BUILD Yet Another Hardware Recommendation Thread

[capleton]

Hi everyone. I'm thinking about finally taking the plunge and setting up FreeNAS on my home server for the first time.

It's primarily going to be used to stream media to xbmc front-ends. As well as download media via sftp. It's also going to serve as general storage backup for documents, emails, etc. The main things that I am concerned about are redundancy and file integrity. I have a lot of unique music and video that i've created, and I really don't want to lose it.

From what i've read, ZFS sounds awesome! A raidZ2 in a zpool sounds perfect. But I am on a budget, and I need to figure out a way to set up a nas that will protect my data, but still be cost-effective.

The good news is that I already have an existing home server. It was running ubuntu server up until this past weekend when the root partition (that was on an ext4-formatted ssd) got corrupted. Rather than try to rebuild my old ubuntu box, I am hoping to reuse/repurpose some of the existing parts and start "cookin' with gas," with ZFS and FreeNAS ;)

Here are the specs for the ubuntu box. It was running XBMC and SickBeard.

Case:	Fractal Design Define XL (Link)
PSU:	430 Watt Seasonic S12-430 (LInk)
Motherboard:	Asus A8nSli Premium (Link)
CPU:	AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Heatsink:	Thermalright XP120 (LInk)
RAM:	2 x 1GB Corsair XMS3200 (4GB is the max for this board...)
Video Card:	ASUS EN210 GeForce 210 1GB 64-bit (Link)
HDD:	OS SSD: 32GB Corsair CMFSSD-32D1 - Corrupt - (Link) Mirrored BTRFS RAID1: 1TB Seagate + 1TB WD Green Mirrored Soft. RAID1: 2 x 2TB Western Digtial WD Green Failsafe backup: 2TB Hitachi Drive Totals: 3 x 2TB, 2 x 1TB

The new NAS setup will not double as a front-end (xbmc) like the old ubuntu box did. (I have a Zbox HTPC that will be taking over the duties of XBMC in the living room :).) I would love to use the existing Motherboard and CPU from the Ubuntu server for the FreeNAS. But the board maxes out at 4GB RAM, so I'm looking at upgrading so that I can take full advantage of ZFS.

And here is what I'm thinking:

Case:	Fractal Design Define XL (Link)	Free!
PSU:	SeaSonic G Series SSR-550RM 550W (Link)	$90
Motherboard:	SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O (Link)	$199
CPU:	Intel Core i3-3220 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz (Link)	$130
Heatsink:	Stock (will change it if it's too loud)	-
RAM:	2 x 8GB Hynix 1600 ECC Unbuffered (Link)	$142
HDD:	Raid1: 1TB Seagate + 1TB WD Green RAIDZ2: 2 x 2TB WD Green 1 x 2TB Hitachi 3 x 2TB WD Red	$352
HDD (cont):	1 x 4TB Seagate (for initial migration, then as failsafe backup) SanDisk Cruzer Fit 4GB USB (as FreeNAS boot/root disk)	$190 $7
HDD Controller:	SYBA SY-PEX40008 (LInk)	$60
		Total: $1170

What do you think?

Thanks in advance

 

[capleton]

I was thinking about this setup and decided to try and trim some fat. By taking out the PSU and the Seagate, I can get the price down to $890.

• What do you think of the list below?
• If you had to migrate an existing RAID1 to a new RAIDZ2, how would you do it? (Bonus Question: how would you do it using the least amount of drives possible?) **
• Should I check the OEM specs of each different 2TB drive to see what the sector sizes are?
• Bonus Question: Will different sector sizes, drive speeds, drive cache sizes, etc. have any effect on RAIDZ2 and ZFS reliability?
• Do you recommend any other SATA controllers? (I've found out that it's difficult to find ones that do not have the built RAID. And most have that SAS capability that just seems like overkill (...is it overkill?)
• And could the Syba that I selected be potentially considered a breakpoint? How often do cards like that fail?
• I read that FreeNAS is hot-plug compatible, but not hot-swap. What is the difference?

** All regular questions are worth 3 points. Bonus questions are worth 6. Prizes will be handed out once the thread is closed.
Offer only valid where legal. Cash and prizes may come in the form of thanks, thumbs-up, virtual high-five, or GIFs. Offer not valid in Florida. Terms and restrictions apply, see OP for further details.

Case:	Fractal Design Define XL (Link)	Free!
PSU:	430 Watt Seasonic S12-430 (Link)	Free!
Motherboard:	SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O (Link)	$199
CPU:	Intel Core i3-3220 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz (Link)	$130
Heatsink:	Stock (will change it if it's too loud)	-
RAM:	2 x 8GB Hynix 1600 ECC Unbuffered (Link)	$142
HDD:	Raid1: 1TB Seagate + 1TB WD Green RAIDZ2: 2 x 2TB WD Green 1 x 2TB Hitachi 3 x 2TB WD Red	$352
HDD (cont):	SanDisk Cruzer Fit 4GB USB (as FreeNAS boot/root disk)	$7
HDD Controller:	SYBA SY-PEX40008 (LInk)	$60
		Total: $890

Thanks in advance for the help. :) And I'm sorry for all the dumb questions. I'm a noob at ZFS, and really a noob at RAID and file-systems in general. Any help that you can provide would be tremendously appreciated!