(Part 2) Top products from r/freenas

I would upgrade to WD red for at least one drive for $20-30.


As far as AMD, they're great. I know they get a lot of hate for perceived value, but they're reliable and I love them.

Edit: In this case: Athlons run HOT! Get a FM2+ socket A-Series CPU.


Also you will need two usb drives. Get a nub style one for the actual OS. (Personal experience tip)


Personal tip two: Make sure any extra fans you get are the fractal 'Silent Series' . Again experience. they're mind blowingly quiet. Also this guy is super quiet too, and I recommend it!


Good Luck, the hardware is the easy part, for freeNAS 's true potential its a learning curve, but well worth it!

I think you'll find that building a freenas box without a lot of regard to parts might also be power-hungry...you'll spend a little more for it to be cheap on electricity and quiet.

AMD will use more power (and generate more heat) but I find the savings to be negligible, especially given the how the processor is generally so much cheaper. I would think it would have to run a long while to even out. Here's some links to parts to a build I've put together (by no means should you feel this to be forced upon you, this is just the same mobo, cpu and a few other things I use in an affordable but quiet case).

ECC RAM isn't on pcpartpicker, so you'll have to shop around for that...I got mine on Amazon very reasonably priced, and since you won't be overclocking you could go with 1600 MHz memory or even lower.

• Memory - $90.20 - This is ECC memory. I went with two of these, but I also have 12TB of disks. (The rule of thumb is ~1GB for every TB of disk space, you'll probably need even less if you're only using one disk)
  
  
• CPU - $96.78 - I've had zero problems with this, and I do a lot of plex transcoding, often to multiple clients at a time. Comes with its own fan and heatsink, so no need for extra cooling.
  
  
• Mobo - $44.99 - Supports the above CPU and ECC RAM. Boards for AMD chips that support ECC are not that easy to find.
  
  
• Quiet Case - $94.99 - My NAS actually uses a different case, but I ended up using this case for something else...it is dead silent. Has plenty of drive bays for possible expansion. Well worth the cost, if you care about power and noise.
  
  
• Power Supply - $88.98 - Not the absolute cheapest, but very efficient. Since you care about power consumption. You can go lower in terms of wattage, but it's harder to find a low-watt PSU that is this efficient, not to mention if you add disks later you don't want to run into a power ceiling.
  
  
• NIC - $27.49 - I read a lot on the forums about onboard NIC's having problems, this was universally recommended, so I got one. I obviously don't know what to tell you about what it is like not having one, but it's cheap and I've never had any problems with it.
  
  This all comes out to about $450, plus disk(s) and maybe a few cables or fans.
  
  Again, this is just an example of what you can do without getting into buying a Xeon or something equally (in my opinion) asinine. There will be plenty of other recommendations from others, almost anywhere you look, and I also don't know what hardware you might already have laying around. But maybe this will help. You can also search on the forums for a user named Joeschmuck who has a very similar build.
  
  Lastly, here is a link to my first thread so you can see my thought process and how I reached the conclusion of a lot of the hardware I'm running.
  
  And just to reiterate, this is not the only way of doing this...but I'm really really happy with what I have and how much it cost, so if it will help someone else I'm pumped.
  
  P.S. - Look into a UPS system, they don't have to be expensive...with more than one disk the chance of a power outage seriously messing you up goes WAAAAY up. I got a UPS a few weeks after I built my system. Good luck and let me know what you decide!
  
  Edit: You can also disable a lot of on-board crap you don't need, like the NIC (assuming you use this one) or the USB ports that go to the front of the case, hibernation settings, etc. which will likely save you power and CPU cycles.

My original setup went like this:

I have an IBM m1015 I picked up off of eBay and flashed to IT mode so that the drives are passed straight through and no RAID functionality of the card is used.

One of the two ports from it was connected via an SFF-8087 SAS cable to a double SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 adapter, but you can go single as well.

Then an SFF-8088 SAS Cable ran from the adapter to an external case with an HP SAS Expander in it. There are many, many, other models of expanders but this is what I went with because it has the external SAS SFF-8088 port on it (it's not the only one that has this feature, but it's what I went with, and it makes it so every enclosure doesn't need its own motherboard).

All the ports off the expander then went to the backplanes in the external case and connected the drives to the IBM m1015 through the expander.

Since the 4224 did not have a motherboard at the time I used this thing that's usually used for crypto currency mining to provide power to the expander because that's all it needs from its PCIe interface (many of those other models of expander have a Molex connector in it for power and no PCIe interface at all).

As for daisy chaining SAS enclosures, it can be done, but I haven't gotten that far in my storage adventures yet. I do know that there are enclosures that support it and if I were to expand from where I'm at now it's probably the route I would go. Rolling my own was fun and all but sometimes you just want to plug and play.

I'll concur with A_watcher that eSATA enclosures are crap. Or at least the one I've used was as well.

I think that address the questions that were in the OP as well as posed to others that responded.

I'm ridiculously far from an expert, and my setup has changed a lot since the first way it was set up, but I think it was pretty close and answered those questions.

*Many the guys over at /r/datahoarder are much more knowledgeable in this arena than I am and are another source of information when it comes to storage.

Yeah. I'm using them for the fan. You mean some adapters like https://www.amazon.de/DeLock-60115-SATA-Stromkabel/dp/B002E958AW/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?__mk_de_DE=ÅMÅZÕÑ&qid=1549828118&sr=8-5&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=molex+to+sata&dpPl=1&dpID=41gVqX-KsQL&ref=plSrch ? Currently I only have 2 hdds so i can power the ssd without any problem. If I'm extending in the future (I'm planning on doing this) I just have to use the adapter or sth. similar like that to power the ssd? And with this said, do you think that the ssd is the better option?

You're welcome!
Link to the case on Norco's website, take special note of the PSU depth max length
Here are a few parts that you will need if you do decide to get that case.
FlexATX PSU The ones on amazon at the time were too long to fit in the case, i had to return the one i bought from them and ended up getting this one.
Reverse Breakout SATA Cable
2x 4PIN MOLEX Extension cables This is to plug into the HDD backplane

Cool cool... I would recommend a dual USB port (as suggested by /u/brad_4116) on the internal header for your boot (I did this on my FreeNAS box and it's solid) so the externals are free for you to do as you please. If you're not using up the PCIe slot (assuming ITX) then an expansion card with more USB ports is an option as well.

Something like this is what I have in one system but they make 2.0 versions for it as well.

I have been using the CS380B for about 1.5 years now, and have been very happy with it.

That said, I replaced the fans with 3x Noctua NF-P12 fans to keep my HDDs cool and keep the server moderately quiet.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0086OGN9E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


these all the way. they are rigid too so if you bend them they stay for the most part.

The R5 was on the table. actually better suited since it has the Perfect amount of bays. but that price tag ughhh. Also this case would be cool for a daily driver case. It has a hot swap 3.5 drive bay on the top. its weird to see on a case

There is more info in the forum thread now. One of my posts lists my specs with links to motherboard and usb hub.

>Asus M5A97 LE R2.0

>AMD FX8350

>16GB ECC RAM

>2x8GB SanDisk Cruzer Fit (I have been using one successfully on FreeNAS 9.2, ordered a second one for mirroring in 9.3)

>StarTech 2 port USB adapter (has worked fine in 9.2 with the one drive attached, inserted the second drive in it as well)

>IBM megaraid controller flashed with LSI IT firmware for direct pass through
and of course several hard drives.

I was actually looking at this exact board at one point -- you may want to give https://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-x10sdv-6c-tln4f-review-xeon-d-1528-mitx/ a read through. I seem to recall there being a mention of with it being a Xeon, make sure you have good cooling. The case I was planning on using for this did not, hence why I'm no longer looking at this option :-)

PSU - Absolutely. Based on same quick numbers, I'd be looking for a 300W+ PSU

RAM - Seems fine from the 30 seconds I looked at it.

EDIT: Additional word of warning. I recall certain Supermicro boards using a proprietary connector for certain things -- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VUJYTW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1. You may want to look into it. Not sure if it's relevant or not.

The M11SDV-8C+-LN4F is the active cooled version that comes with a CPU fan. The + in the model number denotes this particular version.

It keeps the CPU super cool. Temps are around 25C at idle. I have yet to push it to it's limits, but I haven't seen it go past 40C yet.

I am about to do the same (upgrading from a 2950 to a R710) and was curious if the 8087 cables needed to have a 90 degree connector on one end or if straight connectors on both end would work?

I am about to get these, but wanted to be sure.
http://amzn.com/B008VLHOR2

Could I make use of an eSATA enclosure on the N40L to set up the new drives and transfer everything across, them move the drives internally once that’s done? Something like the one linked below. Then theoretically I could keep the old drives in use afterwards as well (probably in a 4 disk RAID-Z rather than 5).

https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HFR2-SU3S2-PRORAID-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003YFHEAC/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=esata+raid+enclosure&qid=1572471924&sr=8-3

Hard drives don't really draw all that much power, say 10W a piece under load.

So it would really only be an increase of 50W when you think about it. This is a good cheap one if you are shopping, and 380W should be plenty unless you're running something else that consumes a lotta power.

this is the correctest anwer that answers the question directly. but by the time you track down all the parts needed to make it work like this power supply controller
that said, i would just use 1, and look to getting a DAS.

SFF8087 to 4x SATA.

Like these:
http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-SAS8087S450-Serial-Attached-Cable/dp/B004KDO22K/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1396212048&sr=8-11&keywords=sff+8087

http://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-Internal-SFF-8087-Forward-Breakout/dp/B005E2XTO8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1396212048&sr=8-4&keywords=sff+8087

http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-SFF-8087-Reverse-breakout-cable/dp/B002MK7F0Y/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1396212048&sr=8-7&keywords=sff+8087

I've been using this SATA card for my boot device since March and haven't had any issues. It's a good bit cheaper than what you posted too.

It's a TP-Link N150 Wireless Wi-Fi Portable Router with Range Extender/Access Point/Client/Bridge Modes (TL-WR700N)

Basically my wireless card sucked so I plugged this in. It works perfect through this, but as soon as I plug the Cat5 directly into the router I lose access to the NAS.