My first FreeNAS build

[Noose]

Hi, this will be my first FreeNAS build and I'm wondering what you guys think of the parts I have chosen. 

 

 

MoBo:ASRock C2550D4I Mini ITX  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157419

 

RAM: Kingston 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) ECC   http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=0B1-00KT-00023

 

Case: Fractal Node 304 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352027&cm_re=fractal_node_304-_-11-352-027-_-Product

 

PSU: Be Quiet Pure Power L8 CM 430W http://www.amazon.co.uk/Be-Quiet-Pure-Power-L8-CM/dp/B005JRGVAW

 

OS storage: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 16GB

 

HDD: 2 x WD RED 4TB (already bought)

 

 

[Gilbert_Sarip]

It's good,

are you planing to do raid?

[Noose]

Yep, planning on doing RAID, ZFS. 

[Elliott Game]

alot of RAM for a NAS

[vorticalbox]

alot of RAM for a NAS

freenas recommends 1GB per 1TB of HD space. which makes it the perfect ram to HD ratio

[Noose]

freenas recommends 1GB per 1TB of HD space. which makes it the perfect ram to HD ratio

Does that include the RAM freenas OS uses? So 8gb is ok for 8tb + freenas OS?

[Suerlink]

Does that include the RAM freenas OS uses? So 8gb is ok for 8tb + freenas OS?

Yeah the OS is very lightweight so the RAM size is perfect.  

[vorticalbox]

Does that include the RAM freenas OS uses? So 8gb is ok for 8tb + freenas OS?

as said the OS is very light weight. I would suggest you ruin it from a USB as the driver it is installed on can't be used for storage. I guess if you partitioned it you could less hassle to just USB it.

[Noose]

Ok thanks! Yeah, will use a USB for OS storage. Just ordered, can't wait!

[wpirobotbuilder]

Ok thanks! Yeah, will use a USB for OS storage. Just ordered, can't wait!

I would actually recommend a regular SSD. The main reason being that you will have to replace the USB drive every so often as the flash NAND wears out, because USB drives don't wear level writes across their NAND. Installing on an SSD guarantees that it will last much longer. It will also give you a slight loading time boost, which is always nice.

[Noose]

Ok, thanks, a future upgrade then. Can't afford an ssd right now.

[vorticalbox]

I would actually recommend a regular SSD. The main reason being that you will have to replace the USB drive every so often as the flash NAND wears out, because USB drives don't wear level writes across their NAND. Installing on an SSD guarantees that it will last much longer. It will also give you a slight loading time boost, which is always nice.

true but then you are increasing the costs rather a lot a 4GB USB can hold the OS and costs a tiny amount of what a 30-60GB SSD would cost.

 

you could get about 10 4GB USB for the cost of an SSD and bet that would last longer in the long run.

[wpirobotbuilder]

true but then you are increasing the costs rather a lot a 4GB USB can hold the OS and costs a tiny amount of what a 30-60GB SSD would cost.

 

you could get about 10 4GB USB for the cost of an SSD and bet that would last longer in the long run.

It would cost more, true. It's a tradeoff between reliability/maintenance and cost.

[vorticalbox]

It would cost more, true. It's a tradeoff between reliability/maintenance and cost.

TBH i would probally just get a cheap SSD in there just because i'm lazy.

[Noose]

Have any of you ever tried too use SSD's as write/read cache on FreeNas?

[Elliott Game]

freenas recommends 1GB per 1TB of HD space. which makes it the perfect ram to HD ratio

oh ok

[algoat]

I would actually recommend a regular SSD. The main reason being that you will have to replace the USB drive every so often as the flash NAND wears out, because USB drives don't wear level writes across their NAND. Installing on an SSD guarantees that it will last much longer. It will also give you a slight loading time boost, which is always nice.

This for sure. If you look at my freeNAS link in my sig, it has a patriot usb stick for the OS. After about a year of wear and tear, it was done. I couldn't even reload the software on it. I now have my old Intel 40gb SSD in the machine and no issues so far.

[wpirobotbuilder]

Have any of you ever tried too use SSD's as write/read cache on FreeNas?

It's not at all useful, unless you're literally using all of your RAM. Installing a secondary read cache uses up some of your memory, which is already being used as a cache, and thus you might actually lose performance.

The benefit comes in when you have so much data (think many tens of GB) that needs to be accessed quickly that, normally, it would have to pull some things from the disk because it can't fit everything into system memory. In this case, a secondary cache will help you, because while some of that data is in memory (which is faster), the rest won't be on the disk, but rather in the SSD.

 

TL;DR -- not useful unless you have monstrous workloads.

[Noose]

It's not at all useful, unless you're literally using all of your RAM. Installing a secondary read cache uses up some of your memory, which is already being used as a cache, and thus you might actually lose performance.

The benefit comes in when you have so much data (think many tens of GB) that needs to be accessed quickly that, normally, it would have to pull some things from the disk because it can't fit everything into system memory. In this case, a secondary cache will help you, because while some of that data is in memory (which is faster), the rest won't be on the disk, but rather in the SSD.

 

TL;DR -- not useful unless you have monstrous workloads.

 

Ok, thanks!

[rtpb5642]

Any reason you wouldnt go RHEL and get webmin installed? its much better (i use this config)

[Noose]

So the server is built and it's dead quiet Read speed: 95MB/s and write 105MB/s. Im pretty happy with that

[Lachlan2104]

Hey im planning to build a home server... Can you guys pick this to pieces for me?

 

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/87VCxr

 

Thanks