3rd time's the charm, my home server build log/ Questions/ Linux Helpdesk

So I’m rebuilding my home-server for the third time and now I want to get it right. So I’m asking you guys for help and feedback in general /documenting my journey for all that may walk this path after me.

The PC is an old Dell Optiplex 360 with an Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 @ 2.93GHz and one 2gb stick of memory (shouldn’t be hard to upgrade if needed)
I have 3 drives in the system:
one 350gb hdd for the OS
one 500gb hdd for the owncloud and plex/kodi databases.
one 1tb laptop hdd as the backup location.
(they were lying around and are for testing purposes only. I will definitely switch to some kind of NAS drive before its final deployment.)

1st time was just to mess around and try stuff out. I really enjoyed its functionality (OwnCluod, SAMBA) and so I decided to rebuild It more permanently and professionally and configure it to automatically handle my family’s backup needs. Which brings me to the
2nd time: this time I decided to jump into the deep end and used Ubuntu-Server. (no gui) I kinda got it working but now my goals have changed substantially that I’m gonna start again from scratch.
At this point I wanna thank everybody who posted his knowledge into the lets talk Backups thread and in particular @SgtAwesomesauce, who really widened my perspective on Btrfs and zfs. (again)

3rd time’s the charm right? ;P
What I want to use the server for:
- Backups, using it as a Crashplan host
- OwnCloud, for hosting/syncing my/our contacts and calendars along with file syncronization (keepass)
- Remote storage (samba) for not frequently needed stuff like steam games…
- I also wanna run either plex or kodi primarily to manage, stream and sync musig between my/our devices.
- If I have the time, I would like to set up some kind of DVR satellite TV recording.

OS wise i’m currently leaning towards Ubuntu Server because of its flexibility and the amount of documentation/community support. I’m hesitant to go with freenas because of its more specialized nature. For example the owncloud installation sounds really complicated. And I really don’t need the advanced storage stuff.
Debian would probably also be a good choice although I don’t really know much about it. Only that its very similar and a bit less noob-friendly. But I kinda would like to try it out if you guys don’t think that it would make things considerably more difficult.

Now for storage:

Im considering switching to a small OS ssd to eliminate one constantly spinning platter and lower the systems idle power consumption. Does this make sense???
Putting the Databases and the Backup location on different drives seemed like an good idea because it physically separates the two. Is it a good idea? Is it worth the extra power consumption?
I dont need more than one drive worth of storage. 4-6tb should be plenty. (for now) I don’t consider redundancy worth it in my case because 100% uptime isn’t important and the drive/money would be better used as an offsite backup by mirroring the system to it once a month and storing it at my mum’s work.
The next big question is what file system to use: @SgtAwesomesauce has taught me the merits of using btrfs/zfs even in non “raid” environments. Now the question is which one? And if I have to upgrade my ram (currently 2gb) (I can’t find any information about using btrfs/zfs on a single drive. Links would be greatly appreciated!)

Buying advice on a 4-6tb harddrive would also be greatly appreciated. Again my usecase is somewhat specific since I need 24/7 rated drives but don’t care about raid-specific features.

There will be many more obstacles and questions when installing/setting up the system but this is where i’m at right now.

To summarize my main questions:

  • What OS should I use? Ubuntu-server, Debian, Freenas?
  • ssd vs hdd as os drive and what 4-6tb drive to buy for data storage?
  • what filesystem? ZFS vs BTRFS?

I use ubuntu server, I like it enough not to use something else. I prefer it over debian as it's quicker to get going, you don't have to set up sudo and stuff like that.

I'd go with an SSD for the OS, but it doesn't really matter that much. I like the HGST NAS disks, they're basically the same as the WD Red Pros but with only a 3 year warranty. But for a single disk setup it's not really necessary to get a NAS drive as you won't need any of the features. But for 24/7 uptime it may be worth getting a NAS drive of some sort.

I'd use BTRFS, it doesn't have the caching that ZFS has so it won't need as much RAM. Using it with a single disk is pretty much just ext4 with some extra features like redundant metadata and snapshots. There isn't really anything you need to know about using BTRFS with a single disk, you just format it as BTRFS and that's all there is to it.

I'd be very interested in knowing how much quicker it is

Intuitively I would say the same. But what exactly would be the benefits? I couldn't care less about boot times and the only other benefit that comes to mind is lower idle power consumption when idle because of one less spinning platter.
Am i forgetting something?

My thought process exactly but thats not very specific. Gonna do more research especially into price differences and list a viable options before further discussing this point.

yes and caching would require a ups to make it safe right??
So BTRFS it is!

one question solved, two more to go :)

I mean that it comes more configured than debian, when I set up an ubuntu server all the stuff I would usually install or set up is already there, just saves a bit of time. That's why I stick with it, could easily be considered bloat too, depends on your perspective.

Not really, hard drives really don't use much power, I wouldn't even worry about it for one disk. A server version of linux is going to boot quickly no matter what you run it off, it only has to load a couple of hundred mb of stuff to memory. So use whatever you like, it doesn't really mater. I guess you could make the argument that SSDs are more reliable, but I don't know how true that is.

No, everything in cache is also on the disk, unless you set up a write cache but I think ZFS still has protections for that. Both ZFS and BTRFS (but not in RAID 5/6 currently) has built in protection for the write hole problem which hardware raid requires built in batteries for (different to a UPS)

ZFS can be run with the cache turned off, but I'd still use BTRFS for a single disk (or a no redundancy) setup on linux either way. If you want to add redundancy later you might consider snapraid, that's what I use

With NAS drives there tends to be two tiers of them. The cheaper ones have firmware that makes them work better in RAID and 24/7 use, the more expensive ones have protection against vibration. You only need to worry about vibration if you have 8 or more disks in the same chassis, so in your case you would only want the cheaper NAS disks, like the WD reds (not pros) or seagate NAS (not Iron whatever). But if the price isn't so different then it doesn't really matter either way.

Alright, got this a bit late, sorry.

This is not too difficult. I recommend NextCloud over owncloud, but that's nitty gritty details.

Storing steam games on Samba is tricky. Works fine on Linux, but on Windows, you sometimes run into problems.

DVR would be easy to do with EMBY.

Based on what you're trying to do, you'll be good with either. My recommendation is to use Ubuntu server though because you'll learn more. FreeNAS is a system that likes to do all the work for you, all you're doing it telling it what you want. Good for people who don't have the time/interest to do it themselves.

SSD makes sense, but honestly, the power difference will be 5 watt. You'll see a bigger power savings (and not unnoticeable performance increases) by upgrading the E7500 and the motherboard with it to an board like this one. That said $400 is not always a good price tag.

The difference in your power bill after 1 year between an SSD and a HDD at $0.25/kw (that's my local power cost) is going to be $10.95. I just don't see power savings alone justifying the cost. If you want the performance (which you'll rarely use, except during software updates) my advice is to get a 32GB SSD, like this one.

It's always nice to have a second drive, but if I were you, I'd get 2 disks, set them up in BTRFS raid1, install all your data and call it a day. Again, power consumption is going to be 5-10watt increase. Just be aware that power consumption of disks is tiny.

BTRFS, in my opinion, is generally the better FS for desktop use, especially in single disk configurations. There are cases where ZFS is better, but in this case, btrfs is your best option.

The folks at /r/datahoarder have a habit (I am going to be doing this next time I get a drive) where they buy external enclosures and "shuck" them. Basically they pull the drive out of the enclosure and lo and behold, it's a NAS drive. Not saying this is the method for everyone, but it's definitely an option. The benefit to this is that the external drives are usually less expensive than internals.

For example, WD Red 8TB drives are currently $302 on amazon. The WD 16TB My Book Duo has 2x8TB Red's in it, and it costs $499 on amazon and I've seen them for less. Now, let's do some math! 302*2 = 604, 604>499 so you're saving about $100 on 16TB of drive. In my opinion, that's pretty damn good. I've been thinking about upgrading my NAS with additional storage and when I do, I'll be probably doing this. For the record, people have been reporting not having any problems RMAing drives from these enclosures, even as a bare drive (not putting it back in the enclosure). Apparently WD either doesn't care or doesn't check.

To actually answer your question though, the WD Red or HGST NAS drives are more or less the defacto standard for quality and performance these days. (excluding enterprise drives)


BTRFS is basically suicide in raid5/6 currently. They're working on it, but in its current state, you're better off trusting your child to a lion.

It also depends on the case. Some of the cases I have considered buying have vibration dampening built into the HDD mounts.

BTRFS still has the ability to use an SSD for caching, but it's not the same. If you're interested, look into bcache. It's quite nice if SSD caching is something you're into. Haven't used it personally, but that's because when I need SSD caching, my needs align with ZFS more.

No worries and thanks a lot for answering at all

Yeah thats just for the ones that i dont really play anymore but might again in the future. So i dont want them to use up unnecessary space on my SSD but still whant fast transfer/download speeds if I or a Friend wants to try them again...

Yes I think so to but i need to figure out which special hardware i need to get the Satalite TV signal into the computer and then find one on the cheap...
It's by far the least important part so it's gonna have to wait until everything else runs smoothly and I have time for it :D

Yes i know building a specialized system for that purpose would be ideal but i have no hope of getting my parents to pay for that since they cant see the benefits (yet) and arent very interested in computers or technology in general. :(

At my place (munich) its about 0.28/kw so i would get the money back in about 2-3 years

Redundancy is nice, but i don't need it enough to justify the price! 100% uptime isn't important. One consideration would be to buy two (mabe refurbished) cheapo-drives but i can't find good deals on ebay for 4tb+ capacity drives. I dont consider this worth the huge headache. Especially if one is doa...

I definitely don't need it although it would be nice to play around with it at some point. But honestly with only gigabit ethernet and cat 5e (I think) wireing, the performance benefits would be neglegable.

Update time:

For the OS, I'll go with Ubuntu-Server. Its a nice balance between diy learning and guides/documentation being available.
For now I will use the HDD as the OS drive because it's already in the system. Dunno what i'm gonna do in the future.
When I have proof of concept, I (hopefully) get my parents to (probably) buy a 4tb WD RED.
Edit: I just found out that the WD red is only 5400rpm and the HGST Deskstar NAS is 7200rpm which means that it will be considerably faster while costing about the same. It's only harder to find. (in Germany anyway)

And I'll use BTRFS since you, the rest of the internet can agree on that being the best choice for my use case.

Thanks a lot again, wish me luck and I'll keep you up to date on my progress and the problems, I will encounter.

You could look into iSCSI for this. Basically, you mount an iSCSI target on your Windows box, format it NTFS and use it to hold some of the steam games. It works just like a local disk except it's got shit performance because it's over the network.

You'll most likely need a TV Tuner and the set-top box that your sat provider gives you to connect your TV's to the dish. Let me know when you're ready, I've done a bit of work with this in the past, but only ever with cable, not Satellite.

Fair enough, just trying to help you understand where you'll be making the biggest savings if you're trying to reduce power.

Oh wow, and here I thought my power was expensive. Might be worth doing then.

I was in the same boat. I'd recommend having backups then. Not sure how good your internet connection is, but the service I use (CrashPlan) has unlimited offsite backup for US $60/year or so. Might be worth looking into if you're storing mission critical data, but again, it's money.

Sounds like you've got a good plan sorted out. If you've got any questions or run into problems feel free to ask.

Good luck!

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I run all my games over iscsi from my NAS, it works quite well, even on gigabit.

Alternatively if you store the games on a virtual hard drive and then just mount the disk over SMB that works okay too. It's a little slow and you get some choppy behavior or texture pop ins but you won't have any problems getting the game to load.

OOh, I remember this thread. Glad to hear it's still working well!

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Update time again :-)

(just in case you guys missed it)

So The server is up and running with samba and Nextcloud working. Yes i decided to go with Nextcloud because why not. (trying out things is always fun)

Question time again:

During installation i just created one btrfs partition per drive and installed Ubuntu-Server on one of them. Is this the right way to do it?

What about swap? I just installed without one because i didnt know what to do but i definitely need one (because 2gb of ram) How does swap and btrfs work? Do I just create a swap partition or is there a better way?

I'm still struggeling with understanding btrfs snapshots.
Right now i'm just doing this: sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot / 7.1.17@01:58_NextCloud_installed,configured,working
I would love to get your confirmation before advancing into uncharted Territory (crashplan-host + plex/kodi)

I don't (yet) wanna ask you how i should do it because I feel like i can figure it out or havent tried hard enough and I really dont wanna be that guy who asks a ton of stupid questions because he is to lazy to do some research himself. But of course i wouldn't mind some guidance either.