11 Oct-15, Project Introduction
Background
This build is primarily about two things:
One of the challenges with this build is that I am based in Jakarta, Indonesia, so the majority of the components are shipped half across the planet, and then disappears on to the black hole of custom clearance and local supply distributers. This means tracking deliveries works well until it arrives to Jakarta, and after that the process time-warps back to the nineteen eighties, and typically on-line updates seize to exist. Eventually, the delivery arrives but it is impossible to predict how long the local process will take.
The implication of this is that you need to do a lot of homework to ensure the components ordered will play nicely together, as getting replacement equipment easily can add on 2-4 weeks of lead-time.
Overview of Hardware Components
Chassis: 1x U-NAS NSC-800 v.2 (URI: u-nas.com :: U-NAS Server Chassis :: U-NAS NSC-800 Server Chassis)
Motherboard: 1x Supermicro x10sdv-tln2f Rev 1.02 (URI: Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10SDV-4C-TLN2F)
RAM: 1x Samsung M393A4K40BB0-CPB 32GB DDR4-2133 Memory MEM-DR432L-SL01-ER21 (URI: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-M393A4K40BB0-CPB-DDR4-2133-Memory-MEM-DR432L-SL01-ER21/dp/B00U6O78W8)
Power Supply Unit: 1x Seasonic SS-350M1U 350W PFC 80 Plus Gold (URI: Ready 1U Seasonic SS 350M1U 350W PFC 80Plus Gold Power Supply w 1U Bracket | eBay)
Power Extension Cable: 24 Pin ATX 2.01 Power Extension Cable (URI: http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-8-Inch-Power-Extension-ATX24POWEXT/dp/B000FL60AI)
Host Bus Adaptor: 1x LSI MegaRAID 9240-8i 8ports PCI-E 6Gb RAID Controller (URI: New LSI MegaRAID 9240 8i 8PORTS PCI E 6GB RAID Controller IBM M1015 46M0861 | eBay)
Host Bus Adaptor Fan: Noctua NF-A4x10 40x10 mm (URI: Amazon.com: Noctua 40x10mm A-Series Blades with AAO Frame, SSO2 Bearing Premium Retail Cooling Fan NF-A4x10: Computers & Accessories)
Case Fans: 2x Nanoxia Deep Silence 120mm PWM, NDS120PWM-1500 (URI: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CHX0SQY)
CPU Fan: 1x Noctua 92 x 14 mm Low-Profile (NF-A9x14) (URI: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009NQM7V2)
Hard drives: temporarily re-using some old 4xWD SATA 500 GB drives for ZFS storage pool, and a Maxtor DiamondMax 300 GB as boot drive. Once this platform has been verified I plan to put in 4xWD 4G Reds and a SSD boot drive.
Overview of Software Components
Host server OS: CentOS 7.0, 64-bit
Host Bus Adaptor: Original LSI 9240-8i Raid card cross-flashed to become a SAS 9211-8i Host Bus Adaptor in IT mode using firmware version 16.00.00.00 and Bios version 07.31.00.00.
Virtual Plex Media Server , version 0.9.12.11 running CentOS 7.0 as guest os
Virtual FreeNAS server, release 9.3.0
Design Considerations
For this project I was looking for a small-scale chassis with potential to scale up to eight drives. Hot-swap drive cages was not a mandatory requirement as this is for home use. The NAS unit will be located in my home office so it needs to be quiet, aesthetically pleasing, and energy efficient.
During my research I identified two candidates: Fractal Design Node 304 and U-NAS NSC-800. Both fulfilled the small-scale factor requirement. I settled for the U-NAS as I preferred its design.
The real challenge for a small build like this is to find a Mini-ITX board that would enable to support 10G ethernet in the future, would support minimum eight SATA drives, and run Intel NICs. Brian Moses did an excellent write-up about his build based on the ASRock C2550D4I motherboard which almost won me over. But reading others struggling with the Marvell chipset and FreeNAS put me off. And if I wanted to have a go at running FreeNAS as a VM, it was clear that a HBA and PCI-passthrough was the way to go. So back to the drawing board.
Then I had an epiphany. The review of Supermicro X10SDV-4C-TLN2F on this site by Patric showed a new possibility. A Mini-ITX board already 10G NIC capable and a PCIe slot for a HBA card would be the way to go! FreeNAS would love the RAM potential of this board; up to 128 GB of DDR4 ECC RAM. Not that I ever plan to deploy that much storage/RAM for FreeNAS. But then again, six years ago I never thought I would need more than 3 GB of NAS storage in my house...
//Jimmy
Background
This build is primarily about two things:
- Replacing my old NetGear ReadyNAS NV+ with a more up-to-date platform
- Exploring FreeNAS virtualisation on a CentOS7/KVM host
One of the challenges with this build is that I am based in Jakarta, Indonesia, so the majority of the components are shipped half across the planet, and then disappears on to the black hole of custom clearance and local supply distributers. This means tracking deliveries works well until it arrives to Jakarta, and after that the process time-warps back to the nineteen eighties, and typically on-line updates seize to exist. Eventually, the delivery arrives but it is impossible to predict how long the local process will take.
The implication of this is that you need to do a lot of homework to ensure the components ordered will play nicely together, as getting replacement equipment easily can add on 2-4 weeks of lead-time.
Overview of Hardware Components
Chassis: 1x U-NAS NSC-800 v.2 (URI: u-nas.com :: U-NAS Server Chassis :: U-NAS NSC-800 Server Chassis)
Motherboard: 1x Supermicro x10sdv-tln2f Rev 1.02 (URI: Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10SDV-4C-TLN2F)
RAM: 1x Samsung M393A4K40BB0-CPB 32GB DDR4-2133 Memory MEM-DR432L-SL01-ER21 (URI: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-M393A4K40BB0-CPB-DDR4-2133-Memory-MEM-DR432L-SL01-ER21/dp/B00U6O78W8)
Power Supply Unit: 1x Seasonic SS-350M1U 350W PFC 80 Plus Gold (URI: Ready 1U Seasonic SS 350M1U 350W PFC 80Plus Gold Power Supply w 1U Bracket | eBay)
Power Extension Cable: 24 Pin ATX 2.01 Power Extension Cable (URI: http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-8-Inch-Power-Extension-ATX24POWEXT/dp/B000FL60AI)
Host Bus Adaptor: 1x LSI MegaRAID 9240-8i 8ports PCI-E 6Gb RAID Controller (URI: New LSI MegaRAID 9240 8i 8PORTS PCI E 6GB RAID Controller IBM M1015 46M0861 | eBay)
Host Bus Adaptor Fan: Noctua NF-A4x10 40x10 mm (URI: Amazon.com: Noctua 40x10mm A-Series Blades with AAO Frame, SSO2 Bearing Premium Retail Cooling Fan NF-A4x10: Computers & Accessories)
Case Fans: 2x Nanoxia Deep Silence 120mm PWM, NDS120PWM-1500 (URI: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CHX0SQY)
CPU Fan: 1x Noctua 92 x 14 mm Low-Profile (NF-A9x14) (URI: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009NQM7V2)
Hard drives: temporarily re-using some old 4xWD SATA 500 GB drives for ZFS storage pool, and a Maxtor DiamondMax 300 GB as boot drive. Once this platform has been verified I plan to put in 4xWD 4G Reds and a SSD boot drive.
Overview of Software Components
Host server OS: CentOS 7.0, 64-bit
Host Bus Adaptor: Original LSI 9240-8i Raid card cross-flashed to become a SAS 9211-8i Host Bus Adaptor in IT mode using firmware version 16.00.00.00 and Bios version 07.31.00.00.
Virtual Plex Media Server , version 0.9.12.11 running CentOS 7.0 as guest os
Virtual FreeNAS server, release 9.3.0
Design Considerations
For this project I was looking for a small-scale chassis with potential to scale up to eight drives. Hot-swap drive cages was not a mandatory requirement as this is for home use. The NAS unit will be located in my home office so it needs to be quiet, aesthetically pleasing, and energy efficient.
During my research I identified two candidates: Fractal Design Node 304 and U-NAS NSC-800. Both fulfilled the small-scale factor requirement. I settled for the U-NAS as I preferred its design.
The real challenge for a small build like this is to find a Mini-ITX board that would enable to support 10G ethernet in the future, would support minimum eight SATA drives, and run Intel NICs. Brian Moses did an excellent write-up about his build based on the ASRock C2550D4I motherboard which almost won me over. But reading others struggling with the Marvell chipset and FreeNAS put me off. And if I wanted to have a go at running FreeNAS as a VM, it was clear that a HBA and PCI-passthrough was the way to go. So back to the drawing board.
Then I had an epiphany. The review of Supermicro X10SDV-4C-TLN2F on this site by Patric showed a new possibility. A Mini-ITX board already 10G NIC capable and a PCIe slot for a HBA card would be the way to go! FreeNAS would love the RAM potential of this board; up to 128 GB of DDR4 ECC RAM. Not that I ever plan to deploy that much storage/RAM for FreeNAS. But then again, six years ago I never thought I would need more than 3 GB of NAS storage in my house...
//Jimmy