Seriously Low Power Budget Build

[no one]

While I am definitely not new to building computers; I am new to creating a NAS, and I want this one to have very low power and be inexpensive.

Hardware:

• MOBO+CPU: ASRock Q1900B + Intel Celeron J1900 - Quad Core (2.0GHz)
• RAM: Patriot Signature 4GB - DDR3 SODIMM - 1333Mhz (1.35V)
• HDD: Hitachi 2TB - SATA 3.0 Gb/s - 7200RPM
• Cost: $256 (Case and PicoPSU w/ Brick not shown)

Plan:

• UFS
• Home Backup
• Store and stream music & movies (1 stream/time) with Plex.
• Use another external 2TB with rsync as secondary backup.
• Full Disk Encryption? (if CPU power permits)

Questions

• There is a compatibility issue with my CPU in FreeNAS 9.2.1.5, and it's not clear if this has been fixed in version 9.2.1.6. If this is not the case, I would need some direction on how to patch & rebuild FreeNAS.
• Uncertain if CPU is powerful enough for Plex (especially with FDE). Searching other forums suggests that it is, but I'm not sure if there is a performance hit since it's using a FreeBSD jail.

 

[cyberjock]

If FDE = full disk encryption and you are talking about the encryption FreeNAS uses, the rule is if you want encryption you must use a CPU that supports AES-NI (which the J1900 does not support).

If by "plex" you mean transcoding you are going to need an i3 or a Xeon.

If you plan to use UFS, you shouldn't even consider FreeNAS as UFS is dead. 9.2.1.6 is out and the next RELEASE is going to be ZFS only. So you either get to stay on 9.2.1.6 forever (with all of the soon-to-be-discovered security vulnerabilities) or you get to buy new hardware in 6 months.

And if you...

Actually, looking at that motherboard more closely either you haven't read anything in the forums about hardware recommendations (or maybe even hardware requirements) , you are ignoring all of our advice, or you are trolling.

If you haven't read about our hardware recommendations stickies you shouldn't be posting until you do. If you actually are already ignoring all of our advice you shouldn't be asking us for more advice because we've already given you the advice once and if we have to tell you twice you shouldn't be posting here. If you are trolling, well, then the joke is on us (obviously).

In any case, either you have very short sighted view of what you are doing, you have no clue what you are doing, or you are trying to see how much money you can save by buying all of the necessary hardware twice (once because you are trying to build cheap and again when you realize that hardware won't work).

Good luck to you in any case you fall into.

 

[no one]

You hurt my pride for a second, but then I realized this was the internet.
I would like to discuss what the real issues for this build may be.

My main goal is set & forget light use storage/backup behind a firewall. Due to this nature, I'm okay with falling behind on versions as long this current version works.

The FDE was a half baked idea, thanks for catching my error on that.

Most of your hardware recommendations have been for ZFS, which appears to use a large amount of resources and only useful for RAID arrays.

The following is some guidance on how to select high performance hardware suitable for heavy-duty home or small office use.
-jgreco

This lead me to believe that I could use lower power hardware and be fine with light use considering that I've been reading around about people using old hardware all the time for FreeNAS.
I wasn't planning on any powerhouse with RAID, so UFS sounded more appropriate for me.

For the motherboard:
Searching says that the previous FreeNAS version had a kernel panic. A patch works and you spoke about working it in this current version.
Using UFS would mean ECC was not necessary.
The J1900 is low power and inexpensive, which seemed ideal for me.
The Realtek RTL8111GR LAN controller seems a bit iffy, as the forum mentions that this brand is no good.

So what is my real issue, because inexperienced people (like myself) will search the forum about this hardware, pass by this thread, only see name calling, and learn nothing.
If it's UFS and my only concern is depreciation, then I can live with it.
If it's truly not enough power for even light home use or perhaps the parts will fail quickly due to NAS use, then please tell me.
If there is another compatibility issue I missed, then please point it out.
If you guys really hate Realtek that much (even for light use), I'll also follow your advise.
Or maybe NAS just isn't for me and my home use.

 

[cyberjock]

Well, to put it short this simply isn't the usage case FreeNAS is based around. Most everyone wants ZFS, which is why UFS is already removed from FreeNAS. UFS has been untested for most of the 9.2.1.x series because it's so rarely used and being removed nobody really cared. The guidance we provided is in the process of being rewritten by myself to include newer hardware and some more detail than existed 2 years or so ago when the hardware thread was written. But still things like server-grade, ECC RAM, and avoiding Realtek is still very much true.

Choosing to do things like use a board with Realtek built-in, using a board that isn't server-grade, opting for UFS (which wasn't dead 2 years ago but is now), and using 7200 RPM disks are all things that even your home user should be following. Do less than that and you'll be that guy I mentioned above that has to buy his hardware twice. I was confused that you are wanting to buy a 7200RPM disk while trying to save power... 7200RPM disks are much hotter than 5400RPM disks and require more cooling and more power to operate.

For your use case I just don't think FreeNAS is a good option. FreeNAS is nothing more than a "junior" version of TrueNAS which is a full fledged enterprise product that has virtually no limitation on how much hardware you want to use except what your pocketbook can afford. You can only scale it down so much and you have hardware needs that FreeBSD follows that you have to deal with regardless (for example, all Realteks are bad with FreeBSD regardless of your traffic needs).

The old FreeNAS 7 project worked fairly well with old hardware (although ECC was and still is very much important) and you may find that NAS4Free (the true successor for FreeNAS 7) will do what you want. You would be doing ZFS, but as NAS4Free is branded as running on hardware that is sitting in the bottom of your closet it may work.

 

[Yatti420]

As for the lower power component.. I get 60W (pretty much consistently) for my server.. You aren't gonna get much lower unless you use SSDs and really want to work to get the power usage down.. While that hardware might work as CJ says you will suffer..