I can build an ECC version at a later date. In the end I'm wanting to convince myself, and the family treasury, that this FreeNAS build is better than getting a QNAP TS-451+. The non-ecc build is comparable in price but much better, and FreeNAS. :)

The case and 2.5" drives are because I really want this to be a small and very quiet appliance in the living room.

FreeNAS Non-ECC Core
Intel Core i3-8100 Coffee Lake Quad-Core 3.6 GHz LGA 1151 (300 Series) 65W BX80684I38100 Desktop Processor Intel UHD Graphics 630
ASRock H370M-ITX/ac LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel H370 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard
Crucial 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4 19200) Desktop Memory Model CT2K16G4DFD824A

FreeNAS ECC Core
Intel Core i3-6300 Skylake Dual-Core 3.8 GHz LGA 1151 65W BX80662I36300 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530
ASRock E3C236D2I Mini ITX Server Motherboard
Crucial CT2K16G4WFD824A 32Gb Kit (16Gbx2) Ddr4-2400 Ecc

Case
Fractal Design Define Nano S Black Silent Mini ITX Mini Tower Computer Case
Seasonic FOCUS Plus Series SSR-550FX 550W 80+ Gold Intel ATX 12V Full Modular 120mm FDB Fan Compact 140 mm Size Power Supply

2.5" Disks
4 x Seagate 2TB BarraCuda 5400 RPM 128MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Laptop Internal Hard Drive ST2000LM015

FreeNAS Boot Storage
I have yet to decide on a boot device. The H370M-ITX/ac can accept a M.2 2280 SSD so I'm leaning toward that for the non-ecc build. But the E3C236D2I only accepts M.2 2230 so there doesn't seem to be a good solution there. PCIe SSD is expensive so the ECC build may need to boot from USB of some sort. If anyone knows of other or better options for this part I'm all ears.

For some background; I'm wanting to build a relatively small and 'silent' NAS system for the home. There are no grand plans for it doing a lot but I'd like it to be capable enough to tolerate some modest lab experiments when I get an itch. It will undoubtably run at least a few server VMs and experiment with Plex. But mostly it will be for media storage and local backups. A lot of the files will be archive material that really won't be accessed that often. If figuring out ripping and streaming of media is solvable in the limited time that I have to play, then it would be great if I could put the family DVDs and Blurays on there so that they stop getting destroyed by children. But most of the content generation these days will be coming from phones and digital cameras. Just a solution so that I can convince the family that there are better places to put our pictures than some company's cloud service.

Thanks in advance for your kind assistance.

Wes

 

[Inxsible]

Because you are buying either the ECC or the Non-ECC -- my suggestion would be to buy the ECC hardware. As for the savings of $300 that you mentioned -- you could buy used (great used hardware to be had in the used market in the USA) and get much much better hardware for less money than you currently intend on spending.

Also, you are really limiting yourself with mini-ITX. Not only mini-ITX server boards sparse to find, they tend to be more expensive and what's more, don't allow for much in way of expansion down the road. Think about going for mATX at least which will give you a whole lot more options.

 

[Chris Moore]

Laptop drives are super slow and with only four at 2 TB each, your only going to have around 3 TB of usable storage.

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[Johnnie Black]

4 x Seagate 2TB BarraCuda 5400 RPM 128MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Laptop Internal Hard Drive ST2000LM015

These are SMR drives, so not the best option for FreeNAS, AFAIK currently Toshiba is the only manufacturer with a 9.5mm 2TB PMR 2.5" drive, they cost about the same, so if you're going to use laptop drives use those.

 

[Chris Moore]

These are SMR drives, so not the best option for FreeNAS,

True. I bought some 4TB desktop SMR drives and the performance was terrible. Even on sequential write. Much slower than a "normal" hard drive.

 

[JohnK]

Hello community,
I'd like to get feedback on the following build idea/s for my first FreeNAS so that I don't shoot myself in the foot on hardware. I have read about the concerns and trade-offs of non-ecc memory so I've spec'd both with and without. The whole system and data will be regularly backed up separately so I'm feeling comfortable with non-ecc memory. The $300 difference in base build costs will pay for the disks, which is very attractive to me at the moment. I can build an ECC version at a later date. In the end I'm wanting to convince myself, and the family treasury, that this FreeNAS build is better than getting a QNAP TS-451+. The non-ecc build is comparable in price but much better, and FreeNAS. :)

With server motherboard you also get IPMI and KVM. This mean you never need to attach a screen or keyboard that makes remote management a breeze.

 

[wcravens]

Laptop drives are super slow and with only four at 2 TB each, your only going to have around 3 TB of usable storage.

Thanks Chris, That got me to thinking about something I hadn't investigated yet. I hadn't really considered the overhead of Raidz. But I don't know that I follow the math so well.

Using the Wintel Guy Calculator with RaidZ-1, 2000Gb drive capacity, 4KiB Sector size, 4 drives in group, 1 Raid Group, 128Kib RecordSize, Slop Space allocation and no free space limit; It calculates 5.1TiB (5.6Tb). Results Below.

Using Bidule0hm's ZFS RAID size and reliability calculator with 2Tb, 4 Drives and Raid-Z1 it calculates a more conservative 3.856 TiB (4.239 TB). Results below.

Neither of these match up with your estimate of 3Tb so I fear that I am missing something.

Wintel Guy Calculator results
RAID type: RAID-Z1 (Single parity with variable stripe width)
Number of RAID groups: 1
Number of drives per RAID group: 4
Total number of drives: 4
Drive capacity (GB): 2000
Drive capacity (TiB): 1.818989
(TiB) (%)
Total raw storage capacity: 7.275958 100
Zpool storage capacity: 7.250000 99.64
Reservation for parity and padding: 1.977273 27.18
Zpool usable storage capacity: 5.272727 72.47
Slop space allocation: 0.164773 2.26
ZFS usable storage capacity: 5.107955 70.20
Minimum free space:
Practical usable storage capacity: 5.107955 70.20

Bidule0hm's ZFS RAID size and reliability calculator Results
Drive size: 2TB
Number of drives: 4
RAID type: Raid-Z1

Drive size: 1.819 TiB

Total parity space: 1.819 TiB (2 TB)
Total data space: 5.457 TiB (6 TB)

Data space minus checksums overhead: 5.239 TiB (5.76 TB)
Data space minus blocks overhead: 4.82 TiB (5.299 TB)

Maximum recommended usable data space: 3.856 TiB (4.239 TB)

 

[wcravens]

These are SMR drives, so not the best option for FreeNAS, AFAIK currently Toshiba is the only manufacturer with a 9.5mm 2TB PMR 2.5" drive, they cost about the same, so if you're going to use laptop drives use those.

That's good to know. Where do folks find this kind of information? It's not in the descriptions of these drives or in the manual or data sheets that I've been able to find.

 

[Johnnie Black]

That's good to know. Where do folks find this kind of information? It's not in the descriptions of these drives or in the manual or data sheets that I've been able to find.

Seagate sometimes appears to omit this info on purpose, though in this case they corrected that on the later revisions of the manual, note the revision history on the 2nd page:

https://www.seagate.com/www-content...op-fam/barracuda_25/en-us/docs/100807728c.pdf

 

[wcravens]

Seagate sometimes appears to omit this info on purpose, though in this case they corrected that on the later revisions of the manual, note the revision history on the 2nd page:

https://www.seagate.com/www-content...op-fam/barracuda_25/en-us/docs/100807728c.pdf

Ah, yes. It seems that I followed a google link to an earlier version of that document. If you go to the seagate site and get the manual from the page for the HDD then you get the latest version.

 

[Chris Moore]

Maximum recommended usable data space: 3.856 TiB

My estimate wasn't far off considering I did it in my head, with no calculator at all. Was there a question in all that?

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Why not to use RAID-5 or RAIDz1
https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

 

[wcravens]

My estimate wasn't far off considering I did it in my head, with no calculator at all. Was there a question in all that?

No, there's not really any question. If the calculated values look sufficient to you then we're all good.

It is a little awkward that the two calculators have a differential of 1.24 TiB (17% of total drive space). It's interesting but not that concerning. I have immediate need for about 750GB of storage. So I have plenty of wiggle room to grow. This is just an entry level experiment. If I like it then I'll build something better down the road.

 

[Johnnie Black]

It is a little awkward that the two calculators have a differential of 1.24 TiB (17% of total drive space).

In my experience https://wintelguy.com/zfs-calc.pl is pretty close to the real usable space you'll get.

 

[Chris Moore]

In my experience https://wintelguy.com/zfs-calc.pl is pretty close to the real usable space you'll get.

It's relatively good. Especially for smaller pools. I have a pool at work where the drive count is 124 @ 6TB each and then it isn't as good, still close though, and it also doesn't account for compression. That said, it's the one I use most.

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[Chris Moore]

No, there's not really any question. If the calculated values look sufficient to you then we're all good.

It depends on how much storage you will need. I just wanted you to be aware of the situation.


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[wcravens]

These are SMR drives, so not the best option for FreeNAS, AFAIK currently Toshiba is the only manufacturer with a 9.5mm 2TB PMR 2.5" drive, they cost about the same, so if you're going to use laptop drives use those.

Found this: Toshiba L200 2TB Laptop PC Internal Hard Drive 5400 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 128 MB Cache 2.5 inch 9.5mm Height - HDWL120XZSTA (RETAIL PACKAGE)

Can't seem to find any manual or datasheet for the drive. One questions on Amazon about PMR or SMR but no relevant answer. Anyone have a conclusive reference on the the magnetic technology for this drive?

I did read some things that suggest that drives with much larger cache, e.g. the 128MB, suggest that they are SMR because it's necessary for the extra R/W operations needed. So that may suggest that this drive is SMR.

I also found a reference to a 2.5" 2TB drive from Toshiba that is PMR but it didn't seem to be practically available. I apologize, but in my hasty browsing I managed to loose the references and can't seem to find them again as I write this.

 

[Johnnie Black]

Anyone have a conclusive reference on the the magnetic technology for this drive?

These are PMR, the 1TB model was the first in the world (and I believe the only one for now) to use a 2.5" 1TB PMR platter, a little later they released the 2 platter version with 2TB, Toshiba currently doesn't have any SMR drives.

This is the media used by theses disks:
http://www.sdk.co.jp/english/news/2017/26793.html

EDIT: I since learned these Toshiba drives are also SMR, so not recommended for FreeNAS.

 

[wcravens]

You have all been a great help. This has me revisiting my plan and I'm now considering a Fractal Design Node 304 Black Aluminum/Steel Mini-ITX Small Form Factor Computer Case and 4 x WD Red 4TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD40EFRX to keep things more traditional. The extra space in this case also means I wouldn't have to use the M.2 for a boot drive which makes the ECC build more straight forward too.

 

[Inxsible]

You have all been a great help. This has me revisiting my plan and I'm now considering a Fractal Design Node 304 Black Aluminum/Steel Mini-ITX Small Form Factor Computer Case and 4 x WD Red 4TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD40EFRX to keep things more traditional. The extra space in this case also means I wouldn't have to use the M.2 for a boot drive which makes the ECC build more straight forward too.

My advice would be to stay in the mATX or above because mini-ITX server boards are few and far between and also cost much more than mATX for some reason. On top of that, they offer no way of expandability down the road.

 

[pro lamer]

4 x WD Red 4TB

Are you planning raidz2 or striped mirrors? If the former then I'd consider 5 disks for more storage since zfs expanding feature is not available here yet

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