Ainulindale: A Prosumer FreeNAS Build

[Curufinwe_wins]

Hello again everyone. This thread exists to document some of the fun (and beauty) building Ainulindale (Music of the Ainur) the companion NAS for Kurald Galain (and the rest of my network). It is currently being used as a plex server and a movie/picture/music repository (and backup).

 

Beware potentially large images... (Better images to be posted later)

 

 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Memory: Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($53.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($53.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($119.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($119.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($119.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($119.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($59.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: EVGA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($63.98 @ Newegg) 
Other: ASRock Rack MITX   C2550D4I ($299.99)
Total: $1011.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-19 17:18 EST-0500

 

I already had one of the drives from Kurald Galain.

 

So... Part A) Walk-through/ Quick Review of Components...

Motherboard: Asrock C2550DL. 

The Good:

Mini-ITX Form Factor

Intel Avoton C2550 Quad Core 2.4GHZ featuring 14W TDP (Passively Cooled)

6 PWM fan headers

12 total SATA Ports (4xSATA2 and 8xSATA3) across three SATA Controllers

4x240pin DDR3 DIMM slots up to 64GB of total System RAM (Supports ECC)

Dual Onboard Intel Gigabit Ethernet

IMPI (allows you to control the computer via ethernet even when off, if you remember to use it XD)

Doesn't require any cpu pcie power.

The Bad:

No onboard audio (not surprising)

No usb 3.0 rear or onboard.

Only two USB 2.0 rear (one onboard)

Not cheap... (although a good itx mobo and an I3 isn't that much cheaper)

 

Ram: Kingston 2x8GB 1333 ECC Ram

The Good:

ECC...

Dual Channel Ram...

The Bad:

Green?

 

Case: Node 304

The Good:

Mini-ITX Form Factor

Beautiful minimalist design

Three included ultra-quiet fans

6x 3.5 bay drive support

Cheap 

The Bad:

Only USB 3.0 (so no front connectors for me...)

A shell that makes getting at the drives not as nearly as easy as a hotswap enclosure (although not awful)

Less than ideal cable management (although very easy imho.)

Doesn't build the computer for me...

 

Power supply: EVGA 650W GQ

The Good:

"Semi-modular" Although, only the 24 pin is connected to really it's full modular.

Ribbon connectors (super important for clean itx builds)

High Quality 80+ Gold

Cheapest trusted semi/full modular 80+ gold PSU (This was why I chose it) 

The Bad:

Way more power than I need.

A bit longer than I'd like (still workable at 170mm)

 

Drives: 4x HGST Deskstar NAS 3TB

The Good:

7200 RPM NAS drives means MUCH faster performance

Higher power efficiency than WD Reds (and Seagate consumer NAS drives) due to MUCH higher drive speed.

All the NAS drive goodness

The Bad:

Currently a bit more than WD Reds

Potentially (although not an issue for this case so far) a bit louder than WD Reds

 

 

 

Part B) The Build

 

 

Above are ze parts... Below shows the case starting to be filled out.. The mobo and PSU setup is SUPER AMAZING. I literally only have the 24 pin and two SATA chains hooked up. I did remove the front USB 3.0 and front audio connectors from the case, as well as the included fan controller since I don't need it, and I certainly am not going to plug in a molex chain just to run my fans when the motherboard has it's own fan control.

 

 

 

Adding in drives and starting to configure FreeNAS...

 

People who know FreeNAS may have already seen the issue that hit me really hard in the face...

 

FreeNAS is installed on a small (8-16GB) USB drive (unless you are stupid). It is also installed from a USB drive. This motherboard has two USB ports and the case can't provide front USB. I couldn't install FreeNAS because I couldn't plug in a keyboard at the same time as both drives to hit that one enter I needed to install the damn thing...

 

Now I don't own any computers with USB 2.0 and I couldn't get FreeNAS to install on Kurald Galain (it refused to boot from the installer drive), but I was able to find and scavenge a USB2.0 front panel connector from a broken computer at work.

 

Woot. So I booted into FreeNAS using this, got my shit installed, and started to get my cable management setup so I could actually you know... close up this computer and put it in it's place. Well as I was doing that i decided that just in case I ever actually needed a third USB port I was going to mount that hub inside the case. Case meet double-sided foam tape. Foam tape meet case...

 

From the other side...

 

 

I did improve cable management since this image and I will upload it and an external image in a few hours...

 

 

 

Part C) FreeNAS/Software Configuration

 

If you guys haven't done a FreeNAS build before and want to check one out, feel free to check out THIS video:

 

Once, I got the USB situation fixed, installing the OS and making my ZFS drive was super easy.

 

I wish I could say configuring my network was just as painless, but it wasn't. I have one of the two NICs configured to attach directly to my network, and the other directly to Kurald Galain (on different IP Gateways). This was done because in order to attach my NAS to my router I needed to go wireless with Kurald Galain (only one port coming into the room), and I was getting AWFUL transfer speeds from wired NAS to wireless Kurald Galain.
 

I also tried setting up a two nic aggregated link to Kurald Galain (which also has two nics), but they didn't share the same controller (on Kurald Galain, one is intel, one is AsMedia) and it utterly refused to work (or was 1/2 the speed of just one nic).

 

So the solution was to run one NIC direct to Kurald Galain (which easily saturates the 1 GbE in reads and writes) and throw the other to my network (so in theory I could run plex/other apps and let my other PC's access Ainulindale). Unfortunately while I am able to access Ainulindale from other wired computers on the network, I have yet to get plex to work (I click the activate option and it just uh circles and does nothing). If any of you guys have tips/tricks after experiencing the same issues please let me know.

[Curufinwe_wins]

I did get plex to work a few months ago. Then the plugin broke with an update and I was able to do a manual jail installation (which actually wasn't that hard, I can provide a good overview link if needed), and it has been working flawlessly ever since.

 

Using plex to let my family watch my nas content has been a huge boon for all of us.