[Advice] DIY NAS with 8-bay for home streaming

I need to build a 8-bay hotswappable DIY NAS built to be future-proof, quiet and with a low consumption. It will be placed in a back-ventilated rack near the TV (I know it is not the best placement as it would generate heat and noise while doing movie/music/game playback, but I have all the connections centralised there). The HDD will be run on Freenas without any RAID mode (no sensible data, no need for backup and/or performance boost.)

• Use: Homeserver for streaming music (flac), videos (mkv) and games (7z)
• ISP Connection: 200MB/200MB FTTH
• Budget: <1000€ (HDDs not included)
• Hard disks: 8xWD Red 5-6TB
• RAID: None
• SO: FreeNAS 9.1 x64

I have decided most of the components, although I have several doubts about them which I will try to comment later:

CASE: U-NAS NSC-800

8-bay hot-swappable mini-itx case with 2x120mm fans. 1U PSU, PCI-e riser compatibility and front USB 2.0 port.

CPU: Intel Core i3-4330T

Plenty of 1150 power on 35W TDP. Planning to cool it with a passive solution.

MB: ???
Main doubt here.

RAM: 2x4GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 CL7 1.5v

8GB with the best possible specs (1600 CL7) at a low voltage (1.5v).

HDD: 8xWD Red 5-6TB

Yet to decide if going with 4-platter or 5-platter design. But I lean more towards the 5TB option.

PSU: Seasonic SS-500L1U

500W 80+ Plus Gold 1U PSU. Highest 80+ rating on a 1U PSU. Planning to run it at 40-50% charge at load (~200W-250W) in order to get the best efficiency from it, and get enough room for future upgrades.

SO: Any +8GB USB 3.0 pendrive for the SO/Cache.

So my main doubts about the build are about CPU, MB and RAM, given I am not planning to do any sort of RAID configuration:

1) CPU. Is the i3-4330T overkill for a NAS? Is 35W TDP too much for a NAS enclosure?
2) MB. I cannot find a mini-itx 1150 motherboard with 8 SATA ports (no need for SATA3). The only motherboardbs I find with 8 SATA ports are "server" based (FCBGA1283) with CPU integrated, such as the ASRock C2750D4I. About the link aggregation, is it a desireable feature for a NAS?
3) RAM. Is it preferable a 1600MHz 1.5v or 1333MHz 1.35v, given that there will not be any OC? I guess not, but, is ECC needed in a homeserver (changing CPU and motherboard with it)?
4) USB/SSD. Is a SSD really needed for this type of build? Will it have any impact on the cache (no RAID mode)? Or a pendrive USB with enough free space to run FreeNAS will suffice?

And a final question, which will be the component that bottlenecks the read/write performance of the NAS? I guess it would be the upload bandwith, but just to be sure:

FTTH upload bandwith: 200Mb/s = 25MB/s
SATA2 ports: 300MB/s
WD Red internal rate performance: 175MB/s (this number refers to the read or write speed? sequential or random?)

Thanks in advance,

Are you sure that the 5 TB version has 4 platters? I would say it also has 5 since:
- same casing as the 6 TB version, different than the 4 TB version (which has 4 platters)
- 1.2 TB platters would be scarce at first, meaning they will only go to the largest models
- WD and others have done the same before for other drives

omniscence said:

Are you sure that the 5 TB version has 4 platters? I would say it also has 5 since:
- same casing as the 6 TB version, different than the 4 TB version (which has 4 platters)
- 1.2 TB platters would be scarce at first, meaning they will only go to the largest models
- WD and others have done the same before for other drives

Click to expand...

Thanks, maybe you are right, I could not confirm it. In that case, I will go with the 6TB then

If this is using FreeNas then I'm assuming the actual HTPC is separate. If that's the case then yes the CPU is overkill. You can get away with going all the way down to a DC Atom and be fine. What would be nice though is if you paired the CPU and mem around ECC. If not that's OK it's not the end of the world especially when you are dealing with video.

Also if you aren't going the ZFS route then all of that memory is going to be a waste.

kac77 said:

What would be nice though is if you paired the CPU and mem around ECC.

If not that's OK it's not the end of the world especially when you are dealing with video.

Click to expand...

If I were building a new dedicated storage device, I would go ECC as well. Not as critical though as a media storage server, but for files I wanted around for a long time I think it is.

kac77 said:

If this is using FreeNas then I'm assuming the actual HTPC is separate. If that's the case then yes the CPU is overkill. You can get away with going all the way down to a DC Atom and be fine. What would be nice though is if you paired the CPU and mem around ECC. If not that's OK it's not the end of the world especially when you are dealing with video.

Also if you aren't going the ZFS route then all of that memory is going to be a waste.

Click to expand...

iroc409 said:

If I were building a new dedicated storage device, I would go ECC as well. Not as critical though as a media storage server, but for files I wanted around for a long time I think it is.

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot. No, I am not planning to run ZFS either so maybe you are right and I could get on well with 2x2GB DDR3 and an Intel Atom Z37XX or similar

Far as motherboards and SATA go you're probably going to have to go with something like a Dell Perc H200 or an IBM M1015 (they're both LSI chipsets) and re-flash them into IT mode. That'll give you 8 SATA ports via 2 SAS breakout cables.

It does look like there's room for a PCIe card in there so the one port you get on an ITX board will work. (they're both x8 cards)

There are several mITX boards with lots of SATA connectors. The C2550/2750 Intel SOCs have usually 6-12 SATA ports on them--both Supermicro and Asrock make them. Asrock has some mITX motherboards for Intel with several SATA ports. I haven't played with AMD stuff for a long time, but I've heard several offerings provide many SATA ports.

The C-series Intels are kind of expensive, but they include 4 or 8 core CPUs on board. If you're not doing ZFS, they would probably have enough horsepower, and consume little power. As a bonus, they also generally accept ECC RAM.

ETA: I see you've already looked at the C2750. There's also the E3C226D2I from Asrock. I don't remember how many SATA ports it has, but I believe it is s1150. You could pair it with a G3220 to save some cash (<$70). Consider that spending $100 extra on a motherboard with sufficient SATA ports is going to be about the same as buying a $100 add-on card like the M1015--and the integrated solution may be more power-efficient. The motherboard will also be new, versus used components in the add-on card (generally speaking).

FnordMan said:

Far as motherboards and SATA go you're probably going to have to go with something like a Dell Perc H200 or an IBM M1015 (they're both LSI chipsets) and re-flash them into IT mode. That'll give you 8 SATA ports via 2 SAS breakout cables.

It does look like there's room for a PCIe card in there so the one port you get on an ITX board will work. (they're both x8 cards)

Click to expand...

Thanks, the SAS controller is a nice option to not depend on the SATA ports on the motherboard.

iroc409 said:

There are several mITX boards with lots of SATA connectors. The C2550/2750 Intel SOCs have usually 6-12 SATA ports on them--both Supermicro and Asrock make them. Asrock has some mITX motherboards for Intel with several SATA ports. I haven't played with AMD stuff for a long time, but I've heard several offerings provide many SATA ports.

The C-series Intels are kind of expensive, but they include 4 or 8 core CPUs on board. If you're not doing ZFS, they would probably have enough horsepower, and consume little power. As a bonus, they also generally accept ECC RAM.

ETA: I see you've already looked at the C2750. There's also the E3C226D2I from Asrock. I don't remember how many SATA ports it has, but I believe it is s1150. You could pair it with a G3220 to save some cash (<$70). Consider that spending $100 extra on a motherboard with sufficient SATA ports is going to be about the same as buying a $100 add-on card like the M1015--and the integrated solution may be more power-efficient. The motherboard will also be new, versus used components in the add-on card (generally speaking).

Click to expand...

Nice, thanks. The E3C226D2I would be perfect if it only has two more SATA ports


Yeah, I will consider getting the G3220 as it seems that the i3 is overkill for my setup.

And yeah, I think just like you, I prefer onboard controllers power-consumption wise. The least add-in cards the better. I could still wait for 6 months.

I would suggest a quad core Atom processor.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182914&cm_re=atom-_-13-182-914-_-Product

Remember, you're serving Media, maybe a few other little tasks, do you really need a higher end i3 that uses more power for just serving files?

Low power consumption, but can handle quite a bit of work. You only have 6x SATA ports, but you could add an expansion card if you want more.

The other thing I would suggest is looking in to OpenMediaVault instead of FreeNAS. I had FreeNAS for a few years and it was VERY fickle with things. OpenMediaVault has been much better, more stable, and it's based off of Debian Linux.

ShepsCrook said:

I would suggest a quad core Atom processor.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182914&cm_re=atom-_-13-182-914-_-Product

Remember, you're serving Media, maybe a few other little tasks, do you really need a higher end i3 that uses more power for just serving files?

Low power consumption, but can handle quite a bit of work. You only have 6x SATA ports, but you could add an expansion card if you want more.

The other thing I would suggest is looking in to OpenMediaVault instead of FreeNAS. I had FreeNAS for a few years and it was VERY fickle with things. OpenMediaVault has been much better, more stable, and it's based off of Debian Linux.

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot. I am considering now an Intel Atom with 2x2GB DDR3 and a server motherboard with 6+ SATA ports, reducing considerably the final price tag. I will have a look at OPV too

My NAS I ended up with OpenMediaVault or OMV for the system. Sorry for the long post on this. I wanted to give you some feedback and info on my system and why I chose some things over others.

I've got a Supermicro CS2EA motherboard with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200S (65w)
4x2GB DDR3
I have 2x LSI 8 port SATA controllers
Norco 4220 It's a 4U 20bay hot swap chassis
Used my spare Tunic Tower 120 to be the HSF
40GB Kingston SSD-V in it for the OS (Wanted to run more packages and plugins for the NAS and an SSD is just better for that).
14x 2TB Western Digital Green (I would love to go RED and larger drives, but that's a large undertaking and cost at this time).
1x 750GB Western Digital Green

The only reason I suggest an ATOM is because if you're not running virtual environments on your NAS, then there's no real need for a more powerful processor. ATOM will do the job and do it well, plus use less power. The only reason mine has moved from an ATOM is because my NAS does a lot more than just serving files to devices. And I'm starting to run some VMs on it.

Reason for an SSD - at first I started with just a plain fileserver NAS with FreeNAS. I didn't use it for much, other than serving media. Which at first was fine. But then I also had other little systems that would do other tasks and so I had to leave more computers running to do the work I wanted. It didn't make sense when I already had a NAS/Server running 24/7. So when I upgraded more power and moved towards running more applications on my NAS/Server, I switched to an SSD because packages and plugins usually work better with Mechanical or SSD drives than with flash drives.

For me, I went with 4x2GB DDR3 because A: at the time I found a deal on it and B: I'm sort of a "Don't put all of your eggs in one basket" type of person. If you have a memory module fail, you still have 6GB of memory working for you vs 4GB of memory.

I chose green drives because at the time, red drives were horribly priced. The green drives were readily available and still priced fairly before the flood. I've never had a green drive fail on me. What you'll want to do is allocate some extra funds to have a spare drive (exact same model and size) to use for swapping out should one of your primary drives go bad. I'd suggest RAID5 or 6. Unless you're looking for straight backing up, then RAID1. I'm sure more people can give suggestions on this as well.

My PSU is obviously a full size due to my choice in cases, I went with a solid brand, however I chose Modular so I only have the cables I need in the chassis and no extras sitting around. The M12II 620w had excellent ratings, and I already have one in my primary desktop which left me with quite a few extra molex cables to use for the server. Made perfect sense.

Similar to the ram idea, I wanted to not have all of my eggs in one basket, so I picked up the two LSI cards so that if the motherboard fails, the entire system is set up on the LSI card (Probably something that will be around longer, and easier to find than the Supermicro board. Not to mention cheaper). Also, if I wanted to upgrade my processor and board in the future, once I install the new OS and load my configuration, my setup would work exactly as before because it would already be setup for those cards and lower the risk of lost data.

The most important question is do you plan on Streaming over your internet connection?
If so you're going to be transcoding, as such it would behoove you to stay away from atom.

I currently Use Server 2012r2, and flexxraid on my home server. My dual core pentium g860 is sufficient for transcoding full bluray rips to 10mbps for on the go viewing. However, I don't think I could do this for more than once client at a time. But most of the viewing that goes on in my household is directplay. Also, having my server take care of backups and other things for the 8 computers in my house (3 media Centers, 3 desktops, and two laptops) is completely worth the hassle.

The biggest mistake that I made when I went and build my server initially, was going for the smallest case possible (lian-li q25). However you're dead set on getting that case, with the largest HDD's that you can find.

So, a few things, you will not find a motherboard that fits in that case with more than 6 sata ports that uses ECC memory and does not use an atom derivative part.

The best smallish motherboard is : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157486
But you can't use it with that case.

So you'll have to pick up an Ibm m1015, and any itx server board. You may want to invest in an adapter that will allow you to turn one of the min-sas ports into a external port for future expansion.
You also may want to dedicate 1 or 2 small 2.5" drives to app drives to run anything that's not critical or not ready to be archived.

Good luck

Actually, that's not entirely true about ATOM not being sufficient enough for media streaming. If you are using XBMC, you do not need to transcode with your NAS. However, if you are running PLEX, then you do need to transcode with the NAS.

ShepsCrook said:

Actually, that's not entirely true about ATOM not being sufficient enough for media streaming. If you are using XBMC, you do not need to transcode with your NAS. However, if you are running PLEX, then you do need to transcode with the NAS.

Click to expand...

Plex can direct play, on local networks (it's what I do), and if your internet connection is fast enough on remote connections too. However, chances are if you're streaming to a target outside of your network, either your connection, or theirs will not be sufficient to tackle high bit rate media. And then there's subtitles which depending on the format, and the app,can require to transcode even if all other conditions are met. I'm assuming the same scenario applies to media browser server.

avddreamr said:

Plex can direct play, on local networks (it's what I do), and if your internet connection is fast enough on remote connections too. However, chances are if you're streaming to a target outside of your network, either your connection, or theirs will not be sufficient to tackle high bit rate media. And then there's subtitles which depending on the format, and the app,can require to transcode even if all other conditions are met. I'm assuming the same scenario applies to media browser server.

Click to expand...

In his title he did say home streaming, so that's what I'm going off of. An Atom is a viable solution in most ways. Yes, there is a transcoding limitation, however that could easily be resolved by adding a passively cooled HD5450 or other video card that uses very little power to do the work (I know in that case it does add some power draw, however an HD5450 only draws 20W of power, so you're still looking pretty good against a 65W processor since most ATOM processors at most use 14W.

The other thing is that you just sort of proved what I said. You even do not use Transcoding with Plex so it's not entirely necessary.

Either way, there are plenty of methods to go about this. It really depends on how the OP wants to proceed with possible future upgrades and or needs or wants with how his system runs.

Which is sort of what I've been saying with how I've progressed in needs.

Simple media serving: Atom
More desires: Quad core (preferably low power)

I still maintain that OpenMediaVault is an excellent solution for what the OP is looking for.

ShepsCrook said:

In his title he did say home streaming, so that's what I'm going off of. An Atom is a viable solution in most ways. Yes, there is a transcoding limitation, however that could easily be resolved by adding a passively cooled HD5450 or other video card that uses very little power to do the work (I know in that case it does add some power draw, however an HD5450 only draws 20W of power, so you're still looking pretty good against a 65W processor since most ATOM processors at most use 14W.

The other thing is that you just sort of proved what I said. You even do not use Transcoding with Plex so it's not entirely necessary.

Either way, there are plenty of methods to go about this. It really depends on how the OP wants to proceed with possible future upgrades and or needs or wants with how his system runs.

Which is sort of what I've been saying with how I've progressed in needs.

Simple media serving: Atom
More desires: Quad core (preferably low power)

I still maintain that OpenMediaVault is an excellent solution for what the OP is looking for.

Click to expand...

Sadly, Plex doesn't support GPU transcoding, and I'm a special case. Every client locally in my house is a dual core sandybridge with 8gb's of ram or a quad core i5/i7, running windows 8 for mce duties.

As strictly a file server an atom is sufficient, if you want a bunch of sata ports, and you're looking at a silvermont based system, the cost differential between it and say an i3 or i5 is really not that much. There's also a problem with the marvel sata chips that are used on the avoton system that doesn't always play nice with certain subsystems. However
you're looking at 289 minimum to get the ball running, and 400 if you want the octo core part. But it's a great option that would work for him, and stay within budget. Just no vtd-x, but it will still be a hell of a machine.

I'm in a similar boat except for my chromecast. Every system is at least an i5/i7 with at least 8GB of ram. The only non i series is... well my NAS with a Q8200S... And even that I might move to an i series.

The 8 core ATOM cpu's are out there now. Supermicro has some great systems with tons of SATA ports and designed for networking applicances but can work well for streaming media boxes.

You might want to take a look at this. Motherboard with a low power (14w) TDP Intel Atom C2550, quad gigabit Ethernet and onboard connectivity for up to 18 drives, all in a mITX package. ... Just may be my next server MB.




http://www.servethehome.com/Server-detail/asus-p9a-i-c2550-sas-4l-review/

wingfat said:

You might want to take a look at this. Motherboard with a low power (14w) TDP Intel Atom C2550, quad gigabit Ethernet and onboard connectivity for up to 18 drives, all in a mITX package. ... Just may be my next server MB.

http://www.servethehome.com/Server-detail/asus-p9a-i-c2550-sas-4l-review/

Click to expand...

I was going to do this sometime down the road. I had a Q9450 and an Asus P5Q Delux with 8gig of DDR2 lying around so I decided to use that instead for my server over paying for something. Actually I had to buy a new PSU for extra SATA plugs but that was it.

OP:

For SSD with this, skip it. It will be useless if you are booting your FreeNAS off of a USB drive (4gb drives work, I have a back up 4gb thumb sitting in my server right now). If you go for Server 2012 R2 then for sure get an SSD. If you are on a windows only system (Win8.1 helps here) its very easy to set up a cert system and remote into your server.

As for your CPU, I'd go for a straight Celeron or Quadcore, I've never seen tangible benefits from HT. Best option (if you are spending money here) is buy an ATOM BGA system.

That is a nice looking board.

If you want to know what this boards processor performs like. From what I can tell, the Atom C2550 performs better than a Q6600 and a Q8200. And performs semi closely to an L5520 which is a socket 1366 Xeon processor @ 2.26Ghz with 8MB cache, 4 cores, 8 threads. The L5520 competes with the Q9450. So there you have it. If you're trying to figure out it's power. Q9450 > C2550, but not by a lot.

So you're talking a Q9450 is a 2.66ghz 4 core with 12MB Cache @ 95W
C2550 is a 2.4Ghz 4 core, 2MB cache @ 14w

I don't know if that was in response to me (since I'm using a 9450) but the only reason I'm using is because I already owned it.

Trimlock said:

I don't know if that was in response to me (since I'm using a 9450) but the only reason I'm using is because I already owned it.

Click to expand...

Just informing people because I looked it up.

And it's late, I'm tired, and I'm rambling.

ShepsCrook said:

Just informing people because I looked it up.

And it's late, I'm tired, and I'm rambling.

Click to expand...

Still good info, I'm glad my 9450 can still kick it.

Wow, so much feedback after my last visit. Thanks a lot, guys.

That ASUS mini-ITX motherboard looks incredibly good. Let us see if it hits the european market and at which price tag.

I'm actually doing a similar build right now with the same case, but with an Asrock C2750D4I mobo (the octa-core Atom variant). I did some tests with Plex, using the highest bitrate Bluray remuxes I had lying around (30mbit+ video bitrate), and the board was able to handle one 12mbit 1080p transcode (Chromecast) and one 20mbit 1080p transcode (wired Plex Home Theater with manually set quality). It almost was able to handle another 20mbit 1080p transcode, but it couldn't quite keep up and the third stream would pause every few minutes to wait for the cache to catch up.

I should note that, despite my board being fanless, it definitely needs a CPU fan. Temperatures were in the 50-60 C range while idle at times. Granted, it's been unusually hot here, but I've seen the same sentiment expressed by others and I'm going to be buying a 50mm fan to add to it. I don't know if it's the same for the Asus boards (and the quad core variants may be fine fanless anyway), but just something to keep in mind.

Oh, and what I wouldn't give for a single damned mini-ITX LGA 1150 mobo that supports Xeon and ECC, and either has 9+ SATA or two SAS connectors and a SATA port or two. That Asrock E3C224D4I-14S mocks me every time I look at it with its perfect specs but too big dimensions

Just FYI, comments on newegg suggest that the suggested asus board doesn't have drivers for freenas.