Building a NAS-True Core on old piece of Hardware

[Mir96ta]

Hi,
I am thinking about building a NAS, out of my old hardware which is laying around.
I have two platform to choose from.
AMD and Intel.

***** AMD Setup ********
CPU = AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (135 TDP) 2.8 GHz
MB = Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H
with 16 DDR3 memory
**** Intel ***********
MB = GA-EP45-UD3R (rev. 1.1) 6x SATA 3Gb/s
CPU = Core 2 Extreme QX9650 (3‎.00GHz Cache=1‎2MB) TDP 1‎30W Quad Core Duo
Memory is DDR2 8 Gig 800Mhz

*** Intel *******
CPU = i5 3570K 3GHz (4 core no SMT)
MB = ASRock Z68
with 16 DDR3 memory

They all going to have following
1X Sandisk 128 SSD Boot
1 240 GB intel 530 SSD (For cache ?)
2 X WD1001FAES 1 TB 7200 RPM Cache 32 MB
*** may be able to add a Seagate BarraCuda 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache for total of Raid 5)
They all going to have 1 Gbps Nic.

My main goal is to have NAS storage with no transcoding. Transcoding will be done at client device.

 

[Rand__]

Are you planning to run TrueNas Core on this?

Ther are various threads re recommended hardware and rtelevant aspects here or in the TN forums/documentation; have you looked at those?
I am not sure that HW is particularly well supported in FreeBSD, you might want to give that a try first.
Let alone its far from the usual TN reommendations

Not saying its impossible, but maybe not the most straight forward experience

 

[Mir96ta]

It is a Hardware laying around at home.....
This is home pet project what is TN forums?
I am new to server arena, let alone NAS!
So what I have understand, if there is no Transcoding then CPU usage is minimal, but memory is different case because of ZFS!
However 8 Gig is the requirement! Shall I test that ? on QX9650 ?

 

[Rand__]

Community Forum

Off-topic posts including introductions and suggestions.

www.truenas.com

well its more about drivers in freebsd for the board and nics...

 

[BoredSysadmin]

Intel's i5 3570K is the obvious choice as it's much faster than the other two in both single-core and multi-core speed.
16GB ram is plenty for ZFS.
128GB SSD for the boot is fine, but Intel 530 isn't a good candidate for ZIL. Read this article: https://www.servethehome.com/buyers...as-servers/top-picks-freenas-zil-slog-drives/

The biggest issue I see if you don't really have enough hard drives. 2 or 3 drives at 1TB you'd lose 1TB right away for parity.
eBay is full with 2nd hand enterprise hard drives. Not crazy to buy a 6TB SAS enterprise drive which will last another decade or two under $60
6G PCIe 2 or 3 SAS controller could be bought easily under $30

 

[WANg]

It is a Hardware laying around at home.....
This is home pet project what is TN forums?
I am new to server arena, let alone NAS!
So what I have understand, if there is no Transcoding then CPU usage is minimal, but memory is different case because of ZFS!
However 8 Gig is the requirement! Shall I test that ? on QX9650 ?

Well, in general, the more RAM you have, the better it is for caching. I would not go below 16GB of RAM air recommend that QX9650 simply because of the maximum size for DDR2 DIMM units (eh, 4GB DIMMs for consumer use and 8GB for the enterprise stuff) and how their larger units are more expensive than their DDR3 counterparts (4GB desktop DDR2 DIMMs are ~65 each while 8GB DDR2 server DIMMs are 50-60, compared to nearly half that for DDR3 DIMMs of the same capacity).

I would second @BoredSysadmin and say that you want the more powerful Ivy Bridge and add more drive spindles in. The CPU power isn’t super-essential as my own TrueNAS core setup is a 9 year old HP Microserver Gen7 (DDR3 based) with a Turion N40L dating back to 2009. The keyword here is longevity - NAS are meant to be machines you keep on 24/7/365 for months or years at a time, taking it down for only dusting, upgrades and media replacement. You want to choose something that ages well against your workload requirements and is fairly easy on the electric bill. For me, some network shares, some backups, and most of the hypervisor heavy lifting is done off a t730 thin client (soon to be replaced by the t740), so it’s good enough as a bit bucket.