Verify my build before I buy

[Moksa]

Just looking to verify compatibility and ask for suggestions for my build before I pull the trigger. I had posted this on Reddit without many replies. The only issue that was brought up was that the PCPartPicker has the ram listed as registered, but entering the kit's product ID on Crucial's site lists it as being ecc unbuffered.

Intended use:
NAS/Plex Server/Torrent Box/Online backup via Crashplan (probably)
Would like to do some compression, but I'm unlikely to do encryption. Max 3 streams @720 (via chromecast) at any given time. Will be running raidz2 with 5x 3tb drives for a total of 9TB useable space.

Build Draft:
Left to Purchase:
Type Item Price
CPU Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor[3] $113.99 @ SuperBiiz
Motherboard Supermicro X10SLL-F-O Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard[4] $167.99
Memory Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) UNBUFFERED DDR3-1600 Memory[5] $144.99 @ Amazon

Total $426.97
Generated by PCPartPicker[6] 2015-06-14 15:02 EDT-0400
+5x 3tb WD Purple drives (slightly cheaper than reds)


Already Purchased:
Node 804
Seasonic M12II 620

Additional details:
Wondering if I should stick with this processor or switch to a used xeon or if a cheaper celeron would suit my purpose. Same with ram, is there a cheaper option I should be looking at for 16gb of ecc ram?

Ordering tonight.

 

[DJ9]

My only suggestion is to add a UPS if you don't own one already, along with not using a celeron processor.

 

[DifferentStrokes]

Remember to grab 2 boot devices and mirror them.

 

[Darren Myers]

I second the UPS battery backup, and i second getting a second boot device for mirroring. Otherwise looks good

 

[DrKK]

Um. You sure you want purples? I asked Cyberjock this once, and he gave me a very cogent reason why you wouldn't want purples...something about a difference in the firmware etc. Unfortunately, I forgot the reason.

Purples are SPECIFICALLY for DVR recording, and the whole design is different.

 

[DrKK]

Yeah, I don't think you want to use the purples. There are fundamental design differences that actually would appear to make it bad for NAS.

http://community.wd.com/t5/Desktop-Mobile-Drives/Wd-Purple-for-desktop-use/td-p/779395

 

[Darren Myers]

I would rather have Red's over purples due to the Reds are proven

 

[cyberjock]

The purples have features that don't appear to be useful as a NAS, and could potentially be a detractor. The bottom line is that unless you are getting them for a *really* good price, I wouldn't try it. You're building this nice NAS and you shouldn't try to skimp with hard drives. :P

 

[Moksa]

Thanks for the replies guys. Ill switch to reds.

On ebay, a used xeon 1230 v3 is about $40 more than the new i3, would it be much of an improvement for my intended usage to upgrade to that?

The boot device raises another question. I've bought 2x SanDisk Cruzer Blade 16gb flash drives to run as boot devices. However, I've run diags on both and both have bad sectors. Is this normal and I shouldn't worry about it or should I buy 2 more and hope they are good?

 

[Darren Myers]

If they have bad sectors i'd want them sent back and new ones sent to me. Another member can weigh in on the i3 vs Xeon but i think the Xeon is the way to go.

EDIT: According to passmark the i3 has under 5000 and the Xeon has under 10000

 

[cyberjock]

If you plan to transcode with Plex, I'd definitely go Xeon. I have an E3-1230v3 and I love it. If I set the quality high and the bitrate to anything but fairly high values, I can easily max out my Xeon. But with the defaults it handles 2-3 streams with room for more.

I recommend Xeons anywhere that CPU will be needed and the extra money for the Xeon won't break the bank. It sucks to build a nice FreeNAS and then find that because of a poor CPU choice that you can't do everything you want. My Xeon has basically done everything I've wanted it to do, with very few exceptions. Those exceptions were usually things that were 100% guaranteed to be CPU bound and run for a very long time (Google map generation with highest quality settings for Minecraft jail, Plex metadata generation with thumbnail generation, etc.)

So if the Xeon won't kill you, go for it. Can't be disappointed. 10k passmark is a LOT of processing power. It's nice to be able to burn rubber when you need it.

 

[Moksa]

Sorry, it was a 1220 v3 that I had seen for a little more on ebay, not the 1230. It looks like it has a passmark just under 7k.

Sooo, looks like i'll add a couple more flash drives to the cart.

Any suggestions on cheap ups's?

Mobo, ram ordered

 

[Ericloewe]

Regarding WD Purple drives:
They seem to be Reds with DVR-centric firmware. This means ATA Stream support (prefer to drop data instead of choking on it) and probably some different tuning (more aggressive TLER, prioritization of writes, greater reliance on cache).

It's quite possible that they work just like Reds unless you give them a stream to deal with, but without any solid information either way, Reds are the safe option.

 

[Darren Myers]

I don't think the word cheap and UPS should be in the same sentence, but I prefer APC. I have a few SUA1500 which are the 900w models

 

[Moksa]

Oook, 16gb ram, X10SLL-F-O, 3x4tb drives, 1220v3, and 2 fresh thumbdrives ordered....should be a fun weekend. Thanks for the replies guys.