[Solved] First NAS Build - AMD or Intel?

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Jasper9714

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Hey guys,

I've been thinking my data storage over for the last couple of weeks, and decided against upgrading my dropbox for financial reasons ($10 /month). I currently have two computers, a home-built windows 8.1 machine and a MacBook Pro 13" laptop which I use for college. The problem is that I need to be able to work on the same files on both machines, for which I currently use dropbox, however this is not the solution.

I am hoping to build myself a FreeNAS machine to which I will send all files, allowing me to access my files on both my computer and laptop, so I can continue the work on my computer instead of my laptop while I'm at home. Now I'm stuck with a problem; AMD or Intel.

I have two systems in mind, both fairly cheap:

AMD Sempron 3850
ASRock AM1B-ITX
Cooler Master Elite 120 Master Advanced Black
Crucial CT102464BA160B (8GB DDR3)
be quiet! System Power 7 300W
Total price: +- $195

Or:
Intel Celeron G1840
MSI H81I
Cooler Master Elite 120 Master Advanced Black
Crucial CT102464BA160B (8GB DDR3)
be quiet! System Power 7 300W
Total price: +- $240

Now, the AMD system has a lower price point and a motherboard that has 4 SATA 6GB/s ports, while the Intel system is $45 more expensive and only has 2 SATA 6GB/s ports (and 2 3GB/s ports).

I read on the hardware requirements page that intel is strongly recommended... Any advice?
 

nick779

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I hate to be the one to tell you this, but nobody here is going to recommend either of your builds for use with FreeNAS.

With your budget and hardware (Non Intel NIC, Non ECC Mobo, etc), NAS4Free sounds like a better option
 
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Jasper9714

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I hate to be the one to tell you this, but nobody here is going to recommend either of your builds for use with FreeNAS.

With your budget and hardware (Non Intel NIC, Non ECC Mobo, etc), NAS4Free sounds like a better option
Hi,

I don't really have a budget, I'm just trying to build myself a decent first NAS, which I can expand on later when I need to.
 

nick779

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Hi,

I don't really have a budget, I'm just trying to build myself a decent first NAS, which I can expand on later when I need to.
If that is the case you should read the sticky threads in the hardware section regarding intel NICs and ECC ram/compatible motherboards/processors.

There is a big planning phase with FreeNAS, but 99% of the information is already out there. Id suggest reading that thread, looking at other member's builds and going from there.
 
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Go with Intel, but not the build listed above..give the hardware stick a read https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/ it will help you and use, and save us all from alot of aggravation both now and later.

To sum it up, you need a motherboard with no special features (no audio,fancy HDMI output, etc), a CPU that supports ECC RAM, RAM that is ECC, case and powersupply are dealers choice...but alot of the seasonics are recommended
 

Jasper9714

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Go with Intel, but not the build listed above..give the hardware stick a read https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/ it will help you and use, and save us all from alot of aggravation both now and later.

To sum it up, you need a motherboard with no special features (no audio,fancy HDMI output, etc), a CPU that supports ECC RAM, RAM that is ECC, case and powersupply are dealers choice...but alot of the seasonics are recommended

I did actually read it, and throw together a build based on it, but for me a problem is the motherboard. ECC RAM isn't too expensive for my taste (around $60), but a motherboard supporting it is. A decent Micro-ATX or Mini-ITX mobo will cost me $160 - $185.. I'm quite hoping to get a Mini-ITX mobo and put it all in a decently sized case, but $185 for a mobo leaves me doubting my decision to build a NAS.
 
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The price of a proper motherboard and a proper system in general shouldnt be a worry, unless youre not planning on storing anything important on FreeNAS. If you dont really *value* your data then you can pursue any build you really want, but when you come back here asking why something doesnt work right, and we ask for what your hardware spec's are; youre gonna get answers similar too "well that isnt recommended hardware so it could be anything" or "get recommended hardware", if you get answers at all.

eBay isnt a bad source for used parts
 

Jasper9714

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The price of a proper motherboard and a proper system in general shouldnt be a worry, unless youre not planning on storing anything important on FreeNAS. If you dont really *value* your data then you can pursue any build you really want, but when you come back here asking why something doesnt work right, and we ask for what your hardware spec's are; youre gonna get answers similar too "well that isnt recommended hardware so it could be anything" or "get recommended hardware", if you get answers at all.

eBay isnt a bad source for used parts
I totally understand, and possibly even deserve that answer, but the fact remains that for a first NAS build for home use, a 185$ mobo is quite expensive.. But even if I weren't going to store important data on the machine, I do intend to use it for a decent period of time, and wish to upgrade it later on to continue to suit my needs. Going for crap hardware now means having to completely start over in the future, so maybe decent hardware is the way to go..

CPU Intel Pentium G3258 (3.2GHz Dual-Core)
Motherboard ASRock E3C224D2I Mini ITX
RAM Kingston 8GB DDR3-1600 ECC Memory
(Storage 2 - 4 Western Digital Red 2TB HDD)
Case Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Black
Power Supply Corsair CX 430W Semi-Modular

Approx. Price: $400 excl. storage

Would this be a decent first build?
 
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Acceptable build, just be sure to check the motherboards approved list of RAM, this is one of the approved http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=0B1-00KT-00023 .Also note that while that motherboard maxes out at 16Gb of RAM, you're going to want to limit yourself to either all storage, or some storage and maybe a plugin or two. The Plex plugin can be a little memory hungry depending on the stream(s). Original rule of thumb was 1Gb of RAM per Tb of storage, while you fall short of *needing* more RAM, just keep it in the back of your mind that if you ever change out the hdds for all 4Tb hdds or more, you may eventually need more RAM. There is a user who has ~40Tb of hdd space with 32Gb of RAM, but he is also the only user, so he can get away with that.
 

Jasper9714

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Acceptable build, just be sure to check the motherboards approved list of RAM, this is one of the approved http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=0B1-00KT-00023 .Also note that while that motherboard maxes out at 16Gb of RAM, you're going to want to limit yourself to either all storage, or some storage and maybe a plugin or two. The Plex plugin can be a little memory hungry depending on the stream(s). Original rule of thumb was 1Gb of RAM per Tb of storage, while you fall short of *needing* more RAM, just keep it in the back of your mind that if you ever change out the hdds for all 4Tb hdds or more, you may eventually need more RAM. There is a user who has ~40Tb of hdd space with 32Gb of RAM, but he is also the only user, so he can get away with that.
Thanks for your reply. I do intend to use this machine for storage only, however like said before, my needs may change. I can always, if needed, pop another stick of 8GB in there. I'll be messing about with FreeNas this weekend and probably next week, and if it all goes well, I'll be getting the parts.
 

Robert Trevellyan

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Three things:
  1. You can buy several years of Dropbox Pro for the cost of even the most basic FreeNAS system, once you factor in the RAM and hard drives.
  2. There are other non-cloud sync options, such as BTSync and Syncthing. You can add an always-on device to either of these for less than the cost of a FreeNAS system (think micro PC, Raspberry Pi etc).
  3. If you have your heart set on a FreeNAS box but your needs are modest, at least consider an entry-level off-the-shelf server such as a Dell PowerEdge T20 or a Lenovo TS140. They are available at very low cost if you shop around.
 
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Jasper9714

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Three things:
  1. You can buy several years of Dropbox Pro for the cost of even the most basic FreeNAS system, once you factor in the RAM and hard drives.
  2. There are other non-cloud sync options, such as BTSync and Syncthing. You can add an always-on device to either of these for less than the cost of a FreeNAS system (think micro PC, Raspberry Pi etc).
  3. If you have your heart set on a FreeNAS box but your needs are modest, at least consider an entry-level off-the-shelf server such as a Dell PowerEdge T20 or a Lenovo TS140. They are available at very low cost if you shop around.

Thanks to your reply I started looking for other solutions to my problem, and got to OwnCloud. Not sure why, but I've been OwnCloud before, and ever since thought it was only web-based and had no option for folder synchronization. After having looked at a few video's of the service, I know otherwise. I will be using OwnCloud instead of FreeNas now.

A big thanks to everyone who took the time to respond to this thread, and (tried to) help me out. You're all great.

EDIT: Just a quick question.. If I get a decent OwnCloud server set up, for personal use only, with two 2TB hard drives in Raid 1, would ECC memory (and compatible motherboard) be worth the additional cost over a system that isn't compatible with ECC memory?
 
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Nick2253

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As far as ECC goes, it's really up to you. How much is your data worth to you? That's the question you have to answer. I'd get it in your shoes, because I don't really have much data that I'd be OK with losing. Is my data replaceable? Actually, most of my data is replaceable. But the extra cost of ECC is a great insurance policy against having to do all the work of replacing it :)

So, what's your data worth?
 

danb35

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The question of Owncloud or not is orthogonal to the operating system you'll be running on the server. You can run Owncloud as a plugin on FreeNAS, you can install it on plain FreeBSD, you can run it on most Linux distributions, you can run it under Windows, you can even run it on a Mac. But you'll need some OS, web server, database server, storage, etc., as Owncloud is just a web app.

ECC memory will increase the stability and data integrity of any computer, whether a client or server, irrespective of the operating system or filesystem used. You'll see it pretty strongly recommended here because we assume that you're using (or considering) FreeNAS because you care about your data and want to keep it safe. Using a stable OS like FreeBAS and a filesystem like ZFS with non-ECC RAM is rather like putting a screen door on a submarine--you're leaving a pretty big hole in your data path.

ZFS adds another wrinkle, which is the filesystem scrub. It periodically (based on how you configure it) reads all the data on your server and compares it to the stored checksums. If any data doesn't match, it attempts to correct it using parity, a mirror, etc. If your RAM is defective, this could result in corruption of data on your disk through the scrub process.
 

Jasper9714

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As far as ECC goes, it's really up to you. How much is your data worth to you? That's the question you have to answer. I'd get it in your shoes, because I don't really have much data that I'd be OK with losing. Is my data replaceable? Actually, most of my data is replaceable. But the extra cost of ECC is a great insurance policy against having to do all the work of replacing it :)

So, what's your data worth?
The question of Owncloud or not is orthogonal to the operating system you'll be running on the server. You can run Owncloud as a plugin on FreeNAS, you can install it on plain FreeBSD, you can run it on most Linux distributions, you can run it under Windows, you can even run it on a Mac. But you'll need some OS, web server, database server, storage, etc., as Owncloud is just a web app.

ECC memory will increase the stability and data integrity of any computer, whether a client or server, irrespective of the operating system or filesystem used. You'll see it pretty strongly recommended here because we assume that you're using (or considering) FreeNAS because you care about your data and want to keep it safe. Using a stable OS like FreeBAS and a filesystem like ZFS with non-ECC RAM is rather like putting a screen door on a submarine--you're leaving a pretty big hole in your data path.

ZFS adds another wrinkle, which is the filesystem scrub. It periodically (based on how you configure it) reads all the data on your server and compares it to the stored checksums. If any data doesn't match, it attempts to correct it using parity, a mirror, etc. If your RAM is defective, this could result in corruption of data on your disk through the scrub process.

Thanks for both your replies. I did a bit more research in the previous hour or so and believe I understand the whole ECC vs Non-ECC RAM discussion a lot better now. I'll go with the cheaper non-ECC memory for now, and periodically run backups to an external hard drive to save money. When I am in a position where I feel like expanding the system, and have some more money to spend, I'll get a decent machine with ECC memory as a proper solution.
 
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