Help with NAS/Server Thing of Sorts

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TL;DR: FreeNas seems limiting in terms of software and expensive in hardware, Help me pick some hardware for an Ubuntu server

 

So I have run out of 3.5" bays in my full tower.. Time to build something new! I was pretty set on FreeNas after watching the tek vids on it, until I got into the hardware requirements for it. I want to run 5x2TB drives, and according to the FreeNas forums and site the minimum is 8GB of ECC ram or 1GB per TB of hard drive space.. So for me that would mean like 10GB (so basically 12GB) of ECC ram? Thats like $150 of just ram, and I was really shooting for $250 max for CPU, RAM, and a motherboard. Plus on the software side of FreeNas, ZFS is awesome, but I kinda want something that can do a little more than just store files and the like very few plugins that are available.. 

So I was thinking instead I would build a linux based system (probably Ubuntu) and run my drives in raid5 that way I can have my storage but also have infinitely more options available in terms of additional software. My question now is exactly how much horsepower I need to have to do everything I want and not break my $250 budget. For now the extent of what I would run would be Samba, PHP, Apache, MySQL, Plex Media server and I think thats all I would need (someone correct me if im wrong, I have little experience with linux) all I want to do is make all my files available to my windows machines on my local network, run a webserver just to play with, and be able to transcode/stream media to like my nexus 7.

Plex's transcoding will be the most resource intensive and according to their site I need at least 2GB of ram and a core2 duo or better and it seems to be a CPU intensive process and doesn't need much ram, and takes advantage of multiple cores. 

So would something along these lines work?

FX-4300 / 4GB Crucial ECC DDR3 1600 / Asus M5A97 LE -Total: ~$226 

Pentium G3258 / 4GB Crucial ECC DDR3 1600 / Asrock H87WS-DL Server Motherboard -Total: $235

Now those are both setups with the ECC ram which from what I have read is desirable in servers, although if its not really needed for my applications then someone please let me know and Ill find some cheaper desktop ram (and a cheaper motherboard too). 

Here are the pros/cons that I can see of each, feel free to correct me if I am wrong:

AMD Pros: more cores, higher clocks

AMD Cons: more power consumption, no integrated gpu (probably have to buy an el-cheapo), slower single thread performance. - Side note: Do AMD CPUs throttle down or turn off cores when idle? Or would it sit there and run 3.8ghz all cores while doing nothing?

Intel Pros: faster single threaded perf, server motherboard has dual gigabit NICs (albeit Realtek ones) with teaming, more sata ports, less power

Intel Cons: 2 cores no hyper threading, slower clock, not sure the dual core could handle transcoding multiple streams well or not

 

 If I do not need the ECC ram, then I could cheap out and go with something like these but not really saving very much:

Pentium G3258 / 4GB Gskill 1600 /  GA-H97 -Total: $192

 FX-4300 / 4GB Gskill 1600 / TA970  -Total: $195

 

As far as the raid5 goes, both motherboard support it with the chipset but is that a bad idea? Do I need to buy a dedicated raid card (a 5-6 port raid card will definitely put me over budget). Right now I use 2 ssd's in raid0 off of my motherboard chipset with no issues so I don't think I would mind using the chipset for raid5 in the server unless its seriously going to put my data at risk? Is handling 10TB worth of disk space going to cause the chipset raid to freak out? Im not super concerned about a slight performance loss if its going to save me $150 on a dedicated card. 

If anyone has a recommendation on that let me know, or a reasonably affordable raid card with at least 5 sata ports. 

 

 Anyways I think thats all of my questions for now, I know this post is huge but I tend to be long winded I guess.

Let me know what you guys think,

-Tyler

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Tyler,

First question to ask yourself is how important your data is, then break it down from there.

Out of your hardware choices, I would recommend the Intel setup, its dedicated server components. Also from experience Asus boards seem to choke on secondary non graphics PCI x16 slots even at 4x, some cards work, some do not. It isn't worth the hassle to invest then later down the road get stuck based on compatibility issues.

Stick with ECC, because if you decide to try FreeNas even if it isn't your first choice, you will be better setup for it later, and you can always add more memory. Also an alternative is Nas4free, not as complicated, but uses ZFS.

For your software needs, yes FreeNas is basically designed as storage server, and to even run what you want outside of plex and file shares, you would have to run in a VM and not would not recommend this unless you have the speed/memory to multi-thread.

Linux wise, IF your looking for a SERVER grade O/S, I use OpenSuse due the amount of Server types and configurations you can set up for yourself. All versions of Linux can be a little complicated, learning is half the fun and experience. Ubuntu being the easiest of course.

On your choice of RAID 5, if you are thinking of using this outside FreeNas, thats a 50/50 gamble, anytime I use RAID I use ECC Memory especially if I'm using the Mobo's controller, also Hardware raid is dependent on the controller, so if the Mobo or external controller goes bad, you need the same Mobo, or controller type to get your data back.

Most people get hung up on RAID 5 due to not loosing much drive space, and its fast READS, but data integrity is not as good compared to others.

I always use RAID 1 + 0 so that not only are there 2 copies but its striped as well, writes suffer a little, but the reads are faster. Sometimes I will use Spanned RAIDS depending of the setups.

 

 

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Pentium G3258 / 4GB Crucial ECC DDR3 1600 / Asrock H87WS-DL

So if I was to do with this setup, do you think the G3258 would be able to handle multiple transcoding streams since it only has 2 cores? 

Also by data integrity, I know raid5 can lose 1 drive and still be ok, unless there is something else besides that?

Do you know of anywhere I can shop around for AMD motherboards that support ECC ram? I tried looking on newegg, but the consumer boards dont have a filter for ECC support (even though some support it) and under the server motherboard section its all intel sockets

In your raid arrays, are you using hardware raid cards usually? Do you have one you could recommend? 

 

Thanks for the help

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All AMD boards (to my knowledge and all I have used right through socket AM2 - 3+) support the use of ECC memory. Both Registered and Buffered.

The AMD server sockets are C32 and G34, although an AM3+ chip should be fine for your purposes.

As for RAID cards, look for LSI. Yes they're expensive but they offer the best performance and future expansion. On that note, if data is really important, use RAID 6. One drive failover is just not enough IMO. As if another fails when they are re-building.... yea.... that's a lot of data lost. Also remember that RAID is not a backup. You should also be keeping active backups of the array.

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Pretty much all of my data is just movies/shows/anime so really I think I only need 1 drive worth of protection. If I am unfortunate enough to have 2 drives fail within 48hrs of each other, then that will suck for sure but anything lost I could reacquire it just might take a little while (half the movies and shows I probably wouldnt want again anyways)

Yeah I see the C32/G34 boards now, didnt realize that was AMD at first glance. Sucks they dont have AM3+ server grade boards. None of the desktop AM3+ motherboards I have found on newegg list ECC support, so I started googling model numbers of the AM3+ boards in my price range. Most of the manufacturer websites list support for non-ecc un-buffered memory only. The only manufacturer I could find that listed ECC support was ASUS and that was only on a couple boards. 

And yikes looked at the prices of LSI cards on newegg and no those are not cheap.. Definitely not in my budget. Hell for the price of some of those I could build a whole new machine practically. I think I may just end up sticking with the motherboards raid unless I can find a dedicated card less than $100 that has 5-6 sata ports.

 

Thanks for the input though

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Tyler,

Any kind of trans-coding is going to stress the CPU, whether an AMD or Intel, you should be able to get away with at least 2 streams without choking, but a little buffering may occur and that can be contributed to RAM and Network card type as well.

Most Asus and third party boards support ECC memory, Asus is the only manufacturer that lists ECC out right on their website and manuals.

If your going to run AM3 boards, read the manuals about the PCIe slots. If it has a secondary 16x slot, and you want to add a controller card, make sure it can run independent of the primary.

CPU at least an Athlon/Phenom Dual core, though you won't really benefit from the the L3 cache on the Phenom, but I still use them if I can get them. I don't really use AMD for building these things, and its not that I have anything against AMD, But I have always used Intel for server components, and AMD for my workstation/gaming builds.

AMD supports a maximum of 16gig DDR2/3, with the Newer boards pushing 32gig. 

As far as raid setups go, if you use hard ware raid, yes it can get very expensive, which when most build their FreeNas boxes they use Host Bus Adapter cards which just act as a basic controller like a motherboard controller, but again the biggest advantage FreeNas has is that if the raid card/motherboard go bad, your not tied to finding the exact type of controller to get the data, and trust me it sucks when a server goes down because a raid card or motherboard went bad.

Most basic LSI boards like a 9240 can be had for around $100. You don't need anything crazy, the more expensive cards are not going to benefit you unless you plan on using hardware raid.

Raid types are another story all together, and again its a personal choice based on your need for storage, budget, and importance of your data.

Because, for the most part hard drives are pretty cheap, I setup NAS systems with a raid 1+0, with a second set of hard drives as a swap backup, and people swap a set of them out every other week.

On the realistic side, because I am old school, for me the only way of backing up data is to use a tape drive, well very few can afford a $1200 to $7000 LTO Drive that will back everything up. 

Even then data centers used clustered raid arrays which is why you don't see much backup medium, because it is all data redundancy. Whats stored in New York, is stored in L.A.

So in some cases, building a mirrored NAS is the best alternative, next to using drive swaps, which is why I use raid 1+0.

I store all my music, movies, anime, personal data, and my projects on my FreeNAS, so I'm there with you on wanting it all in one place.

If money is the man factor, then I would not stress on getting the latest and newest, in some cases with hardware it doesn't prove itself til its been out for a while.

Don't over think it, it can get so crazy you'll spend more time thinking then doing.

When I started using FreeNas I used an old Asus M4A89 Series with 8gig of ECC, a basic Syba 4 x sata card, 6x2tb drives, running in raidz2, and do this day its still kicking, and I use it for light duty backup when I'm working on computer systems.