Hardware ideas for new NAS Server?

[neonplanet40]

This is a nightmare haha. It is proving very hard to keep it on budget

[Biscuit]

FM2 is a not a good option if you are thinking of freeNAS and ZFS, as to my knowledge, there is no ECC memory support

[DanceswithUnix]

This is a nightmare haha. It is proving very hard to keep it on budget

So what is the budget?

£52 Motherboard: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...-dvi-hdmi-matx
£74 quad core CPU: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-a...mhz-65w-retail

(I was going to suggest the A8-6500K that I use in my server, but an extra fiver gets you the latest FM2+ version with a bundled game).

[Bonebreaker777]

M

FM2 is a not a good option if you are thinking of freeNAS and ZFS, as to my knowledge, there is no ECC memory support

For ECC support there will be an Intel or Asus MoBo required. Luckily on eBay is more that enough DDR3 ECC modules for sale for cheap.

AM3 supports ECC I think...

[DanceswithUnix]

AM3 supports ECC I think...

Only if the BIOS supports it, which I think means ASUS boards (this workstation is running with 12GB of ECC ram on 3 sticks with an FX-8350).

FM3+ isn't so good for low power/heat generation though.

[Biscuit]

M

For ECC support there will be an Intel or Asus MoBo required. Luckily on eBay is more that enough DDR3 ECC modules for sale for cheap.

AM3 supports ECC I think...

ECC isn't much more than normal RAM anyway I dont think? we re not talking registered or anything like that.
I think you're right, the AM3 platform does support it, not ideal for a low load home server though i wouldn't have thought?

IF you are thinking of FreeNAS, low end pentium or older i3 chips are much better.... but perhaps this is a good reason NOT to use FreeNAS.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Technically Kaveri does support ECC RAM,but its another thing if there is consumer board support.

The commercial Berlin version does.

[Bonebreaker777]

Low end pentium or celeron should be pretty much the same (but the price difference and official RAM support) but for ECC you need server grade chipsets if I am right.

Kaveri boards from Asus have any ECC support? Can't imagine other manufacturers to do it and even less of a Kaveri server board...

[Bluecube]

Xpenology has already been mentioned - don't disregard it as it's very good.

I'm just throwing this in here as it may prove useful albeit an overkill - I've just built a new server based on quad core Xeon (second hand) and a Gigabyte server motherboard. Both were bought of eBay for a total about £102. The motherboard was brand new with support for 6 SATA drives and 8 SAS drives, built in RAID, remote management features, onboard USB (useful for booting from thumb drives) and loads of other bits and bobs I haven't investigated yet. I doubt this setup is low power as it's based on socket 1366 tech but it's a damn fine machine for the cash.

[b0redom]

IMO, you still can't beat FreeNAS+Microserver. You should be able to get the microserver for under £100 off eBay, they're not THAT much more new. Stick in 8GB (or 4GB at a push) of RAM.

I know you want to attach 8 drives, but why not sell them and buy bigger new ones?

Quiet, small and low power.

Just a thought.

[Marcvs]

Im running a full S2012 R2 Box with a Pentium G3220 Slightly OC'ed and 8GBs ram, not the cheapest option software wise but runs very happily with non-ecc hardware. Its my plex server + a bit of a general chuck it on the nas box. The hardware was only £~150, but s2012 is pricey (but you could use the new preview edition for 1.5 years to spread the cost, mobo is only 4 drives (im using 4x 4tbs now) but might be a good option if you are flexible on HDDs

[b0redom]

Can that CPU transcode 1080p feeds?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Is it me or are people overstating the hardware needed for the OP?? I get the impression it looks like a general storage server - maybe with some media usage??

The Hexus Minecraft server run by Bagnaj97(with another one or two running),with a Teamspeak server and a few TB of storage was run off a mini-ITX A10 5800K box in an Elite 120 case.
The ASRock A85X motherboard had 7 SATA 3 and one E-SATA port.

Edit!!

So what is the budget?

£52 Motherboard: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...-dvi-hdmi-matx
£74 quad core CPU: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-a...mhz-65w-retail

(I was going to suggest the A8-6500K that I use in my server, but an extra fiver gets you the latest FM2+ version with a bundled game).

I think that would do the trick IMHO.

The A88X motherboards can have upto 8 SATA 3 ports too.

Second Edit!!

This motherboard has 8 SATA3 ports:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-dvi-d-hdmi-mi

[DanceswithUnix]

Is it me or are people overstating the hardware needed for the OP?? I get the impression it looks like a general storage server - maybe with some media usage??

Down to the filesystem used and the risk the user wants to take.

If you use a next gen filesystem such as ZFS, then ECC ram becomes very desirable. There is no filesystem check utility, the OS is constantly checking and scrubbing the FS for faults. The downside of that is that if you get a memory corruption, then the OS can happily modify the files to look like its corrupted view of the world hence losing data.

My server runs an old ext3 fs on a raid 1 drive pair. An old school setup, because when I tried putting ECC ram into that board it just saw it as ram and I couldn't find a BIOS option for ECC.

However, if the 8 drives are some random collection that is going to be used JBOD then ECC isn't required.

[abaxas]

Lowest end PC hardware that will do the job you want. Even an 5 year old atom will saturate a 1gbps link.

Spend the rest on a proper hardware raid controller.

Job done.

[DanceswithUnix]

Lowest end PC hardware that will do the job you want. Even an 5 year old atom will saturate a 1gbps link.

Spend the rest on a proper hardware raid controller.

Job done.

Well that is the odd part with ZFS, an old school hardware raid controller gets in the way. The filesystem is designed to know about disks, and so wants full access to them with nothing in the way.

So that saves you the cost of hardware raid, which you should then spend a bit of on ECC ram. I think you are still up on the deal, and you get stuff like copy on write snapshots and self healing.

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...n-filesystems/