NAS-Build w/ Ryzen, ECC, Optane and 10Gb-NIC

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Hey level1techs :slight_smile:,

i am currently planning a NAS-Server-build so i can edit huge 4K files over the network and i wonder which hardware/os is suited the best for this case.

Hardwarespecs i decided to go for with this build:
-> Ryzen (Dnt know which exact one)
-> 10Gb NIC (provided by the mainboard, but i can also buy a pcie card)
-> Optane as Cache (with all the data on HDDs)
-> ECC RAM (loosing data is a no go)
(-> Case with hotswap-bays for the HDDs would be great, but is not necessary)

I heard that FreeNas doesnt like amd chips, so i wonder if there is an other os you guys could recommend for this job (if there is no other good os, i can still go with intel).

Btw: ZFS is a must have!

Thanks in advance for any suggestion!

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I cannot speak to how well Ryzen is supported on FreeBSD (I think I remember issues with the APUs?).

That said, the Optane is probably not the best bet for your use-case. For performance, I recommend allocating your money to disks and RAM so that you’re using striped mirrors (no RAIDZ) and you have as much RAM as possible. You’re looking for fast sequential I/O, so IOPS are much less important. If your striped mirrors can’t saturate the 10GbE (16-20 drives should accomplish this in striped mirrors), then look at adding a SSD cache.

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I would go with ubuntu 18.04 at this point. they are using it as the recommended filesystem for lxc containers and it is very easy to get running on ubuntu. Not that the other distros are hard by any means.
You will need to do some checking of which ryzen boards actually support ecc. I think @wendell knows of a few. Also not that I am the expert but I don’t think any zen/zen+ boards have a 10gb nic built-in. I think threadripper boards are the few that might have that.

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Thank you for your fast response! I forgot to say, that i already own 2x 16gb optanes. I thought 1 for the OS and 1 as Cache device, but it totally makes sense what you say. Large files dnt benefit from the low latency of optane.

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The one thing to keep in mind is that ZFS on Linux still doesn’t support TRIM on SSDs (unless that changed very recently), so if you do want to have SSDs in your system, you’ll run into that.

I do agree with @sanfordvdev that Ubuntu natively supporting ZFS is a good reason to go with it for ZOL. There are occasionally issues with the bleeding edge version of it.

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If you already have them and you have no other use for them, then go for it.

What capacities are they?

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Okay, i dnt have any experience with containers so far but I think i will be able to learn such things. Thank you for your suggestion, i will definitely take a look on ubuntu 18.04 server edition :slight_smile:

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They are both 16gb (i got a really really good deal, so i just bought 2 of them without knowing when i will use them)

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Don’t bother with a 16GB cache. You should have at least twice that much RAM in this system.

Use them in a mirror as your OS drive. It’s way overkill, but you can rest assured that your OS is never going down because of a drive failure.

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Ah okay, btw i will go for 32GB of RAM, because i will have between 20-30TB of data.

Yea, i like that idea of having the os mirrored! Thank you for your suggestions.

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If possible, get it in as few DIMMs as possible so that you can upgrade in the future.

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Yes i will go for 2 dimms, so that i can upgrade to 64gb in the future. This will be more than enough for my needs. Do you know a good case for my needs? I need at least 5 bays in a formfactor as small as possible. I think i will go for the the Asus XG-C100C 10G if the mainboard doesnt bring 10gb networking with it.

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may want to look at chelsio and mellanox 10gb nics fro used on ebay and amazon. Some are selling in pairs with cable for around 65 bucks

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@NikBerlin what does your 10GbE networking look like? Is it RJ45, or SFP+ (or other)?

Also, expect to do some kernel tuning for the 10GbE if you want to leverage it’s full potential.

I don’t have a case recommendation off hand. I usually buy used server equipment.

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Great! i just found a chelsio for 28€ (i live in germany) on ebay. What about power consumption on these older 10gb cards ? The server will run 24/7 i would rather spend 80€ more and saving 80€ on power (within a few years) than saving the money now and having one more heating device in my case. Or are there other benefits to those older “pro” server hardware i dnt know about? I am pretty new to networking stuff :slight_smile:

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I will have to buy the whole networking stuff, so i dnt prefer one over the other (rj45 vs sfp+)

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SFP+ cards should use less power than RJ45 cards (and are cheaper to buy).

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Thanks, i am going to do some research on that on my own. Thank you!

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Not a case per say, but if you already have a case with decent airflow that can fit one this front panel hot-swap box is pretty competent

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Thanks but i think i will go with a case like the SilverStone DS380. I just need to find one which fits matx!