NAS Solution

[TheCaptain53]

So, I recently posted about backing up using a NAS. Someone suggested building one using FreeNAS, and after an initial look, I'm hooked. Looks really interesting. I would like some pointers, though.

1. I would like a 6 bay mini ITX chassis to use for the NAS (hot swappable doesn't bother me, but it would be nice). Anyone know one that isn't too expensive?
2. I was initially thinking of using two 3TB WD Reds in a RAID 1 array and then upgrading later on to a RAID 5 array. This does mean I would have to wipe the hard drives before moving to the other RAID, but I'm okay with that. Would it be okay doing it through the motherboard or is a RAID card recommended? On the subject of motherboards...
3. What do you guys recommend for the motherboard and CPU? I'm not too savvy on this subject (with respect to storage) so have no idea what is required/recommended.
4. I have a 40GB SSD lying around. Would this be enough for the FreeNAS OS?
5. Is it worth building my own NAS in the first place or should I just buy a pre-built solution?

Thanks for the help.

[TheCaptain53]

Bump

[scottyseng]

So, I recently posted about backing up using a NAS. Someone suggested building one using FreeNAS, and after an initial look, I'm hooked. Looks really interesting. I would like some pointers, though.

1. I would like a 6 bay mini ITX chassis to use for the NAS (hot swappable doesn't bother me, but it would be nice). Anyone know one that isn't too expensive?
2. I was initially thinking of using two 3TB WD Reds in a RAID 1 array and then upgrading later on to a RAID 5 array. This does mean I would have to wipe the hard drives before moving to the other RAID, but I'm okay with that. Would it be okay doing it through the motherboard or is a RAID card recommended? On the subject of motherboards...
3. What do you guys recommend for the motherboard and CPU? I'm not too savvy on this subject (with respect to storage) so have no idea what is required/recommended.
4. I have a 40GB SSD lying around. Would this be enough for the FreeNAS OS?
5. Is it worth building my own NAS in the first place or should I just buy a pre-built solution?

Thanks for the help.

 

The chassis is very up to your taste. Some cases I that I've seen are the Cooler Master stacker (The module for M-ITX and hard drives).

 

If you are using FreeNAS, you do not need RAID. RAID / RAID cards is more for Windows based NAS servers. FreeNAS prefers direct connection to the hard drives individually, so you're fine with the ports on the motherboard. In FreeNAS, you deal with the ZFS levels, Z1, Z2...etc. I don't know if you can expand a ZFS array.

 

If the motherboard doesn't have enough ports, you can get a HBA card such as the LSI 9300-8i or some used ones from ebay (I got a used Dell HBA for $50 to test my hard drives).

 

CPU, I would say a basic i3 or Pentium haswell. You don't need anything high powered. I would recommend getting ECC RAM and a Cxxx based Intel series chipset motherboard (Intel's enterprise lineup). The other option is a all in one board, the Intel Avoton boards.

 

Hard drive, I would say to get a WD Red drive. They run quiet and cool. As always, test the hard drives first before putting them in any array (Make sure you have no DOA drives).

 

UPS - Make sure you get a battery backup unit of some kind as you do not want your FreeNAS to lose power suddenly. APC is the preferred brand.

 

Make sure the CPU has a iGPU or you have some GPU for it.

 

The 40GB SSD is more than enough, most people use 8 or 16GB flash drives for FreeNAS.

 

I would say it's worth it. Unless it's just a single drive backup, then I would say get some WD Mybook or something.

[TheCaptain53]

The chassis is very up to your taste. Some cases I that I've seen are the Cooler Master stacker (The module for M-ITX and hard drives).

 

If you are using FreeNAS, you do not need RAID. RAID / RAID cards is more for Windows based NAS servers. FreeNAS prefers direct connection to the hard drives individually, so you're fine with the ports on the motherboard. In FreeNAS, you deal with the ZFS levels, Z1, Z2...etc. I don't know if you can expand a ZFS array.

 

If the motherboard doesn't have enough ports, you can get a HBA card such as the LSI 9300-8i or some used ones from ebay (I got a used Dell HBA for $50 to test my hard drives).

 

CPU, I would say a basic i3 or Pentium haswell. You don't need anything high powered. I would recommend getting ECC RAM and a Cxxx based Intel series chipset motherboard (Intel's enterprise lineup). The other option is a all in one board, the Intel Avoton boards.

 

Hard drive, I would say to get a WD Red drive. They run quiet and cool. As always, test the hard drives first before putting them in any array (Make sure you have no DOA drives).

 

UPS - Make sure you get a battery backup unit of some kind as you do not want your FreeNAS to lose power suddenly. APC is the preferred brand.

 

Make sure the CPU has a iGPU or you have some GPU for it.

 

The 40GB SSD is more than enough, most people use 8 or 16GB flash drives for FreeNAS.

 

I would say it's worth it. Unless it's just a single drive backup, then I would say get some WD Mybook or something.

With regards to expandability, what way would you go about it? I'm thinking of starting off small, but I want to be able to expand my storage later on when and if I need it. As ZFS cannot do this (or at least I'm under the impression that it cannot), what method would you recommend to give the ability to expand a parity array such as RAID 5?

 

Also, do you know of any guides on building a NAS?

[zwierzyn]

So, I recently posted about backing up using a NAS. Someone suggested building one using FreeNAS, and after an initial look, I'm hooked. Looks really interesting. I would like some pointers, though.

1. I would like a 6 bay mini ITX chassis to use for the NAS (hot swappable doesn't bother me, but it would be nice). Anyone know one that isn't too expensive?
2. I was initially thinking of using two 3TB WD Reds in a RAID 1 array and then upgrading later on to a RAID 5 array. This does mean I would have to wipe the hard drives before moving to the other RAID, but I'm okay with that. Would it be okay doing it through the motherboard or is a RAID card recommended? On the subject of motherboards...
3. What do you guys recommend for the motherboard and CPU? I'm not too savvy on this subject (with respect to storage) so have no idea what is required/recommended.
4. I have a 40GB SSD lying around. Would this be enough for the FreeNAS OS?
5. Is it worth building my own NAS in the first place or should I just buy a pre-built solution?

Thanks for the help.

 

1. If your are going for mini ITX to be as small as possible than your going to be looking at a bit more expensive case. I would recommend the Fractal Design Node 304 if you want a small physical foot print. If you want cheaper but dont mind the extra size go with a NZXT 210 (currently have one and its got plenty of room to expand) or Thermaltake. Keep in mind the smaller mobo will also limit card expansion for controllers (will be pci-e most likely) and additional NICs if needed.

 

2. I would bite the bullet and get the third drive now, hold off a week or two to do the build if needed, It'll save you the headache later. Im not sure how to migrate from RAID 0 to RAID 5 (RAID-Z in freeNAS), check the FreeNAS forums for that specifically.

 

3. If this is going to store important data than go with a mobo that supports ECC. Filter it on newegg for something with ECC and than look at how many sata headers they come with/ price. Its not 100% vital to have ECC but if its critical data than its better to be safe than sorry down the road. As for the controllerr, no need to buy a one yet, get it once you move up the HDD count.

 

4. I would use the SSD for cache or log to improve write-to performance. FreeNAS can be installed onto a USB and it only pulls the OS on boot from the USB and is ran off of the RAM for the remainder. I like to get a small USB header to USB port cable and just have the key tucked away inside the unit. 

 

5. If its home I say build to be able to learn/ it gives you more flexibility down the road. If this is going to be for work get a Synology or QNAP unit just to be safe.

[TheCaptain53]

1. If your are going for mini ITX to be as small as possible than your going to be looking at a bit more expensive case. I would recommend the Fractal Design Node 304 if you want a small physical foot print. If you want cheaper but dont mind the extra size go with a NZXT 210 (currently have one and its got plenty of room to expand) or Thermaltake. Keep in mind the smaller mobo will also limit card expansion for controllers (will be pci-e most likely) and additional NICs if needed.

 

2. I would bite the bullet and get the third drive now, hold off a week or two to do the build if needed, It'll save you the headache later. Im not sure how to migrate from RAID 0 to RAID 5 (RAID-Z in freeNAS), check the FreeNAS forums for that specifically.

 

3. If this is going to store important data than go with a mobo that supports ECC. Filter it on newegg for something with ECC and than look at how many sata headers they come with/ price. Its not 100% vital to have ECC but if its critical data than its better to be safe than sorry down the road. As for the controllerr, no need to buy a one yet, get it once you move up the HDD count.

 

4. I would use the SSD for cache or log to improve write-to performance. FreeNAS can be installed onto a USB and it only pulls the OS on boot from the USB and is ran off of the RAM for the remainder. I like to get a small USB header to USB port cable and just have the key tucked away inside the unit. 

 

5. If its home I say build to be able to learn/ it gives you more flexibility down the road. If this is going to be for work get a Synology or QNAP unit just to be safe.

I would like to build a compact NAS, but if it is overly expensive, I'll settle for an mATX solution, that's also fine.

 

I was planning on getting some 3TB WD Reds as they're £85 each on Amazon. I'd be willing to pay £170 for a little bit of redundancy, but I may start off with one hard drive with no redundancy, then add two drives later on to build a RAID 5. It's not the most cost effective way, but it means I'll have learnt something new.

 

Nothing critical is going on the NAS, just my PC back up and general storage which is an OS, some games and music. Nothing mission critical. Losing it would be inconvenient, but not crippling, so I don't feel the need to spend the extra.

 

This is also to feed my enthusiasm, if it's stupidly more expensive than a pre-built solution, then I'll forget it. 

[michrech]

As for the hardware you'll need, I had a couple questions that I hadn't seen asked by the previous posters:

 

• If it will *only* be file storage, and *nothing else*, I'd suggest a pre-built NAS (Synology, QNap, etc, etc).  You'll get a nice small footprint, it'll be pretty energy efficient (compared to a full blown PC), and it'll generally do it's job without much input from you.

 

• If you plan on having the system serve as a media server back-end (Plex Media Server, Kodi, whatever else exists), the motherboard/CPU/RAM you'll need will be very dependent on what kind / how many different devices will be streaming media stored on it.  If it's only a device or two, you can get away with a pretty minimal amount of CPU (though, if you stick with FreeNAS, you'll want to stuff it with RAM, if the forum posts / "how to's" I've read are to be believe, as it seems ZFS *loves* RAM).
   

I understand that the below doesn't fit for everyone's needs / desires, but I like to mention it because it seems not too many people are aware of the software, so:

If you don't mind the "NAS" being a Windows system (WHS2011, Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, Windows Server), and you want the ability to use an array of random HDD's with the ability to pretty easily swap one out, in order to replace it with a larger one down the road, you might look at Stablebit Drivepool.  It sets up what is essentially a JBOD array which shows up as a single drive letter in Windows, and from there you can set up your network shares however you want.  It allows you to duplicate folders to two (or more) of the drives in the array, so that if one of the drives fails, you don't loose that data.  Better yet (in my mind), the drives in the pool are NTFS formatted, so if the system they're installed into dies / is having problems, you can take them out and stick them in any system that understands NTFS in order to access the data.  You can also move the pool from one Windows PC to another, and so long as you install Drivepool on the new system, it'll see the pool and behave just as it did before the pool was moved.

Drivepool is a one-time $30 purchase, and runs on any Windows version from Vista on up.  

 

I would like to build a compact NAS, but if it is overly expensive, I'll settle for an mATX solution, that's also fine.

 

I was planning on getting some 3TB WD Reds as they're £85 each on Amazon. I'd be willing to pay £170 for a little bit of redundancy, but I may start off with one hard drive with no redundancy, then add two drives later on to build a RAID 5. It's not the most cost effective way, but it means I'll have learnt something new.

 

Nothing critical is going on the NAS, just my PC back up and general storage which is an OS, some games and music. Nothing mission critical. Losing it would be inconvenient, but not crippling, so I don't feel the need to spend the extra.

 

This is also to feed my enthusiasm, if it's stupidly more expensive than a pre-built solution, then I'll forget it.