FreeNAS Build

[ShadowChaser]

I really want to get into FreeNAS for our home as I currently just have a network drive on my main PC

I've read all the documentation already and while most if it is a little dense I feel I've got the gist of it for something not mission critical.

thinking of either an e5-2600 v4 server or a i5-4430 based system

Boot drive: 16GB mSATA SSD

RAM: 48GB or 32GB

Cache: 256GB NVME

Storage: 4x WD Red/Seagate IronWolf 4TB for now, with options to expand.

PSU: RM650x (server comes with redundant psus)

 

Is this something that would work in the long run? It will mostly be for files on my desktop I no longer use but don't want to get rid of, bulk media storage, etc.

What RAID setup should I use? the mobo for the 4430 only has 6 sata ports so I'll probably need an expansion card. Is RAID 10 or RAIDZ2 better?

I have a UPS, can I setup FreeNas to recognize a power outage?

 

I have eyes on a server right now but my budget is tight as most of the cash is going towards the drives - current one is $110 with 8+2 drive bays, 2U, no ram or cpu. Any recommendations? Server chassis are not my forte...

[Firewrath9]

If you are going to use it at home, a standard large ATX case should suffice.

if you already have a rack, I’d recc

a 4U rack, prob a cheap one off Newegg.

perhaps check r/homelabsales

[ShadowChaser]

4 minutes ago, Firewrath9 said:

If you are going to use it at home, a standard large ATX case should suffice.

if you already have a rack, I’d recc

a 4U rack, prob a cheap one off Newegg.

perhaps check r/homelabsales

I stack my racks  
I should get a real server rack but I'm building my own to save $$$

I'm buying a used server as it works out to be cheaper anyway once you factor in motherboard, cooler, psu, etc. I don't see myself going above 8 drives and a mirror boot setup is possible with what I'm buying though I won't be using it

[Streetguru]

24 minutes ago, ShadowChaser said:

I really want to get into FreeNAS for our home as I currently just ha

You really don't need that much RAM, 16gbs will be fine.

 

Used servers are nice, but you can also just pick up some used first gen Ryzen parts and they'll be readily avalible and cheap. Just maxes out at the 2400G unless you have a spare GPU to throw in with an R7 1700.

 

The main benifit there is fastest file compressiondecompression to get more out of your hard drives.

 

And don't forget about HGST drives as well.

[ShadowChaser]

5 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

You really don't need that much RAM, 16gbs will be fine.

 

Used servers are nice, but you can also just pick up some used first gen Ryzen parts and they'll be readily avalible and cheap. Just maxes out at the 2400G unless you have a spare GPU to throw in with an R7 1700.

 

The main benifit there is fastest file compressiondecompression to get more out of your hard drives.

 

And don't forget about HGST drives as well.

Intel is better with FreeNAS, also why I want to max out RAM

The 4430 I already have, so it's that or the server  

here the reds and ironwolfs are both $100 a pop so that's what I'm going with. Mixed because failures often stack  

[Streetguru]

Just now, ShadowChaser said:

Intel is better with FreeNAS, also why I want to max out RAM

The 4430 I already have, so it's that or the server  

here the reds and ironwolfs are both $100 a pop so that's what I'm going with. Mixed because failures often stack  

Pretty sure the type of CPU isn't going to matter much, tons of people built Ryzen freeNAS boxes, especially with the potential for ECC support I think.

Just use the i5 in that case, if you can get 32GBs of DDR3 really cheap and the motherboard supports it you might as well have that much I guess.

 

ECC is nice but not nessisary unless you're a production/house business.

[ShadowChaser]

6 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

Pretty sure the type of CPU isn't going to matter much, tons of people built Ryzen freeNAS boxes, especially with the potential for ECC support I think.

Just use the i5 in that case, if you can get 32GBs of DDR3 really cheap and the motherboard supports it you might as well have that much I guess.

 

ECC is nice but not nessisary unless you're a production/house business.

right that was what I thought, too, nothing too critical here!

Still unsure on RAID tho

 

[Streetguru]

2 minutes ago, ShadowChaser said:

right that was what I thought, too, nothing too critical here!

Still unsure on RAID tho

 

You probably want the RAID 5 equivilant, think that's the one for 3-10 or whatever drives.

That way you can recover all the data from the other 3 if only 1 fails.

The level 1 techs forums might be a better place.

 

 

[ShadowChaser]

3 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

You probably want the RAID 5 equivilant, think that's the one for 3-10 or whatever drives.
 

 

I was gonna go with either RAID 10 or RAIDz2, both are two drive redundant (in theory)

It will start out as a 4 drive setup and max is 8

[Windows7ge]

There are some issues here:

Although FreeNAS will run fine on a SSD it can more easily/cheaply be ran off a thumb drive. If resiliency is a concern the boot thumb drive can be ran in RAID1 with another thumb drive.

 

If your intention with the cache SSD is for the network file share don't waste money on it. ZFS doesn't use a cache drive like you think it will for that application. A cache SSD will only accelerate synchronous writes while most/all the operations performed over SMB/CIFS are asynchronous. It will only write data to the SSD as fast as the pool will accept it. If your intention was a read cache that is also not necessary as ZFS uses excess RAM as a read cache.

 

I find the performance of parity RAID on ZFS to be quite acceptable so if you want to the raidz1/raidz2 route you can pick how much redundancy you require and go from there. RAID10 would be best if you really want maximum performance though. Do make sure if you buy expansion cards that they are HBA's and not RAID controllers as ZFS likes direct access to the disks.

 

FreeNAS has a service in the OS that has driver compatibility with many different brand UPS's. It can be configured to power off the server and then power off the UPS.

[ShadowChaser]

5 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

There are some issues here:

Although FreeNAS will run fine on a SSD it can more easily/cheaply be ran off a thumb drive. If resiliency is a concern the boot thumb drive can be ran in RAID1 with another thumb drive.

 

If your intention with the cache SSD is for the network file share don't waste money on it. ZFS doesn't use a cache drive like you think it will for that application. A cache SSD will only accelerate synchronous writes while most/all the operations performed over SMB/CIFS are asynchronous. It will only write data to the SSD as fast as the pool will accept it. If your intention was a read cache that is also not necessary as ZFS uses excess RAM as a read cache.

 

I find the performance of parity RAID on ZFS to be quite acceptable so if you want to the raidz1/raidz2 route you can pick how much redundancy you require and go from there. RAID10 would be best if you really want maximum performance though. Do make sure if you buy expansion cards that they are HBA's and not RAID controllers as ZFS likes direct access to the disks.

 

FreeNAS has a service in the OS that has driver compatibility with many different brand UPS's. It can be configured to power off the server and then power off the UPS.

thanks for clarifying! I just don't want flash drives sticking out where I can bump into them, and the ssd was so cheap that it's worth it over a flash drive imo, ($5? Can't complain)

I can repurpose the SSD, then, so that's good to hear, and while I understand that, it would be nice if I could flush everything onto the cache and shut down my main system without having to wait for the HDDs to accept the data

I will look into compatibility, then, somehow I missed that part so thanks for reminding me!

[Windows7ge]

17 minutes ago, ShadowChaser said:

thanks for clarifying! I just don't want flash drives sticking out where I can bump into them, and the ssd was so cheap that it's worth it over a flash drive imo, ($5? Can't complain)

I can repurpose the SSD, then, so that's good to hear, and while I understand that, it would be nice if I could flush everything onto the cache and shut down my main system without having to wait for the HDDs to accept the data

I will look into compatibility, then, somehow I missed that part so thanks for reminding me!

So long as it didn't cost you much.

 

Do you plan on abruptly cutting power to the server? If not it will finish writing the last chunks of data it receives and start a normal shutdown. Understand FreeNAS is a server OS. They don't turn off very quickly. You could be waiting up to or over a minute so if this was your plan it is all the more unnecessary. If you're concerned about unplanned loss of power ZFS has its own built-in fail-safes to deal with unplanned power loss which help prevent corruption of data in the pool. Of course RAID is not a backup so do make sure you keep an up-to-date copy of everything somewhere else.

 

If you only plan to have 4 disks starting out I would definitely opt for striping with mirrors (RAID10) as oppose to raidz2 (RAID6). The performance will be better.

 

The two largest brands you can look into are APC & Cyberpower. Make sure it comes with the USB Serial cable as that's what tells FreeNAS the status of the battery.

[ShadowChaser]

5 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

So long as it didn't cost you much.

 

Do you plan on abruptly cutting power to the server? If not it will finish writing the last chunks of data it receives and start a normal shutdown. Understand FreeNAS is a server OS. They don't turn off very quickly. You could be waiting up to or over a minute so if this was your plan it is all the more unnecessary. If you're concerned about unplanned loss of power ZFS has it's own built-in fail-safes to deal with unplanned power loss which help prevent corruption of data in the pool. Of course RAID is not a backup so do make sure you keep an up-to-date copy of everything somewhere else.

 

If you only plan to have 4 disks starting out I would definitely opt for striping with mirrors (RAID10) as oppose to raidz2 (RAID6). The performance will be better.

 

The two largest brands you can look into are APC & Cyberpower. Make sure it comes with the USB Serial cable as that's what tells FreeNAS the status of the battery.

I have a UPS already, and I meant after transferring files from desktop to NAS, I'd shut the desktop down. The NAS I foresee leaving on 24/7

 

EDIT cus dump *facepalm*

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, ShadowChaser said:

I have a NAS already, and I meant after transferring files from desktop to NAS, I'd shut the desktop down. The NAS I foresee leaving on 24/7

So you wanted a very fast way to dump files to the server so you can shutdown your desktop sooner?

[ShadowChaser]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

So you wanted a very fast way to dump files to the server so you can shutdown your desktop sooner?

pretty much, yeah. If my old NAS is anything to go by it takes a while. I do have link aggregation so my transfer speeds are great, and I could just dump files and shut down and go to bed/school whatever

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, ShadowChaser said:

pretty much, yeah. If my old NAS is anything to go by it takes a while. I do have link aggregation so my transfer speeds are great, and I could just dump files and shut down and go to bed/school whatever

Link-Aggregation doesn't work like that. You might be referring to Multi-channel. I have to assume if you have or plan to setup a 10Gbit link and assuming your desktop has an SSD of any kind you should be able to write to the server as high as or even over 300MB/s.

[ShadowChaser]

5 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Link-Aggregation doesn't work like that. You might be referring to Multi-channel. I have to assume if you have or plan to setup a 10Gbit link and assuming your desktop has an SSD of any kind you should be able to write to the server as high as or even over 300MB/s.

er, to be honest I did not setup the networking side of things but it is a 3Gbit link (according to my friend who set it up) and it is faster than 1 Gbit

If that isn't link aggregation what is? I was under the impression that joining multiple runs to increase bandwidth was LAG

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, ShadowChaser said:

er, to be honest I did not setup the networking side of things but it is a 3Gbit link (according to my friend who set it up) and it is faster than 1 Gbit

There's quite a few different names for joining multiple physical connections and they all work differently:

Link Aggregation

SMB3.0 Multi-Channel

Bonding

Multi-path

 

There's even more out there, some proprietary, but it's generally known that Link-Aggregation takes traffic from multiple clients and has them share a single virtual link made up of multiple physical cables. No one client can gain the bandwidth exceeding any one cable because of how the traffic gets distributed across the lines.