Where to look for server components.

[Vittorio]

Hello 

 

I've recently been looking into building a NAS and there is so much info, I hardly know where to start!

 

Basically, if I want to go with ECC memory it seems like you need to look into server hardware rather than general consumer stuff that you can piece together on PCPartPicker. 

My budget is around $3000 AUD and would really like to build the most reliable and stable system I can. Where do you look for where to purchase this sort of hardware and find

compatibility info?

 

Also, would appreciate if you could point me towards any good reasoures for NAS/server stuff in general.

[emosun]

Are you going to be doing a task that requires ecc memory? A nas doesn't require/take advantage of that

[LIGISTX]

30 minutes ago, Vittorio said:

Hello 

 

I've recently been looking into building a NAS and there is so much info, I hardly know where to start!

 

Basically, if I want to go with ECC memory it seems like you need to look into server hardware rather than general consumer stuff that you can piece together on PCPartPicker. 

My budget is around $3000 AUD and would really like to build the most reliable and stable system I can. Where do you look for where to purchase this sort of hardware and find

compatibility info?

 

Also, would appreciate if you could point me towards any good reasoures for NAS/server stuff in general.

eBay…. I buy lots of my server gear used on eBay. Great way to end up 4-5 years behind current gen, but still get server grade parts that really do last forever. 
 

17 minutes ago, emosun said:

Are you going to be doing a task that requires ecc memory? A nas doesn't require/take advantage of that

Sort of. It doesn’t require ECC, but if your data integrity is important to you, and it’s data you want to still have forever, ECC can help protect against corruption. It’s not required, but in the scheme of things it’s not all that much money. I got 16 GB sticks of ddr4 2133 reg memory on eBay foe 30 bucks a stick; the hard part is the mobo and cpu need to support it, which means server mobo and Xeon (some consumer stuff supports ECC as well, but, typically easier to just go server parts at this point). 
 

So while ECC is not needed, it’s certainly never a bad idea. 

[LIGISTX]

38 minutes ago, Vittorio said:

Hello 

 

I've recently been looking into building a NAS and there is so much info, I hardly know where to start!

 

Basically, if I want to go with ECC memory it seems like you need to look into server hardware rather than general consumer stuff that you can piece together on PCPartPicker. 

My budget is around $3000 AUD and would really like to build the most reliable and stable system I can. Where do you look for where to purchase this sort of hardware and find

compatibility info?

 

Also, would appreciate if you could point me towards any good reasoures for NAS/server stuff in general.

I should have also said, I’d check out truenas forums, even if your not going to try and go that route. They do have good explanations and hardware lists. This forum is also helpful if you have specific questions. 
 

What I do, and did for my current homelab which has NAS functionality within in via truenas, I figured out what platform I wanted (socket 2011 v2, or is it v3? Yea it’s confusing your not wrong) since it was current gen enough to be good performance clock for clock, not horrible efficiency, and good used prices. Then I found a specific mobo that worked for me, then CPU and RAM that work with said mobo. 

[Vittorio]

1 hour ago, emosun said:

Are you going to be doing a task that requires ecc memory? A nas doesn't require/take advantage of that

 

1 hour ago, LIGISTX said:

eBay…. I buy lots of my server gear used on eBay. Great way to end up 4-5 years behind current gen, but still get server grade parts that really do last forever. 
 

Sort of. It doesn’t require ECC, but if your data integrity is important to you, and it’s data you want to still have forever, ECC can help protect against corruption. It’s not required, but in the scheme of things it’s not all that much money. I got 16 GB sticks of ddr4 2133 reg memory on eBay foe 30 bucks a stick; the hard part is the mobo and cpu need to support it, which means server mobo and Xeon (some consumer stuff supports ECC as well, but, typically easier to just go server parts at this point). 
 

So while ECC is not needed, it’s certainly never a bad idea. 

The brief research i've done seems to say that its not 100% necessary and that it is not the only thing that can cause damage to the data, but that it is recommended. My primary source of this info is TrueNAS, which is definately one of my main alternatives at the moment. I want to make reliability my top priority and it sounds like ZFS is some of the better or atleast most common options for this.

 

I will checkout ebay, seems like ill have to be careful with part compatibility.

[LIGISTX]

4 minutes ago, Vittorio said:

 

The brief research i've done seems to say that its not 100% necessary and that it is not the only thing that can cause damage to the data, but that it is recommended. My primary source of this info is TrueNAS, which is definately one of my main alternatives at the moment. I want to make reliability my top priority and it sounds like ZFS is some of the better or atleast most common options for this.

 

I will checkout ebay, seems like ill have to be careful with part compatibility.

ZFS is certainly the best file system for reliability as it will work the hardest of them all at keeping corruption out of the array. And to go along with this, ECC is part of the equation. ECC will not magically make it better or lack of it magically make it worse, but it will fully complete the reliability chain. 
 

ZFS checksums your data, and if a checksum doesn’t match, it will go to parity drives to determine what the data should have been, this is why you want at least Z2; that gives it two sources to compare against, and more importantly, if a single drive dies, you still have a second that can fail during a resilver (this has happened to me…..) before your up a creek without a paddle. 
 

ECC does something similar but within the RAM itself, AND between the CPU memory controller and the RAM; so while the data is in transit. This just helps make sure the data that was sent to your truenas machine is correctly written to disc, like I said, the entire chain is error checked start to finish. 
 

And for price reference, the homelab in my signature, I got the mobo for 220, cpu for 75, RAM for 160, nvme ssd riser card (which I needed to use NVMe in my generation of mobo) for 30, and a nice noctua cooler for 70. So all in all, for 28 relatively fast threads and 64GB of ECC RAM……. Imo not a bad price. All on eBay (except for the noctua cooler, I ordered that new from Amazon). 

[Vittorio]

3 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

ZFS is certainly the best file system for reliability as it will work the hardest of them all at keeping corruption out of the array. And to go along with this, ECC is part of the equation. ECC will not magically make it better or lack of it magically make it worse, but it will fully complete the reliability chain. 
 

ZFS checksums your data, and if a checksum doesn’t match, it will go to parity drives to determine what the data should have been, this is why you want at least Z2; that gives it two sources to compare against, and more importantly, if a single drive dies, you still have a second that can fail during a resilver (this has happened to me…..) before your up a creek without a paddle. 
 

ECC does something similar but within the RAM itself, AND between the CPU memory controller and the RAM; so while the data is in transit. This just helps make sure the data that was sent to your truenas machine is correctly written to disc, like I said, the entire chain is error checked start to finish. 
 

And for price reference, the homelab in my signature, I got the mobo for 220, cpu for 75, RAM for 160, nvme ssd riser card (which I needed to use NVMe in my generation of mobo) for 30, and a nice noctua cooler for 70. So all in all, for 28 relatively fast threads and 64GB of ECC RAM……. Imo not a bad price. All on eBay (except for the noctua cooler, I ordered that new from Amazon). 

It sounds like mobo is the more diffcult compontents to choose. I am curious how much time you put into researching the mobo. CPU and RAM seem straight forward enough, seems like as long as its 2+ core and 8GB+ RAM your good for a personal NAS.

[LIGISTX]

8 hours ago, Vittorio said:

It sounds like mobo is the more diffcult compontents to choose. I am curious how much time you put into researching the mobo. CPU and RAM seem straight forward enough, seems like as long as its 2+ core and 8GB+ RAM your good for a personal NAS.

If your running truenas, get 16GB at a minimum. How much storage space do you plan on having?

 

I spent a few days trying to figure out what mobo would work best for my needs, and wasn’t to expensive. 

[wseaton]

I hate to be honest, but your greatest point of failure is storing your stuff on a home server. Just going by statistics.

 

I've been working in data centers for decades. Netware, Fat/NtFS, Linux, etc. You can yack about the virtues of Linux based file systems all you want. When it comes down to the brass tacks it will be a hardware level event or ransonware that will cost you data. File system is my least concern. 

 

ECC is nice for virtual machine hosting or heavy transactional servers. For file servers....meh.  Data isn't stored long enough in RAM for an errant cosmic ray to flip it. Too many other parity checks in the path as well.

 

For 1Gb networks I will stick to Synology, etc. DIY benefits higher speeds. I would rather spend my budget on a cloud backup. 

 

Make sure you budget for proper UPS backups. Next to shoddy RAID controllers (pure Linux based software RAID gets my respect) hard power faults are next on my list for data corruption. Old server gear is a power hog as well, which limits battery backup time and whyvI discourage it.

 

Also get into a routine of monitoring your NAS. Cough Linus storage meltdown cough. 

 

[LIGISTX]

3 hours ago, wseaton said:

I hate to be honest, but your greatest point of failure is storing your stuff on a home server. Just going by statistics.

 

I've been working in data centers for decades. Netware, Fat/NtFS, Linux, etc. You can yack about the virtues of Linux based file systems all you want. When it comes down to the brass tacks it will be a hardware level event or ransonware that will cost you data. File system is my least concern. 

 

ECC is nice for virtual machine hosting or heavy transactional servers. For file servers....meh.  Data isn't stored long enough in RAM for an errant cosmic ray to flip it. Too many other parity checks in the path as well.

 

For 1Gb networks I will stick to Synology, etc. DIY benefits higher speeds. I would rather spend my budget on a cloud backup. 

 

Make sure you budget for proper UPS backups. Next to shoddy RAID controllers (pure Linux based software RAID gets my respect) hard power faults are next on my list for data corruption. Old server gear is a power hog as well, which limits battery backup time and whyvI discourage it.

 

Also get into a routine of monitoring your NAS. Cough Linus storage meltdown cough. 

 

I agree with most of this. The first three rules of RAID are: RAID IS NOT A BACKUP. Cloud backup all critical stuff is a must, and thankfully truenas has B2 integration built right in. Multiple times a week my NAS shovels data over to the depth of backblaze B2, hopefully never to be seen again....

 

I still support ECC, the cost isn't very high if you  go used, and it just helps ensure everything is nice and happy. Is it needed? No, its definitely not needed. But if you are already building a server, might as well just do it right. But this also depends on the person, the need, and what they value. I run a nice little homelab, and I would rather spend a few extra bucks on the ECC capable mobo and average that cost out over potentially 6-8 years (my last homelab lasted 6 before I upgraded to this one recently), the cost is negligible. Electricity costs are a factor though, especially with ever increasing cost of power................. I live in San Diego, highest cost of power in the entire US, and it just went up like 30%... I am starting to question my need for this much power, but in the end a good chunk of it is just the spinning rust anyways, unfortunately.

 

But, cloud backup is for sure required if anyone actually cares about their data. Also, theoretically ransomware isn't a big concern either, ZFS snapshots are great for that. I guess if they are able to lift my keys.... log into my truenas box which has its webUI on a different subnet, etc etc, and delete my snapshots........ eh, I just try not to worry about that that much.

[Vittorio]

22 hours ago, wseaton said:

I hate to be honest, but your greatest point of failure is storing your stuff on a home server. Just going by statistics.

 

I've been working in data centers for decades. Netware, Fat/NtFS, Linux, etc. You can yack about the virtues of Linux based file systems all you want. When it comes down to the brass tacks it will be a hardware level event or ransonware that will cost you data. File system is my least concern. 

 

ECC is nice for virtual machine hosting or heavy transactional servers. For file servers....meh.  Data isn't stored long enough in RAM for an errant cosmic ray to flip it. Too many other parity checks in the path as well.

 

For 1Gb networks I will stick to Synology, etc. DIY benefits higher speeds. I would rather spend my budget on a cloud backup. 

 

Make sure you budget for proper UPS backups. Next to shoddy RAID controllers (pure Linux based software RAID gets my respect) hard power faults are next on my list for data corruption. Old server gear is a power hog as well, which limits battery backup time and whyvI discourage it.

 

Also get into a routine of monitoring your NAS. Cough Linus storage meltdown cough. 

 

Hey, thanks for the reply!

 

Look, to be honest iam aware that anything I setup will fall short of using a proper cloud storage provider (which i currently use dropbox). Even with whatever I setup id probably still continue to use some professional service as well. So i guess my main reasons for doing it is for having a feeling of greater control over my digital life and for the fun of it! 

 

One thing I didn't fully consider, which you mentioned is the power costs of server hardware. If its going to be considerably more that general consumer stuff then maybe that'll mean a change of plans for me. UPS is also something i've thought about but not to any great length.

 

And yea I watched that video on linus's not too long ago, maintenance and monitoring is definately a part of the whole process not just set and forget.

[Needfuldoer]

7 hours ago, Vittorio said:

One thing I didn't fully consider, which you mentioned is the power costs of server hardware. If its going to be considerably more that general consumer stuff then maybe that'll mean a change of plans for me.

How long would it take for the more efficient gear to pay for its higher price in power savings?

 

My home server is a Dell R720xd with twelve WD Red Plus 3.5" hard drives, 256 gigs of RAM, and a GPU. It idles at around 200 watts, measured at the wall with a Kill-a-Watt. (More than half of that is just keeping the drives spinning. If I pull all the drives it idles at around 75 watts, but that's kinda pointless.)

 

For me, the electricity to leave it running 24/7 costs about $20/mo. All the parts (minus storage) cost around $400.

 

It's far more powerful than a 12 bay Synology, which would've cost about $2,000. I can run this thing for over six years before the server's power consumption cost breaks even with the Synology's purchase price, not counting its own power consumption. I also considered building a whitebox around a 2011-3 motherboard or one of those relatively cheap Supermicro Epyc bundles off eBay, but it would take years for those solutions to pay for themselves in power savings too.

[Vittorio]

18 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

My home server is a Dell R720xd with twelve WD Red Plus 3.5" hard drives, 256 gigs of RAM, and a GPU. It idles at around 200 watts, measured at the wall with a Kill-a-Watt. (More than half of that is just keeping the drives spinning. If I pull all the drives it idles at around 75 watts, but that's kinda pointless.)

So it seems like the drivers make up a big portion of the power draw. I am currently looking at only running a few drives and a lot less ram.