Home NAS on the cheap

[monkizzle]

I bought an Infortrend ENP800 PRO SOHO NAS with 8 3TB WD Red drives running ZFS.

The performance flat out sucks on it, I'm talking 600 IOPS and 18 MB/s if I'm lucky over direct gig-E. I'd like to build a ESXi server that can run a ZFS flavor and have some juice left over for a small network lab.

It's been a while since I've built a box, was hoping for some pointers on the more experienced crowd. I am fairly lost on the benefits and tradeoffs between i7 and xeon procs these days, but still fairly familiar in general with hardware.

I just picked up 2 LSI 9211 and 2 Intel E1G44HT Quad Gig-E Nics from CDD1100, so I've already got some parts, but more than halfway through my budget.

1) What will you be doing with this PC?
Hopefully running a 32gb ESXi hypervisor off of which I can run a dedicated NAS VM.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
3-400 left, preferably tax and shipping included.
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
DC
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget?
Case, PSU, Mobo, Proc and Ram
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Intel E1G44HT - Network Card & LSI 9211-8i - SAS Card.
6) Will you be overclocking?
No. At least not planning on it.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor?
N/A
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Now, In progress
9) What features do you need in a motherboard?
Haven't decided between Xeon or i7 yet, but would need compatibility for whichever processor. 4+ PCIe slots, 32GB ram compatibility. it'd be awesome to have Remote KVM (graphics) console, but that's just a perk.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit? 64bit. Win7, 08R2 and ESXi


I realize this is a large request but any input is appreciated!

 

[Dangman]

How many drives do you plan on adding to this file server?
How many other VMs are you planning on running on this system?

 

[monkizzle]

I have 8, I'd like to eventually (when I can afford it) expand to 15. I've got my eye on the SUPERMICRO CSE-M35T-1B sata enclosures, so I'm trying to find a nice plain case with 9 Ext 5.25 bays so I can fit 3 of those for 15 total HDDs and maybe an internal OS drive and cache drive if I can fit it.

Vm's will probably vary. I'd love to have a full windows domain lab setup with a few DCs and member servers, but I'd say under 20 total, Whether or not that actually happens is another entire story haha.

 

[Dangman]

I wouldn't go with the Supermicro SATA enclosure route if you plan on using more than one of those. At around $110 shipped for just one enclosure for five drives, it's simply more cost-effective and easier to go with this Norco case (you can remove the side handle and stand it up as a normal case):
$350 - NORCO RPC-4220 4U Rackmount Server Case

The above Norco case lets you have up to 20 hard drives while only needing to connect 5 SAS cables to it. Compare that to only 15 drives plus having to connect 15 SATA cables altogether.

Anyway, here's what I recommend:
$145 - AMD FX-8320 AM3+ CPU
$138 - Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX ATX Motherboard
$59 - Corsair CMX8GX3M1A1333C9 8GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$30 - Sapphire 100292DDR3L Radeon HD 5450 1GB PCI-E Video Card
$55 - NZXT Source 210 Elite White with Black Front Trim ATX Case
---
Total: $427 shipped.

$27 over budget but it gets you four PCI-E x16 slots (one of which will be used by the GPU), a case that can hold eight hard drives right off the bat, eight-cores for VMs, and 8GB of RAM to start with (with room to upgrade to 32GB of RAM later on).

Also note that you can add another 4 drives for cheap with this module:
$27 - Cooler Master STB-3T4-E3-GP 4 in 3 Device Module w/ 120mm Fan

 

[monkizzle]

Danny Bui, you're a guru in the truest sense of the word!

That case is awesome, but I'll be moving into a condo and size will be a huge consideration. If only it weren't as deep, I'd totally jump on that.

And I know I'm running a tight budget, but I'm a hardcore Intel fanboy, never had an AMD in my life! Even if I have to drop a little more $ I've sorta gotta stick with Intel... and if possible to futureproof, that'd be cool too, even if I have to load up my creditcard again.

 

[Kelvarr]

Just something to think about...if you want to run ZFS, you should really be running ECC RAM. Which, in turn will throw out the i7, as IIRC, with Intel chipsets, you NEED a XEON to run ECC.

 

[Dangman]

That case is awesome, but I'll be moving into a condo and size will be a huge consideration. If only it weren't as deep, I'd totally jump on that.

The Norco is only an extra 5" to 6" longer/deeper than the Antec 900 you have now. That really doesn't sound like an issue to me.

And I know I'm running a tight budget, but I'm a hardcore Intel fanboy, never had an AMD in my life! Even if I have to drop a little more $ I've sorta gotta stick with Intel... and if possible to futureproof, that'd be cool too, even if I have to load up my creditcard again.

The rare time I recommend an AMD setup and the OP wants an Intel.....

Yes, the Intel setup is going to cost a bit more:
$200 - Intel Core i5-4570 CPU
$150 - Asus Z87-A Intel Z87 Motherboard
$59 - Corsair CMX8GX3M1A1333C9 8GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$55 - NZXT Source 210 Elite White with Black Front Trim ATX Case
----
Total: $464

Just something to think about...if you want to run ZFS, you should really be running ECC RAM. Which, in turn will throw out the i7, as IIRC, with Intel chipsets, you NEED a XEON to run ECC.

Not necessarily: Supermicro mobos allow you to run Core i3 CPUs in their server motherboard and still be able to use and get ECC RAM functionality. With that said, since this is also a virtualization server, a Xeon is going to be his best bet if he wants ECC.

 

[monkizzle]

haha thanks man.

I'm mainly hoping to keep within the 1150 socket for future updatability, and I don't see any 4th gen Xeon's out yet.

Is there anything you'd do differently with $100-250 more, I mean if I'm gonna blow the budget, might as well make it spectacular. I'd rather build this now and pay down the CC than skimp on hardware and have to upgrade later on...

I'm trying to move to an 1000sqft 2br condo, so every cubic foot is going to matter!

 

[Dangman]

I'm mainly hoping to keep within the 1150 socket for future updatability, and I don't see any 4th gen Xeon's out yet.

These days, future CPU upgrade capability is not a factor that you should consider. Due to Intel's tic-tock strategy of introducing new CPUs, the life span of most of Intel's new mainstream sockets is, at most, two years or so. If a newer faster CPU is released for that socket, chances are that it won't be fast enough to justify the costs of upgrading to it. The Core i5 2500K and Core i5 3570K is a recent example of that.

Is there anything you'd do differently with $100-250 more, I mean if I'm gonna blow the budget, might as well make it spectacular. I'd rather build this now and pay down the CC than skimp on hardware and have to upgrade later on...

I'd go for a server grade setup if you're going to splurge:
$234 - Intel Xeon E3-1230V2 CPU
$163 - Supermicro MBD-X9SCM-F-O Intel C204 mATX Motherboard
$148 - 2 x Kingston KVR13E9/8HM DDR3 1333 ECC RAM
$50 - NZXT Source 210 Elite Black ATX Case
---
Total: $595 shipped.

Yes it's the older LGA 1155 platform but the above setup has some advantages over the LGA 1150 setup I recommended:
- You now have HT which should allow for more VMs to be used
- Better support for ESXi
- ECC RAM
- IPMI capability.
- Twice as much RAM

 

[monkizzle]

This is a LOT about which to think. I'm really liking the E3 idea, do you think ECC even if it's unbuffered is worth the extra cash?

 

[Dangman]

This is a LOT about which to think. I'm really liking the E3 idea, do you think ECC even if it's unbuffered is worth the extra cash?

If the data is very to extremely critical, yes.

 

[monkizzle]

Alright guys, I talked it over and decided to build to end all builds. I picked up the haswell Xeon and x10 supermicro board. I'll be recycling an older case found in the basement and will start out with some ram and upgrade later.

Thanks for all the help and ideas! The system is going to be great!