Building a NAS - Help me with the part list

[Dimi3os]

Hey guys, 

I'm looking to building a computer to use as a NAS using freeNAS. I'm not really experienced building NAS so I'm not aware of what will be enough for a home NAS with multiple drives.

Should I go with an LGA 1150 board and cpu (some lower tier cpu should do right?) or should I go with an AMD cpu because it has more cores and the NAS might be able to utilize these better than games do.

Please confirm if a NAS will utilize more cores, not sure about it.

[Equilibrium_FOOL]

What is your budget?  How many terabytes of storage do you want?  Are you going to RAID any of the drives?

[Dimi3os]

What is your budget?  How many terabytes of storage do you want?  Are you going to RAID any of the drives?

My budget without the drives is about 500 euros.

I would probably raid the drives yes.

[Equilibrium_FOOL]

My budget without the drives is about 500 euros.

I would probably raid the drives yes.

A decent i3 or i5 would be your best bet, unless you need (not want) ECC memory (which requires a different chipset), for increased reliability.

 

Mini-ITX or Micro-ATX?

[Dimi3os]

A decent i3 or i5 would be your best bet, unless you need (not want) ECC memory (which requires a different chipset), for increased reliability.

 

Mini-ITX or Micro-ATX?

Mini-ITX preferably but if you have to compromise sata ports/raid micro-atx will do

[Equilibrium_FOOL]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor  (€119.95 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: MSI H97I AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  (€106.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  (€57.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case  (€85.09 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 360W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  (€69.90 @ Caseking)
Total: €439.72
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-01 09:18 CEST+0200

 

A decent starting point, with the ability to hold many drives.  Adding a RAID card is not required, although the motherboard may not have enough SATA 6Gb/s ports for your intended amount of drives. 

From what I've seen, you run the OS from a USB flashdrive connected into the mobo, so no SSD required.  You could also upgrade to an i5 if you have some extra money, although it really won't make any real difference.

 

What drive configuration are you going to be running?

[Dimi3os]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor  (€119.95 @ Amazon Deutschland)

Motherboard: MSI H97I AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  (€106.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  (€57.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)

Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case  (€85.09 @ Amazon Deutschland)

Power Supply: SeaSonic 360W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  (€69.90 @ Caseking)

Total: €439.72

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-01 09:18 CEST+0200

 

A decent starting point, with the ability to hold many drives.  Adding a RAID card is not required, although the motherboard may not have enough SATA 6Gb/s ports for your intended amount of drives. 

From what I've seen, you run the OS from a USB flashdrive connected into the mobo, so no SSD required.  You could also upgrade to an i5 if you have some extra money, although it really won't make any real difference.

 

What drive configuration are you going to be running?

Thanks, I had my eye on the same processor and mobo

Not sure about drive configuration yet, I started thinking about getting a NAS in the shower haha. I'll let you know when I find out myself.

[Equilibrium_FOOL]

Thanks, I had my eye on the same processor and mobo

Not sure about drive configuration yet, I started thinking about getting a NAS in the shower haha. I'll let you know when I find out myself.

Sweet.  I've been wanting to build a NAS, now I just need an excuse...

[Dimi3os]

Sweet.  I've been wanting to build a NAS, now I just need an excuse...

My excuse:

- Wouldn't it be cool if I could back up everything and have it together on that one NAS. 

- it's awsome

[MG2R]

Depending on the work load, a NAS can use more cores but, honestly, what you really need to aim for is low power consumption as most of the time the NAS will probably be doing nothing at all...

 

You might want to check out the ASRock C2750D4I or C2550D4I. Those boards are just made to be put in NASes. I'm running the C2750D4I and it's absolutely marvelous! The CPU only has a TDP of 20W but is rock solid and powerful enough to do Plex encoding on the fly.

 

Where in Belgium are you, my fellow Belgiumer?

 

EDIT:

• ASRock C2550D4I
• Corsair CX430 V2
• Kingston 8GB ECC RAM

Can be had for about 450 EUR. Just add a case and you're done.

 

Keep in mind that you will want to opt for ECC RAM when running FreeNAS (assuming you're going to be making ZFS pools)

[Captain_WD]

Hey guys, 

I'm looking to building a computer to use as a NAS using freeNAS. I'm not really experienced building NAS so I'm not aware of what will be enough for a home NAS with multiple drives.

Should I go with an LGA 1150 board and cpu (some lower tier cpu should do right?) or should I go with an AMD cpu because it has more cores and the NAS might be able to utilize these better than games do.

Please confirm if a NAS will utilize more cores, not sure about it.

 

Hey Dimi3os,

 

The guys gave you some good advice and some useful tips. I could add regarding specifically for the storage that you could use a small SSD for the OS and programs that you will be using and use NAS/RAID class HDDs for the RAID setup specifically. The SSD would make the server much more responsive and quick to operate with and these types of drives have additional features that enable them to be more stable and secure in such environments and to have a smaller chance of dropping out or corrupting data while in a RAID array. An example of such drives is WD Red: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=zhfduJ

 

Captain_WD.

[alpenwasser]

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Keep in mind that you will want to opt for ECC RAM when running FreeNAS (assuming you're going to be making ZFS pools)

 

Just FYI, current versions of FreeNAS only support ZFS for the storage pools,

UFS is no longer supported for that function (see here: http://www.freenas.org/faq/#freenas-zfs-ufs )

 

- snip -

Thought I'd add this: FreeNAS is designed with being run off a USB thumb drive in

mind, if you feel so inclined (saves you a SATA port). You can still run it off

an SSD of course.

Also, Intel has a handy filter feature where you can, among other things, filter

by ECC RAM support, to have a look around for potential CPUs for FreeNAS: http://ark.intel.com/Search/Advanced?s=t&ECCMemory=true

Lastly, the general FreeNAS hardware guide might be worth a read:

http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/2015/02/a-complete-guide-to-freenas-hardware-design-part-i-purpose-and-best-practices.html

[Dimi3os]

Depending on the work load, a NAS can use more cores but, honestly, what you really need to aim for is low power consumption as most of the time the NAS will probably be doing nothing at all...

 

You might want to check out the ASRock C2750D4I or C2550D4I. Those boards are just made to be put in NASes. I'm running the C2750D4I and it's absolutely marvelous! The CPU only has a TDP of 20W but is rock solid and powerful enough to do Plex encoding on the fly.

 

Where in Belgium are you, my fellow Belgiumer?

 

EDIT:

• ASRock C2550D4I
• Corsair CX430 V2
• Kingston 8GB ECC RAM

Can be had for about 450 EUR. Just add a case and you're done.

 

Keep in mind that you will want to opt for ECC RAM when running FreeNAS (assuming you're going to be making ZFS pools)

Thanks, I'll definetly check them out! Also, I'm from the city of Aalst (Oost-Vlaanderen).

[Eniqmatic]

 

Depending on the work load, a NAS can use more cores but, honestly, what you really need to aim for is low power consumption as most of the time the NAS will probably be doing nothing at all...

 

You might want to check out the ASRock C2750D4I or C2550D4I. Those boards are just made to be put in NASes. I'm running the C2750D4I and it's absolutely marvelous! The CPU only has a TDP of 20W but is rock solid and powerful enough to do Plex encoding on the fly.

 

Where in Belgium are you, my fellow Belgiumer?

 

EDIT:

• ASRock C2550D4I
• Corsair CX430 V2
• Kingston 8GB ECC RAM

Can be had for about 450 EUR. Just add a case and you're done.

 

Keep in mind that you will want to opt for ECC RAM when running FreeNAS (assuming you're going to be making ZFS pools)

 

This is a good build, do not use the first mentioned build above for FreeNAS, do it properly, save yourself some time/money/hassle and go ECC. 

 

 
 
 
Just FYI, current versions of FreeNAS only support ZFS for the storage pools,
UFS is no longer supported for that function (see here: http://www.freenas.org/faq/#freenas-zfs-ufs )
 

Thought I'd add this: FreeNAS is designed with being run off a USB thumb drive in
mind, if you feel so inclined (saves you a SATA port). You can still run it off
an SSD of course.



Also, Intel has a handy filter feature where you can, among other things, filter
by ECC RAM support, to have a look around for potential CPUs for FreeNAS: http://ark.intel.com/Search/Advanced?s=t&ECCMemory=true


Lastly, the general FreeNAS hardware guide might be worth a read:
http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/2015/02/a-complete-guide-to-freenas-hardware-design-part-i-purpose-and-best-practices.html

 

This is also correct, there really is no advantage to spending any amount of money on an SSD for the boot drive, the only thing it will improve is the startup, which you will probably never see since most keep them on 24/7 anyway. 

 

The only other thing you could do with an SSD is for ARC/cache and even then, you should understand fully how this works and in which situations you should use it before you do this.

 

Other than that, have fun with it!

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

As MG2R, alpenwasser and Eniqmatic said, get an ECC-compatible motherboard, CPU and RAM.  If you're working with critical data or large quantities, the error correction can make a difference.

 

CPU-wise, I can verify that my own i3-4170 is basically twiddling its thumbs most of the time, even when writing files at gigabit speed.

 

The ASrock boards appear to be good indeed.  I went with an Intel Server board and it just works with zero issues. 

 

Get enough RAM, I have 16GB of RAM for 32TB of storage and I notice that my RAM usage is high all the time.  I don't hink it's a problem though, otherwise I would have added 16 more already.

 

 

Another Belgian?  This place is crawling with them !

Greetz from Antwerp

[SLOWION]

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/SLOWION/saved/y8jQzy

 

I put this together earlier today, I want to build something like it...but maybe with 1 8GB stick so I can upgrade later

 

Should be around your budget without drives

[MG2R]

I notice that my RAM usage is high all the time. 

"Unused RAM is wasted RAM" comes to mind

 

 

Greetz from Antwerp

Aha! Not too far away. I'm from Temse

[Dimi3os]

As MG2R, alpenwasser and Eniqmatic said, get an ECC-compatible motherboard, CPU and RAM.  If you're working with critical data or large quantities, the error correction can make a difference.

 

CPU-wise, I can verify that my own i3-4170 is basically twiddling its thumbs most of the time, even when writing files at gigabit speed.

 

The ASrock boards appear to be good indeed.  I went with an Intel Server board and it just works with zero issues. 

 

Get enough RAM, I have 16GB of RAM for 32TB of storage and I notice that my RAM usage is high all the time.  I don't hink it's a problem though, otherwise I would have added 16 more already.

 

 

Another Belgian?  This place is crawling with them !

Greetz from Antwerp

Guess I'll take your advice, just need to find the right motherboard now

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Guess I'll take your advice, just need to find the right motherboard now

No idea where the others got their boards from or how much they paid, but this is the listing that I bought mine from.  I suspect that the ASrock ones will be cheaper.

 

Full disclosure : I had a bit of a scare with mine when I noticed it didn't give any output through the on-board card (so I couldn't even get into the BIOS).  However when I made the FreeNAS stick on my main PC and put it in the motherboard's USB slot, it booted from the stick and worked flawlessly (the entire setup procedure is via the PC's browser, so no issues there either).

So if you plan on using Windows or Linux as OS for the NAS, you may need a graphics card for those first few boots until the whole thing is configured.

[Dimi3os]

No idea where the others got their boards from or how much they paid, but this is the listing that I bought mine from.  I suspect that the ASrock ones will be cheaper.

 

Full disclosure : I had a bit of a scare with mine when I noticed it didn't give any output through the on-board card (so I couldn't even get into the BIOS).  However when I made the FreeNAS stick on my main PC and put it in the motherboard's USB slot, it booted from the stick and worked flawlessly (the entire setup procedure is via the PC's browser, so no issues there either).

So if you plan on using Windows or Linux as OS for the NAS, you may need a graphics card for those first few boots until the whole thing is configured.

Going to look for an asrock board I guess, I'll let you know when I find something that fits my needs.

[MG2R]

No idea where the others got their boards from or how much they paid, but this is the listing that I bought mine from.

Buying Motherboards off of eBay... You like to live dangerously, huh? That's something I don't dare yet!

[Dimi3os]

Buying Motherboards off of eBay... You like to live dangerously, huh? That's something I don't dare yet!

Haha, I was thinking the same thing ;D Any chance you know where to get that asrock mobo (a thrustworth shop)?

[Dimi3os]

I've just made a personal discovery lol, another fellow belgiumner wrote that you don't need an ECC ram capable board if your cpu and ram support ECC. Is this still valid?

Link to the post: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/49715-example-nas-builds/?p=662704

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Interesting...

 

 

I just read that topic, and what I'm getting out of it is that the motherboard has to support ECC.  It does appear that a lot of consumer boards support it even if the companies say it doesn't.  However not all of them do support it.

 

There's only 2 ways to know for sure.  You either buy a board that has ECC support in the specifications or you get one where other people have figured out that it does indeed support ECC.  Option 1 seems the easiest.  

[Dimi3os]

Interesting...

 

 

I just read that topic, and what I'm getting out of it is that the motherboard has to support ECC.  It does appear that a lot of consumer boards support it even if the companies say it doesn't.  However not all of them do support it.

 

There's only 2 ways to know for sure.  You either buy a board that has ECC support in the specifications or you get one where other people have figured out that it does indeed support ECC.  Option 1 seems the easiest.

there aren't many lga 1150 boards though, only 3 listed on tweakers.