List of components

[GelinosOne]

Hello Everybody,

I hope this will be my last post and I finally will be able to build my own NAS.

Like I mentioned in previous posts I want to create a NAS with about 25 TB of storage for Saving of my many private files.

I researched a lot and finally made a list of my components I intended to use for my NAS.
As I’m not an expert in this it would be nice if somebody could check my config and tell me if I can use all this or if I need something to change…

Before I start listing my components I want to add, that I want to use my NAS as some kind of Storage and to stream files on my PC or Set-Top-Box (I’m the only person who uses it, so there will only be one access to the NAS #Server Workload)


CPU: Intel Pentium G4560

HDD: 6x 8 TB HDD Seagate IronWolf

SSD (for Cache): 2x 250GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO

RAM: 2x Samsung DIMM 32GB, DDR4-2400, CL12-12-17. Reg. ECC

Motherboard: ASRock Rack S236M WS

Case: Fractal Design Node 804



The two most important things I’d like to know if :

1. My Hardware is able to stream files to other devices (even huge files with about 50Gb)
2. All components are compatible with each other (for example if the RAM/CPU is supported by the motherboard)
   For example I read that the Motherboard only supports 2133Mhz, but my RAM has 2400Mhz - is this a problem ?)

P.S.: I want to use FreeNAS and RAID-Z2 (That's why I have a lot of RAM with ECC)

Thanks for your time and your help and have a Nice Christmas time .

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

Dump the cache SSDs, they're overkill for such a light workload (I'd be wary of using consumer SSDs for cache anyways). You can get along with 16 GB RAM easily.

You're not too far off of the system I built a few years ago, a 6 TB x 10 RAID-Z2 setup (though I probably wouldn't do a Z2 pool with that many disks again) with 16 GB RAM and powered by the cheapest i3 available at the time. Has no problem with 1 Gb wire-speed transfers and feeds full Blu-Ray rips to an RPi2 LibreElec box and Tivo Plex app (via a container on a different box running the server) just fine.

 

[T_Minus]

If you have the EVO's for L2ARC already use them, I don't see why not or if you got a deal why not? Don't use them as a SLOG device though.

As was said 16GB would be fine, but 64GB would give you more cache and room to grow and allow for L2ARC/increases too or go 2x 16GB DIMMS and save some $ and buy SLOG device if warranted for your workload.

Intel® Pentium® Processor G4620 (3M Cache, 3.70 GHz) Product Specifications

Slightly more $ for slightly more GHZ and > integrated GFX if any of those matter to you, minimal cost in overall build might be worth consideration.

 

[K D]

If you have the EVO's for L2ARC already use them, I don't see why not or if you got a deal why not? Don't use them as a SLOG device though.

As was said 16GB would be fine, but 64GB would give you more cache and room to grow and allow for L2ARC/increases too or go 2x 16GB DIMMS and save some $ and buy SLOG device if warranted for your workload.

Intel® Pentium® Processor G4620 (3M Cache, 3.70 GHz) Product Specifications

Slightly more $ for slightly more GHZ and > integrated GFX if any of those matter to you, minimal cost in overall build might be worth consideration.

More RAM is always nice but for a media storage server over gig ethernet, 64 GB is an overkill. I would just go with 16GB.

Also you really don't need a SLOG for this use case. And if you decide to use one, definitely not the EVO.

I am not very clear on this aspect but my understanding is that you don't need a L2ARC till you hit a certain amount of RAM.

My media storage server (virtualized) with
10x 8TB, 2 striped 5x raidz
just has 8 GB ram allocated to it and no SLOG /L2ARC. I get around 500MBps write and 950MBps reads.

The CPU @T_Minus mentioned has integrated graphics that you can use for her decoding of media if you ever decide to go the plex/emby route.

 

[Evan]

If you already have the SSD you could use them as a mirror pair for any files you want best performance but I would certainly not use them as any kind of zfs cache.

 

[Zathras]

I built my NAS in the Node 804, and you should be aware that for the two removable four-drive HDD cages, the drives are attached using the screw holes at the top and near the middle of the drive, but large capacity Seagate drives have no middle screw points. This means they would just be hanging from the top screws and not properly secured. Just an FYI.

 

[T_Minus]

If you already have the SSD you could use them as a mirror pair for any files you want best performance but I would certainly not use them as any kind of zfs cache.

Why would you certainly not use them for any kind of ZFS Cache?
They're fine for L2ARC. L2ARC != SLOG demands.

Top Picks for FreeNAS: L2ARC Drives (SSDs)

"Realistically most SSDs will be fine. FreeNAS defaults to filling L2ARC drives at around 5MB/s. If you have a 480GB drive using default settings FreeNAS will not write to a L2ARC drive fast enough to perform a full drive write per day."

So, I'll say it again... if you have them already, use them you're not going to hurt your system... you could tune the L2ARC to also cache sequential if you're using the same file(s) over and over again.

 

[Evan]

@T_Minus i certainly not know that much about ZFS so will take yours and others word for it that the write rates are really that low.

Otherwise throw any decent amount of write to one of those drives and you see throttling.

 

[dtrv]

FreeNAS defaults to filling L2ARC drives at around 5MB/s.

Is this a FreeNAS special? For my understanding such a value doesn't make sense at all. Because everything dropping out ARC goes into L2ARC. And that speed depends on the data bandwidth stored into ZFS.
If one would continuously store data with 100 MB/s than ARC gets filled with that rate and if it runs out of RAM everything drops into L2ARC. If that would be limited to 5 MB/s one could only put data with that rate into ZFS.

Correct if I'm wrong and explain the 5 MB/s please.



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[T_Minus]

Is this a FreeNAS special? For my understanding such a value doesn't make sense at all. Because everything dropping out ARC goes into L2ARC. And that speed depends on the data bandwidth stored into ZFS.
If one would continuously store data with 100 MB/s than ARC gets filled with that rate and if it runs out of RAM everything drops into L2ARC. If that would be limited to 5 MB/s one could only put data with that rate into ZFS.

Correct if I'm wrong and explain the 5 MB/s please.



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I quoted an article, I didn't test/research this fill rate MB/s. @Patrick may have some input or @gea -- Although probably worthy of another thread.

However, regardless of fill performance a Samsung EVO still is an acceptable L2ARC device esp. for a home system.

 

[i386]

Correct if I'm wrong and explain the 5 MB/s please.

It's not 5mb/s, but 8mb/s. It's a default setting in the zfs code

The arc is filled with cached data from small, random iops (4kb/8kb). If you you have a pool with 20 hdds(75~100iops each) and do random 4kb reads you get a throughput of 8mb/s. This data is then cached in the arc. If the data is ejected (or replaced with other more often used data) from the arc, zfs tries to write it to the l2arc. (Remeber that this data is mostly from small, random io!)

Some links with more details:
ZFS L2ARC (that's the guy from the viral video shouting at the server and one of the zfs developers)
ZFSTuningGuide - FreeBSD Wiki