R5 2600X Plattform for TrueNAS build

I am new here, i tried my best to fit the topic into the right section, but please correct me if I am wrong.

So here is my question/situation:

  • My Synology DS 216+II is getting old and full
  • My old R5 2600X Desktop laying around and collecting dust
  • I want a new data server without paying thousands of Euros/Dollars for it
  • I am a Linux noob, but I want to learn

Here is my Idea:

  • Get 6-8 old consumer grade hard drives
  • Get a chassis that fits them
  • Install TrueNAS
  • Learn how to use, set it up, fail, loose data etc. on cheap and redundant hardware/system

Basically get a System I can learn how to do stuff without working on the “production” system

When I have learned how to use TrueNAS/ZFS:

  • replace cheap consumer drives with appropriate data center class drives/hardware
  • replace non-ECC RAM with ECC-RAM
  • get an L2ARC cache drive
  • get 10 gbit NICs (I found ConnectX 3 cards on eBay en-mass)
  • …

Does that approach make sense to you?
Are there any specialized recommendations for my situation?
This approach would cost me up front ~ 200€ but I could add the “good” stuff later on piece by piece (currently still a university student, starting my first job in about 3 month…)

System to be converted:
R5 2600X
(Vega 64 Graphics)
4x8 GB DDR4-3000 non-ECC
B450 Aorus Elite

Thanks for your advise!

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Don’t forget an SSD for the OS. I would recommend a 32GB optane. But you can use what ever you like.

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oh yeah, i didn’t bother to mention it.
I got 2 m.2 NVME slots. I would get 2 250 GB NVMEs (1 for OS, 1 as L2ARC)

Don’t agree.
Consumer drives are fine. With two exceptions:

  • Don’t use SMR HDDs
  • Don’t use consumer SSD and think that they offer even half decent sync writes. If you need SLOG, you most likely need PLP

ZFS does not need ECC more than any other file system. But it makes life easier in case of an error. And if you are already fine with all the downsides of a CoW filesystem because you value integrity, why not go the extra mile and use ECC?

Hmm… depends on your needs. To stream 10 FullHD videos at the same time, 1Gbit is fine.
ConnectX3 cards are very old and use a lot of power maybe hinder your Mobo from entering deeper power states. Also some Network cards are meant to be cooled in a server rack with high airflow. You might need to add a fan.
Which brings me to something else, your setup will probably use a lot of idle power.

This is a great place to start.
Start and thinker around with it. As long as this is just a test lab, there is nothing you can loose.
I would even start without buying ECC for now.

Later on you might then decide that

  • you want a system with lower idle consumption
  • you don’t need the power sucking GPU
  • you need the GPU for an application, but realize that TrueNAS isn’t a great hypervisor and switch to Proxmox
  • something completely different :slight_smile:

TrueNAS OS is totally fine on the cheapest SATA SSD you can find. You can backup your configs in one simple file and you can easily restore the boot drive.

I would not start with L2ARC unless you really know what you are doing and have a matching use case. I would start without any extras as L2ARC or SLOG and special vdev and then first watch if there is even the need for performance improvements. Most of the time, it isn’t needed! And for L2ARC, there is no reason to add it know instead of afterwards when the ARC hit ratio isn’t great.

ZFS performance tuning flowchart

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Thanks for your detailed reply!

As far as I understand, it is said that if you have more than 6 HDDs in a chassis, NAS or Datacenter drive are highly commanded due to resistance to constant vibrations (from the other drives).
Can you elaborate on this consideration?

I have two issues, I may have to explain my background a bit:
I do study mechanical engineering and deal with a lot of numerical simulations (got to turn in my masters thesis next week). Those simulations create a metric shit ton of binary data. Of course, I don’t keep all results for ever but its wise to back up data. So I got a bunch of data I need to be able to back up and copy in a reasonable time frame, even though most data is gonna get deleted after a while.
I got accepted into a PhD/Doctoral program, so I will still have the need to back up data at least temporarily.
Cooling consideration: I have to replace the current case anyways and since cases that have many harddrive mounts are expensive, I consider buying something like an Inter-Tech IPC 3U-K-340L
I am not completely set on a ConnectX3, I just saw how plenty they are and found a tutorial how to set them up for TrueNAS

GPU is gonna go after the set up. No video stream necessary

Yes that is a worry. But what else to get what can deal with a lot of discs, possible 10gbit NICs? Its gonna cost a lot?

good to know, i have a 250gb sata laying around… that’s probably sufficient

I may have been a little overenthusiastic: I wanted to make sure I have the option to install a NVME SSD for that purpose, maybe experiment but i believe for my use case (shifting of large binary files) it may not be necessary/usefull

My transfer SSD can do about 800 MB/s in sustained reads and a bit less in sustained writes. That is the reason i wish to get a faster than 1 gbit connection. In my (personal) Desktop I got 980 Pros, so they would benefit even more…

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I don’t know how much vibration your case has or you drive caddies.
But normally this isn’t a problem with only 6 HDDs more like with +24 drives.
Besides, depending on what size you wanna get, you will probably won’t find any none Enterprise or none NAS drives anyway.

Only you can decide if 1Gbit is fast enough for you.

I am currently out of the loop, sorry. Last few years it seemed like it is getting harder to get cheap 8 SATA + 10Gbit mobos for cheap. But CES has some interesting news, hopefully this will improve now.

You can add it later on. L2ARC uses up ARC. And L2ARC only caches stuff that evicted ARC. So maybe your ARC hit ratio is decent enough without L2ARC.

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is it even worth buying into a “dead” platform? (AM4)

Everything I planned to buy is platform independent (except the RAM maybe, but you told me it doesn’t matter too much)

One big difference is DDR4 and DDR5.
AMD had spotty ECC support, apparently that is better now.

On the other hand, I would not buy a consumer board without IPMI and half decent support. This basically translates to SuperMicro boards or prebuild TrueNAS Mini systems (which are pretty good value in my opinion. It is a shame they no longer ship. worldwide). I am also willing to give AsRock Rack a try (and hope they are not the same trash as their parent company Asus) if they have a nice offer.

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I understand the advantages of a workstation/server grade board, but my Idea/motivation was to re-use my old PC for something I kind of want and need. Ones I start replacing my board…

I dont see a reasonable way replacing my core components makes sense

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I would also just use what you already have and buy nothing for now in your situation.

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If you want to learn I’d suggest that you actually go for a generic os/distro that supports ZFS be it FreeBSD (probably the “best” choice as far as (Open)ZFS is concerned) or a Linux distro.

Unless you know that you really need L2ARC, SLOG etc skip it. It’ll just add more complexity for very little if any gain under “normal” circumstances and either way it’ll be faster than your Synology box.

I would strongly recommend not to get a NIC that’s EOL, it’s not worth it and can be a major pain to work with (if you can get it work at all in some cases).

To be fair, a simple 2.5G NIC (i226 for example) goes a long way with spinning rust or with generic network clients in general.

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soo… I did some digging and I am not quiet sure what to make of it:

  • some NICs claim to have genuine Intel Chips from questionable brands (for example i226)
  • Some name brand (NEW!) NICs use EOL chips on them
  • Asus NICs, where its not clear what chip they use

Do you have any thoughts about that?

If you want to be on the really safe side of things,
https://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/203754581_-i226-t1-intel.html
…or something like Syba SY-PEX24076 or QNAP QXG-2G2T-I225 (dual port, i225)

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So for some procrastination I did some searching for drives.
My idea was to use cheap used consumer drives and replace them with something reasonable later.

I was very wrong

Turns out used consumer drives from a electronics recycler/reseller are surprisingly expensive. Its also kind of hard to find refurbished data center drives. Do any of my German friends have good ideas? I basically only found refurbished Seagate drives. No WD or any other manufacturer.

if nothing else turns up, here are the options I found and looking forward to your opinion

  • 4x IronWolf Pro 4 TB (ref.)
  • 4x IronWolf 4 TB (new)
  • 2x Exos X16 16 TB (ref.)

Using the Exos drives gets me far the best value, but Id have to mirror them; limiting my flexibility…

Everything below 16TB is not even worth the SATA port or the power it uses in my opinion.

So, for those who are interested:
I went for refurbished Iron Wolf Pro 4 TB Drives.
For the case i chose the Inter-Tech IPC 4088-S

I ordered used a HPE-Midline drive to see what state those are in, it turned out to be actually used and old. It works fine, but I don’t want any more of those…due to the price I am keeping it as a cold spare…

From a cost-per-TB point of view an X16 16 TB or an WD Gold 20 TB would have been the sweet spot in the current market, but the pricing…