Mini-ITX Xeon Storage Server

[jdd561]

I have a couple questions that relate to SFF systems, and specifically the one I am currently building.

With an eye towards the eventual drop in high capacity SSDs, I have purchased an NMedia 1800B case. Not everyone's cup of tea, I know, but solid steel construction and a full size ODD slot are important for this project. I have installed an IcyDock 6 x 2.5" drive caddy in the ODD slot (took some grinding on the barely-too-small ODD opening).

My question is twofold: Would a pico-psu, say the 160-XT, power a Xeon 1231v3, 2 DDR3 RAM sticks, and 6 2.5" drives (spinners or SSD)? The PSU calculators throw out huge power requirements for what should be a very low power build (of course that 80w CPU is still in there!)

Second: Would the above processor, with a Noctua NH-L9i cooler, survive in this case? There is open venting to the side and roughly above the CPU, but not much open space. I'd like to keep the thing below 60 degrees at all times if possible, and the hardest work it will do is 2 concurrent Plex transcodes. This is a FreeNAS server with Plex duties added on - thats all this rig will do.

If there is interest in how this goes, should I follow through on the build, I will of course provide followups on how things go.

Thanks!

 

[JoanTheSpark]

Well, one thing is for sure - don't try to ask over in the FreeNAS forum if you get their 'sign of approval' for running with a PicoPSU. They'll burn you on a stick if you do

I'm also not sure if the media/file-server cross over is really a good use case of FreeNAS, you might ask that question first btw (looking at the HTPC case you're playing with).

Also optical drives in a FreeNAS box are pretty much useless as all file transfers are happening via Ethernet or maybe some external drives via USB/eSATA..

Oh, one more thing if you go FreeNAS, use ECC ram and a lot of it.

PS: 2.5" hdds use as much power for the same storage capacity as 3.5" hdds as far as I remember, but cost way more.. that's why I dropped the idea of using 2.5" hdds for my NAS, just not worth it.
As for using SSDs as long term storage medium it will take a couple more years until even early adopters will be cool using them for this and then there is talk I've seen about special purpose SSDs for that kind of use case as current SSD tech is just to expensive to be used for bulk storage if there wasn't even some other culprit with this..

 

[Phuncz]

Also optical drives in a FreeNAS box are pretty much useless as all file transfers are happening via Ethernet or maybe some external drives via USB/eSATA.

The topicstarter is using the bay for a 6-bay 2,5" backplane, not for ODD

PS: 2.5" hdds use as much power for the same storage capacity as 3.5" hdds as far as I remember, but cost way more.. that's why I dropped the idea of using 2.5" hdds for my NAS, just not worth it.

It depends on the drives and how you compare. This often does not work out that way.

Second: Would the above processor, with a Noctua NH-L9i cooler, survive in this case? There is open venting to the side and roughly above the CPU, but not much open space. I'd like to keep the thing below 60 degrees at all times if possible, and the hardest work it will do is 2 concurrent Plex transcodes. This is a FreeNAS server with Plex duties added on - thats all this rig will do.

I wouldn't focus on a random 60°C max ceiling for the CPU. If the CPU is 60°C max or 85°C max, it won't matter in reality. It won't last longer than it iss expected, it won't run better. It will just need much more effort to be kept at that temperature. So focus on noise first. I would guess the Xeon could be cooled properly, but I would experiment with the fan as an intake or exhaust if it lines up properly with the top vents.

The case manufacturer looks very amateuristic with horrible photos (severly rusted ODD drive in the manual FFS), so I'm guessing the case is going to be of comparative quality. If you do want something more quality-minded: http://silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=395&area=en

 

[JoanTheSpark]

The topicstarter is using the bay for a 6-bay 2,5" backplane, not for ODD

eewwww.. my fault

It depends on the drives and how you compare. This often does not work out that way.

Ok, let's take a WD Red, probably most popular around hobbyists. Personally I took them as they use the lowest amount of power (HGST would had been my preferred choice but they run at 7.2k rpm and use more power) and according to the 'pros' in the FreeNAS forums it doesn't really matter at the moment what manufacturer one takes as HDDs fail at some point anyway and you can get a bad batch with all of them - that's why you burn them in before committing real data. Anyhow, back to the WD Reds..
Pitching a 4TB 3.5" vs. a 1TB 2.5"

					power draw		
	size	price		r/w		idle		stdby
2.5"	1TB	72.70 EUR/TB	1.4 W/TB	0.6 W/TB	0.2 W/TB
3.5"	4TB	40.46 EUR/TB	1.1 W/TB	0.8 W/TB	0.1 W/TB

I get it that for edge cases with low power/space requirements and deep pockets one can use them, but for most cases the 3.5" drives are the better choice if one want's to store big amounts of data for 'low budget/low power draw'.

 

[Phuncz]

I don't disagree with you on that, but in my opinion you are looking at it from a different perspective.

The comparison you make is in relation to x/TB, making it an unfair comparison when 2,5" drives max out at 2TB and 3,5" at 8TB. You don't choose 2,5" drives just for less power in a NAS, since six 2,5" drives will indeed not give better power consumption or price/TB than two 3,5" drives.

But the topic starter obviously wants a very small system that can house multiple HDD's in the volume of a single 5,25" ODD. So it's not a question of which drive size is better, the topic starter has already choosen (and purchased apparently) the 6x2,5" backplane along with the case.

 

[jdd561]

I have purchased the case, and I agree...The website leaves a LOT to be desired on details and photos. Really, though, the case is pretty nice - simple, steel, solid. My only complaints specific to the case are I wish that the ventilation stamping on top was about 3 times it's current size - I will really have to be lucky that my CPU lines up with the available vents. My second complaint is the thing has this silly LCD that will only display something along the lines of 'HTPC' - that is the 'power light'. I just don't plug it in, and I never have to look at it. Really, other than that, quality wise I am very surprised with the case. It even has a nice plate in back to install the barrel connector for a pico-psu.

Now for my Icy Dock, and maybe this is part on the case, too - I had to spend a good portion of an afternoon cutting away at the ODD opening. It would work perfect for a ODD, but the icy dock really needs ALL of the 5.25 face plate area for smooth operation. Took a lot of adjustments to get all 6 drive docks operating smoothly.

As for the rest of my hardware, the system was built from the ground up as a FreeNAS server. I have a Xeon 1231v3, 16GB of DDR3 1600 ECC RAM, and have actually been running FreeNAS flawlessly for a couple of months.

Finally, I'm kind of zeroing in on my HDD selection. I am currently running on RAIDZ-2 on 5x5TB Seagate drives - once again the FreeNAS guys would throw rocks at me, but multiple scrubs and dataset rewrites in, no troubles at all. I am considering going a similar route with 5x2TB Samsung 2.5s. My media collection is only ~3TB right now anyways, so that still would give me room to grow. My hope is to migrate my data over to this 'baby' server along with the Plex ready hardware it has, and rebuild the big guy with an old Avoton board and sell that as a *very* capable 17TB storage solution to someone not needing multiple Plex transcodes running simultaneously. I'm more or less doing the second time what I should have done the first time around.

In the end, speaking specifically to the SFF nature of this NMedia case - I would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for a 'cable box' looking build. It has limits - very short, no underlying cover for the 5.25 bay (although it has a plastic door that covers it up nicely), it DOES have lots of room inside for cable management, a coupld built in, dampened 2.5" drive slots, and for the pico-psu set it's almost like they designed it specifically for that. I am excited to get this thing further along the production trail and post some pictures - it will be a very nice, very small build!

 

[JoanTheSpark]

...
I am currently running on RAIDZ-2 on 5x5TB Seagate drives - once again the FreeNAS guys would throw rocks at me, but multiple scrubs and dataset rewrites in, no troubles at all
...

As long as you're aware of the fact, that if one drive fails you're out of redundancy and need to rebuild the pool (higher workload) with a big chance of another drive failing during this period - that's when you're in trouble.
For media your choice might be good though, as it's not as important, so a total loss can be acceptable to you.

@Phuncz, roger that.

 

[EdZ]

As long as you're aware of the fact, that if one drive fails you're out of redundancy and need to rebuild the pool (higher workload) with a big chance of another drive failing during this period - that's when you're in trouble.

He said RAIDZ2, not RAIDZ. That's tolerant of a second drive failure during resilver after losing a drive.

 

[jdd561]

Yes, it is RAIDZ2, so I think I have two drives' worth of parity protection. Also, as this is almost entirely used as a media server with a couple of backups in place, I can deal with the risk. Losing hours on starting over is costing me time at home, not $$ in productivity.

My main concern is heat management and whether my power supply will suffice. I should have some time this week to plant the pico-psu in the current rig - and if it runs 5 3.5" drives + 1 SSD and the Xeon in its current case, the PSU question will be answered. Then it will be a matter of time before I can populate the new server with drives to see what the heat situation does. I guess my big fear is that in such a tiny case, to keep my Xeon happy, the fan will have to kick up to such a loud level that the silent PSU will be for naught. My end goal (unlikely as it may be) is to move my NAS back into the livingroom where it can quietly sit in the corner and do its thing, Not to mention it would be really cool to pack an almost-enterprise class storage server into such a small package.

 

[Phuncz]

I don't think the PicoPSU is a problem while running, but more while powering on the system. But the PSU allows for 200W power for 1min peaks, but the manual also says that high load requires active cooling. At normal operation, it gives 8A on the 12V line, which is 96W. During peak it's capable of 15A meaning 120W.

But I don't expect the 2,5" drives to need that much power during spin-up. But it's good that it can during peak loads. Don't forget to also get a capable 200W or higher power brick to go along with this or the peak usage is not going to last long.

 

[Machupo]

Remember that 2.5" drives run off of 5V, the pico is pretty deficient on this rail. I built a SFF NAS with 20 2.5" drives and the only reasonably small psu with a beefy 5v rail I could find was the bronze ST45SF by silver stone. If you can ensure staggered spin up, that may help, but the documentation on this feature (drives, sata plugs, and mobo must support) is pretty sparse.

 

[Phuncz]

Ah that's nice to know that 2,5" drives run off of the 5V. The 160XT can still supply 8A on that rail so that's 40W for basically the drives only.

 

[Machupo]

And the M9Ts are rated at 0.85A, but reviews peg spin up at 1.0A. Should be fine for a handful of drives, though.