1st NAS Build

[cpotter638]

Re:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131704

• Intel LAN x 2
• $246

Just realized link was wrong. Should have been:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131714

not interested in a SATA box w/port expander?
Or a PCIe card adding SATA 3 ports?

Not familiar with SATA box & port expander. What is this?

PCIe - I'm open to suggestions. Let me elaborate re: my thoughts for motherboard needs:

• At least 1x Intel LAN. 2nd LAN would be nice. But this is not 100% necessary. 2nd could be something other than Intel if necessary
• Greg has suggested going with Sata3. As such, I was planning on going this route. So - I need 6x Sata3 now (MOBO + card add on). Would like to have the ability to add 6 additional hard drives in the future. So need enough slots on MOBO to be able to add 6x additional Sata3 via card in the future.
• Cheapest video for installation / maintentance. This can be MOBO integrated or additional card.

Would like to meet criteria and keep cost down as much as possible.

 

[cpotter638]

Another case possiblity:

http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&category=2&prod=71
$149 @ Newegg

 

[cpotter638]

Re: Cases:

Lian Li & Fractal design - both with dust filters. Some reviews have commented that cases are "dust free". "Dust free" is hard for me to believe. However, I'm guessing dust will be less than the Norco RPC-2212. Looking at video reviews, I'm also guessing that both Lian Li & Fractal cases have better airflow than the Norco. I have zero experience with server type cases. How is the Norco with dust & airflow?

Main qualifications for case:

• Keep hard drives cool and protected. This is #1.
• Easy for maintenance / drive changing in the future.

I really like the idea of hot swap with Norco. Perhaps I'm trying to make excuses so I don't have to drop $300 on the Norco.

 

[cpotter638]

After much research and thought, I'm probably going to go with a Supermicro MOBO. Probably either the X9SCM-F or X9SCL+-F.

Re: CPU, I know the i3-1200 is supported on above boards. What about Pentium chips (such as G620). I'm guessing the G620 would be enough CPU power, but don't know if it's supported.

Anybody have postive or negative re: 3 cases I referenced previously?

Thanks again for the help.

 

[cpotter638]

Re: Case:

Want 12 hot swap. Fill with 6 drives for now. Ability to add 6 more in future. Was favoring Norco RPC-2212. Only problem - RPC-2212 only takes 2U PSU (not standard PSU). So:

Anyone have a suggested 2U power supply for my build?

OR

Should I change to a 4U Norco case (such as RPC-4220 or 4216) and go with standard PSU?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Beezie]

After much research and thought, I'm probably going to go with a Supermicro MOBO. Probably either the X9SCM-F or X9SCL+-F.

Re: CPU, I know the i3-1200 is supported on above boards. What about Pentium chips (such as G620). I'm guessing the G620 would be enough CPU power, but don't know if it's supported.

Anybody have postive or negative re: 3 cases I referenced previously?

Thanks again for the help.

If you are going for a supermicro Motherboard you need to be careful with what ram you buy. Supermicro boards are so picky on ram its silly

 

[Hydaral]

I agree with your new reasoning. Some good info I found re: this (Item #1 on link):

http://forums.freenas.org/showthrea...ep-getting-Asked-amp-Answered-about-FreeNAS-8

Unless I'm misunderstanding things, I've read that it is preferable to run FreeNAS ZFS on a compact flash or USB drive. I assume this would make the SSD drive unnecessary? I was planning on running via USB.

A lot of folks do, I don't like 'em, thumb drives fail all the time (see other threads about having a dup as standby), and they have to be formatted and setup properly to use as a boot. I prefer SSD for reliability and expansion, and ease of setup. The choice is yours.

I run Nexenta from a USB flash drive, three actually, I have a 3x mirror. I have been running it for about 14 months now, one drive has run perfectly fine the whole time, two failed after 1 month, three more failed after about 2-3 months, and one other has been running fine for about 8 months.

I have found that you get what you pay for, and that lifetime warranties are Good Things. The two most expensive drives are the ones that have lasted the longest, even though one of them was my EDC for about 3 years and is about 6 years old in total.

Just make sure you have a backup and/or mirror and that you have replacement drives on-hand.

 

[cpotter638]

If you are going for a supermicro Motherboard you need to be careful with what ram you buy. Supermicro boards are so picky on ram its silly

Thanks. Was planning on either Crucial memory (approved @ Supermicro website) or Kingston version (verified working by members on other forums running the same MOBO).

 

[cpotter638]

I run Nexenta from a USB flash drive, three actually, I have a 3x mirror. I have been running it for about 14 months now, one drive has run perfectly fine the whole time, two failed after 1 month, three more failed after about 2-3 months, and one other has been running fine for about 8 months.

I have found that you get what you pay for, and that lifetime warranties are Good Things. The two most expensive drives are the ones that have lasted the longest, even though one of them was my EDC for about 3 years and is about 6 years old in total.

Just make sure you have a backup and/or mirror and that you have replacement drives on-hand.

I was planning on some sort of backup. I'm a neebie when it comes to FreeNAS and server type boxes. Will be running FreeNAS 0.8 with ZFS. I could be wrong, but it may be possible to run a separate pool of mirrored USB flash drives. Alternatively, I know others have set up a cron job and backed up USB OS to storage pool. In any case, I will experiment with OS backup solutions.

Re: specific USB drives:

• I was thinking (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139245) due to its good reviews / ratings. But it only has a 5 yr warranty.
• Am I better off with a USB drive with a "limited lifetime warranty"?

 

[Hydaral]

I was planning on some sort of backup. I'm a neebie when it comes to FreeNAS and server type boxes. Will be running FreeNAS 0.8 with ZFS. I could be wrong, but it may be possible to run a separate pool of mirrored USB flash drives. Alternatively, I know others have set up a cron job and backed up USB OS to storage pool. In any case, I will experiment with OS backup solutions.

Re: specific USB drives:

• I was thinking (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139245) due to its good reviews / ratings. But it only has a 5 yr warranty.
• Am I better off with a USB drive with a "limited lifetime warranty"?

Last I checked, the boot drive for FreeNAS cannot be ZFS so you can't create a ZFS "syspool" mirror. This was the reason I didn't choose FreeNAS for mine.

You probably don't need a lifetime warranty, it will either fail or you will voluntarily replace it before 5 years, but I have found that the companies with lifetime warranties, eg corsair, usually have a "no questions asked" attitude, whereas others might test it after you return it, claim that it works and send it back. This is what I was concerned about with some of my drive failures as they only failed when using them with ZFS, they seemed to work fine if I just used them as a normal flash drive in Windows. Corsair took them back with no hassles.

My general rule for buying quality USB flash drives is: if the official packaging or advertising material does not quote read and write speeds, then it is no good.

 

[Beezie]

Thanks. Was planning on either Crucial memory (approved @ Supermicro website) or Kingston version (verified working by members on other forums running the same MOBO).

ok nice, its always good to check the product number on the ram stick and the size of the ram sticks and how many slots ocupied, some Supermicro board have 6ram slots but only 4 are usable for non buffered ram and so fourth

 

[cpotter638]

Nas has been built without great difficulty. Seems fully functional.

I've created a Unix / BSD script that checks CPU & Hard drive temps and emails at a threshold. Anyone have a suggested threshold for CPU temp? What about hard drive temp? What temp is too high for CPU & hard drive? Would want to set threshold a little lower than "problematic temps".

Thanks for all the help.

 

[stevech]

Seems to me that
CPU temperature is whatever the manufacture warranty requires. Most computers today toggle the CPU speeds up/down per load, so the temperature varies accordingly.

Drive temperature - same same. But stats on how much time it able to spin-down is very useful and is a temperature-determinate. Some untoward software could needlessly keep the drive from spinning down (assuming the drive can, and the OS supports).

 

[GregN]

Nas has been built without great difficulty. Seems fully functional.

I've created a Unix / BSD script that checks CPU & Hard drive temps and emails at a threshold. Anyone have a suggested threshold for CPU temp? What about hard drive temp? What temp is too high for CPU & hard drive? Would want to set threshold a little lower than "problematic temps".

Thanks for all the help.

Cool. Indeed a happy new year, congrats.

I try to keep everything, in extermis, below the boiling point of water. Above that things start to get flaky.

You give it a name? Want to give us your final configuration for posterity?

 

[cpotter638]

Build:

• OS: FreeNAS 8.0.2
• Case: Norco RPC-4220
• PSU: Seasonic M12II
• MOBO: Supermicro X9SCM-F with IPMI
• CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1220
• RAM: Crucial 8Gb ECC DDR3
• USB: Patriot Xporter 4Gb
• HD: 6x Seagate 2.0Tb Barracuda Green

Some of the hardware is overkill. But some features are helpful (IPMI) and allows for a lot of expansion from a drive standpoint.

Re: CPU & Drive temps:

• Currently have MOBO "Power Technology" option set to "Enegry Effecient".
• Unit is located in the unfinished portion of basement. Shouldn't have too much variation in ambient temp.
• CPU temps running a max of 85F. Couldn't find "max temp" specs for CPU. Have alert set at 110F.
• HD temps running a max of 75F. Per Seagate, max temp should be 60C. So, well within specs. Have alert set up at 100F.

Current items I'm evaluating:

• Processor cores. Should I keep all 4 running? Or cut # of running cores down to 2? Would help from an energy effeciency standpoint. Probably only need 4 cores running if I was streaming content (which I'm not). Opinions?
• WOL. Started looking at this tonight. Having trouble setting this up. MOBO has WOL header with 3 pins (+5 Standby, Ground, & Wake-up). If I want to use WOL, how should this be set up? Also, per MOBO manual there should be a "Wake on LAN from S5" option to enable / disable. This is supposedly located in the "South Bridge Configuration" section of BIOS. However, I don't see this in BIOS. Why? I'm confused. If need be, I can contact SuperMicro.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[GregN]

Build:

• OS: FreeNAS 8.0.2
• Case: Norco RPC-4220
• PSU: Seasonic M12II
• MOBO: Supermicro X9SCM-F with IPMI
• CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1220
• RAM: Crucial 8Gb ECC DDR3
• USB: Patriot Xporter 4Gb
• HD: 6x Seagate 2.0Tb Barracuda Green

I don't see the overkill (maybe the processor, a little), this looks like a sweet ride.

Re: CPU & Drive temps:

• Currently have MOBO "Power Technology" option set to "Enegry Effecient".
• Unit is located in the unfinished portion of basement. Shouldn't have too much variation in ambient temp.
• CPU temps running a max of 85F. Couldn't find "max temp" specs for CPU. Have alert set at 110F.
• HD temps running a max of 75F. Per Seagate, max temp should be 60C. So, well within specs. Have alert set up at 100F.

Under load I will regularly see CPU temperatures around 85-90C in both the SAN and my DAS, and have yet to have an issue. I have auto-shutdown set for 95, which has happened once in the DAS (I'm in Arizona), and was an issue in the 20 drive SAN until back 2 fans were upgraded, and the Norco wiring to the fan brace was locked down.

I recommend a couple cable ties connecting PSU to the fan brace molex, the Norco's molex can be temperamental - losing power to the fan brace is not a happy occurrence.

I have found the Norco cooling to be a little substandard, and upgraded the rear fans. It is also not the quietest case. Though currently it is a nice space heater on cold nights

Processor cores. Should I keep all 4 running? Or cut # of running cores down to 2? Would help from an energy efficiency standpoint. Probably only need 4 cores running if I was streaming content (which I'm not). Opinions?

I would compare running 2 cores with 4 cores under NASPT, see the performance difference.

Are you going to be running either compression or dedup? If not I suspect you won't see alot of difference.

WOL. Started looking at this tonight. Having trouble setting this up. MOBO has WOL header with 3 pins (+5 Standby, Ground, & Wake-up). If I want to use WOL, how should this be set up? Also, per MOBO manual there should be a "Wake on LAN from S5" option to enable / disable. This is supposedly located in the "South Bridge Configuration" section of BIOS. However, I don't see this in BIOS. Why? I'm confused. If need be, I can contact SuperMicro.

You'll need the WOL header only if you are running a NIC other than those on the motherboard.

Not sure about BIOS settings or NIC settings, I found that a free utility, WONCLI was helpful back when I looked at this, it will generate your needed magic packet on demand, for both up and down. I've been looking at this an a ATI utility for a script that will suspend both the HTPC and my SAN when I turn off and on the TV - didn't work (turned out the fibre card doesn't like suspend...). But the utility was very useful.

On another note, I am absolutely positive SuperMicro will be able to help, just this week I called them and spoke to them about a 2007 used MB I just got, concerning memory issues, they quickly pointed me to OEM jumpers that needed to be changed. Whole call took 5 minutes. Try that with any other MB manufacturer (like Asus)


Hope this helps.

 

[Hydaral]

I've created a Unix / BSD script that checks CPU & Hard drive temps and emails at a threshold. Anyone have a suggested threshold for CPU temp? What about hard drive temp? What temp is too high for CPU & hard drive? Would want to set threshold a little lower than "problematic temps".

Not that monitoring HDD temps is not a good idea, but the Google HDD failure paper indicates that a drive's operating temperature has very little effect on its life.