My Cheap Dell R410 Server Build

[Bigbird67]

Hello everyone!

 

I have a general question as to what OS I should run on my server and what raid option would be the best.

 

I am currently looking at doing FreeNas server. I think that i want to us FreeNAS loaded via USB within the slower internal USB ports on the server, But I was wondering if that is the best option, or if a low cost option for me that will better suit my needs, would be to use an SSD for this budget build internally.

I have a good understanding of this stuff, minimal command line and such, but would prefer at least some basic GUI for simplicity.

 

What I am trying to accomplish:

200Mbps Down 20Mbps Up internet connection at my highest speed test run 

 

Home NAS

-A place for a central repository of all the computers in the house to store files and back up to nightly

-Something I can easily(but securely) access from anywhere

 

Server- Plex, Kodi,ETC.

-I want to take all my Music and Movies (5tb of media) and add them to a media share

-as it fills up i want to expand the drive capacity; so adding drives to the pools easily would be a great feature!

 

I would love something with decent security features. short of building a Pfsense Router.

Ubiquiti US-24-250W UniFi Switch - 24 Ports Managed 

Ubiquiti- USG Enterprise Gateway Router 

Ubiquiti Networks UAP-AC-PRO-5-US Wireless Indoor / Outdoor 802.11ac PRO Access Point, 5-Pack

 

Very soon I plan to duplicate this build for a server at my parents house as a backup and if mine ever goes down that one could pick up where this one left off, if at all possible.

 

System specs:

Dell R410 1U Server

-2 x Intel Xeon E5645 Hexa-Core 2.40GHz CPU Processors

-32GB Ram (16 GB per CPU)

-4 x WD Red NAS pro SATA 4tb drives; 3.5" Drives

-Hot Swappable

-again, going to be increasing the size of Drives as my Media collection needs more space

-would prefer to run some sort of Raid 10or what is recommended for best redundancy

-2 x 64GB USB 3.0 Flash drives for OS

-an Adata 120gb SSD for data cache

-Currently working on a FreeNas build; that's why I am looking to use for the OS, Open to getting a small SSD if needed for another operating system.

-500 Watt power supply and currently working on getting another 500 Watt redundant supply for the redundant side of the server.

-its also on a backup-UPS- Tripp Lite SMART500RT1U Smart Pro 500 VA 300 Watts 1U Rackmount 7 Outlet UPS

-ONBOARD SAS 6/IR Raid Controller ( dell part# HM030)

-Dell iDRAC6 DRAC 6i Remote Access Board K869T

 

 

I build desktops for customers but never any servers, I've been doing this for 20yrs and decided to dabble into building a home server, so I can actually use the desktop more efficiently instead of a home "Server" as its ended up being mostly used for. Lagging more and more as I have 6 drives in my Main Desktop and 5 on my backup in my office. I want to have more Peace of mind in Data Storage. I do Practice the 3-2-1 rule for backup; however I maintain 2 backups offsite, 1 of which is for a customers backup data as well. The money that I save will let me finally build a gaming water-cooled custom rig with RGB. For once a new rig for myself instead of used parts!

 

Again ANY help i could get from you guys is VASTLY appreciated  and Please stay civil, I don't want to start any Verbal confrontations! lol

[Jarsky]

For a router I would recommend the Ubiquti EdgeRouter Lite 3 - it runs 1Gbit fiber without breaking a sweat.

 

As for the server, FreeNAS you cannot *easily add drives* and expand the pool. You must add an entire vdev and even then there are caviets.

Have you considered a Windows based Storage Spaces? It implements many of the same features, with the ability to easily resize your pool.

 

Also, have you considered virtualising the server with something like VMWare ESXi? That way you could deploy multiple OS as required by your applications without worrying about docker compatibility. Essentially hypervisor gets installed to USB, install the VM's to a datastore (I use SSD's), and then you can pass through the storage disks to the VM that is configuring your mass storage.

 

[Bigbird67]

I have looked into the edge router. It will not let me aggregate of manage traffic like the USG or the switch will. Unless I have Missed something in my research of this device. Also, are you saying that I should install the vmware ESXI and virtualize my Server 2016 and pfsense for aggregated traffic management and storage?

What I want to do for the routing, is to have both Nics on the server setup to be inbound on one and the other outbound separately. and to manage each port separately for certain traffic. The edge Lite was not able to do this in the software that i reviewed.

[Jarsky]

10 minutes ago, Bigbird67 said:

I have looked into the edge router. It will not let me aggregate of manage traffic like the USG or the switch will. Unless I have Missed something in my research of this device. Also, are you saying that I should install the vmware ESXI and virtualize my Server 2016 and pfsense for aggregated traffic management and storage?

 

 

Could very well be, not so familiar with aggregation on the UBNT devices, didnt realise this was a feature you needed.

Yup thats what im saying for the server. You can get a free licence from vmware for a single ESXi host.

[Bigbird67]

Thank s Ill look into it.

Any ideas on which raid setup that I should use?

[GDRRiley]

raid 5 will give you the best space to drive ratio for your current setup but if you want it to be safer raid 6

[Bigbird67]

Does anyone know where i can go to calculate the total data storage by the raid option so that i can best choose how I want to setup my storage. Also need to know how many drives can fail before the bad drive can be moved out and the array rebuit prior to total fail over and data loss.

[GDRRiley]

20 hours ago, Bigbird67 said:

Does anyone know where i can go to calculate the total data storage by the raid option so that i can best choose how I want to setup my storage. Also need to know how many drives can fail before the bad drive can be moved out and the array rebuit prior to total fail over and data loss.

http://www.raid-calculator.com/ please quote people so that they get pinged 

[Mikensan]

The main idea of Raid isn't to avoid losing data but to reduce down time. So you increase parity in hopes to avoid ever going down or at least reducing the chance. 

If you're going to do a Raid 10 which is great for virtual machines, then 4 drives is a good start. But if you want to do RaidZ1 then either buy 3 or 5 drives. Something with how blocks are written to disk it's better to use an odd number (freenas at least).

 

If you're just dumping data and maybe a couple low-key VMs, Raid 5 (RaidZ1) but if you're going to spin up some serious virtual machines or 5+ low key VMs.. then Raid 10. (Low Key I just mean they will idle most their life like a DC or DNS)

 

To expand a Raid 10, it's nice and easy - you just buy 2 drives (assuming you're just doing a 2 drive mirror), mirror them, and throw them into the pool.

To expand a RaidZ1 then you need to buy the same number of disks and put them into a RaidZ1 and then you can add them to the volume. So if you use 3 disks to create your first vdev, you'll need to buy 3x more disks.

 

Make sure that Raid card supports IT-Mode or some form of HBA mode. You want the dumbest raid card possible. (LSI 92XX / IBM m1015)

 

Where-ever you put the OS won't matter, it is loaded into RAM during boot. SSD would be a waste as an O/S drive. Two flash drives are perfect.

 

Aggregating your ethernet probably won't make much difference. I found it was easier to just run a dedicated gigabit cable to the machines I wanted to have full gigabit speed. I had aggregated 4x ports but really only 3 machines needed gigabit speeds simultaneously so I ended up just running them directly, leaving 1 for general LAN use. Long story short my array couldn't keep up with the IOPS so it didn't matter anyway.

 

 

[jim93]

@Bigbird67, how did freeNAS on the R410 go?

 

I am planning to setup a freeNAS on a Dell R410 also, but I was worried about using the SAS 6/IR Raid Controller (I heard that freeNAS doesn't play well with raid controller .

[Salacious B Crum]

Guys if you don't already own the poweredge R410 I would recommend a 2U or bigger server I have a 410 and the damn thing belongs in a wind tunnel test facility thing is obnoxiously loud I have a R710 and it it is at least tolerable

 

3 hours ago, jim93 said:

@Bigbird67, how did freeNAS on the R410 go?

 

I am planning to setup a freeNAS on a Dell R410 also, but I was worried about using the SAS 6/IR Raid Controller (I heard that freeNAS doesn't play well with raid controller .

probably needs an HBA flashed to IT mode for disk passthrough I have an R710 that is an unRAID server and I have an LSI 9211-8i flashed to IT mode works great but be advised you cannot use the proprietary (electrically) PCIe slot that the perc 6i is in