Simple File Server/Build Advice

[xerodox]

I'm fine running Ubuntu, so I can do without the ECC ram. 

 

Aekim, once I put a case and 12TB of Wesern Digital red in that build, its super close to my budget limit. 

The processor is less powerful than the one I selected, tho it does have more sata ports.  

I also changed the RAM up to 8 gigs. 

 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Celeron G1820 2.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Motherboard: Asus B85M-D PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($49.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($36.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($149.00 @ B&H) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($149.00 @ B&H) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($149.00 @ B&H) 

Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($45.99 @ Directron) 

Power Supply: SeaSonic 360W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  ($57.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Total: $674.95

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-15 20:09 EST-0500

[braneopbru]

@braneopbru tl;dr: Calm your tits, ECC is never REQUIRED for anything. Stop misinforming people so they can build what they need on their budget.

 

On the contrary, assuring people that their data will be fine if they use FreeNAS without ECC is the real misinformation; especially when the FreeNAS forums are full of stories of people loosing their pools specifically because they did not use ECC. I'm not pulling this out of thin air, this is reality, whether you agree with it or not.

 

I never said that you have to use ECC in any NAS you build. I specifically stated that there are plenty of other options if you choose not to use ECC. Straight Ubuntu/Debian server, Amahi, UnRaid and plenty of others.

 

 

OP: Sorry for the threadjacking. That build looks pretty solid. If you're planning to do transcoding with plex, this is their basic guideline:

 

1080p/10Mbps: 2000 PassMark

720p/4Mbps: 1500 PassMark

 

The Celeron gets a passmark of 2851, so you should be fine for a single 1080 transcoded stream. If you plan on running internet facing servers, I might recommend UnRaid so that you can virtualize your servers and keep some seperation between internet facing data and your NAS. You wouldn't want an vulnerability in your chat server to compromise your personal data.

 

Two things on the hardware - Just saw this on Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817103084

 

An 80 Plus Platinum PSU for cheaper than the 80 Plus Gold you selected

 

The other thing is to look at the $/GB of different drive sizes and consider what level of redundancy that you're after. For example:

 

If you do RAID5 - 

 

3 X 4TB @ $150 = $450 with 8TB of useable space = $56.25 per usable GB

 

4 x 3TB @ $110 = $440 with 9TB of useable space = $48.89 per usable GB

 

Something to consider.

[alex75871]

Ummmmm no.  You do not need ECC ram with FreeNAS.  The only real requirement is at least 8GB for ZFS, ECC is just advantageous.  I ran 8GB regular DDR3 with ZFS freenas for years no dramas.

 

ZFS is a checksum orientated file system. Just because the system boots and runs doesn't mean ECC is not a requirement.

[Sunshine1868]

ZFS is a checksum orientated file system. Just because the system boots and runs doesn't mean ECC is not a requirement.

that's like saying "just because it starts and runs, doesn't mean a radio is required in your car"

 

ECC is a luxury feature, never a REQUIREMENT to the average user.

[Aekim]

Yeah the PSU looks nice for that price although I don't know the brand^^

 

offtopic:

with ZFS and its "self healing" abilities I think you could go without ECC if your raid is not super important

and you don't have that many HDDs respectively shorten the amounts of scrubs(if I remember it's called so) to a minimum

Nevertheless it is better to go safe and use an other OS

http://jrs-s.net/2015/02/03/will-zfs-and-non-ecc-ram-kill-your-data/

[braneopbru]

From what I've read Sparkle is an OEM for many of the branded power supplies. I can't speak from experience, but I've read that they are really good. If you just do a manufacturer search, you will see that the most reviewed units all have 5 star ratings.

[alex75871]

that's like saying "just because it starts and runs, doesn't mean a radio is required in your car"

 

ECC is a luxury feature, never a REQUIREMENT to the average user.

RTFM developed by those qualified to do so.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Godlygamer23

[Sunshine1868]

RTFM developed by those qualified to do so.

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26502_01/html/E29007/zfspools-4.html

 

Feel free to read the manual bud. 

 

• Consider using ECC memory to protect against memory corruption. Silent memory corruption can potentially damage your data.

that's the official documentation and the ONLY mention of ECC RAM in the entire document.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Godlygamer23

[leadeater]

Adding ECC Unbuffered ram to the build will add about $60 to the overall price. In my view that is not a big ask for long term reliability. Also remember FreeNAS is not the only option available and other software solutions do not have such a high recommendation on using such ram.

 

My personal view on the matter is quite simple. Any system doing data parity, scrubbing or verification of any kind should use ECC. Hardware RAID cards always use ECC ram and any alternative software solution should also, this is simply common sense for long term data storage.

 

Now in certain situations I would be happy to run with 'risky' setups, and I have done so before and will in future. I have run RAID 0 setups and if I wanted to I would run FreeNAS on non ECC ram. When I do this it is for non important data or when the data is not going to be stored on that system for a long time.

 

When it comes to giving advice to other people I will however always recommend using ECC ram. It is just professional and ethical to do so, I am not comfortable in recommending a system where I know it could in 3 years time completely fail whether it be from hardware or software. If pressed I will explain it can be done another way and explain the risks but it does not change the advice, but the person is free to choose what suites them and are happy with.

 

Also my final piece of advice about NAS setups and home network data storage is that in very small setups and data sizes simple RAID solutions are often the best and cheapest , for performance and reliability. My definition of small is 6 or less disks. Any talk about RAID being risky, error prone or anything of the like is vastly over stated. I can not stress this any more, vastly over stated and I would personally like to slap anyone that says otherwise.

[xerodox]

yea this setup will eventually have eight disks. I know next to nothing about Raid Controllers, but I was thinking more along the lines of software raid than hardware,

because cpu power is cheaper than expensive RAID cards.  I think what people call it is a Sata HBA, since i don't need hardware raid I could choose a cheaper raid card right?    Because I've never messed with raid cards, in my mind they are just like Sata to PCIE convertors lol ( i know thats probably a mostly wrong assumption.

 

 

@braneopbru  The server virtualization is a VERY good Idea. I hadn't thought of that ahead of time, but since you mentioned it it almost seemed like a no brainer :] Thanks. 

If I was going to go with FreeNAS, I would definately drop the extra ram money, but that would also cause me to have to upgrade the board, because this mobo doesn't support ECC,

Then that would likely cause me to select a different CPU, prices could spiral up dramatically. Im sure I can find open source alternatives within Ubuntu to manage every thing I need, possibly even a web interface.   The data isn't mission critical. Its a movie server for friends and family. Losing the hours I put into organizing the data sucks way more than losing the data itself

[leadeater]

-snip-

 

RAID cards and HBA cards are different. HBA cards don't have any RAID features at all so any disks plugged in are in JBOD.

 

I'd +1 on considering using unRAID (or any other hypervisor) but only run the single Ubuntu VM. This will in future allow you to expand if you manage to upgrade your hardware. I'm a big believer in always visualizing regardless of how few VM's you plan to run, much easier migration and maintenance options.

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

I wouldn't use non-NAS/RAID drives for this since they have increased risk of drive dropouts and data corruption and potentially increase the risk of data loss. WD Red would be a more reasonable choice. 

Also have in mind that WD Red drives are recommended and designed for drive pools with up to 8 drives in the pool. For larger pools it is recommended to turn to WD Red Pro drives as they can handle better and operate safer in such conditions. 

For the rest of the specs I would try to see what are the recommended ones in terms of CPU power, amount and type of RAM, etc. for the specific OS that you are going to use so you have the most optimal build both in terms of budget and performance.

 

Captain_WD.

[alex75871]

yea this setup will eventually have eight disks. I know next to nothing about Raid Controllers, but I was thinking more along the lines of software raid than hardware,

because cpu power is cheaper than expensive RAID cards.  I think what people call it is a Sata HBA, since i don't need hardware raid I could choose a cheaper raid card right?    Because I've never messed with raid cards, in my mind they are just like Sata to PCIE convertors lol ( i know thats probably a mostly wrong assumption.

 

 

@braneopbru  The server virtualization is a VERY good Idea. I hadn't thought of that ahead of time, but since you mentioned it it almost seemed like a no brainer :] Thanks. 

If I was going to go with FreeNAS, I would definately drop the extra ram money, but that would also cause me to have to upgrade the board, because this mobo doesn't support ECC,

Then that would likely cause me to select a different CPU, prices could spiral up dramatically. Im sure I can find open source alternatives within Ubuntu to manage every thing I need, possibly even a web interface.   The data isn't mission critical. Its a movie server for friends and family. Losing the hours I put into organizing the data sucks way more than losing the data itself

 

Check out MDADM if you are going to use software RAID. MDADM is a Linux utility used to manage and monitor software RAID devices. The utility is mature having been around a while. I have seen MDADM packaged with Debian and other variants of Debian (e.g. Ubuntu).

[xerodox]

Check out MDADM if you are going to use software RAID. MDADM is a Linux utility used to manage and monitor software RAID devices. The utility is mature having been around a while. I have seen MDADM packaged with Debian and other variants of Debian (e.g. Ubuntu).

 

Thanks Alex I'll definately check that out once I get it up and running. All Thats left now is to pick out a RAID controller. Nobody's really had any advice as to what would work well and still not be outrageously priced. 

[braneopbru]

Thanks Alex I'll definately check that out once I get it up and running. All Thats left now is to pick out a RAID controller. Nobody's really had any advice as to what would work well and still not be outrageously priced. 

LSI 9211-8i or it's many variants. They are based on the LSI sas2008 chip. You can find them for under $100 on ebay. They have two mini SAS ports that support 4 SATA drives on each port with the appropriate cables (8 drives total per card) and you can flash them with the RAID firmware and have the card take care of RAID in hardware or you can flash the IT firmware and have the card work as an HBA, which means that it will show present all 8 drives to the system and allow the system to do what it pleases with them.

 

Flashing the cards between firmware can be a bit of a pain, so it might be a good idea to buy the card with the firmware that you want, if you don't want to go through the trouble of flashing it.

[leadeater]

Thanks Alex I'll definately check that out once I get it up and running. All Thats left now is to pick out a RAID controller. Nobody's really had any advice as to what would work well and still not be outrageously priced. 

 

As @braneopbru posted above this, have a look for a card he mentioned. My advice would be the IBM M1115 as the default firmware supports high queue depth and has both JBOD and RAID capabilities. They also come by default in IBM servers even if you spec an upgraded RAID card during purchase so there are tons on the market.

[alex75871]

As @braneopbru posted above this, have a look for a card he mentioned. My advice would be the IBM M1115 as the default firmware supports high queue depth and has both JBOD and RAID capabilities. They also come by default in IBM servers even if you spec an upgraded RAID card during purchase so there are tons on the market.

 

M1015 works too. You might be able to find a cheap one since it's an older model but still has the same SAS2008 controller chip.

 

Also some motherboards come with 6-8 SATA ports. These would be adequate for MDADM RAID.