NAS Rebuild: few questions and data transfer

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Hello everyone!

I’m rebuilding my NAS after 5 years. It’s served me well, but I need more storage now, and it’s also time to do some nice upgrades that I couldn’t afford at the time. Here’s the part list:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/BhTNDx

With that out of the way, I have few questions.

I intend to run one RAIDZ1 with 3 drives and one RAIDZ2 with 6 drives. The main reason for this is that I want to reuse the drives I already have in the system (4 HGST in a RAIDZ2), but I need to keep the data while I reconfigure. Right now the plan is to install 3 of the reds in a RAID5 setup on another computer and transfer the data to those, providing some protection in case of a drive failure during the process. Once the server is set back up with the other 6 drives, transfer the data back, disable the raid and add the other 3 drives. Realistically this is the best plan I have, as it provides some redundancy while doing the data transfer. I’d love to just upload to a cloud service temporarily, but transferring 5tb or so of data up and down just isn’t an option, and I don’t have the storage to do it otherwise.

1- Is this the best way to approach this? Am I overlooking an otherwise easy solution?

Currently, the only part I haven’t gotten for the server is a new PSU. The Seasonic 360w I’ve been using has served me well, but it wont be enough for the upgraded system (adding RAM, 5 HDD, and changing from an i3 to the 1230). In terms of size, the recommendations I’ve seen and best I can figure is that a 650w would likely be the best option. I’ll also potentially be adding another 3 drives in the future, so I’d like to plan for that I’d rather have too much PSU than not enough, even though that means I might miss the efficiency curve by a bit. I’d like to stick with Seasonic, but they’re currently out of stock everywhere. I would like to do this soon, but I also don’t mind waiting. The other unique requirement here is that the PSU needs to be as compact as possible, as I’ll be using a third HDD cage in the case mounted in the alternate position, which limits the space for the PSU itself. The Seasonic units are only 140mm long, which makes them ideal, beyond that I have nothing but good experiences with their products.

2 - Will 650w be enough, or should I go for a 750w? I never want to worry about the PSU after it’s installed, are there any PSU with similar or better performance to a Seasonic gold unit? I’ve seen mention of Corsair RMx and others, but I have no experience with those units. Further, those units would need to meet the “small” criteria.

In regards to growing the amount of drives in the NAS, I’ll likely need to use adapters to have an appropriate amount of SATA power cables. It’s my understanding that not all molex > SATA adapters are created equal.

3 - Will it be ok to run some of the drives off of molex > SATA adapters? Would it be better to use PCI-e > SATA adapters, if such an adapter exists? Should I use SATA splitters? What is the best approach?

Due to a recent scare with a power outage, I’ve also purchased a UPS to provide for a safe shutdown if power is lost for more than 15 minutes. I haven’t configured this on FreeNAS yet, as I’ll be rebuilding and reinstalling soon. I checked NUT and made sure the unit is supported as well, so there shouldn’t be any problems.

4 - Are there any special considerations I should make in regards to making sure NUT works?

I’d like to mirror my OS drive as well when reinstalling, just as another layer of protection. I only have one internal USB port, but I have a USB header on the motherboard I could purchase an adapter for.

5 - Is using a USB header > port adapter acceptable for a mirrored boot drive?

tl;dr
1 - I’m using 3 of the new drives in a RAID 5 to temporarily backup the server while I rebuild the new RAIDZ2 pool. Is this the best way to approach this? Am I overlooking an otherwise easy solution?
2 - Will 650w be enough, or should I go for a 750w? I never want to worry about the PSU after it’s installed, are there any PSU with similar or better performance to a Seasonic gold unit?
3 - Will it be ok to run some of the drives off of molex > SATA adapters? Would it be better to use PCI-e > SATA adapters, if such an adapter exists? Should I use SATA splitters? What is the best approach?
4 - Are there any special considerations I should make in regards to making sure NUT works?
5 - Is using a USB header > port adapter acceptable for a mirrored boot drive?

Finally. are there any other considerations that need to be made? Anything that I might have missed? I’d appreciate another set of eyes for one last check. Feel free to ask if there are any questions, and thanks for the help!

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Hardware specs look fine. The PSU is more than enough, you will use less than a third of it. Hard disks use no power at all really compared to GPUs. If you want to add 10GbE networking then the power goes up but again, marginal.

I wouldn’t do it this way, mainly because I wouldn’t use the 3 disk raidz1 pool after. Better to add all the drives to your pools at once. Basically you have less than 8TiB of data to back up. Presumably you already have an off-site backup schema that you have been using for the last 5 years. If not, stop your upgrade plans now and set up a backup rotation.

I would suggest just buying 2 large (8TiB +) hard disks and making static copies of your data. Two for data security. You can continue to use these in your backup scheme then. In the distant future they just become drives to use in your array. You will not regret it even though more expensive now. Keep the other 3 drives in your raidz2 pool and have more capacity.

Note you are mixing 7200rpm drives with 5400rpm drives. This will work but performance will be inconsistent.

I’m assuming you are talking just about power. Splitters are fine if you get good quality ones (not the cheapest on the list). But you only need to power 8 drives. Any more and I’d suggest a different chassis with a backplane.

I don’t use NUT so cannot comment.

Use two separate headers rather than a splitter. I just use one usb drive and backup my config regularly. I’m happy with that.

Don’t use RaidZ1 unless that pool is for unimportant data like CCTV recording or backups of backups. Make sure your case has adequate cooling and your drives are screwed down well as there will be a lot of microvibration from that many small disks in that tiny case, especially 7200rpm drives.

Backup backup backup.

Good luck and enjoy.

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Thanks for the reply. A few things

I don’t backup all of my data, just important things like pictures, music, work materials, etc. Other things that I use the NAS for, such as TV recordings, movie rips, and game backups aren’t essential, and can be replaced if needed, so I dont worry as much about those.

I’m not super thrilled about it either, but it’s what I have at this point with the hardware I’ve purchased. I may wait a bit longer though, and purchase an additional 3 drives to setup a second Z2 pool though. Originally I thought that I would just add the three in a Z1, but I’ve been going back and forth. I’ll have to think on it.

Aware, but not too worried. I would have liked to stay with HGST, but it seems the NAS drives have become hard to find. The only other 7200 I could find are the Toshiba N300s, which there isn’t as much data on in terms of reliability, and I only just remembered later in the process. Haven’t really thought about NAS hardware for a while!

Addressing this and the earlier PSU question, I was mostly concerned with Spin up power draw. This also seems to be a non issue, as the PSU I ended up with has 10 SATA power cables. I’ll be sure to look for good ones if needed.

Sorry, that’s what meant. there is one USB port on the board, you can plug a drive straight in, and then one of the headers for a front panel connection. I meant an adapter for the front panel header, in addition to the internal port.

Thanks for answering as in-depth as you did, the only thing I’m considering now is adding the additional drives for two Z2 pools. A good portion of the data I store isn’t what I’d consider “essential”, but still a PITA to lose. Why’d you have to go and give me another excuse to buy more hardware!? :wink:

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Did no one tell you L1 commenters are part of the global conspiracy of hardware sellers, intent solely on making you spend more money? :wink:

That said I think you have though this through and no concerns with your approach. On the specific point of the internal usb header, this is fine. In my htpc I actually disconnected the front panel header from the front panel and zip tied it inside the chassis. It has a Bluetooth dongle permanently attached without leaving access for my niece’s little fingers.

What you can do is create a separate z2 vdev and add the vdev to your existing pool. I wouldn’t have recommended this for the Z1 vdev but when you are ready turn those 3 disks into 6 and make a 12 drive mega array for the ages. FreeNAS is fine with adding vdevs to pools, just not (yet) adding single disks to vdevs, although this feature is “under development”.

Note with 12 drives you really want an enterprise chassis and backplane, one to manage staggered spinup and 2 to improve cooling. I have 12 drives currently in a 3U chassis and cross breeze and it still gets cosy when writing but datasets.

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