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18TB Server - Final Parts List Check

Nemockulous
By Nemockulous
in Storage Devices
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I'm building a media storage server with a budget of ~$2,000 or less. My current plan is to use FreeNAS in RAIDz2 with 8 drives, one being a hot spare. This will then run the Plex plugin to serve up the media to my rokus. I anticipate maximum of 2 users accessing at any given time, and the media is primarily movie based. What I'm looking for here are any glaring compatibility checks, and any possible improvements to the overall system that you might suggest.

 

Options I'm thinking of:
-Adding a 10th drive, configuring as a RAID 50 in FreeNAS (Would this gain significant performance over RAIDz2? Worth it vs Data Security? Overhead?)

-Changing to higher RPM Drives (Would the performance boost be seen on an array this size? or would it be marginalized because of the RAID overhead?)

 

As always I appreciate any input you might have. This will be my first true media server, and I'm looking to do it right the first time if at all possible ;)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME6 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($151.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $1777.32
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-17 01:05 EST-0500
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That looks like a really odd server, that more like a gaming PC with way too many hard drives and no GPU. Gimmie a sec, I'm sure I can whip something up.

Sergeant, United States Marine Corps

Network Administrator, Comptia A+, Security+, Cisco Certified Networking Associate

From a G3258 to dual Xeon E5-2670's

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May you explain reasoning for your parts?

I recommend this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($109.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Motherboard: ASRock E3C226D2I Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($193.98 @ Newegg) 

Memory: Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($57.80 @ Amazon) 

Memory: Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($57.80 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.89 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.89 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.89 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.89 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.89 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.89 @ OutletPC) 

Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($59.99 @ Newegg) 

Power Supply: Corsair RM 450W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($93.98 @ Newegg) 

Other: FreeNAS (Purchased)

Other: USB Flash Drive (OS Drive) (Purchased For $7.99)

Total: $1240.87

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-17 01:23 EST-0500

"In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."
- Albert Einstein

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Ive heard that the NEX power supplies arent too great.

4690K // 212 EVO // Z97-PRO // Vengeance 16GB // GTX 770 GTX 970 // MX100 128GB // Toshiba 1TB // Air 540 // HX650

Logitech G502 RGB // Corsair K65 RGB (MX Red)

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I'm building a media storage server with a budget of ~$2,000 or less. My current plan is to use FreeNAS in RAIDz2 with 8 drives, one being a hot spare. This will then run the Plex plugin to serve up the media to my rokus. I anticipate maximum of 2 users accessing at any given time, and the media is primarily movie based. What I'm looking for here are any glaring compatibility checks, and any possible improvements to the overall system that you might suggest.

 

Options I'm thinking of:

-Adding a 10th drive, configuring as a RAID 50 in FreeNAS (Would this gain significant performance over RAIDz2? Worth it vs Data Security? Overhead?)

-Changing to higher RPM Drives (Would the performance boost be seen on an array this size? or would it be marginalized because of the RAID overhead?)

 

As always I appreciate any input you might have. This will be my first true media server, and I'm looking to do it right the first time if at all possible ;)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($241.98 @ Newegg) 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($28.59 @ Amazon) 

Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME6 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($151.98 @ Newegg) 

Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($179.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.99 @ Amazon) 

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Blackout Edition ATX Mid Tower Case  ($109.99 @ Amazon) 

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($74.88 @ Amazon) 

Total: $1777.32

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-17 01:05 EST-0500

May you explain reasoning for your parts?

I recommend this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($109.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Motherboard: ASRock E3C226D2I Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($193.98 @ Newegg) 

Memory: Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($57.80 @ Amazon) 

Memory: Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($57.80 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.89 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.89 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.89 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.89 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.89 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.89 @ OutletPC) 

Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($59.99 @ Newegg) 

Power Supply: Corsair RM 450W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($93.98 @ Newegg) 

Other: FreeNAS (Purchased)

Other: USB Flash Drive (OS Drive) (Purchased For $7.99)

Total: $1240.87

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-17 01:23 EST-0500

"In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."
- Albert Einstein

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-snip-

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no RAID in FreeNAS? Just ZFS levels?

 

Higher RPM drives aren't worth it. Considering how many drives you have, the major bottle neck will be the 1Gb/s Ethernet (unless you have 10Gb/s Ethernet). I have six Reds in RAID 10 and they push out 550 Sequential read / write. The bottleneck is my 1Gb/s Ethernet, which limits everything to about 85ish MB/s.

 

I would recommend getting a cheaper i3 dual core, as the CPU is overkill for a media server. The 32GB is kind of high, I think you can survive with 16GB. Maybe consider the Intel Avoton server board as well? Or a i3 with ECC RAM?

 

I would try to get something other than the EVGA NEX, something higher quality like the EVGA G1 or G2. I think you can get with a lower wattage powersupply as well, such as a 550W or 450W.

 

Be sure to run each Red drive you buy with the WD Lifeguard tool's extended test to make sure you don't have any DOA drives before building the FreeNAS array.

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CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1220 V3 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($192.99 @ SuperBiiz) 


Motherboard: Asus P9D-X ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($168.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($84.16 @ Amazon) 











Other: LSI 9300-8i ($254.99)

Other: LSI mini SAS HD to SATA ($25.99)

Other: LSI mini SAS HD to SATA ($25.99)

Total: $1850.09

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-17 02:24 EST-0500

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-Adding a 10th drive, configuring as a RAID 50 in FreeNAS (Would this gain significant performance over RAIDz2? Worth it vs Data Security? Overhead?)

 

RAIDz2 (RAID6) has 'less' risk of array failure than RAID 50 does. Speed wise I wouldn't expect much difference, especially considering software RAID, but mostly due to the network connection as @scottyseng has already pointed out.

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I would recommend getting a cheaper i3 dual core, as the CPU is overkill for a media server. The 32GB is kind of high, I think you can survive with 16GB. Maybe consider the Intel Avoton server board as well? Or a i3 with ECC RAM?

 

Damn, when did Intel start supporting ECC on low end CPU's. Missed that being added, kinda makes the choice of a Xeon I posted pointless :P

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Damn, when did Intel start supporting ECC on low end CPU's. Missed that being added, kinda makes the choice of a Xeon I posted pointless :P

 

Yeah, I was shocked to find out that fact as well. I think Intel did that because there's no low end (dual core) Xeons.

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~snip~

 

Hey there Nemockulous,
 
The build looks pretty good and well planned. 
One note from me: WD Red drives are great for NAS and RAID usage, but they are guaranteed to work properly in arrays with up to 8 drives. Larger drive pools might cause more vibrations and heat output and you may encounter drive failures. It is advised that for drive pools with 8 to 16 drive you should use WD Red Pro drives. They work faster due to the higher rpm, have longer warranty and have some additional safety features that can handle the increased vibration and heat from the larger and denser drive pool. Here's some more details on these drives: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=rwk9la
 
Captain_WD.

If this helped you, like and choose it as best answer - you might help someone else with the same issue. ^_^
WDC Representative, http://www.wdc.com/ 

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Hey there Nemockulous,
 
The build looks pretty good and well planned. 
One note from me: WD Red drives are great for NAS and RAID usage, but they are guaranteed to work properly in arrays with up to 8 drives. Larger drive pools might cause more vibrations and heat output and you may encounter drive failures. It is advised that for drive pools with 8 to 16 drive you should use WD Red Pro drives. They work faster due to the higher rpm, have longer warranty and have some additional safety features that can handle the increased vibration and heat from the larger and denser drive pool. Here's some more details on these drives: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=rwk9la
 
Captain_WD.

 

 

Last time I got pricing WD Se disks were very similar in price to the WD Red Pro. From my understanding the Se's are slightly better, got any insight in to this?

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~snip~

 

The two drives do seem quite similar at first glance. WD Se is designed more for larger scale data center storage pools while WD Red Pro is more for home or small office RAID array pools.

Do have in mind that WD Se is an Enterprise level drive after all.

 

Here are some of the differences that the two drives have:

- WD Red Pro has 600,000 Load/Unload cycles guaranteed compared to the 300,000 on the WD Se

 

- for smaller drive pools WD Se has 1,200,000 MTBF opposed to 1,000,000 of the WD Red Pro (for larger drive pools both have 1,000,000) (MTBF is the old measurement of drive reliability which can still give you a pretty good idea of the estimates of the drives' reliability).

 

- During Read/Write times WD Red Pro consumes 8.6W opposed to 9.5W for WD Se.

 

- WD Red Pro has recommende operating temperatures of 5C to 60C opposed to 5C to 55C for WD Se

 

Since the 3TB version of the WD Se is not currently available on our website for sale I can't really comment on the pricing but generally the WD Se tends to be a bit pricier (not taking any promotions into consideration).

 

I'd say both drives would do the job equally fine and for your type of usage you won't notice any significant differences in performance or reliability.

 

Here are screenshots of the drives' spec sheets side by side (WD Se on the left and WD Red Pro on the right):

q7JzcS1.jpg 6Md0MhI.jpg

 

Here are the spec sheets of the drives with all capacities:

WD Red Pro: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=BI1yWq

WD Se: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=RQ3FxV

 

Hope this clarifies it a bit :) Feel free to ask if you have other questions,

 

Captain_WD.

If this helped you, like and choose it as best answer - you might help someone else with the same issue. ^_^
WDC Representative, http://www.wdc.com/ 

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  • Author

May you explain reasoning for your parts?

Other: USB Flash Drive (OS Drive) (Purchased For $7.99)

Total: $1240.87

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-17 01:23 EST-0500

 

So my previous parts list was compiled in another thread, The expressed goal is a RAW storage number ~16TB+, which then means I should have ~ 16GB ram to handle it. This was previously determined using 6x4TB drives in "RAID 6" in FreeNAS, 16TB RAW. After looking at costs, it appeared that 3TB drive solution was not only cheaper, but offered more RAW storage and a Hot Spare with still being cheaper than the 6x4TB without a spare.

I'm not married to a particular mobo/CPU/RAM. If ECC is the way to go, and stepping down the CPU is recommended as an i5 is overkill, then I'm all for that. However, the 9 Drive, 16GB minimum RAM restrictions still apply.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no RAID in FreeNAS? Just ZFS levels?

 

Higher RPM drives aren't worth it. Considering how many drives you have, the major bottle neck will be the 1Gb/s Ethernet (unless you have 10Gb/s Ethernet). I have six Reds in RAID 10 and they push out 550 Sequential read / write. The bottleneck is my 1Gb/s Ethernet, which limits everything to about 85ish MB/s.

 

I would recommend getting a cheaper i3 dual core, as the CPU is overkill for a media server. The 32GB is kind of high, I think you can survive with 16GB. Maybe consider the Intel Avoton server board as well? Or a i3 with ECC RAM?

 

I would try to get something other than the EVGA NEX, something higher quality like the EVGA G1 or G2. I think you can get with a lower wattage powersupply as well, such as a 550W or 450W.

 

Be sure to run each Red drive you buy with the WD Lifeguard tool's extended test to make sure you don't have any DOA drives before building the FreeNAS array.

 

I know there's no RAID in FreeNAS, but they operate much the same way. It's more to convey the point than be completely accurate.

And for sure I was planning on stress testing the drives. That would be crappy to have to tear it apart just after building it >.<

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The ECC alternate I just compiled could look something like this?:

 

 
Motherboard: ASRock C226WS ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($184.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($127.95 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1686.10
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-17 13:32 EST-0500
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-snip-

 

Ah, I see. That makes sense.

 

Yeah, I think stepping down for a i3 would help out a lot since a overclocked i5 or the E3 Xeon is way overkill for such a system. I would recommend pairing a i3 with a server motherboard and ECC ram. You don't have to do ECC, but if you can squeeze it in, it'd be nice.

 

As for hard drives, yeah, I was going to mention you should run Red Pros or the Se drives for over 8 drive systems.

 

I would try to get a better PSU though.

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Ah, I see. That makes sense.

 

Yeah, I think stepping down for a i3 would help out a lot since a overclocked i5 or the E3 Xeon is way overkill for such a system. I would recommend pairing a i3 with a server motherboard and ECC ram. You don't have to do ECC, but if you can squeeze it in, it'd be nice.

 

As for hard drives, yeah, I was going to mention you should run Red Pros or the Se drives for over 8 drive systems.

 

I would try to get a better PSU though.

 

Red Pros drive up the cost an extra ~$400. Seems not worth it. In this case then, it might be worth it to step up to 4TB and drive the drive count? for $50 more I drop down to 7 drives, if I choose to go with a hot spare it's 16TB, 20TB RAW if not. Not sure how big the vibration problem is.

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Ah, I see. That makes sense.

 

Yeah, I think stepping down for a i3 would help out a lot since a overclocked i5 or the E3 Xeon is way overkill for such a system. I would recommend pairing a i3 with a server motherboard and ECC ram. You don't have to do ECC, but if you can squeeze it in, it'd be nice.

 

As for hard drives, yeah, I was going to mention you should run Red Pros or the Se drives for over 8 drive systems.

 

I would try to get a better PSU though.

 

And do you have any recommendations for a server motherboard, i3, and ECC ram?

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Yet another option, dropping the drives down under 8, increasing to 4TB drives, dropping to an i3:
 

 
CPU: Intel Core i3-4360 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($140.95 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock C226WS ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($184.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($127.95 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1680.15
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-17 13:55 EST-0500
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PSA to everyone making lists (at least on the first page): RM PSUs are overpriced and NEX are just bad.

 

 
CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($99.99 @ Micro Center) 
Motherboard: ASRock E3C222D4U Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($149.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($127.95 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($104.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $1405.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-17 14:21 EST-0500
 
? I don't know too much about stuff like this but I had a go anyway c:

USEFUL LINKS:

PSU Tier List | F@H stats

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-snip-

 

Yeah, personally, I think just 9 red drives (not to mention one is doing nothing as the hot spare) should be able to handle it. I mean they're all inside of a desktop case separated. They're not smack next to each other like in my server chassis.

 

Probably the Core i3-4170 and that same ASrock motherboard you picked. As for ECC RAM, something like:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G28M6792

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Yeah, personally, I think just 9 red drives (not to mention one is doing nothing as the hot spare) should be able to handle it. I mean they're all inside of a desktop case separated. They're not smack next to each other like in my server chassis.

 

Probably the Core i3-4170 and that same ASrock motherboard you picked. As for ECC RAM, something like:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G28M6792

 

That's my thought on it as well honestly, but who knows. Since the price point is close, I guess I can avoid the problem altogether. 

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That's my thought on it as well honestly, but who knows. Since the price point is close, I guess I can avoid the problem altogether. 

 

Yeah 4TB has the best price per GB at the moment. I have six 4TB Reds myself.

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