Questions on my first DIY NAS (+server) build

[P195]

Hi Everyone,

I’m new to the world of NAS, servers, homelab etc but have been doing my research over the last couple of weeks.
Initially I’m setting up a rig to be first and foremost a NAS and backup unit, but in due course will want to do other stuff such as run a server for Media, Home security, Router/Firewall, VM’s, containers etc.
Initially I plan to run either Unraid or TrueNAS core, but in the future I may want to virtualize these in something like Proxmox (not sure about this though).

My current hardware list:

• ASRock AM4 B450M Pro4 2.0
• Ryzen 7 2700X CPU with Wraith Prism stock cooler
• Fractal Node 804 Case
• Corsair RM650 PSU

Stuff to buy / consider (where I could do with some help):

GPU​

My CPU has no integrated graphics, but I do have a very old 7800 GT 512mb relic, that I could use for initial setup, and then run headless. Question is though, Is it likely that I will need a permanent GPU for the tasks that I have mentioned (e.g transcoding for media server etc)?

Memory – 16 or 32 gb? ECC vs Non-ECC (Motherboard specs: Pinnacle Ridge support DDR4 3200+(OC) / 2933(OC) / 2667 / 2400 / 2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory)​

As my 2700X and mainboard both support ECC memory, should I spend the extra money on it?
Based on what I want to do now and in the future, would 16GB be enough or should I get 32gb? Also will all DDR4 288pin UDIMM RAM be suitable / functional? What speed should I aim for?

Drives? Determine what type of RAID setup​

I currently have 2x 4TB HDD’s (one seagate, one Toshiba) but I plan to get more to expand my storage to around 20TB for Data and backups. So could either buy 3 more 4TB HDD’s or one 12TB HDD.
I’ve heard about parity drives but not sure how many I would need. Does this depend on what RAID configuration I use? What RAID configuration do you recommend?

TrueNAS core vs Unraid​

I believe one of the benefits to Unraid is that you can use HDD's of different sizes, whereas with TrueNAS they all need to be the same size.
I hear that with TrueNAS you can use the ZFS filesystem which apparently is very good (and better when used with ECC) (not sure but I think this may be possible on Unraid now as well?). Obviously then the is the fact that TrueNAS (core) is free whereas Unraid is license based.
Do you have experience, views or guidance that might steer me in one direction or the other based on what I’m looking to do both now and in the future?

LSI HBA card for SATA connections​

My MB has 4x SATA ports, so thinking I may need to use a PCIe card for additional SATA connections. Haven’t done any research on these yet, but would be grateful for any advice.

Breakout cable for above​

I think this would be SAS to multi SATA connectors ?

Cache drive?​

I think I need a cache drive so that data can be written there first (at fast speeds), which then hands over to the HDD’s. Will 500GB drive be enough for this ?

Boot Drive? Low profile USB stick?​

Can this just be a USB stick for TrueNAS / Unraid? What about Proxmox?

Network cards & switch for internal LAN?​

My MB only has gigabit ethernet. My mini PC router that currently runs OPNsense has 2.5GB ethernet ports. Should I consider putting 2.5 or 10gb network cards in hosts and NAS to improve transfer speeds? I have a windows desktop and a thinkcentre running Linux (I wanted to keep them separate rather than running Linux inside a VM). I take it this would mean I would need a 2.5 or 10gb switch with 3x 2.5 or 10gb ports (2in from hosts and 1out to NAS) ?

Available slots​

If I ran GPU + HBA card + 2.5 or 10gb network card could I use them all with my MB? Would there be limitations or bottlenecks?

It has:

PCIex16 (3.0) x1
PCIex16 (2.0) x1
PCIex1 (2.0) x1
SATA3 x4
Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4) x1
M.2 (SATA3) **M2_2 and SATA3_3 share lanes (either/or)**

I’m sorry this is such a long post with lots of questions. I’d be very gtareful for any help or advice on any of them!

Many Thanks,

P195

 

[Tech Junky]

Been there, done that.

At one point I was running this sort of setup in an 804. Nice case but, that matx restriction kills your options outside of a "NAS" since most boards only five you 4 slots to play with. Also, for more than data storage your slots are slow and limited to x1.

First thing I would do is go back to the drawing board and bring things up a notch to at least get more BW per slot. i.e. Gen4/5 slots that give you at least x4 wired abilities. This would mean getting a different board / CPU to get over the hump.

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/tr4Ycf,Ng2WGX,3hKscf,xFmNnQ

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/cpu/?compatible_with=tr4Ycf#sort=price&page=1 - CPUs for AM4
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/cpu/?compatible_with=3hKscf#sort=price&page=1 - CPUs for AM5

Once you have some decent slots to work with then plopping in a few cards will be less of an issue and these newer boards will support more M2 at full speed.

Transcoding is mostly a thing of the past unless you have a habit of getting 4K files and playing them on a 1080 screen or have limited bandwidth and external users. However, the cheapest way around it is the Sparkle A380 ~$100 which flies through media conversions quite easily. QSV is quite efficient for this sort of thing and being Intel it gets the perks w/o the use of their CPU. Some files I convert are hitting close to 1200fps while the avg file from OTA MP2 hovers around 650 fps.

I just use the highest rated native speed when it comes to RAM and haven't had any issues w/o ECC in the past 10 years.

Raid - use the online calculator if you want to go this route. R0 - bumps the speeds per drive added / R1 - mirrors the data between drives / R10 - combines the prior R0/1 and for each pair of drives you add you get more space / speed
--- I switched to just using a single U.3 NVME at 15.3TB instead of raid // 6.5GB/s vs ~450MB/s with R10 // also cuts down on the lane use to x4 per drive and less cables to deal with

OS --- tons of options but, I just use debian based options like Ubuntu / Mint as you can just add the packages you want to use vs being locked into a specific ecosystem or deal with BSD HW compatibility issues

The rest is all personal preference though. It depends on how much you want/need those things. Keep in mind video doesn't require a ton of BW even at 4K it's under 100mbps. For awhile I had a 5GE quad NIC inside and when I wanted to sync fast with the laptop would just connect that way but, now I just use Thunderbolt P2P at get 4X the speed. Even over WIFI I can hit almost 2gbps which is still pretty quick for moving small files. Even larger files don't take all that long.

 

[P195]

Hi Tech Junky,

Firstly thank you very much for your insight. As a newbie to this stuff you can sit and read for hours and hours (and still end up making uninformed or poor choices, which looks like what I've done here!). Nothing beats the advice of people that have been down the path already and have learnt from experience.

that matx restriction kills your options outside of a "NAS" since most boards only five you 4 slots to play with

By this are you suggesting that an ATX (or even E-ATX) would be a better choice to allow enough expandability scope for the future? I did consider this before buying the B450M, but I came to the decision that I would probably be running headless after initial configuration and set up (at least initially as a NAS anyway). Also I liked the 804 because of it's compact size so it would tuck neatly in a corner somewhere. However, I think making the right choice now is more important so that when I want to do something in 1 or 2 years time, I'm not in a situation where I can't because my decisions now limit me and have to replace parts. Pay a bit more but only once is a better approach IMO.

Also, for more than data storage your slots are slow and limited to x1.

Could you expand a little on this, I'm not sure why this is. If I were to go for gen4/5 slots, what would the difference be and how much of an impact will it have on overall performance? Much as it pains me to hear that all of the indecision I went through to finally decide on a (wrong) board, again this is better to get right now, rather than regret later. I can easily return the board. Saying that budget is still a factor and has to be kept within sensible realms. This is part of the reason why I went for an AM4 board too because I already have an R7 2700X lying about which was replaced in my windows desktop for a 5700X. I thought it made sense to try to utilize it to keep the budget down.

Once you have some decent slots to work with then plopping in a few cards will be less of an issue

Why is that? Is that because with newer boards there are more lanes, so each card doesn't throttle the overall capability (or maybe it does, but to a lesser degree)?

Sparkle A380

Is that a GPU or a dedicated transcoding device? I assume it's the former that does the latter? To be honest I wouldn't be needing this to begin with anyway, and I have a windows desktop which will be my gaming machine which has an Nvidia RTX2070 in it at the moment, but expect to upgrade that at some point. Maybe the RTX2070 could be used in this build at that time which I assume will do any transcoding if it's required.

QSV

OTA MP2

I'm not really familiar with those terms

I just use the highest rated native speed when it comes to RAM and haven't had any issues w/o ECC in the past 10 years.

Noted, intially I was thinking that I should ensure that I get ECC board and RAM as a safety net, but as none of my data is mission critical or has financial impacts, I'm not going to worry too much right now. If I decide I want it in the future then I can always buy new RAM at that time. So highest native speed in the B450 I've got is 2667 MHz i.e not the OC'd speeds?

I switched to just using a single U.3 NVME at 15.3TB instead of raid // 6.5GB/s vs ~450MB/s with R10

That is a huge difference in speed and is compelling. So you have a total of 15.3TB for all your data including backups? What will you do if you end up needing more space?

OS --- tons of options but, I just use debian based options like Ubuntu / Mint as you can just add the packages you want to use

I've just bought a Thinkcentre for the purposes of running Mint and learning it. When you say packages, what sort of packages do you mean as an alternative to something like Unraid or TrueNAS?

For awhile I had a 5GE quad NIC inside and when I wanted to sync fast with the laptop would just connect that way but, now I just use Thunderbolt P2P at get 4X the speed. Even over WIFI I can hit almost 2gbps which is still pretty quick for moving small files. Even larger files don't take all that long.

I don't fully understand what you've written here. Is it Thunderbolt Peer to peer? I'm not really sure about what that is. The main thinking about the faster ethernet cards/switch was that I didn't want to set up the NAS and then find that transfer speeds were sluggish. If anything I'd like them to be faster than what it is now with my internal HDD's in my windows desktop.

Again sorry for the long post! this sure is a rabbit hole, and although I want to get my purchase decisions right now, I think this all could become a bit overwhelming (it already has tbh!). Need to draw a line somewhere and bite the bullet!

Much as it's all often a personal choice, what would be really helpful is to know is, if you were in my shoes, wanting to do what I want to do right now (and in the future based on what I said initially), what hardware would you buy and why. Although I appreciate that is a big ask to provide that level of information. Trying to decide is stressful and once I've got all the bits, I'll definately be sighing a breath of relief!

Many Thanks,
P195

 

[degrub]

Just build with what you have and learn from the experience.

 

[P195]

I have decided to return the B450M in favor of a B650M > https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-B650M-MORTAR-WIFI/Specification

What AM5 CPU would you say would be a good fit for my requirements that isn't too expensive? (like under £350GBP / £460 USD) > https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/products/cpu/#k=41&sort=price&page=1

 

[Tech Junky]

Probably the 8700G as it's at least 8 cores.

 

[P195]

G because it is has integrated graphics?

 

[Tech Junky]

Anything on AM5 has an iGPU. It's a chopped down version of a higher tier CPU to pack a bit more graphics and cheaper price into it.

 

[P195]

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...8700G-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-7700-vs-AMD-Ryzen-9-7900

Do you think something like the 7900X is worth spending the extra £70 on? It looks like it has a 35% increase in multi-threaded performance.

 

[Tech Junky]

It has 4 more cores to play with.

 

[P195]

And also uses 105W more power!

 

[Tech Junky]

And also uses 105W more power!

Only when pegged. Baseline for me is about 100w when idle for the whole system. If you take your build in pcoartpicker and click on the power box too right it will give you the range for each part. Counter with Intel is a slightly lower idle but significantly higher top end.

 

[degrub]

Just remember that you will be paying the electric bill for both the box and the A/C to cool it.. So add up those watts and see if you care.

 

[ddaenen1]

I am a long-time TrueNAS Core user. Still on Core despite the push from IX Systems to move everyone to Scale. I stick around because i just like FreeBSD. If you would consider TrueNAS, which i highly recommend, i would go for TrueNAS Scale as i don't see any other development on Core after the recent 13.3-RELEASE version.

 

[sfx2000]

With a NAS - it's really about balance of resources... a NAS compared to a desktop PC, the needs are fairly modest.

The number of cores isn't so important, but clock speeds can be... disks in the array, they only have so much speed to offer up - SATA is still cheaper than NVME, and then consider the NIC's

One could do a 4T/2C Ryzen or Intel, a couple of SATA disks, and an n-base-T NIC, and have a decent NAS if the base motherboard support PCIe-3

As @ddaenen1 mentions - the Software/OS is more important once one has a decent HW baseline.