OEM PC to Freenas

[bgibbz]

I have a Dell Optiplex 960 (core 2 duo, 4gb ddr2) that I havent used in 1.5 years since building my PC. Its not really worth anything, and ive always wanted to have a NAS, so i decided i would convert the machine into a NAS. I am going to buy 3 of these in order to add hot swap bays to the front of the case (case only has 2x 5.25 bays, but there is room underneat for another if i dremel out the front panel). I will also upgrade the system ram to 8 gb (system max). 

 

 

Im planning on using 3x 3tb drives in raid 5. Is it worth it to invest in a raid card, or would i be fine using software raid z?

 

What is the best drives for the money? I know WD reds are great and all, but if there is any cheaper drives that function in the same quality threshold i would rather purchase those. 

 

Any other considerations? Im using a 2x mirrored 16gb flash drives as the boot device, and all other computer specs are stock (except a random NIC that is installed for some reason).

[Electronics Wizardy]

dont get a raid card, raid z is better.

 

id get a 3 in 2 front bay.

 

fordrives id get whatever is cheap and new. no real advantage to using nas drives here

[jackchipm]

You could use segate baracuda drives. 

FYI freenas prefers 8 gb of ram however it will work with only 4gb.

[paddy-stone]

5 minutes ago, bgibbz said:

I have a Dell Optiplex 960 (core 2 duo, 4gb ddr2) that I havent used in 1.5 years since building my PC. Its not really worth anything, and ive always wanted to have a NAS, so i decided i would convert the machine into a NAS. I am going to buy 3 of these in order to add hot swap bays to the front of the case (case only has 2x 5.25 bays, but there is room underneat for another if i dremel out the front panel). I will also upgrade the system ram to 8 gb (system max). 

 

 

Im planning on using 3x 3tb drives in raid 5. Is it worth it to invest in a raid card, or would i be fine using software raid z?

 

What is the best drives for the money? I know WD reds are great and all, but if there is any cheaper drives that function in the same quality threshold i would rather purchase those. 

 

Any other considerations? Im using a 2x mirrored 16gb flash drives as the boot device, and all other computer specs are stock (except a random NIC that is installed for some reason).

I wouldn't bother with raid personally. If you're thinking of it being a backup in case drive # fails, it's not really going to save you anything. IMO it's better to just have a spare 3TB USB 3.0 backup or another networked PC to backup to etc. I use a WD mycloud 3TB for backing up my NAS data and also a USB 3.0 drive to backup essential stuff. Some people might get more from using raid, but depends on use case and you'd still need a backup solution anyway, so don't see the point in waiting for raid to rebuild the array really, I would just copy the data back onto the drives that needs it, so if one disk fails for example, you'd only need to copy that data back to a new drive from your backup device/pc.

As for the WD reds, I would go with that personally, but mostly because where I live it's essentially only around £10 more anyway, so might as well get the drives that are rated for 24/7 use.

The above is only my opinion, not saying that would be ideal for everyone, but that is how I see it being more useful in my case. Hope that helps you.

[Oshino Shinobu]

There's not really any point in using hardware RAID with FreeNAS, better to manage it all through software. 

 

I personally use WD Blue drives due to their lower RPMs compared to other desktop drives, thus creating less vibrations, making them a bit more suitable for 24/7 operation in a NAS. While the vibration sensors in drives like WD reds can be useful for NAS systems, the extra features like TLER won't be used when using software RAID, kind of making NAS drives almost pointless for most FreeBSD based systems. 

 

As for actually using RAID, I wouldn't really recommend RAID 5 for such a small array. You'd be better off with either separate drives of JBOD and an external backup for important data. 

[Windows7ge]

From my experience using FreeNAS it likes 8GB for the OS and at least 1GB per TB of drive space. FreeNAS is a RAM hog on a 9TB raidz1(raid5) software raid I've utilized up to 28GB of ram at a given time.

 

Don't use a raid card. FreeNAS likes direct access to the disk, if a read/write error occurs FreeNAS can't properly fix the error if the drive is hiding behind a raid controller.

 

ECC memory is highly recommended. If an error occurs in memory FreeNAS wont be able to tell that the data in memory is corrupt and it'll write the corrupt information to the raid.

 

A UPS is also highly recommended. FreeNAS doesn't handle spontaneous power loss very well. Such a event could cause drive corruption. 

[bgibbz]

34 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

id get a 3 in 2 front bay.

 

fordrives id get whatever is cheap and new. no real advantage to using nas drives here

did not know those existed. That is definitly what i will do. 

 

25 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

I wouldn't bother with raid personally. If you're thinking of it being a backup in case drive # fails, it's not really going to save you anything. IMO it's better to just have a spare 3TB USB 3.0 backup or another networked PC to backup to etc. I use a WD mycloud 3TB for backing up my NAS data and also a USB 3.0 drive to backup essential stuff. Some people might get more from using raid, but depends on use case and you'd still need a backup solution anyway, so don't see the point in waiting for raid to rebuild the array really, I would just copy the data back onto the drives that needs it, so if one disk fails for example, you'd only need to copy that data back to a new drive from your backup device/pc.

As for the WD reds, I would go with that personally, but mostly because where I live it's essentially only around £10 more anyway, so might as well get the drives that are rated for 24/7 use.

The above is only my opinion, not saying that would be ideal for everyone, but that is how I see it being more useful in my case. Hope that helps you.

I have a 2tb external harddrive that i will use to backup the most important stuff (pics, documents, etc). I like the idea of raid for real time protection, the NAS will be on 24/7, so the chances of drive failure are higher than a normal system. 

23 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

There's not really any point in using hardware RAID with FreeNAS, better to manage it all through software. 

 

I personally use WD Blue drives due to their lower RPMs compared to other desktop drives, thus creating less vibrations, making them a bit more suitable for 24/7 operation in a NAS. While the vibration sensors in drives like WD reds can be useful for NAS systems, the extra features like TLER won't be used when using software RAID, kind of making NAS drives almost pointless for most FreeBSD based systems. 

 

As for actually using RAID, I wouldn't really recommend RAID 5 for such a small array. You'd be better off with either separate drives of JBOD and an external backup for important data. 

Interesting to hear that NAS drives arent necessary. Il definitly buy cheaper drives then. I understand that a raid array isnt totally nessacary, im okay with paying for an extra drive in order to make sure i dont lose any data due to drive failure.

16 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

From my experience using FreeNAS it likes 8GB for the OS and at least 1GB per TB of drive space. FreeNAS is a RAM hog on a 9TB raidz1(raid5) software raid I've utilized up to 28GB of ram at a given time.

 

Don't use a raid card. FreeNAS likes direct access to the disk, if a read/write error occurs FreeNAS can't properly fix the error if the drive is hiding behind a raid controller.

 

ECC memory is highly recommended. If an error occurs in memory FreeNAS wont be able to tell that the data in memory is corrupt and it'll write the corrupt information to the raid.

 

A UPS is also highly recommended. FreeNAS doesn't handle spontaneous power loss very well. Such a event could cause drive corruption. 

Yeah, unfortunatly the system im using only supports a maximum of 8gb. While the system will certainly be starved for ram, im not overly worried about it. It should still work with the minimum of 8gb, and if i ever use it enough to make the ram starvation a serious issue, i will just replace the entire machine with server grade hardware, ECC memory included. 

 

All of my most important files are saved on a 1tb, so if any data loss due to memory error occurs, i shouldnt lose any important data. 

 

I plan on purchasing a UPS within the next 6 months, and until then il make sure to have the machine shutdown during storms and stuff. 

 

[Windows7ge]

25 minutes ago, bgibbz said:

Yeah, unfortunatly the system im using only supports a maximum of 8gb. While the system will certainly be starved for ram, im not overly worried about it. It should still work with the minimum of 8gb, and if i ever use it enough to make the ram starvation a serious issue, i will just replace the entire machine with server grade hardware, ECC memory included. 

 

All of my most important files are saved on a 1tb, so if any data loss due to memory error occurs, i shouldnt lose any important data. 

 

I plan on purchasing a UPS within the next 6 months, and until then il make sure to have the machine shutdown during storms and stuff. 

 

I've been told that FreeNAS can make do with 4GB for the OS and 4GB for a few TB RAID. Performance will be hindered and the system may use hard drive space as RAM which will make the NAS extremely slugish but it'll do. As a recommendation for future expansion look into the ASRock Rack C2750D4I or its little sister the C2550D4I very powerful mini-ITX boards. It has many features and tons of expansion ports support up to 64GB of ECC UDIMM DDR3 memory 12 SATA ports, 2x 1GBit NIC, IPMI. Greatest thing about FreeNAS, its software RAID doesn't care if the RAID is across multiple controllers. (For example, 1 or 2 drives controlled by the PCH while another drive or two are controlled by a Marvell controller. It'll still RAID them together just fine.) It has 4 full size DDR3 DIMM slots. With the IPMI you can manage the server remotely and if something goes wrong with FreeNAS and it's non-responsive you can access the server without physically being at the server by using the IPMI functionality.

[bgibbz]

38 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

I've been told that FreeNAS can make do with 4GB for the OS and 4GB for a few TB RAID. Performance will be hindered and the system may use hard drive space as RAM which will make the NAS extremely slugish but it'll do. As a recommendation for future expansion look into the ASRock Rack C2750D4I or its little sister the C2550D4I very powerful mini-ITX boards. It has many features and tons of expansion ports support up to 64GB of ECC UDIMM DDR3 memory 12 SATA ports, 2x 1GBit NIC, IPMI. Greatest thing about FreeNAS, its software RAID doesn't care if the RAID is across multiple controllers. (For example, 1 or 2 drives controlled by the PCH while another drive or two are controlled by a Marvell controller. It'll still RAID them together just fine.) It has 4 full size DDR3 DIMM slots. With the IPMI you can manage the server remotely and if something goes wrong with FreeNAS and it's non-responsive you can access the server without physically being at the server by using the IPMI functionality.

Il definitely keep that in mind. The oem pc that I'm using right now is very old, and I don't want to put anymore money in it. If the board or psu or something like that dies, up probably just build a dedicated server rather than fix the old machine. 

[Mikensan]

You could also go the linux + mdadm + btrfs which will happily run on your limited ram. Also the advertised maximum is usually a configuration of that era's largest ram stick x4, with a bios upgrade I'm sure it could do 16gb if you really wanted to. Personally I wouldn't but it's just more info.

 

Linux + docker (containers) and the sky is the limit. 

 

Software raid is your better choice, since you don't have to buy 2 raid cards (got to have one in case the original dies, otherwise goodbye data). RaidZ is pretty damn flexible.

 

In terms of gb per $ seagate will win, but make sure you have constant backups ;-) HGST is currently touted as the most reliable, but honestly every drive has a chance of dying and thus warranty coverage is more important imo. My seagate drive died (luckily within 3 months) and their RMA process was great.