So you want some hardware suggestions.

[_Adrian_]

Why not use retired servers instead of building ?
I mean shouldn't a file server have to be capable and redundant ?

I'm using a ML370 G5 in combination with a MDS600 and it's more than enough for most users...

The best part is that they start at about $180+ on eBay dependent on configuration, but you can always upgrade as you need.
Dual Quad Core Xenon processors with a Max. of 64GB's of DDR2-667 should fit the needs of most peeps

 

[jgreco]

Mostly because the things that make a FreeNAS box really shine are at odds.

1) You don't need dual CPU's for most FreeNAS setups. That means wasted power.
2) Power efficiency before, oh, maybe Sandy Bridge wasn't all that great. That means wasted power.
3) 16GB is fine for a small system, but PC2 could mean expensive upgrades if you choose to go for more.
4) HP kit typically comes with controllers like the Smart Array P800 which are a remarkably poor choice for FreeNAS, as you lose SMART monitoring capabilities and drive swappability to other controllers
5) The HP boxes are generally datacenter-loud and the ML370 G5 is kind of a big beast too.

What's that thing report that it is eating for watts?

Remember: there's a *reason* these things are on eBay for cheap. You can sometimes get lucky and score good modern gear with low watts and an ideal config, but that's a 2008-era space heater with a 4236 CPU mark (single CPU, the duals are approximately useless) while our favored E3-1230v3 does 9558.

 

[Joe4evr]

So someone on Twitter argued that ZFS' "1GB of RAM/TB of storage" rule is only necessary if you're running deduplication. Is the RAM requirement something from how FreeNAS implements ZFS and he uses a different implementation, or is he just lucky and has the experience to configure his pools in such a way that they perform well enough on low amounts of RAM? (I don't care what he says, I'm still getting 32GB. I just want some clarification on why he thinks ZFS runs fine on only two gigs, regardless of pool size.)

 

[Tomas Liumparas]

As I've remember what is stated in the manual, deduplication could be considered only on 8 Gb ram/TB. Ofcourse it is possible to run ZFS on a small amounts of ram- I have a FreeNAS on VM with 1.5Gb ram for playing around.

We are talking here on the stability and safety. I bet that guy will experience either stability issues or will loose his data due to the lack of ram.

Sent from my LG-P710 using Tapatalk

 

[jyavenard]

If you checked Solaris memory requirement (which uses zfs by default) , you'll see that 768MB is used as minimum figure and:

1 GB of memory is recommended for overall ZFS performance

I could find nothing linking the size of the pool to the memory requirements.

Obviously freenas isn't Solaris, but it doesn't seem universally accepted that so much memory is required. That's as far as zfs goes

 

[jgreco]

It's 5GB/1TB for dedup, and that is highly dependent on other factors.

While ZFS may be workable on FreeBSD systems with as little as 768MB, this requires significant tuning and care; FreeNAS comes with kernel and ZFS tuning suitable for larger systems, and the middleware requires 2-3GB for operation, plus tmpfs's in memory, so trying to run with less than 8GB is problematic.

Also, the definition of "runs fine" is... what? My 30TB RAIDZ3 pool runs at about a third the speed with 6GB as compared to the speed it runs at 32GB. That is not "runs fine" to many of us, more like "sucks awful."

 

[Joe4evr]

Thanks for the insight. Like I said to that guy, I'm likely gonna run several jails including maybe a Minecraft server, so maxing out the RAM is gonna be an advantage anyway.

 

[_Adrian_]

Mostly because the things that make a FreeNAS box really shine are at odds.

1) You don't need dual CPU's for most FreeNAS setups. That means wasted power.
2) Power efficiency before, oh, maybe Sandy Bridge wasn't all that great. That means wasted power.
3) 16GB is fine for a small system, but PC2 could mean expensive upgrades if you choose to go for more.
4) HP kit typically comes with controllers like the Smart Array P800 which are a remarkably poor choice for FreeNAS, as you lose SMART monitoring capabilities and drive swappability to other controllers
5) The HP boxes are generally datacenter-loud and the ML370 G5 is kind of a big beast too.

What's that thing report that it is eating for watts?

Remember: there's a *reason* these things are on eBay for cheap. You can sometimes get lucky and score good modern gear with low watts and an ideal config, but that's a 2008-era space heater with a 4236 CPU mark (single CPU, the duals are approximately useless) while our favored E3-1230v3 does 9558.

I run all that gear non stop and my power bill is rarely over $220 !
Here's the power supply list and quantities :
DL580 - 2x 1500
DL380 - 2x450
ML370 - 2x900
MDS600 - 4X 1200W
The switches combined are roughtly 700W
Yes they can be loud, but the settings can be tuned from bios and ussualy sit at 15-20% and will throttle up as heat or load goes up.
But that's why they are in the basement locked up. Unless you decide to sleep with your server and try and stick it under your bed...

 

[jgreco]

Congratulations on your high tech space heater. If you were a client, I'd show you in detail how to discard all that old crap in favor of a nice low power virtualized setup. Since you're not, I'll just outline:

1) Firewall. It isn't clear why you have a DL380 G5 operating as a firewall, but the return-on-watt is exceedingly low; the L5240 pulls in at about 2400 PassMark. Replace with a low power pfSense box, or virtualize onto a low power pfSense VM.

2) The dual CPU is not useful to FreeNAS so you essentially have a single X5450 burning the watts of a dual. That PassMarks at about 4200.

3) Those eight 7130M's in two DL580's are slow as s*** and peak at 150 watts each; and probably PassMark's around 2000, or 16000 aggregate.

So in all likelihood you could replace all that crap with a pair of E3-1230's at 32GB, which peak out around 90 watts each, or 180 watts, keep your shelves. Capex is probably around $1200 per box. Power opex is about 130kWh per month or (at 14c/kWh) about $18 a month. Assuming about $120 of your electric bill is attributable to the space heaters, you'd save $102 a month; capex/opex payoff is achieved in two years; after that you're saving money. PassMark around 19000, but virtualization actually lets you shift and share those cycles where you need them... so you APPEAR to wind up with more CPU, when the truth is you're just applying them more intelligently.

Of course I have to assume that you've probably had the gear for awhile as well. In particular, those DL580 G4's gotta be sucking at least 300W each at idle, right? And you've maybe had them since they went off lease and up for eBay in what, maybe 2009? Five years? Costing you $30/month per box to run? That'd be about $1800 in opex for that janky old box. ...EACH...

 

[_Adrian_]

You can keep your virtualized crap...
I prefer separate hardware.... I'm upgrading a lot of stuff in the rack in the coming months.
I'm running mostly Windows 2012 Server beside the pfSense box.
The pf box originally was a 360 G4 but was time for an upgrade after drive failure, the 580G4's are being dropped off in mid to late Feb as a donation to my daughter's school. I volunteer in both the robotics and computer program.
New replacements will be a 320 G5, ( since the 380 was sitting idle i put it to work in the meantime ) and the 580 G4's are being replaced by 3x 580 G6's, each with 2x Tesla S1070 units .
Also the Infiniband network is getting an overhaul and upgrading from the dual link SDR to dual link QDR
My 370 will remain as it is beside maybe more RAM ( 32 or 64GB upgrade ) , adding a larger PCIe SSD's for better caching and MAYBE, but only maybe a processor upgrade ( highly unlikely as even under heavy loads i don't see anything past 30-40% CPU usage )

I Haven't run FreeNAS in years, and I will most likely wont start until a few things are resolved...
Like multi-processor and Infiniband support are in place without having to make custom builds and fart around to get things running.

 

[_Adrian_]

BTW....
IF I was worried about noise...
I could do THIS

 

[zambanini]

@_Adrian_ you want help and now you f*ck around because you don't like what you read?

 

[_Adrian_]

Its pretty simple really...
I didnt come into this thread for help, i came to offer some advice.
Building something from scratch only works if you work in dependencies and system requirements based on needs and keeping in mind some redundancies are required!
Your environment dictates what you need...
Of course when your building a small NAS for home would be a completely different system for what you would set up for a large office or company that hammers at the drives all day.

What I'm trying to say here is that most of the time the retired servers will have to offer more then will ever need in most cases for home or smaller situations.

Now for those that are bitching about noise and power bills...

It's a byproduct and you have a few choices to make instead of bitching about it...
Do your homework and look through the manual and see if they can be throttled down
Also most of the server power supplies are PFC so they only draw the wattage it needs to run and maybe a few watts more that get turned into heat but most HP Supplies after G4 are PFC
SO yes they are rated for 900W but that's the MAXIMUM draw !!
They only pull ~130W at idle or 150-70W under light load.

The ML370G5 is the most you would need in a home environment as you can expand it to a dual cage setup giving you 16 SFF drives plus a large number of PCIe ports inside the server. using a PCIe based SSD and using only 500GB 7200 SATA drives would net you 8TB of data which is plenty for any home multimedia server.
AND all that with prices starting at $200 on ebay with dual dual core xenons and 8-16GB of ECC ram is hard to beat in that price bracket. you don't neccessarily need redundant power supplies, fine, pull it out and install a blank or pull it out an inch or 2 so the sockets are separated and the onboard administrator dont see it.

 

[jgreco]

Speaking as someone who's worked professionally with servers for a few decades, my observation is:

1) Most prebuilt servers do not fit the requirements of FreeNAS well. If they have a lot of drive bays, then they're probably dual core boards. If they've got more than a handful of bays, they're not likely to be attached via HBA, but rather RAID. Lots of slower cores is not good for FreeNAS. A few fast ones are. RAID cards are not good for FreeNAS. HBA is. Etc.

2) Your setup seems to fit poorly to your actual needs as well; you don't seem to have a handle on right-sizing for a job.

3) You seem to think "8TB of data [...] is plenty for any home multimedia server" yet lots of the regulars here are flying upwards of 30-50TB, and the serious guys are cramming 32GB on their board these days.

4) You seem to be suggesting that people buy janky old power hungry beasts off eBay. This may miss the mark in a more abstract way; most of the guys here are the computer equivalent of hot-rodders and do not really want or need a big old HP box. They do want to build their own box and they also want it to be all sorts of awesome, neither of which buying off eBay gets them.

I'm going to leave your posts up because I agree that there's an option to be had, but the purpose of this thread is to guide newbies and not to confuse them needlessly, so if you want to debate further, start a new thread.

Also:

You can keep your virtualized crap...
I prefer separate hardware....

Yeah, I do too, but it's really hard to argue that point these days. Cluster reports 70 GHz of CPU, 223.83GB RAM, and 51.52TB storage under management; currently 56GHz CPU free and 164GB RAM free 'cuz it's a Sunday morning.

I Haven't run FreeNAS in years, and I will most likely wont start until a few things are resolved...
Like multi-processor and Infiniband support are in place without having to make custom builds and fart around to get things running.

Multi-processor support has been available since ~1996. Where ya been? I admit it was a bit rough in the early days but it's almost 20 years later now.

 

[EvanVanVan]

Hi, I just ordered parts to build a FreeNAS system. I ended up going with a LIAN LI PC-V354B case ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...12300&RandomID=371581085315121120140201044513 ). Then I found this thread that recommended many users have used the Define R4. I was hesitant of the Lian Li case when I ordered it since I was limited to only 8 bays, which is fine for now but I'm not sure about the future. The Define R4 also is a little cheaper, although the Lian Li is smaller, which can be better or worse.

Any thoughts on that Lian Li case? Should I cancel it before it ships and reorder the R4?

Thanks

 

[jgreco]

Honestly, you've got about a 1 in 10,000 shot of finding anyone here who's purchased both and can compare them. Home users rarely have two NAS's, and those of us who do this professionally are usually rack mount.

NewEgg is often a good source for insight into the ups and downs of things like cases. Look carefully at all the reviews, especially the non-glowy ones, bearing in mind that many reviewers will be critical of things for dumb reasons. To me the Lian has the most important thing going for it, which is airflow directly across the drives. Hopefully there's a little space in between the drives.

 

[no_connection]

My HP ML350G5 used for ESXi draws 190W 200VA. Each memory module draws about 5W (and generates copious amounts of heat).
Works great but I will be happy when I build a new one to replace it, and run FreeNAS as well.
Allowing me to get rid of my 100W 7.2 FreeNAS box. (I have the Lian Li PC-A70 chassis in silver, it's awesome!)
Not to mention using only one UPS saving another 25W or so.

Another thing about the ML350G5 is that you have to fan mod it as the two heat sinks not fan cooled gets burning hot.

Old hardware is great if you can get it cheap and use it properly, but it can also bite you back pretty bad if something goes wrong.
And just because something used to cost much doesn't mean it's worth much now.

 

[krikboh]

I am using the LIAN LI PC-V354B case. It was easy to build in, temps are great, and it is pretty quiet. My biggest complaint is pulling out the phillips screwdriver and removing 8 screws to take off the side cover.

 

[jmirko]

I've got a quick question jgreco. Is the hardware recommendation up-to-date or would you alter a couple of things if you were to build a NAS today?

Thank you,
J

 

[jgreco]

This is really more of a Sandy/Ivy generation guide. The Haswell and Avoton stuff has been problematic, ranging from USB3 to other random problems. A fileserver does not need to be the LATEST generation or the NEWEST board. It just needs to be reliable.

I hope to have an Avoton update soon.