System Check - Newbie

[jvanhill]

Hi -

I was looking at adding a NAS to my network to store photos, videos, my music library and other miscellaneous documents. Currently,
this is around a little over a terabyte, but I see it growing in the near future with photos and HD videos of my little ones.
I had looked at commercial solutions but then had seen mention of FreeNAS, and being a tinkerer I liked the idea of building
a NAS myself.

After looking around I was thinking of using the following hardware:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ccq2jc

Here are my questions:

1) Does the hardware seem a good selection or should I be considering something else? I have heard that some of the SilverStone cases
have had some overheating issues, but that those can be overcome by drilling some ventilation holes. I am pretty open to most anything,
but I would like to keep the cost from climbing much higher.

2) Is RAIDZ1 the recommended configuration I should be using in this scenario? I would like to not have to commit to buying all of
my drives now but have the option to add more later. This is the reason I chose the case I did, since it has 8 bays. Is it reasonable
to plan to add 4 drives now in RAIDZ1 and then in a few years, add 4 more? Reading the documentation it appears at that point I would
need to add a new VDEV to the pool with the new drives at which point they would be striped with the four existing? Am i understanding
this correctly? Would I be better off just adding all the drives up front? Would the new drives need to be the same size as the existing
VDEV's drives?

3) Is it recommended to use multiple NICs via aggregation to improve performance?

4) I have seen some comments about not using mini-ITX. Is this just due to the compact nature, the cost, or something else?

Thanks in advance.

 

[tvsjr]

Since rebuilding a large RAID-Z takes quite awhile, the typical recommendation is to go RAIDZ2 for drives north of 1-2TB. I'd also suggest making the drives the same type... there's not much to gain by having two different vendors in play.

LAGG/LACP only benefits you in certain cases, when you have multiple clients accessing the device simultaneously. Traffic between the server and one client will still only run at 1Gbps. In most cases, home users aren't going to see any significant benefit from LAGG.

 

[GBillR]

Another option is to use mirrors. Expansion can be done with 2 drives (of equal size), allowing for more affordable expansion of the pool, and relieves you of the upfront storage commitment. Performance will also improve as you add successive vdevs to the pool.

Personally, unless you are really trying to keep the size down, I wouldn't seek out an itx solution. The micro atx boards typically offer more options for future upgrades. That said, if you are happy with the feature set of the ASRock board, it is a well documented FreeNAS solution.

As for case selection, I would be most concerned with cooling (which you are already looking at). I cannot speak to any of the itx solutions since I went with a larger board, but I would definitely keep your eye on drive temps if you do go with an itx case.

 

[wblock]

1. If a case needs ventilation holes drilled, $150 seems kind of steep. ITX is usually a pain, and I will echo @GBillR's suggestion to go with micro ATX. The Supermicro X10SLL-F can be had with an i3 processor for about the same price as that Asrock board, and a micro ATX case can be had for well under $150.

2. This depends on a lot of things, which I'm not up to thinking about right now. Four or six 4-TB drives in RAIDZ2 are a common setup right now.

3. Aggregation can be done, but unless the bandwidth of the drives (or cache) is faster than a single gigabit link, it won't matter.

4. As mentioned in the #1 response: ITX is just kind of a pain. The cases are cramped to work on, motherboard and processor selection is limited, and there can be cooling and power supply issues. Micro ATX is usually just 6-10 inches taller, but gives more space and options.

 

[Ericloewe]

3. Aggregation can be done, but unless the bandwidth of the drives (or cache) is faster than a single gigabit link, it won't matter.

It almost always is, but the link aggregation itself is generally a pain in the ass. The typically-quoted number is 10 users for it to be worth using.