A NASty Build

[Madmanchris1]

So I'm Building a Nas and thought that people would like to see my progress and build.

 

The reason i'm making this Nas is because I've got quite a lot of media (films) that are only accessible on my main pc. I'm working away a lot so i wanted to be able to view my media from the hotels i'm staying at. I want to make a fairly high grade nas which is also upgrade able.

 

Hardware:

 

Case: Fractal Node 304 (arrived)

 

Mobo/CPU: ASrock C2750D4I  (waiting for it to arrive)

 

Ram: Kingston Technology KVR16E11/8 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz ECC DIMM Memory with Thermal Sensor (arrived) (will expand when needed)

 

PSU: Seasonic SS-250SU 250W ( arrived)

 

HDD: WD Reds 6 x 3TB (going to buy Friday)

 

 

For my OS i will be using freenas. i'l go into detail about how to install it with ipmi and will go over a lot of the features of the board. 

If there's anything you'd like me to test or take pictures of let me know in the comments.

 

This is basically going to be about my experience with installing a nas from a beginners perspective and the problems i face. il update this as much as i can but i'm only home on the weekends.

 

All my components should arrive by Friday and i don't get home till Friday so i cant take any pictures until then.

 

 

[loccilucas]

ohh look forward to it, I love NAS builds

[WinNut]

subbed

[EpicGeekonFire]

Can't wait, but I heard the 3tb variants were really unreliable just to notify ya.

[antoainb]

Cool!

[iceberg]

This looks like it will be interesting!

[Madmanchris1]

Can't wait, but I heard the 3tb variants were really unreliable just to notify ya.

yeah i've heard most 3TB arent that reliable i'm only going to buy one or two drives at first so i'm going to see how i get on with them and then buy more if there any good. 

[Bagmup]

Been thinking about building something like this...subbed

[Madmanchris1]

Its all arrived! 

 

So all my components have arrived, i still haven't bought the HDD's yet though as i got back from work too late.

I'm going to buy two 3TB WD red's tomorrow though. 

My motherboard got sent to the wrong address which was annoying to say the least. 

 

Pictures

Spent way to long taking these.

 

 

Here's something i acquired in work as well as a few wall ports and back box's. i'm going to do some re-wiring of my existing things (cat5) and change my router to a more optimal place and might look into some switches. 

 

Its getting late for me now so I'm going to do my build guide tomorrow once I've fully built my system and got it up and running. 

I'll go into more detail about why I chose each part and how i plan to set up my Nas with schematics of network cables and connected computers. 

 

Does anyone know how i can link this post to my original one to make it easier for people to view?

[antoainb]

Its all arrived! 

 

So all my components have arrived, i still haven't bought the HDD's yet though as i got back from work too late.

I'm going to buy two 3TB WD red's tomorrow though. 

My motherboard got sent to the wrong address which was annoying to say the least. 

 

Pictures

Spent way to long taking these.

 

 

Here's something i acquired in work as well as a few wall ports and back box's. i'm going to do some re-wiring of my existing things (cat5) and change my router to a more optimal place and might look into some switches. 

 

Its getting late for me now so I'm going to do my build guide tomorrow once I've fully built my system and got it up and running. 

I'll go into more detail about why I chose each part and how i plan to set up my Nas with schematics of network cables and connected computers. 

 

Does anyone know how i can link this post to my original one to make it easier for people to view?

 

Cool!

[SAV1OUR]

@Vitalius you will like this

[Vitalius]

Vitalius you will like this

Ah Yus, enterprise level storage.

[Madmanchris1]

So today i bought one 3TB HDD WD red, they only had one in stock .

 

I'm going to use this weekend setting up and configuring all the bios setting and IPMI and network bonding. 

I've finished building my system. This isn't going to be the finished build though. I'm going to install six 3TB HDD's and 24GB of ECC Ram.

I'm going to be using this as more of a test system whilst I learn and get comfortable with using Freenas (and lose my data like a 1000 times aha!)

 

 

The Build

 

With the case i rewired some of the fans to make the wires a bit nicer. 

I removed the USB 3.0 and audio jacks because the cables were quite big and i didn't need to use them.  

When the new Noctua black fans come out i might install some and get some for my gaming rig as well.

 

The build went well they only gripe i have is that the power supply hasn't got a good way of fixing it down I'm going to have to use some zip ties. The Intel sata ports are directly under the 140mm fan as well so they're going to be a bit tricky to install more than one. There is vents on the side's that I might block up as to create better airflow over the HDD's and heat sink. 

 

I'm going to update soon with bios setting IPMI setting and i will put the useful links that i used as there isn't much documentation in the box. 

[antoainb]

So today i bought one 3TB HDD WD red, they only had one in stock .

 

I'm going to use this weekend setting up and configuring all the bios setting and IPMI and network bonding. 

I've finished building my system. This isn't going to be the finished build though. I'm going to install six 3TB HDD's and 24GB of ECC Ram.

I'm going to be using this as more of a test system whilst I learn and get comfortable with using Freenas (and lose my data like a 1000 times aha!)

 

 

The Build

 

With the case i rewired some of the fans to make the wires a bit nicer. 

I removed the USB 3.0 and audio jacks because the cables were quite big and i didn't need to use them.  

When the new Noctua black fans come out i might install some and get some for my gaming rig as well.

 

The build went well they only gripe i have is that the power supply hasn't got a good way of fixing it down I'm going to have to use some zip ties. The Intel sata ports are directly under the 140mm fan as well so they're going to be a bit tricky to install more than one. There is vents on the side's that I might block up as to create better airflow over the HDD's and heat sink. 

 

I'm going to update soon with bios setting IPMI setting and i will put the useful links that i used as there isn't much documentation in the box. 

 

Looks good! But the black Noctua fans are going to cost you... You might aswell get the current ones since you won't be looking at them.

[Madmanchris1]

Looks good! But the black Noctua fans are going to cost you... You might aswell get the current ones since you won't be looking at them.

 

Hmm that's true, is there any other difference except the colour?

also I'm a bit shallow and want it to look nice, and the cost doesn't matter when your only buying a few. 

[antoainb]

Hmm that's true, is there any other difference except the colour?

also I'm a bit shallow and want it to look nice, and the cost doesn't matter when your only buying a few. 

 

They are I think more resistant and they are faster/louder.

[Madmanchris1]

They are I think more resistant and they are faster/louder.

Thanks,

Hmm I don't want louder. The fans that come in the case are really quiet even on high settings. 

[antoainb]

Thanks,

Hmm I don't want louder. The fans that come in the case are really quiet even on high settings. 

 

They're only louder if you push them to the max rpm.

[Madmanchris1]

They're only louder if you push them to the max rpm.

Hmm have they got a release date in Europe yet? 

 

EDIT: There available at over clockers UK just out of stock . 

[Madmanchris1]

So this is just a quick one to see what people would like to see.

I'm tempted to do a video to show how to set up ipmi (was easy but took a while to find out how to do it on Google)

would you like to see more of how to install freenas and how to set it up? ( still heavily learning though).

would you guys like to see all the bios options of this sever grade motherboard there's a lot. 

 

I'm my quick file test I've reached speeds of 97MB/s 

 

I'm going to do a proper update id just like to see what people would like to see most so I can focus more on that. there is so many different aspects to this build I cant learn all of it haha!  

[Madmanchris1]

So in work I've just been told I'm moving to a different location again, but its not all bad news its closer to my GF's so were going to move in together and I'm going to travel 120 miles to work . So this means my Nas is going to take a little bit longer to get it to the level I want as I'm only moving it once I've found an apartment. 

I'm still going to update this as much as I can but it wont be for a little while just until I get things sorted. 

 

LOG:

 

Setting up Base:

So the main reason I got the Fractal case is because it suits my furniture and fits perfectly.

I bought a 10M Coaxial cable to extend my router. I drilled a few holes in the walls and fished it though now my router sits in the centre of my house and I have great signal everywhere. Its now sitting right on top of my Nas. I made custom cables for this as I don't like loads of excess cables. I also rewired the cable to my living room which ran under my carpet and i had to move tons of my stuff just to pull it up that has now been wired properly. 

Anyone who has made custom Ethernet cables knows how frustrating it can be to get the colours to line up!!! but i think i did quite a good job it clamps on the sleeve anyway. 

Pictures

 

 

BIOS:

The bios or UEFI on this mobo is amazing. there is so many options I didn't dare to click to many of them as I don't have a clue what half of them do. 

Sol is Serial Over Lan this is the IPMI interface. This is disabled by default. To configure this follow this instruction here ( you will need to plug an Ethernet cable into the single port as this is the dedicated Sol port).

To be honest I doubt that many home users will use many if any of the additional UEFI features, I only used the Ghetto screen to configure the Sol and I haven't used that interface since I did it. 

PICTURES OF BIOS/UEFI:

 

 

IPMI:

Well this is an amazing feature! like seriously I can not get over how cool this is! 

If you don't know what this is click here but its basically a tiny pc that runs off the power your psu gives out even when the system is off. and you can connect to this via a serial port ( I think) or how I do which is through Lan (Sol). 

You can configure loads of settings through this and monitor system health. 

You can do a console redirect which means you can be on that PC from the PC that you are currently on and control things. 

I installed freenas using this console redirect. you have to download a viewer and then you can mount a iso and the bios detects this and asked if I would like to boot from this and then i installed it to a sandisk usb 8GB. 

The one problem with this was that i had to update java and then go into java settings and add a setting that basically ignores all security from the selected ip address which is the dedicated ipmi for my nas. here's the link I used. The mobo uses a self signed ssl cert which java considers a threat and doest let you use console redirect or even tell you its blocked. 

Also the orignal settings to get into ipmi are USERNAME: admin PASSWORD: admin . I suggest you CHANGE THESE or disconnect the ipmi Ethernet. 

 

Pictures

 

Let me know what you think. 

don't be afraid to ask questions if I didn't explain enough. 

[alpenwasser]

Just paging @MG2R in case he hasn't seen this yet and might be

interested.

Also: Yes, IPMI freaking rocks!