Another Freenas Build

[gmui]

I've been reading these and other forums extensively and am finally getting my head around a Freenas 8 build that I'd like to post here for comments and suggestions.

This is going to be a fairly high end NAS that will be used for home use. It will serve a variety of purposes including:

1. Media storage (pictures, videos, music)
2. Documents
3. Movies (DVD / Bluray rips)
4. ESXi datastores for VMWare (using NTFS or iSCSI)
5. ZFS Snapshots / Backups

Case:
Norco 4224 (24 drive hot swap chassis): $400
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219038
I won't be able to afford 24 drives now, but want the room for future expansion. Components for this server should be able to accomodate 24 drives (3TB, 6Gbps).

Motherboard:
Supermicro X8SI6-F: $270
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/3400/X8SIE.cfm?IPMI=Y&TYP=SAS
Though it is limited in slots, I liked the built in 6Gbps SAS Controller and built in dual Intel NICs. Support for 32gb ECC RAM was also a bonus.

CPU:
Intel Xeon X3430 Lynnfield 2.4GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Server Processor: $205
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117226
Is this overkill or would an i3 suffice? Also, is it worth another $35 for the 2.5 ghz Xeon X3440 that includes Hyperthreading?

Memory:
16 GB (2x8gb) ECC REG DIMM: $160
http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-ValueRAM-1333MHz-Voltage-Desktop/dp/B004Z9Y2G0/ref=sr_1_7?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1322488607&sr=1-7
Going with ECC for that extra bit of safety and so that I can eventually upgrade to 32gb if necessary

SAS Expander:
Chenbro CK23601 SAS Expander: $330
http://www.provantage.com/chenbro-micom-ck23601~4CHEN11K.htm
Rather than go for 3 HBAs, I figured I'd use this SAS expander to handle the 24 drives as well as any external connections if ever needed. It doesn't seem like there would be any performance issues going with this route.

Power Supply:
CORSAIR Professional Series HX750750W: $150
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139010&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10440897&PID=3891137&SID=

Total cost without disks is about $1515 plus or minus tax and shipping. I'd like to save money if any of the above seems to be overkill, but I'm expecting this to last a long time and handle all my storage needs for years to come so I'm willing to spend extra if it means a more robust and stable environment.

So this would represent the brains of my NAS. I haven't thought too much yet about drives with the current price hikes. I'm thinking I'd use 6 drive RaidZ2 vdevs and add a vdev as needs require and budget allows. I'd perhaps pool 3 6-drive vdevs and then a 4th 6 drive pool for backups. But this will require more thought and planning. My first goal is to figure out hardware so that I can watch for deals as they come up.


Any comments / questions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[leeleatherwood]

Super overkill.

Ive got a Dual Core Athlon and never even managed to get it above 50% of one core even with encryption enabled using DD writes/reads. Gigabit speeds I dont think the CPU ever uses more than 5%.

Im running 8 Drives in RaidZ.

EDIT: On the other hand that build looks perfect for an All-In-One system. Its very possible to install ESXI and run a pfSense VM (firewall/router) a NAS server VM (FreeNAS or napp-it) and a Windows Server VM for other things like a Ventrilo server, Torrent downloads, etc all from the same box.

 

[s0rce]

If you plan on running lots of VMs then you might push the CPU more otherwise its a bit more than you'd need for a gigabit NAS.

 

[gmui]

Thanks for the feedback. I've used Freenas .7 for quite awhile and never had an issue with CPU but that's for a simple mirrored UFS system and I read that RaidZ2 would take more cpu and much more memory (gig per TB).

I was thinking though that this would be purely a NAS as I have 2 other ESXi servers (Dell PE 1850s with dual xeons and Dell PE1950 with Dual Quad core). Right now I have at least 6 VMs that would mount the NAS for their OS.

To scale back, I could drop it down to the i3 processor to save $100 and just get 2x4 gigs to start until I add more drives and save another $80. But if I want to be able to have 24 drives, the motherboard with the built in SAS controller and the SAS expander seemed like the way to go, especially if it gives me the 2 Intel NICs. I guess another way to scale back in the beginning is to skip the Chenbro SAS expander until I add more drives and just let the built in LSI 2008 SAS controller drive my initial 6 drive vdev.

But if I did keep this the way it was and installed ESXi on it first to host Freenas and other VMs, can the SAS Expander expose all the raw disks to the Freenas VM so that it can still handle ZFS the same way?

Thanks again,
Gary

 

[dashpuppy]

Super overkill.

Ive got a Dual Core Athlon and never even managed to get it above 50% of one core even with encryption enabled using DD writes/reads. Gigabit speeds I dont think the CPU ever uses more than 5%.

Im running 8 Drives in RaidZ.

EDIT: On the other hand that build looks perfect for an All-In-One system. Its very possible to install ESXI and run a pfSense VM (firewall/router) a NAS server VM (FreeNAS or napp-it) and a Windows Server VM for other things like a Ventrilo server, Torrent downloads, etc all from the same box.

I'm running a core2duo 2.0 8gigs ram 4 x 250gig hdd's raidz with 6 vm's running through iscsi..

HARDLY any cpu load with all this running..

I have 1 gig nic dedicated for iscsi and one for web interface.. Some day ill figure out and bind them together and get a 2gb link..