[SOLVED] FreeNAS build (enterprise grade server)

[TheDarkPleco]

Hello,

I am looking to go beyond my current NAS into an enterprise grade NAS. My current NAS has an Intel Q9400 and I am now looking at moving on to something with ECC memory. The problem is, I am trying to discover if certain kinds of ram are safe with certain motherboards and otherwise. I am looking at possibly using a Ryzen Threadripper or going all the way into AMD's Epyc series processors. I am expecting that this will be an expensive build overall, but it will be a bit in the future. Any suggestions on motherboard, processor, and ram combinations? Thank you for your advice.

 

[kanewolf]

Hello,

I am looking to go beyond my current NAS into an enterprise grade NAS. My current NAS has an Intel Q9400 and I am now looking at moving on to something with ECC memory. The problem is, I am trying to discover if certain kinds of ram are safe with certain motherboards and otherwise. I am looking at possibly using a Ryzen Threadripper or going all the way into AMD's Epyc series processors. I am expecting that this will be an expensive build overall, but it will be a bit in the future. Any suggestions on motherboard, processor, and ram combinations? Thank you for your advice.

How much space and bandwidth do you believe you can utilize?
What functions besides network storage are you planning to use this for?
The high thread count from Threadripper is not usually a good fit for a NAS.

 

[TheDarkPleco]

I am planning to be able to utilize just about saturating my gigabit network connection. I am eventually planning to offer offsite backups to a few small businesses in my area that have been looking for a provider. I am planning to run a couple virtual machines on this server as well. My current NAS gets overwhelmed due to its maximum ram being 8GB. I would put in more, but it utilizes DDR2. I do not know how much storage a business will want to use, but I would like to be prepared. I will have a Google Fiber internet connection for 1000Mbps up and down.

In addition, I would like to state that my major point is to move to ECC memory, so I am not too worried about how powerful it is. I just know that regular Ryzen support for ECC is not officially guaranteed and some major reviewers found its performance to be spotty, so I would like something certified.

 

[kanewolf]

I am planning to be able to utilize just about saturating my gigabit network connection. I am eventually planning to offer offsite backups to a few small businesses in my area that have been looking for a provider. I am planning to run a couple virtual machines on this server as well. My current NAS gets overwhelmed due to its maximum ram being 8GB. I would put in more, but it utilizes DDR2. I do not know how much storage a business will want to use, but I would like to be prepared. I will have a Google Fiber internet connection for 1000Mbps up and down.

You would probably be violating your terms of service on your Google fiber using it for commercial services unless you have a business account. Check your terms of service.
If you look at commercial NAS units, they can saturate a gigabit ethernet with an Celeron. Network storage doesn't require CPU.
VMs could use more CPU depending on the function. They are usually RAM constrained.
You may want to use your Q9400 system as a pFSense firewall. You need a high bandwidth firewall that can handle VPNs.
Your "NAS" should be segregated from any other home devices so that if it is compromised, the rest of your network is secure. You may need multiple NIC ports for ths "NAS".

 

[TheDarkPleco]

You would probably be violating your terms of service on your Google fiber using it for commercial services unless you have a business account. Check your terms of service.
If you look at commercial NAS units, they can saturate a gigabit ethernet with an Celeron. Network storage doesn't require CPU.
VMs could use more CPU depending on the function. They are usually RAM constrained.
You may want to use your Q9400 system as a pFSense firewall. You need a high bandwidth firewall that can handle VPNs.
Your "NAS" should be segregated from any other home devices so that if it is compromised, the rest of your network is secure. You may need multiple NIC ports for ths "NAS".

That is something I should check with Google. I am glad I hadn't started yet. I am glad to hear that the processor shouldn't make much of a difference, but do you have any thoughts on the best way to achieve ECC RAM in this scenario?

 

[kanewolf]

That is something I should check with Google. I am glad I hadn't started yet. I am glad to hear that the processor shouldn't make much of a difference, but do you have any thoughts on the best way to achieve ECC RAM in this scenario?

Sorry, I just choose to buy a commerical NAS.
If I was building something, I would probably look at an LGA2011-3 CPU. The E5-1680 V4 is an 8 core 16 thread Xeon that support ECC Base clock speed of 3.4Ghz.
A good Asus X99 motherboard and registered ECC RAM.

 

[TheDarkPleco]

Understandable, I will look into that then.

 

[SamirD]

If you're looking to build something enterprise quality with a commercial production that provides income, I wouldn't mess with toys and move straight to rack servers that are datacenter ready. They're not pretty, or quiet, or necessarily cheap--but they will do the job like a tank because they are pretty much designed for it. Not only do they have ecc memory, but they can run LRDIMMs and RDIMMs which open up a whole new world of reliability with memory mirroring and other advanced protection modes by default. Plus, you get to use highly reliable enterprise grade sas drives (which can be found cheap secondhand--even cheaper than shucked drives), which are designed for such workloads.

And the funny thing is, secondhand servers are dirt cheap if you know where to look. Here's one I saw tonight (already sold out) that was a solid deal since it already included 24tb of storage and was only missing ram:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-R720x...040102?hash=item3fd812a4a6:g:ryMAAOSwo5ZdfmMD

 

[kanewolf]

If you're looking to build something enterprise quality with a commercial production that provides income, I wouldn't mess with toys and move straight to rack servers that are datacenter ready. They're not pretty, or quiet, or necessarily cheap--but they will do the job like a tank because they are pretty much designed for it. Not only do they have ecc memory, but they can run LRDIMMs and RDIMMs which open up a whole new world of reliability with memory mirroring and other advanced protection modes by default. Plus, you get to use highly reliable enterprise grade sas drives (which can be found cheap secondhand--even cheaper than shucked drives), which are designed for such workloads.

And the funny thing is, secondhand servers are dirt cheap if you know where to look. Here's one I saw tonight (already sold out) that was a solid deal since it already included 24tb of storage and was only missing ram:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-R720x...040102?hash=item3fd812a4a6:g:ryMAAOSwo5ZdfmMD

They are dirt cheap. But they are REALLY LOUD. Unless you have a segregated area, I would not recommend a 2U server. A workstation like a Z840, yes but not a 2U and ESPECIALLY not a 1U server. Also don't think that buying a server motherboard alone without the chassis is the answer. Many times they won't even power up because they are missing fans or other "required" connections. Not worth the hassle.

 

[SamirD]

They are dirt cheap. But they are REALLY LOUD. Unless you have a segregated area, I would not recommend a 2U server. A workstation like a Z840, yes but not a 2U and ESPECIALLY not a 1U server. Also don't think that buying a server motherboard alone without the chassis is the answer. Many times they won't even power up because they are missing fans or other "required" connections. Not worth the hassle.

Depends on your definitely of loud and where you plan to keep the server. Personally, fans don't bother me, even when at 100%, but that's because they're in another room somewhere. Even when they are close by, fan noise doesn't bother me as I look at that as feedback that cooling is happening.

The tower servers are a bit better and workstations can pass too, but if you're making money from it, I wouldn't cut corners at all.