NAS Build

[failblox]

Hey guys! I'm planning to get a NAS, and this is the build I've come up with so far. I live in Canada and would prefer the price to be somewhere between $1500-$2000. The 6 WD Red 4TB drives will be run in RAID-Z2 using FreeNAS. If it's possible to cut down the price any further, I'd greatly appreciate that. I was considering getting an Intel Pentium G4560 (https://ark.intel.com/products/97143/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G4560-3M-Cache-3_50-GHz) rather than a G4400 (which is currently listed below), but PCPartPicker mentioned that the Supermicro board I chose might not have the BIOS updated to support Kaby Lake CPUs yet. I'd rather not go through an RMA to update the BIOS if I don't have to (since I don't have any other LGA1151 CPUs lying around), so to stay safe I just got a Skylake CPU. Thanks in advance for the assistance

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/7X4zTH
Price breakdown by merchant: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/7X4zTH/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4400 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($72.99 @ Newegg Canada Marketplace) 
Motherboard: Supermicro - MBD-X11SSL-F-O Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($239.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Memory: Kingston - ValueRAM 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($199.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($176.28 @ DirectCanada) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($176.28 @ DirectCanada) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($176.28 @ DirectCanada) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($176.28 @ DirectCanada) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($176.28 @ DirectCanada) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($176.28 @ DirectCanada) 
Case: Fractal Design - Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($119.99 @ DirectCanada) 
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($99.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Total: $1790.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-27 23:06 EDT-0400

[Livin]

Any reason that you're using a more expensive server board when you're not going Xeon + ECC?

[failblox]

1 minute ago, Livin said:

Any reason that you're using a more expensive server board when you're not going Xeon + ECC?

The Pentium I chose supports ECC and is cheaper than any Xeon I could find.

[unknownmiscreant]

12 minutes ago, failblox said:

Hey guys! I'm planning to get a NAS, and this is the build I've come up with so far. I live in Canada and would prefer the price to be somewhere between $1500-$2000. The 6 WD Red 4TB drives will be run in RAID-Z2 using FreeNAS. If it's possible to cut down the price any further, I'd greatly appreciate that. I was considering getting an Intel Pentium G4560 (https://ark.intel.com/products/97143/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G4560-3M-Cache-3_50-GHz) rather than a G4400 (which is currently listed below), but PCPartPicker mentioned that the Supermicro board I chose might not have the BIOS updated to support Kaby Lake CPUs yet. I'd rather not go through an RMA to update the BIOS if I don't have to (since I don't have any other LGA1151 CPUs lying around), so to stay safe I just got a Skylake CPU. Thanks in advance for the assistance

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/7X4zTH
Price breakdown by merchant: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/7X4zTH/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4400 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($72.99 @ Newegg Canada Marketplace) 
Motherboard: Supermicro - MBD-X11SSL-F-O Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($239.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Memory: Kingston - ValueRAM 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($199.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($176.28 @ DirectCanada) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($176.28 @ DirectCanada) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($176.28 @ DirectCanada) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($176.28 @ DirectCanada) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($176.28 @ DirectCanada) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($176.28 @ DirectCanada) 
Case: Fractal Design - Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($119.99 @ DirectCanada) 
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($99.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Total: $1790.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-27 23:06 EDT-0400

Do you actually want the features of running a custom built machine. If you just need a file access server, check out the netgear os6 lineup. Other wise thats looking good.

[failblox]

Just now, unknownmiscreant said:

Do you actually want the features of running a custom built machine. If you just need a file access server, check out the netgear os6 lineup. Other wise thats looking good.

I'd rather not buy something prebuilt if I can avoid it. I know they're generally a lot cheaper, but flexibility and customization are very important to me.

[TheCherryKing]

Those hard drives are overpriced. I have seen quite a few 7200 RPM 4 TB enterprise-grade drives for less money.

[failblox]

1 minute ago, TheCherryKing said:

Those hard drives are overpriced. I have seen quite a few 7200 RPM 4 TB enterprise-grade drives for less money.

Could you suggest/link any enterprise drives that are cheaper?

(also just mentioning again that the prices are in CAD)

[TheCherryKing]

I'll check the prices in CAD.

[unknownmiscreant]

Just now, failblox said:

I'd rather not buy something prebuilt if I can avoid it. I know they're generally a lot cheaper, but flexibility and customization are very important to me.

Yeah, fair enough. That was a big thing for me too, but I needed something that could go in a cupboard. The netgear lineup has good raid management etc, however it is nowhere near as good as a custom build.

[Livin]

1 minute ago, failblox said:

The Pentium I chose supports ECC and is cheaper than any Xeon I could find.

So it does!  I didn't realize there were Pentium branded chips out there that were ECC compatible.  I'm assuming your Kingston ValueRAM is going to be an ECC chip then?  Depending on the use case and expected IO load, I might add a small SSD for caching.  Even an 80GB drive would help if you're expecting sustained IO.

 

I haven't been sold on NAS specific model hard drives actually lasting longer, so personally I would be throwing in some standard drives.  For the pricing of the regular desktop 4TB Seagate (ST4000DM005 @ Newegg) you could buy yourself an extra drive (7 total) in case of failure and still be saving money.

[TheCherryKing]

This one is enterprise-grade and has double the cache.

https://www.amazon.ca/Seagate-Constellation-3-5-Inch-ST4000NM0073-Black/dp/B00EUZSUKS/ref=sr_1_25?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1501213711&sr=1-25&keywords=4TB

 

 

[ian~]

FreeNAS's guide  says 8GB of ECC RAM can get you through the 24TB range. This is assuming you're not using jails or plugins. Perhaps you can save on RAM now and add another stick as you grow. That way, you can have a dual channel memory config in the future.

[failblox]

1 minute ago, Livin said:

So it does!  I didn't realize there were Pentium branded chips out there that were ECC compatible.  I'm assuming your Kingston ValueRAM is going to be an ECC chip then?  Depending on the use case and expected IO load, I might add a small SSD for caching.  Even an 80GB drive would help if you're expecting sustained IO.

 

I haven't been sold on NAS specific model hard drives actually lasting longer, so personally I would be throwing in some standard drives.  For the pricing of the regular desktop 4TB Seagate (ST4000DM005 @ Newegg) you could buy yourself an extra drive (7 total) in case of failure and still be saving money.

The Kingston ValueRAM is ECC afaik. I've considered adding an SSD for caching, but I'm not sure if it would actually make a significant performance difference... How much more performance do you think I could get with an SSD?

 

Hmm I don't know about buying non-NAS specific HDDs. I guess I'd rather play it safe than sorry since the WD Reds were designed from the ground up to be run 24/7. I've also always been a little bit sketched by Seagate HDDs - I haven't heard very many good things about their consumer HDDs.

 

Thanks for the input!

[failblox]

12 minutes ago, TheCherryKing said:

This one is enterprise-grade and has double the cache.

https://www.amazon.ca/Seagate-Constellation-3-5-Inch-ST4000NM0073-Black/dp/B00EUZSUKS/ref=sr_1_25?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1501213711&sr=1-25&keywords=4TB

 

 

Oh wow that's actually a pretty good price for an enterprise drive - I'll look into it, thanks.

[SCHISCHKA]

1 minute ago, failblox said:

The Kingston ValueRAM is ECC afaik. I've considered adding an SSD for caching, but I'm not sure if it would actually make a significant performance difference... How much more performance do you think I could get with an SSD?

 

Think about what your file usage is. Think about this, what would be cached if a 4GB video only gets played once? There are obvious benefits if you are running a database or serving lots of small files to lots of clients.

[failblox]

9 minutes ago, ian~ said:

FreeNAS's guide  says 8GB of ECC RAM can get you through the 24TB range. This is assuming you're not using jails or plugins. Perhaps you can save on RAM now and add another stick as you grow. That way, you can have a dual channel memory config in the future.

I've always just stuck by the 1GB of RAM per TB of storage, but I haven't seen that guide before. I'm just worried about any potential performance impacts, since the guide says that 8GB of RAM will just "get you through the 24TB range". It seems a little bit borderline for me, but if you don't think it'll have any significant performance impacts, then I'd totally go with 8GB.

[Livin]

Just now, failblox said:

The Kingston ValueRAM is ECC afaik. I've considered adding an SSD for caching, but I'm not sure if it would actually make a significant performance difference... How much more performance do you think I could get with an SSD?

 

Hmm I don't know about buying non-NAS specific HDDs. I guess I'd rather play it safe than sorry since the WD Reds were designed from the ground up to be run 24/7. I've also always been a little bit sketched by Seagate HDDs - I haven't heard very many good things about their consumer HDDs.

 

Thanks for the input!

SSD cache drive really depends on the IO whether you'll see a performance difference or not.  It's also something you can easily add later if you find your drives are working constantly and you want a bit of a performance boost.  Don't feel as though it's something you have to buy right away but something to keep in mind.

 

Completely understand on the hard drive preference.  I've had good luck with my Seagates but I understand having brand preferences.  Nothing wrong with Reds, you just pay more money for them so always best to make sure those extra dollars are worth it.  I definitely wouldn't look at putting Green or Blue drives as a NAS build of that scale, so Red's the way to go while sticking with WD.  The Constellation drives that @TheCherryKing linked are a really good deal if you don't mind taking a second look at Seagate.

 

 

[failblox]

3 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

Think about what your file usage is. Think about this, what would be cached if a 4GB video only gets played once? There are obvious benefits if you are running a database or serving lots of small files to lots of clients.

The NAS isn't going to be used extremely heavily - I'll likely be the heaviest user of it. It'll mainly be used for backing up systems around the house and as a redundant, reliable storage system for important files. Perhaps having an SSD for cache wouldn't make much of a difference in my use case.

[TheCherryKing]

The WD Reds are good drives but 5400 RPM drives are pretty much unusable by today's standards. 

[failblox]

2 minutes ago, Livin said:

SSD cache drive really depends on the IO whether you'll see a performance difference or not.  It's also something you can easily add later if you find your drives are working constantly and you want a bit of a performance boost.  Don't feel as though it's something you have to buy right away but something to keep in mind.

 

Completely understand on the hard drive preference.  I've had good luck with my Seagates but I understand having brand preferences.  Nothing wrong with Reds, you just pay more money for them so always best to make sure those extra dollars are worth it.  I definitely wouldn't look at putting Green or Blue drives as a NAS build of that scale, so Red's the way to go while sticking with WD.  The Constellation drives that @TheCherryKing linked are a really good deal if you don't mind taking a second look at Seagate.

 

 

I think I'll wait it out on the SSD caching for now and see what the performance is like without one.

 

I'm alright with Seagate enterprise HDDs, so I'm definitely considering getting the Constellation drives. It's just that I've never heard of that specific model before so I'd like to do some research before throwing all my data on them.

[SCHISCHKA]

2 minutes ago, failblox said:

The NAS isn't going to be used extremely heavily - I'll likely be the heaviest user of it. It'll mainly be used for backing up systems around the house and as a redundant, reliable storage system for important files. Perhaps having an SSD for cache wouldn't make much of a difference in my use case.

just updating pcs it would def be useless as every file gets equal reads by the backup software and every write needs to end up on the mechanical disks which no amount of cache can speed up.

[failblox]

3 minutes ago, TheCherryKing said:

The WD Reds are good drives but 5400 RPM drives are pretty much unusable by today's standards. 

I don't think there'd be much of a difference between 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM drives if they're mashed together in a RAID-Z configuration. Also, from what I've read, I'd likely max out a single gigabit connection even with 5400 RPM drives.

[SCHISCHKA]

3 minutes ago, failblox said:

I don't think there'd be much of a difference between 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM drives if they're mashed together in a RAID-Z configuration. Also, from what I've read, I'd likely max out a single gigabit connection even with 5400 RPM drives.

i have some older 7200rpm WD RE drives. in bencharks they are the same speed as my new WD RED 5400rpm drives. Same amount of cache. I tested 3 WD red drives in various raid configurations, 2 drives in raid0 just floats around the gigabit limit; three drives are completely bottlenecked by gigabit. This was after the drives cache was exhausted and transfering to /dev/null and again from /dev/zero. I never tested ZFS i was using mdadm for raid.

[failblox]

Unfortunately both amazon.ca and newegg.ca don't seem to have sufficient quantities of the Seagate 4TB Constellation drive that @TheCherryKing linked above. Amazon only has two and Newegg only seems to have one available :\

 

Guess I'll be sticking with the WD Reds then.

[Livin]

On 7/27/2017 at 8:58 PM, failblox said:

The Kingston ValueRAM is ECC afaik.

Just wanted to confirm the RAM model for you as there is some ValueRAM that is ECC and some that is not.  I pulled up the Kingston Memory Finder and confirmed compatibility with your board for KVR21E15D8/16 (16GB DDR4 2133Mhz ECC).  It's on sale at Newegg this weekend for $194.99 ($5 less than posted above)