WIFN? - Build evaluation request

[basicflair]

Hey y'all,

I built a system a few weeks ago out of scrap parts and then realized how much I didn't know beforehand; that one is going to the scrapyard.

I've been working and reading up a lot about NAS and I think I've built a worthy system based off of several online guides I've found (including the pinned thread above). This is my first server build but, as a member of #pcmasterrace, I have previously built several desktops.

The purpose of this system will be for hosting Plex, streaming torrents, and regular backups of two Windows PCs; streaming will be done on 2 devices simultaneously, max. I think I'd like to set the disks up as RAIDZ1 but I need to do more reading on this topic. The backups of the PCs will contain important data that I do not want to lose, that seemed like the most viable option.

I feel like the mobo I selected might be overkill, I'm open to suggestions.

Anyway, here goes (https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1JRHNN7SW9E5F?ref_=wl_share):

• Case - Fractal Design Node 304 Mini-ITX Hybrid Computer Case (FD-CA-NODE-304-BL)
• PSU - 700 Watt - Coolmax, Partial Modular Power Supply, CU-700B
• Mobo - ASUS LGA1151 DDR4 EEC/Non-ECC UDIMM Mini-SAS HD M.2 C242 Server Workstation Mini ITX Motherboard Motherboards P11C-I
• CPU - Intel Pentium Gold G5400 Desktop Processor 2 Core 3.7GHz LGA1151 300 Series 54W/58W BX80684G5400
• RAM - Samsung M391A2K43BB1-CPB 16GB DDR4-2133 ECC Un-Buffer LP Server Memory (note: Amazon has this erroneously listed, it is 2666; the CPU will limit it to 2400)
• SSD - ZTC 64GB Armor 42mm M.2 NGFF 6G SSD Solid State Drive. Model ZTC-SM201-064G
• HDD - Western Digital 8TB White Label - shuck from EasyStore
• HDD - Western Digital 4TB Red Label - shuck from EasyStore
• HDD - Seagate 4TB - shuck from Expansion Desktop Drive

Also, does anyone have experience with memory.net? They've got a great price on my RAM but it seems a little 'too good to be true' (https://memory.net/product/m391a2k4...-2133-udimm-pc4-17000p-u-dual-rank-x8-module/).

Thank you for looking!

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

Hi @basicflair, welcome to the forums. It looks like you've done a lot of good research already. I've got some questions and suggestions that might help narrow down some choices for you.

I built a system a few weeks ago out of scrap parts and then realized how much I didn't know beforehand; that one is going to the scrapyard.

Totally reasonable; that first build can be a great learning experience. :)

I think I'd like to set the disks up as RAIDZ1 but I need to do more reading on this topic. The backups of the PCs will contain important data that I do not want to lose, that seemed like the most viable option.

RAIDZ1 offers a single drive worth of parity; if one bites the dust and you lose a second during resilvering you're out of luck. If you're not in dire need of higher IOPS, and thus using mirrors, you may consider using RAIDZ2. It offers more redundancy and thus more data protection; though it is a bit costlier per TB of usable space. The larger the vdev the better the cost to space ratio is.

Case - Fractal Design Node 304 Mini-ITX Hybrid Computer Case (FD-CA-NODE-304-BL)

If you're certain you never want more than 6 disks, don't want any of the micro ATX boards, and feel the fans can keep the disks cool that case will certainly work. If you're concerned about space etc the Node 6 and Node 5 can be made to support many more disks.

SSD - ZTC 64GB Armor 42mm M.2 NGFF 6G SSD Solid State Drive. Model ZTC-SM201-064G

What do you plan to use this for? I generally recommend against using M.2 for boot devices because a boot device doesn't benefit from the speed of the slot. If space is a concern you can go with SATADOMs. You may need a molex converter if your board can't power them directly or via a nearby plug. Many supermicro boards can power the SATADOMs from the sata port directly; and can be had for the same price or only a little more than the board you're looking at.

Mobo - ASUS LGA1151 DDR4 EEC/Non-ECC UDIMM Mini-SAS HD M.2 C242 Server Workstation Mini ITX Motherboard Motherboards P11C-I

This board will certainly work; my only concern would be expandability and that ASUS PIKE II 3008-8 SAS controller. Can that controller be flashed to IT mode? If not, it might not be a good choice for FreeNAS. Also, because it is an ITX board you've got a 16x slot, unless you're planning on a card that requires that 16x slot you're likely going to leave a lot of PCIe lanes on the table. Consider that a typical HBA or even 10G NIC uses an 8x slot and many things such as a PCIe SLOG devices use 4x slot, whatever you put in there will leave a lot of unused lanes. Unless space is a serious limitation you may be happier with a micro ATX board with 1 8x slot and either 2 4x slots or another 8x slot. Of course, all of this centers around future expansion so if you're 100% sure you'll never need to expand in this way then this board will be fine.

• HDD - Western Digital 8TB White Label - shuck from EasyStore
• HDD - Western Digital 4TB Red Label - shuck from EasyStore
• HDD - Seagate 4TB - shuck from Expansion Desktop Drive

How many of each of these drives are you going to use? What kind of vdevs are you going to put them in?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the above.

 

[basicflair]

Philo; dang dude, awesome response and very much appreciated.

I had to do some homework before replying so here goes...

Updated list: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1JRHNN7SW9E5F?ref_=wl_share

Good point on the limited potential for growth of the case so I bumped up to the Fractal Design Node 804; also changed to mobo to the Supermicro X11SSM-F-O and the M.2 drive to a 32GB SATADOM.

How many of each of these drives are you going to use? What kind of vdevs are you going to put them in?

This is the part where I'm struggling most, I've been reading and I still haven't fully wrapped my head around if what I've got will work with what I need.

4TB should satisfy my backup needs at the moment but, as I start bringing in older HDDs (full of photos), the 8TB would be more suited for the job; this is all data that needs some insurance.

I've also got a media library to host on the machine but maintaining its integrity is not as important as the data mentioned above.

Also, the Seagate is quite a bit older than the other two HDDs so I'm a little concerned about its potential for the future.

What I'm thinking purchase another 8TB and set up these four disks in the RAIDZ2 you mentioned but, with the homework I've done, I'm not entirely sure if that layout makes sense since I've seen so many builds using disks of the same size...

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

Good point on the limited potential for growth of the case so I bumped up to the Fractal Design Node 804; also changed to mobo to the Supermicro X11SSM-F-O and the M.2 drive to a 32GB SATADOM.

This is certainly a good backbone for a system. I'm partial to the X11SSM-F since it is the board I use in my main server. If ever you want SLOG devices you can bifurcate one of the 8x slots into 2 4x slots to put M.2 SLOG devices in there.

Also, the Seagate is quite a bit older than the other two HDDs so I'm a little concerned about its potential for the future.

With new drives you definitely want to burn them in; it might be a bad idea to burn in used drives as well. At the very least run short and long smart tests on them.

What I'm thinking purchase another 8TB and set up these four disks in the RAIDZ2 you mentioned but, with the homework I've done, I'm not entirely sure if that layout makes sense since I've seen so many builds using disks of the same size...

I may have said something confusing above. While you CAN use disks of different sizes in the same vdev, generally they will all act as disks of the smallest size. So, it really is better to stick with disks of the same size in the same vdev. :)

Anyway, I'm happy to hear my advice was helpful. Thanks for looping back and updating us with your build updates. Happy to keep talking through choices on your drives/vdevs. I think ultimately you should decide how much data you want, how much parity you want, and what your budget is; that will pretty neatly select the drive size for you.

 

[Fredda]

my only concern would be expandability and that ASUS PIKE II 3008-8 SAS controller. Can that controller be flashed to IT mode?

This should work as it is built around the LSI SAS3008 controller, which is well supported in FreeNAS.
Even if ASUS does not provide IT drivers, there is a good chance, you can crossflash them to IT with the vanilla broadcom drivers.
I have two boxes with a Fujitsu PSAS CP400i card and at the time Fujitsu did not provide IT firmware for them.
But I was able to flash them with the IT driver for the sas-9300-8i card.

 

[basicflair]

I may have said something confusing above. While you CAN use disks of different sizes in the same vdev, generally they will all act as disks of the smallest size. So, it really is better to stick with disks of the same size in the same vdev. :)

Anyway, I'm happy to hear my advice was helpful. Thanks for looping back and updating us with your build updates. Happy to keep talking through choices on your drives/vdevs. I think ultimately you should decide how much data you want, how much parity you want, and what your budget is; that will pretty neatly select the drive size for you.

All good, confusion is on my end and I really appreciate your patience and feedback.

I think my needs would be satisfied with 1 pool containing 1 vdev of 4-4TB disks set up in RAIDZ2 which, if I understand correctly, will yield ~8TB of storage

Is it good practice to create a different vdevs for media library vs. 'top tier' data for backup?

The other option I was considering as creating two vdevs: 1 vdev of 4-4TB as RAIDZ2 (top tier data) and 1 vdev of 2-8TB as RAID1 (media library). I'm more curious of what would be a best practice in this situation.

 

[basicflair]

All good, confusion is on my end and I really appreciate your patience and feedback.

I think my needs would be satisfied with 1 pool containing 1 vdev of 4-4TB disks set up in RAIDZ2 which, if I understand correctly, will yield ~8TB of storage

Is it good practice to create a different vdevs for media library vs. 'top tier' data for backup?

The other option I was considering as creating two vdevs: 1 vdev of 4-4TB as RAIDZ2 (top tier data) and 1 vdev of 2-8TB as RAID1 (media library). I'm more curious of what would be a best practice in this situation.

For more clarity: parity is my priority on the RAIDZ2 vdev, performance is my priority on the RAID1 vdev.

 

[1kokies]

i'm new to this forum but like all here, have build many machines before, so my sharing

Good point on the limited potential for growth of the case so I bumped up to the Fractal Design Node 804; also changed to mobo to the Supermicro X11SSM-F-O and the M.2 drive to a 32GB SATADOM.

SM is a good choice here but i have used that case on one of my very early builds that ended up with 8 hdd. Despite all it's design for airflow i think it it is still insufficient and only 4 of it survived later on. i do live in a tropical country though. And the cable routing if grown into 8 disks will be messy plus they are screwed on & hanging. Case is still with me as a HTPC in the hall. Happy to share more on this if you have specifics

I think my needs would be satisfied with 1 pool containing 1 vdev of 4-4TB disks set up in RAIDZ2 which, if I understand correctly, will yield ~8TB of storage

Is it good practice to create a different vdevs for media library vs. 'top tier' data for backup?

The other option I was considering as creating two vdevs: 1 vdev of 4-4TB as RAIDZ2 (top tier data) and 1 vdev of 2-8TB as RAID1 (media library). I'm more curious of what would be a best practice in this situation.

my current build is top tier raidz2 plus media raidz1=21TB, 12x4TB, had i been wiser i would use all 8TB disks. And all non NAS disks did not survive long in my build.

Agree with @Philo on the m.2

UDIMM ECC are on lots of Asus boards, which i use lots, in my place they are hard to source therefore expensive & limited range, i have switched all to RDIMM nowadays. Rams are pretty important to Freenas ya, that rule of 1TB=1GB applies. And personal experience that '1TB' refers to raw TB

PSU - 700 Watt - Coolmax, Partial Modular Power Supply, CU-700B

i use multi rail PSU for my servers that's 24/7 in a room tucked away. Reliable & safe PSU always pays off for hardware & electricity bills.

my sharing ya

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

I think my needs would be satisfied with 1 pool containing 1 vdev of 4-4TB disks set up in RAIDZ2 which, if I understand correctly, will yield ~8TB of storage

Yup, and don't fill up more than 80% of that 8TB. :)

Is it good practice to create a different vdevs for media library vs. 'top tier' data for backup?

Sorry to be a bit nit picky, but I "think" you mean a different pool. You store data on datasets; which belong to pools; which spread data across whatever vdevs are available. You don't get to pick which vdev your data goes on beyond picking which pool the dataset lives in.

as RAID1

One more nit here. Do you mean RAIDZ1 or Mirror? Traditional RAID1 is a mirror vdev in zfs which is very different than RAIDZ1. If you're saying two disks I assume you mean a mirror.

Anyway, nit picking over, I would suggest that you consider the redundancy needs when consider pools, at least in part. For example, if all of your data is special and precious it can all go in a RAIDZ3-backed pool. If some data is throw away and can easily be refetched maybe you put it in cheaper storage like RAIDZ1 and use those extra $ for backup drives of your precious data. Also, consider speed characteristics. Do you have some data that is just archival and important and other data that houses a MYSQL database? The former maybe wants RAIDZ2 backed pools and the latter might want stripes of mirrors for the IOPS. Some folks make a smallish pool on SSDs to put their iocage on to back their VMs and other do this but also give the VMs some mass storage on their disk pools.

I think your suggestion is a fine one; and it leaves two bays open to insert and remove backup drives or replacement drives.

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

SM is a good choice here but i have used that case on one of my very early builds that ended up with 8 hdd.

I agree, this is a good point. Plan your build for the data you need now and in a year or two; it'll save you money and time in the long rung.

 

[1kokies]

And @basicflair if you ever fill up that case with 8 hdd, due to it's suspending nature of hdd there will be a lot of fiddling of cables, plus the disks are very close to each other and being in the same compartment of the PSU which generates heat ( i installed fans in all available brackets). Also don't loose those screws & rubber that are used to suspend the hdd. Apart from that, it's a good case where all the side/top boards can be removed for easy cable management. My opinion only ya

 

[1kokies]

i don't have a build log for this Fractal 804 but here are some photos of the examples that i have built at that time

 

[basicflair]

@1kokies very helpful, thank you!