Hexos - Part list and future plans

[keithh]

My HexOS NAS Build: From Inspiration to Reality
Hey everyone,
I probably should have kicked things off by sharing my planned build before revealing the actual one, but I got a little too excited!
So, why this build? I was really inspired by Linus Tech Tips' (LTT) Scrapyard Wars and set out to source as many local, used parts as possible. That proved to be quite a challenge in my area! Then came the announcement for HexOS, which was exactly what I was looking for to build a simple NAS.
I started by purchasing a HexOS lifetime key, and then the part-sourcing journey began.

Part List:
Operating System
 * HexOS Lifetime Key: $144.88
Core Components
 * CPU: Ryzen 7 1700 (8C/16T) - $45 (Facebook Marketplace)
 * CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE - $48.90 (Amazon Marketplace Canada)
 * Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 R2.0 - $114.96 (Newegg Canada)
 * Power Supply: MSI A850GL - $183.95 (Best Buy)
 * RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3200MHz - $67.99 (Canada Computers)
 * Boot Drive: WD Black SN770 500GB - $79.99 (Canada Computers)
 * Zotac 2060 8GB - $180 (Facebook Marketplace)
Storage Drives
 * Storage Drives (x2): Seagate BarraCuda 8TB 7200 RPM - $224.19 each (Best Buy)

 

Current Case
 * Thermaltake S200 TG ARGB Plus: $114.96 (Best Buy)
This case isn't the final home for the server. Once I acquire the additional HDDs, the server will be migrated to my larger main rig case. The Thermaltake S200 TG ARGB Plus will then be repurposed as the first component for a new gaming rig for my special lady!

Future Plans
My intention is to add two additional HDDs down the road. I'll need a SATA controller for this, as my boot drive uses one of the available SATA ports. On the bright side, my special lady gave me a "free PC part" coupon worth up to $100, which I plan to use for one of those future HDDs!

[PsychoWards]

Hey, 

Seems like a decent build and you got some nice value out of it. 🙂 

Just a couple of remarks to help with some pitfalls:

For Ryzen 1000-3000 CPUs you need to disable all the C States in the BIOS to get the server stable, with C states enabled it will freeze at random. 

Your Motherboard has a Realtek NIC, they are not supported by Hexos due to bad linux drivers, causing stability issues and causing data corruption. Get yourself an Intel NIC which is supported and working out of the box.

Return the HDDs and get yourself some CMR drives, the Barracuda drives are SMR drives, which you really shouldn't use in a Raid. 🙂

It looks like your motherboard has 2x m.2 slots and only the 2nd one (M2_2) is sharing bandwidth with a SATA port. As long as you use only 1 M.2 SSD in the M2_1 slot, you can use all 4 SATA ports.

If you start with 2 HDDs, Hexos will create a mirror which cannot be extended. If you want to be able to extend the pool in the future you need at least 3 HDDs now to create a RaidZ1. 

[keithh]

58 minutes ago, PsychoWards said:

Hey, 

Seems like a decent build and you got some nice value out of it. 🙂 

Just a couple of remarks to help with some pitfalls:

For Ryzen 1000-3000 CPUs you need to disable all the C States in the BIOS to get the server stable, with C states enabled it will freeze at random. 

Your Motherboard has a Realtek NIC, they are not supported by Hexos due to bad linux drivers, causing stability issues and causing data corruption. Get yourself an Intel NIC which is supported and working out of the box.

Return the HDDs and get yourself some CMR drives, the Barracuda drives are SMR drives, which you really shouldn't use in a Raid. 🙂

It looks like your motherboard has 2x m.2 slots and only the 2nd one (M2_2) is sharing bandwidth with a SATA port. As long as you use only 1 M.2 SSD in the M2_1 slot, you can use all 4 SATA ports.

If you start with 2 HDDs, Hexos will create a mirror which cannot be extended. If you want to be able to extend the pool in the future you need at least 3 HDDs now to create a RaidZ1. 

Hello, thank you for your input.

I was already aware of the Realtek issues and have purchased an Intel NIC, though it hasn't arrived from my eBay purchase yet.

I was not aware of the C-states, so I'll be sure to check that out in my BIOS on my next reboot. Thanks for the heads-up on that.

Yes, I currently have one M.2 drive, and it's one of the drives I'm looking to expand. I apologize for not mentioning that in my initial post. I plan to acquire a second M.2 drive specifically for operating system virtualization, which is why I knew I would need a SATA card.

Regarding CMR drives, I had no idea about them, but after reviewing their price points, I cannot justify switching to them. If using my current drives is a deal-breaker for HexOS, I will simply switch to an operating system that supports them. Hopefully after buying a  HexOs key I'll be able to find a way to make it play nicely with my drives.

 

Thank you again.

[Mobius]

1 hour ago, keithh said:

Regarding CMR drives, I had no idea about them, but after reviewing their price points, I cannot justify switching to them. If using my current drives is a deal-breaker for HexOS, I will simply switch to an operating system that supports them. Hopefully after buying a  HexOs key I'll be able to find a way to make it play nicely with my drives.

its not a hexos issue but rather cmr drives don't play nice with raid in general.
if you use raid with your drives you are not gonna have a good time regardless of os.
you can still use them but they will be slow as sin
if you can return then you can get a significantly better value at the same price or less

https://www.ebay.com/itm/236143802502
this is in the same price range, sold by seagate themselves, almost double the size, cmr drive and a more vibration resistant enterprise drive.
you can probably find even better values since this was less when i bought it a month or 2 ago.

[keithh]

Thank you for the link.

Yes, it's double the size of my current setup. Unfortunately, though, it's more than double the cost for just one drive, as that pricing is in USD. I'm from Canada, so I use Canadian rubles for purchasing. If the only issue is a slow rebuild time in the event of a drive failure, that's more than acceptable to me. I'll already have a nearly complete backup of the data on an external drive device anyway.

With that in mind, I'll be searching my local market for these drives, aiming for a price point that's manageable for my budget. This approach would be great because it'd let me repurpose them later, either for a new gaming PC or as reliable external backups.

 

Thank you for all the information!

[Mobius]

its not just slow during rebuild but slow during all operations.
ahh candian dollars.
you should be able to find similarly priced exos drives as well at smaller sizes.

[keithh]

Yes, I've seen similar drives, but for what I bought 8TB for, they're only offering 2TB. So, the price point was just too steep to consider switching to them.

At the moment, with my two drives in a mirrored setup, I've had no issues with speed for the way I'm using the system; it's actually exceeded my expectations. This system is just for serving my media through Jellyfin and Navidrome, as well as running Tdarr for conversions.

[PsychoWards]

You do have similar priced 8 TB CMR drives, although a bit more expensive:

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/seagate-ironwolf-8tb-3-5-5400rpm-sata-desktop-internal-hard-drive-st8000vnz04/19186378

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/wd-red-plus-8tb-5640rpm-sata-internal-nas-hard-drive-wd80efpx/17935390

 

You might not notice anything now, but once SMR drives hit a certain capacity threshold you will notice it. 

 

You can make it work with SMR drives, but expect some weird performance issues down the road, just something to keep in mind. 🙂