Need a quick opinion on my nasferatu build *freenas zfs*

Level1Techs INBOX.deb
1

hey everyone i've been reading tons of threads on freenas and decided to ditch the original idea of salvaging the z77 board and go for server parts

anyways i just need a quick opinion on the parts i'm going to use....good idea or bad...that sort of thing....

heres the list:

SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SL7-F-O uATX Server Motherboard *onboard LSI controller :) *

Intel Xeon E3-1240V3 *combo price*

Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Server Memory Model CT2KIT102472BD160B *2 sets so 32gb*

Kingston HyperX 120gig ssd * boot*

WD Elements 4TB USB 3.0 3.5" External Hard Drive WDBWLG0040HBK-NESN *4 to make 16tb and removing the enclosures*

Seagate Backup Plus 5tb *4 of these to make 20tb*

Corsair GS500 Power Supply *the only item i'm going to salvage unless I should get a new one*

Fractal Design 804 Case *it'll be my first time hanging drives instead of a standard cage*

for the cpu cooler i wanted to try something different as the case had a windowed side panel.....a nofan model

http://www.quietpcusa.com/NoFan-CR-95C-IcePipe-Fanless-CPU-Cooler-P928.aspx

or

http://www.nofancomputer.com/eng/products/CR-80EH.php *much more compact*

thats about it I think....the sale ends today so hopefully anyone responds

 

2

Why are you getting external drives and removing them? Why not just buy regular hard drives?

3

for some reason its cheaper for externals half the time *go figure*

 

4

So I wouldn't use external drive because they are not ment for 24/7 operation.

You have an LSI controller but are not using it, why?

Drop the RAM to 8gb and use ECC.

You should put WD reds a raid array with a file system such as ZFS or BTRFS.

Your current system has poor data integrity.

5

i'm going for a raidz setup on freenas therefore the lsi controller and cruicial ecc ram

following the suggestion of at least 16 gigs of ecc ram according to this thread

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/so-you-want-some-hardware-suggestions.12276/

the board has 8 ports controlled by the lsi component that are going to be populated by those drives *looked up sata drives work fine on sas ports*....plus its an alternative to a addon card with the same controller,,,,theres 6 other ports but my idea is to keep everything on a single controller *unless thats a bad idea*

but you make a good point about the wd reds....

 

6

so i've decided to go with the 4tb reds instead of the external drive, but newegg has a limit of 5 per household/person/card argh!

7

the SSD is not needed for boot. use for L2ARC/ZIL cache. Boot from USB like a normal person. Doesn't even take up a sata port that way. Get a "Name Brand Quality" high speed USB drive and see if it works. USB3 almost works: https://jonrozier.com/2014/03/08/enable-usb-3-0-in-freenas-9-2-x/ but I haven't tried it with freenas 9.3 that just came out. You can use a usb3 stick in a usb2 port and have 40/40 read/write which is decent for the OS/boot drive. You can store logs/etc on the zfs tank though.

 

8

Have a look at the HGST NAS disks. I just got a few of them. They have similar specs to the red pros but are much cheaper.

9

if only it matched the 5yr warranty :)

after a promo code the reds are a lil cheaper.....but i'll have to try the hgst's if the reds turn out to be duds

10

i'll try putting the drive on one of the internal headers as it feels a tad risky to have a stick plugged into a exterior port

will definitely have to try the rest as well after the build is complete...thanks for the help :)

11

Yeah, my build ended up about $200 cheaper so that was worth the trade off of not getting red pros.

The reds a good too, I have 10 in my other server and they've been solid. I used to have greens but they all died within a month of each other after about 18 months. I learnt the hard way not to use desktop drives for raid or 24/7 use.

 

 

12

hows the noise?

13

They're pretty quiet, I have the fans up quite high so the only disk I hear is the velociraptor.