Posted this to another forum, but thought it might be useful here with many of the other FreeNAS build threads...
Build’s Name: CheapNAS
Operating System/ Storage Platform: FreeNAS
CPU: Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core with HT (Kabylake) 3M cache, 54W TDP
Motherboard: Asrock E3V5 WS
Chassis: Silverstone CS380b
Drives: 4 x 4TB Toshiba X300, Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB, 2 x 16GB SanDisk Ultras (USB)
RAM: 8GB Kingston Value 2400 ECC
Add-in Cards: Startech 2 port SATA (PEXSAT32), Asus GT640 GFX card (no display out on mobo)
Power Supply: Antec TruePower 650
Other Bits: CM Hyper 103 CPU HSF
Usage Profile: Backup and File Server for main workstation
Build
I found the current micro/mini servers and Qnap/Synology a touch expensive for the spec you get, and wanted a new build rather than some secondhand enterprise kit this time around, there's some odd bits on the spec below - mainly due to me raiding my parts bin to do this build as cheaply as possible. The CPU, mobo and RAM were all new, along with the case. The HDD's came out of my main system - which is now pure SSD & NVME so was able to downsize the case and lower noise/heat a bit in my main Threadripper box thanks to the build below.
Costs
Case - £99
CPU - £40
RAM - £76
Motherboard - £109
USB Drives - £8
Total: £332
Planning to go 10GBe later in the year, and will probably swap to newer 300w Seasonic PSU, but the next and highest priority upgrade is to add at least 8GB of RAM, and upgrade to at least 32GB total before moving onto 10GBE.
Anyway, some pics!
Cheapest Intel C232 chipset board I could find anywhere, its not full size ATX (full height but not width) which is perfect for my chassis, has 6 SATA ports, an Intel NIC, and with a BIOS update can take the E3-12** v5/v6 Xeon if required, PCIE arrangement is reasonable, so adding a 10GBE and additional HBA shouldn't be an issue in the future (but will need to grab a PCIEx1 graphics card to free up enough space to do both).
Completely unneeded addition, but I've never been a fan of the stock Intel HSFs:
Very impressed with the Silverstone CS380, very cheap, quality seems fine, and its nice and compact for a full ATX capable tower. You get 8 hotwswap bays that can take either 2.5" or 3.5" drives, and there's 2 x 5.25 bays as well, allowing the addition of extra hotswap capacity for 3 x 3.5" drives or 8 to 12 x 2.5" drives.
Front door seems sturdy enough, with a magnet to help keep it closed if not locked, you can also move a slider to the up position on the inside of the door to prevent the power button being pressed without having the door open. There's 2 USB3 ports behind the front door which is handy if you have a large amount of data to upload via 'sneakernet'
In this image you can see the backplane - its quite a cheap looking affair, but is neatly soldered, be careful if mounting a full width motherboard in this chassis - it would be quite easy to catch one of the capacitors with the edge of the board if not being attentive enough during installation. Each tray has its own SAS/SATA port on the back of backplane, 2 molex connectors provide power, and the fans for cooling the drive cage can be both be plugged into the provided 3 pin fan headers for a nice neat installation.
Motherboard installed - you can really see how narrow the Asrock is, case might allowed the installation of boards upto CEB, though it would be very very tight if it is possible.
I added some extension cables for the 8 and 24 Pin power connectors to allow a neater installation, plenty of space to play with behind the motherboard tray to get things hidden away
Better pic of the backplane:
2.5" drives seem to fit in the sleds well enough - smooth insertion and removal despite the cheap chassis - you can see the acrylyic "wand" running along the top edge of the sled in this pic - clever way of making the backplane LED visible from the front of the tray without an having to have an expensive sled/tray:
Main disk array ready to go:
Will need to buy some shorter (and matching!) SATA cables at some point to address my cable OCD:
FreeNAS install was nice and easy - works well, ZFS is nice and have full disk redundancy which is a comfort, due to my disk pool size I need to add more RAM before I could run any VM's, but as a backup device, and basic file server I'm very happy with the performance for now, and the new freenas web-interface is much more modern than the previous releases.
Next jobs;
- New short SATA cables
- Move USB drives onto internal headers
- Upgrade to 16GB of RAM minimum, 32GB ideally
Notes;
- In my setup, SSD for readcache is pretty pointless (but was free so...)
Build’s Name: CheapNAS
Operating System/ Storage Platform: FreeNAS
CPU: Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core with HT (Kabylake) 3M cache, 54W TDP
Motherboard: Asrock E3V5 WS
Chassis: Silverstone CS380b
Drives: 4 x 4TB Toshiba X300, Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB, 2 x 16GB SanDisk Ultras (USB)
RAM: 8GB Kingston Value 2400 ECC
Add-in Cards: Startech 2 port SATA (PEXSAT32), Asus GT640 GFX card (no display out on mobo)
Power Supply: Antec TruePower 650
Other Bits: CM Hyper 103 CPU HSF
Usage Profile: Backup and File Server for main workstation
Build
I found the current micro/mini servers and Qnap/Synology a touch expensive for the spec you get, and wanted a new build rather than some secondhand enterprise kit this time around, there's some odd bits on the spec below - mainly due to me raiding my parts bin to do this build as cheaply as possible. The CPU, mobo and RAM were all new, along with the case. The HDD's came out of my main system - which is now pure SSD & NVME so was able to downsize the case and lower noise/heat a bit in my main Threadripper box thanks to the build below.
Costs
Case - £99
CPU - £40
RAM - £76
Motherboard - £109
USB Drives - £8
Total: £332
Planning to go 10GBe later in the year, and will probably swap to newer 300w Seasonic PSU, but the next and highest priority upgrade is to add at least 8GB of RAM, and upgrade to at least 32GB total before moving onto 10GBE.
Anyway, some pics!
Cheapest Intel C232 chipset board I could find anywhere, its not full size ATX (full height but not width) which is perfect for my chassis, has 6 SATA ports, an Intel NIC, and with a BIOS update can take the E3-12** v5/v6 Xeon if required, PCIE arrangement is reasonable, so adding a 10GBE and additional HBA shouldn't be an issue in the future (but will need to grab a PCIEx1 graphics card to free up enough space to do both).
Completely unneeded addition, but I've never been a fan of the stock Intel HSFs:
Very impressed with the Silverstone CS380, very cheap, quality seems fine, and its nice and compact for a full ATX capable tower. You get 8 hotwswap bays that can take either 2.5" or 3.5" drives, and there's 2 x 5.25 bays as well, allowing the addition of extra hotswap capacity for 3 x 3.5" drives or 8 to 12 x 2.5" drives.
Front door seems sturdy enough, with a magnet to help keep it closed if not locked, you can also move a slider to the up position on the inside of the door to prevent the power button being pressed without having the door open. There's 2 USB3 ports behind the front door which is handy if you have a large amount of data to upload via 'sneakernet'
In this image you can see the backplane - its quite a cheap looking affair, but is neatly soldered, be careful if mounting a full width motherboard in this chassis - it would be quite easy to catch one of the capacitors with the edge of the board if not being attentive enough during installation. Each tray has its own SAS/SATA port on the back of backplane, 2 molex connectors provide power, and the fans for cooling the drive cage can be both be plugged into the provided 3 pin fan headers for a nice neat installation.
Motherboard installed - you can really see how narrow the Asrock is, case might allowed the installation of boards upto CEB, though it would be very very tight if it is possible.
I added some extension cables for the 8 and 24 Pin power connectors to allow a neater installation, plenty of space to play with behind the motherboard tray to get things hidden away
Better pic of the backplane:
2.5" drives seem to fit in the sleds well enough - smooth insertion and removal despite the cheap chassis - you can see the acrylyic "wand" running along the top edge of the sled in this pic - clever way of making the backplane LED visible from the front of the tray without an having to have an expensive sled/tray:
Main disk array ready to go:
Will need to buy some shorter (and matching!) SATA cables at some point to address my cable OCD:
FreeNAS install was nice and easy - works well, ZFS is nice and have full disk redundancy which is a comfort, due to my disk pool size I need to add more RAM before I could run any VM's, but as a backup device, and basic file server I'm very happy with the performance for now, and the new freenas web-interface is much more modern than the previous releases.
Next jobs;
- New short SATA cables
- Move USB drives onto internal headers
- Upgrade to 16GB of RAM minimum, 32GB ideally
Notes;
- In my setup, SSD for readcache is pretty pointless (but was free so...)
