First NAS project. Feedback appreciated :)

[Gjed]

Hi everyone,

I'm building my first nas for my personal use (plex, photos etc). I don't have much experience with storage configurations, so any feedback is appreciated:

Server: HPE Proliant DL380 gen9
CPU: 2x E5-2620 v3
RAM: Some DDR4, not sure how much
Storage: 
- boot: 2x ssd (probabily 500gb crucial bx500 in raid 1)
- first pool: 4x Seagate 4TB 2.5 SATA with zfs 

Upgradeadability:
- 2x 2.5 free slot
- optional rear cage for 3x 3.5 hdd

A few question:
- is the raid 1 volume to paranoid for boot partition?
- any suggestion for better harddridves? the 4tb seagate is the better option i found for density and price (€ 0.0272 per gb)
- I also want to reduce the power consumption to the minimum Might consider to switch cpus to E5 2630L v4 or E52650L v4. Or even running only one cpu. Any other meaningful configuration i can do in bios to reduce power?

Thanks for the help! 😄

[Mobius]

You are better off using 3.5" drives if you can for it I'm your chassis. Majority of 2.5" hdd are smr drives that didn't play nice with zfs, which is what hexos uses. There are a few 1tb cmr 2.5" hdds out there but a lot of them have been discontinued and the rest are kind of hard to find. If you only have 2.5" slots available either find the few cmr drives or go sata ssd.

Consider going with fewer but larger hdds since each one uses a decent amount of power. I personally bought a lot of exos drives new from eBay. But again this is only an option if you use 3.5" drives. 

Mirrored boot partition is more responsible but if your server isn't mission critical and just a home nas i would skip the mirror.

[PsychoWards]

Hey,

Concerning the RAM, go with ECC modules.

Just a quick heads-up, Hexos is using ZFS, which is different then raid and has a different naming scheme. For example the RAID1 in ZFS is called mirrored, RaidZ1 in ZFS would be similar to Raid5, RaidZ2 would be similar to Raid6. Therefor to not get confused between Raid1 (ZFS mirrored) and ZFS RaidZ1 (Raid5) I will use the ZFS terms.

Mirrored boot drive is the way to go with the current version of Hexos. Since pool import is not supported at the moment, if you only have 1 boot drive and if your boot drive bites the dust, there is currently no way to use hexos again without loosing all your data. You would need to install truenas and use truenas until Hexos supports pool import.

I am using WD Red Plus and Seagate Ironwolf drives, they are meant for NAS and should last longer in theory. However a lot of people are using desktop grade drives without much issue. My only recommendation would be to make sure you get CMR drives and not SMR drives (meaning don't buy for example normal WD Red drives, either use the Red Plus or Red Pro for those)

If you are only using it as a NAS and don't want to host a lot of other things and VMs, 1  CPU would be more than enough, this will save on energy. Additionally, you can also activate some of the C-States in the BIOS to save even more energy on idling and you can disable not used components (audio chip on consumer grad HW, onboard NICs if an external NIC is used etc...) Stopping drives from spinning would also save some energy, however this is generally not recommended since it increases the wear on the drives, spinning drives up is one of the more frequent cases where a drive can die.

[Gjed]

  On 12/23/2024 at 1:56 PM, Mobius said:

You are better off using 3.5" drives if you can for it I'm your chassis. Majority of 2.5" hdd are smr drives that didn't play nice with zfs, which is what hexos uses. There are a few 1tb cmr 2.5" hdds out there but a lot of them have been discontinued and the rest are kind of hard to find. If you only have 2.5" slots available either find the few cmr drives or go sata ssd.

Consider going with fewer but larger hdds since each one uses a decent amount of power. I personally bought a lot of exos drives new from eBay. But again this is only an option if you use 3.5" drives. 

Mirrored boot partition is more responsible but if your server isn't mission critical and just a home nas i would skip the mirror.

Expand  

The DL380 I have has only 8x 2.5 bays in the front. A 3x 3.5" cage expansions exists but I would have to source it and it goes around 80-90€ on ebay. I was thinking about an upgrade down the road with some high capacity 3.5 hdd.

[Gjed]

  On 12/23/2024 at 2:07 PM, PsychoWards said:

Hey,

Concerning the RAM, go with ECC modules.

Just a quick heads-up, Hexos is using ZFS, which is different then raid and has a different naming scheme. For example the RAID1 in ZFS is called mirrored, RaidZ1 in ZFS would be similar to Raid5, RaidZ2 would be similar to Raid6. Therefor to not get confused between Raid1 (ZFS mirrored) and ZFS RaidZ1 (Raid5) I will use the ZFS terms.

Mirrored boot drive is the way to go with the current version of Hexos. Since pool import is not supported at the moment, if you only have 1 boot drive and if your boot drive bites the dust, there is currently no way to use hexos again without loosing all your data. You would need to install truenas and use truenas until Hexos supports pool import.

I am using WD Red Plus and Seagate Ironwolf drives, they are meant for NAS and should last longer in theory. However a lot of people are using desktop grade drives without much issue. My only recommendation would be to make sure you get CMR drives and not SMR drives (meaning don't buy for example normal WD Red drives, either use the Red Plus or Red Pro for those)

If you are only using it as a NAS and don't want to host a lot of other things and VMs, 1  CPU would be more than enough, this will save on energy. Additionally, you can also activate some of the C-States in the BIOS to save even more energy on idling and you can disable not used components (audio chip on consumer grad HW, onboard NICs if an external NIC is used etc...) Stopping drives from spinning would also save some energy, however this is generally not recommended since it increases the wear on the drives, spinning drives up is one of the more frequent cases where a drive can die.

Expand  

Yes, ECC absolutely. I just wasn't sure how much and if frequency makes any real difference.

Not many cmr 2.5 hdd these days, that is why i was going with seagate barracuda sata 4TB (ST4000LM024) as it seemed the best deal.

[Gjed]

  On 12/23/2024 at 1:56 PM, Mobius said:

You are better off using 3.5" drives if you can for it I'm your chassis. Majority of 2.5" hdd are smr drives that didn't play nice with zfs, which is what hexos uses. There are a few 1tb cmr 2.5" hdds out there but a lot of them have been discontinued and the rest are kind of hard to find. If you only have 2.5" slots available either find the few cmr drives or go sata ssd.

Consider going with fewer but larger hdds since each one uses a decent amount of power. I personally bought a lot of exos drives new from eBay. But again this is only an option if you use 3.5" drives. 

Mirrored boot partition is more responsible but if your server isn't mission critical and just a home nas i would skip the mirror.

Expand  

Also, most sata ssd you can find are qlc and even those has poor track record with zfs from what i read

[Gjed]

UPDATE:

I'm considering to just dtich the current server I have and just get another with LFF bays and save me a lot of troubles.
I found good deals for the same model on ebay with 12x 3.5 + 2x 2.5 bays

[Thejs1234]

  On 12/23/2024 at 11:59 AM, Gjed said:

A few question:
- is the raid 1 volume to paranoid for boot partition?

Expand  

At first I thought that it might be overkill but then when you think of it, it's actually not a bad idea. An SSD could fail because of a firmware problem or something else, and having two SSDs in raid 1 could be a good failsafe. And maybe you could buy 250gb SSDs instead of 500gb ones ? (in the hardware requirements, only 16gb are said to be needed so...) 500 gigs SSDs wouldn't be used really much (couldn't be used for cache for example...)