FreeNAS Homeserver Build

Hardware Hub Build a PC
1

Hi there residents of the Internet. I've been thinking of building myself a headless fileserver/mediaserver/NAS for some time, and the recent videos regarding the NASFeratu build have gotten me all excited. So I have come up with a list of parts i think will do a good job, and I was hoping to get some feedback regarding my choices.

If you see any compatibility issues, have experiences to share, have ideas to make it better, or ideas to alternate parts, please raise your voice. Any feedback will be much appreciated.

  • Case: Fractal Design Node 304 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352027
  • Motherboard: ASRock E3C226D2I - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157466
  • CPU: Intel Xeon E3 1220 V3 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116907
  • RAM: Crucial 16GB(2x8), DIMM, DDR3 PC3-12800, 1,35V, Unbuffered, EEC - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148770
  • PSU: Corsair RM550 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139053
  • Storage medium: Western Digital Red 3 TB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4HG1G94133
  • OS medium: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 4GB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171586

 

P.S: I will not necessarily be buying from newegg.com, I just linked there for convenience.

2

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438016

CPU/Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157419

OS Medium: FreeNAS recommends 8GB, but if you still want use 4GB proceed at your own risk and/or know what you are doing.

Extra: To make it look nicer you can put the flash drive inside the case, and not have to worry about purchasing an expensive/overpriced mini flash drive.     http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Motherboard-Header-Adapter-USBMBADAPT2/dp/B002GNU2V6

3

Thanks for your respond, here's what i'm currently thinking:

The USB-stick: FreeNAS installs 4 partitions; 942,51MiB, 942,51MiB, 1,48MiB, and 20,18MiB. The total install is about 2GB. The rest of the drive will become an unallocated void. And btw, the board i linked has an internal USB-slot. So if i stick with that i will not need an adapter.

The PSU: A pleasant price on that one, however for the sake of airflow and tidiness i would like a modular one, and since it's gonna run 24/7, a 80pluss Gold rating is probably a good idea, even though the initial cost will be higher.

MOBO/CPU: A nice looking combo, but the Fractal Node only has space for 6 drives, so i don't need the extra SATA ports, also i don't think i need more than 16GB of RAM on this build.

However the Atom CPU was interesting, i checked the specs and it's power consumption is only 10% that of the Xeon. But since the watt usage of the Xeon is supposed to be quite low when idling, i don't think the difference will be all that great in the long run, also i would like the extra power of the Xeon for virtualization and other shenanigans.

Does the Atom support AES-NI? And how powerful is it compared to the Xeon?

4

My server is now finished, just wanted to share a couple of pictures of the end result.

The parts i used differs slightly from the original post, so i have put an updated overview on my profile page if you are curious.

Left side

Right side

All done

I really like this motherboard so far, and the IPMI function is very convenient as the server sits in an forgotten corner of my apartment under a corner table.

5

Oh god that's sex.

6

Nice job!  How much did the build end up costing you?  I've been thinking of doing something similar at some point when I get both the time and the cash together.

Be sure to post here with updates on how it's going in the future.

7

Here's an price overview of my entire shopping list for the project. Prices are in NOK(Norwegian Krone).

  • Case - 669
  • PSU - 759
  • Motherboard - 1699
  • CPU - 1869
  • CPU fan - 399
  • RAM - 1699
  • USB stick - 89
  • 6 Hard drives - 6264
  • 6 sata cables - 372
  • 3 RJ45 cables - 147
  • Shipping - 125

 

Total: 14091 NOK / 1734 EUR / 2375 USD (i used google to convert the prices)

I have done some research and this was the cheapest i could legally get it in my area. But if you don't live in the country with the worlds highest general taxation level, you might get it cheaper.

Those hard drives really drive the build cost up.

8

Thanks for the reply.  It looks like it was a pretty expensive build, but it sure looks great and I bet it will last you a long time.  Those prices converted to Australian dollars : 14,091.00 NOK = 2,535.97 AUD

Norway looks like a great part of the world to be living in.  I was thinking of travelling out that way to study at university there, but I have a slight hitch - I don't speak Scandinavian.  Lol.  That might be a bit of an issue.

9

Yeah i'm hoping it will serve me well for several years to come, so that in the long run it won't look so bad on the "budget".

I'm not exactly unbiased, but i think Norway's a decent part of the world. Of course we do have our own issues and bullshit to deal with, but all things considered it's ok here. Would be nice though if the climate was a little bit less hostile. Also foreigners usually have an easy time in Norway since almost everyone from ages 60 and down speak English to some degree, but studying might be more difficult since at least some of the course material will be in Norwegian, but that probably varies by a huge degree from course to course.

10

So far i'm pleased with my NAS. It's both fast and stable. And now that i have one, i cannot understand how i have been surviving without one up to this point. It's awesome.

This is a screencap from when i was transferring some large files from a WD Black drive on my media rig to my NAS. All six drives on my NAS is also encrypted, so i'm very pleased to see transfer speeds up to 840Mb/s.

However the speed was about half of this when i was transferring a large amount of mp3 files, and even less when transferring a large amount of really tiny files.

network_speed

Not a bad result for encrypted consumer grade hard drives ^_^