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24TB NAS / Media Server

anthony_799
By anthony_799
in Networking
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Hi, i'd like to build a quiet and compact NAS for streaming to an xbmc box, backing up 2 PCs weekly, and 24/7 torrenting. I will buy drives separately (6 4TB WD Reds). I'd like some advice as to what parts to get. I have a Pentium G3220 (Haswell / LGA1150) that I want to use for the build and a 500W Corsair PSU (I can return it for another one if I need to). Other than that i'm open to build suggestions/tips as i've never built a PC for anything other than gaming.

 

Thanks!

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I'm not a pro on NAS storage but from what I hear you really don't need a powerful CPU but RAM and storage speed really matter.

My Reviews: Sennheiser HD 518 Mayflower Electronics ODAC/O2 Review

My Tutorials: How To Play Crysis on Linux in DirectX 10 with DXVK Splinter Cell Conviction General Protection Fault Fix

 

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24/7 torrenting? I hope you have a friendly ISP.

CPU: Ryzen 9 5900 Cooler: EVGA CLC280 Motherboard: Gigabyte B550i Pro AX RAM: Kingston Hyper X 32GB 3200mhz

Storage: WD 750 SE 500GB, WD 730 SE 1TB GPU: EVGA RTX 3070 Ti PSU: Corsair SF750 Case: Streacom DA2

Monitor: LG 27GL83B Mouse: Razer Basilisk V2 Keyboard: G.Skill KM780 Cherry MX Red Speakers: Mackie CR5BT

 

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PSU: Integrated Case: Shuttle XPC Slim

Monitor: LG 29WK500 Mouse: G.Skill MX780 Keyboard: G.Skill KM780 Cherry MX Red

 

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24/7 torrenting? I hope you have a friendly ISP.

I do, Comcast is great in my area and I have a proxy.

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I'm not a pro on NAS storage but from what I hear you really don't need a powerful CPU but RAM and storage speed really matter.

The Pentium was like 50 bucks and the PSU was like 60

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grab some fastish ram and a raid card and your set

Should I go with a card or just use RAID from the board?

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The Pentium was like 50 bucks and the PSU was like 60

I would go for a low power Xeon or i3 Pentium and Celeron CPUs are pretty garbage.

My Reviews: Sennheiser HD 518 Mayflower Electronics ODAC/O2 Review

My Tutorials: How To Play Crysis on Linux in DirectX 10 with DXVK Splinter Cell Conviction General Protection Fault Fix

 

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I would go for a low power Xeon or i3 Pentium and Celeron CPUs are pretty garbage.

Even for light operations? An i3 seems excessive.

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On board raid is pretty terrible in the best of circumstances

I would just have one RAID1 setup for my most important files.

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Should I go with a card or just use RAID from the board?

Are you planning to raid?

 

Even for light operations? An i3 seems excessive.

An i3 is excessive. Even a pentium would be as well. A celeron or atom would do the job and still be considered a very powerful cpu for a NAS.

If you ever need help with a build, read the following before posting: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/3061-build-plan-thread-recommendations-please-read-before-posting/
Also, make sure to quote a post or tag a member when replying or else they won't get a notification that you replied to them.

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You will only get 20tb with raid 5 because there is a parody disk. Here is a good build.     http://pcpartpicker.com/p/23xbj

 

Just use the raid card. Raid 5 will give you the most space with some redundancy.  The ssd is for the server os and the drives are for the files.

 

*edit* Use the sata port on the mobo for the ssd and then plug all the drives in to the raid card. Set the boot priority to  the ssd in the bios.

 

*edit* Yes, the psu is overkill but you already have a 500 watt supply so you are good there.

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I would just have one RAID1 setup for my most important files.

Onboard raid should be fine if you're not looking for very fast speeds.

If you ever need help with a build, read the following before posting: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/3061-build-plan-thread-recommendations-please-read-before-posting/
Also, make sure to quote a post or tag a member when replying or else they won't get a notification that you replied to them.

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Even for light operations? An i3 seems excessive.

For light use the Celeron and Pentium are fine but if you might be taxing the system or it seems slow consider a CPU upgrade but please don't put a quad core in there. Also regarding your comment about the RAID card you can use onboard RAID for 2 drives or so but don't expect to run a large RAID setup without a serious drop in performance.

My Reviews: Sennheiser HD 518 Mayflower Electronics ODAC/O2 Review

My Tutorials: How To Play Crysis on Linux in DirectX 10 with DXVK Splinter Cell Conviction General Protection Fault Fix

 

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Onboard raid should be fine if you're not looking for very fast speeds.

The bottleneck here would be my network, and im not too concerned about drive speed on the NAS

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For light use the Celeron and Pentium are fine but if you might be taxing the system or it seems slow consider a CPU upgrade but please don't put a quad core in there. Also regarding your comment about the RAID card you can use onboard RAID for 2 drives or so but don't expect to run a large RAID setup without a serious drop in performance.

My plan is to have RAID1 for really imporant files and just plain Samba share on the rest.

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The bottleneck here would be my network, and im not too concerned about drive speed on the NAS

In that case, onboard raid is perfectly fine.

If you ever need help with a build, read the following before posting: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/3061-build-plan-thread-recommendations-please-read-before-posting/
Also, make sure to quote a post or tag a member when replying or else they won't get a notification that you replied to them.

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I'm not a pro on NAS storage but from what I hear you really don't need a powerful CPU but RAM and storage speed really matter.

This. 

I have an AMD Phenom II X4 underclocked to 2.0 GHz with 8GB of RAM (1600) and a single 4TB HDD. 

I suggest FreeNAS 9.1.1 for the OS. It's ZFS and RAIDZ is ... great. It's just great. 

If you decide to go with that, it would actually be best to get an AMD CPU and motherboard. This is because AMD motherboards support ECC while Intel ones don't. ECC is Error Correcting Code (or something similar) for RAM that double checks it for errors. 

Backups with ZFS can be absolutely destroyed (without your knowledge) without ECC if you have scrubs turned on. And you kinda should have them turned on, but I don't. Simply because what I store isn't that important.

† Christian Member †

For my pertinent links to guides, reviews, and anything similar, go here, and look under the spoiler labeled such. A brief history of Unix and it's relation to OS X by Builder.

 

 

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This. 

I have an AMD Phenom II X4 underclocked to 2.0 GHz with 8GB of RAM (1600) and a single 4TB HDD. 

I suggest FreeNAS 9.1.1 for the OS. It's ZFS and RAIDZ is ... great. It's just great. 

If you decide to go with that, it would actually be best to get an AMD CPU and motherboard. This is because AMD motherboards support ECC while Intel ones don't. ECC is Error Correcting Code (or something similar) for RAM that double checks it for errors. 

Backups with ZFS can be absolutely destroyed (without your knowledge) without ECC if you have scrubs turned on. And you kinda should have them turned on, but I don't. Simply because what I store isn't that important.

Yeah I'm planning on using FreeNAS. Do you think I should partition one of the storage drives to install the OS on or have it on an SSD?

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In that case, onboard raid is perfectly fine.

Can you recommend a board?

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Yeah I'm planning on using FreeNAS. Do you think I should partition one of the storage drives to install the OS on or have it on an SSD?

Neither. 

Firstly, you can't partition a drive EDIT: with the OS on it in FreeNAS. Installing the OS on a drive takes up the whole drive. Regardless of how much space it actually uses. 

Get a USB 3.0 flash drive. Install the OS to that. 

Oh, and btw, if you are using FreeNAS, onboard RAID is irrelevant. You shouldn't use it on top of FreeNAS. FreeNAS is software RAID, but it's the only good software RAID there is.

† Christian Member †

For my pertinent links to guides, reviews, and anything similar, go here, and look under the spoiler labeled such. A brief history of Unix and it's relation to OS X by Builder.

 

 

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Neither. 

Firstly, you can't partition a drive. Installing the OS on a drive takes up the whole drive. Regardless of how much space it actually uses. 

Get a USB 3.0 flash drive. Install the OS to that. 

Oh, and btw, if you are using FreeNAS, onboard RAID is irrelevant. You shouldn't use it on top of FreeNAS. FreeNAS is software RAID, but it's the only good software RAID there is.

So i'll be fine without a RAID card? This is what I've come up with http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2y7RJ

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So i'll be fine without a RAID card? This is what I've come up with http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2y7RJ

I said onboard RAID is irrelevant. You will need a RAID card if your motherboard doesn't have enough SATA ports. If it does, you won't need one if you use ZFS. 

You can't use that motherboard with your setup if you use ZFS. FreeNAS with the Zetabyte File System (ZFS) has a 1GB per TB RAM (general rule of thumb) requirement.

So for every Terabyte of space, you will need a Gigabyte of RAM. So 24GB of RAM (more if possible would be preferred) is a necessity and that motherboard only supports 16GB. Unless you intend to upgrade later. 

You can do without ZFS and just use UFS instead, but you won't have the features of ZFS, including RAIDZ which means you will have to have a RAID card. 

 

† Christian Member †

For my pertinent links to guides, reviews, and anything similar, go here, and look under the spoiler labeled such. A brief history of Unix and it's relation to OS X by Builder.

 

 

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I said onboard RAID is irrelevant. You will need a RAID card if your motherboard doesn't have enough SATA ports. If it does, you won't need one if you use ZFS. 

You can't use that motherboard with your setup if you use ZFS. FreeNAS with the Zetabyte File System (ZFS) has a 1GB per TB RAM (general rule of thumb) requirement.

So for every Terabyte of space, you will need a Gigabyte of RAM. So 24GB of RAM (more if possible would be preferred) is a necessity and that motherboard only supports 16GB. Unless you intend to upgrade later. 

You can do without ZFS and just use UFS instead, but you won't have the features of ZFS, including RAIDZ which means you will have to have a RAID card. 

 

So if I just set up one RAID1 array with 2 drives I would still need a card? It has enough ports for the drives.

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So if I just set up one RAID1 array with 2 drives I would still need a card? It has enough ports for the drives.

Hmm, right. I missed that part (you are only raiding 2 drives). The onboard should be fine for that. It's only irrelevant when using ZFS. 

You wouldn't need a RAID card in that case. (pun intended)

† Christian Member †

For my pertinent links to guides, reviews, and anything similar, go here, and look under the spoiler labeled such. A brief history of Unix and it's relation to OS X by Builder.

 

 

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Hmm, right. I missed that part (you are only raiding 2 drives). The onboard should be fine for that. It's only irrelevant when using ZFS. 

You wouldn't need a RAID card in that case. (pun intended)

I'm just doing RAID1 for my really important stuff, the rest should be fine.

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