Build Log: Wizard's Sleeve (FreeNAS ITX Project) :D
- Thread starter randal
- Start date
What a question.
Got this case and the D945GCLF2 board. However, the board has a 24 pin socket and the one that comes with the noah case only has a 20 to 20 pin cable. Will it work with the 20 pin one or do I have to get a 20 to 24 pin cable?
Does the board run ok with the fan disconnected on the chipset and running passive?The PSU is passive, external laptop-esque power brick and a PCB about the size of ten smokes.Silent. The fan on the chipset however... wweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Disconnected... problemo solved.
I have a D945GCLF2 and I was thinking of getting one of the scythe mini-kaze ultra 40mm fans to shut it up but if it runs ok with the chipset cooled passively then I'll do that, will save me a few beans
Hi. Great thread/idea. I was looking for a replacement for my ageing ATX Windows server, and this inspired me. I decided to build an almost identical system, only I went for the dual-core intel atom board. Very pleased with the Noah mini-itx case (I went for the black version). FreeNAS is a great piece of software, but I was initially disappointed about the lack of a usenet client built into it (despite it having bittorrent). I've got the OpenBSD port of SABnzbd+ installed and running on it now though which solves that problem.
Hi. Great thread/idea. I was looking for a replacement for my ageing ATX Windows server, and this inspired me. I decided to build an almost identical system, only I went for the dual-core intel atom board. Very pleased with the Noah mini-itx case (I went for the black version). FreeNAS is a great piece of software, but I was initially disappointed about the lack of a usenet client built into it (despite it having bittorrent). I've got the OpenBSD port of SABnzbd+ installed and running on it now though which solves that problem.
Can you upload with the bittorrent client on FreeNas? Good to hear that SABnzbd+ works though, if I can upload I'll look at trying this out.
Currently got XP installed and remote connecting using Logmein, all nice and quiet too.
I briefly had XP on this machine when it was first built just to check the performance and test all the ports etc, and I was quite surprised at how capable it seemed for a simple browser/office desktop. Plenty fast enough to use as a simple workstation.
I've hardly touched the bittorrent client in FreeNAS, but I grabbed a linux iso last night with it just to make sure it was working ok. Uploads fine, and you can set speed limits etc just like most other BT clients. If you mean "can you upload torrent files to FreeNAS remotely?" then yes, it supports that too. The torrent client opens a file browser that you can use to browse for torrent files stored locally on the PC you are using to access with. The easiest way is to just get it to monitor a folder for new ones as Randal has mentioned previously though.
Regarding SABnzbz+, one thing I found was that by default, the freebsd package for it only has dependencies for the single threaded version of par2cmdline that's used to repair downloads (for compatibility presumably), so it wasn't touching the second atom core at all. CPU load in FreeNAS was only showing ~50% on par2 repair job. I had to force the install of the par2cmdline-tbb package that supports intel multiple cores. CPU is now getting used fully.
Off-topic: Does anyone know what the deal is with Atom hyper-threading btw? Is it better to leave it on or turn it off?
I'd never even heard of FreeNAS before seeing this thread, but I'm quite impressed by it's slick interface and functionality, and especially pleased that it's so lightweight / small footprint. I was planning on buying a 1GB stick of RAM for this thing, but thought I would just try an old 512MB stick I had lying around. So far it hasn't even reached 50% memory load even with SSH, CIFS, bittorrent, upnp and SABnzbd+ running.
Thanks for that, going to stick FreeNAS on today and have a mess around with it. Just ou of interest, what hard drive are you using? I'm currently using a 7200 rpm 500 gig samsung (enough for me) but thinking about trying a 5400 rpm one to keep the heat down. When I felt my case last night it just seemed a bit hot.
I'm running a 7200rpm 1.5TB Seagate (this one: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-168-SE). Tbh, I never even thought about drive heat, but I will check the S.M.A.R.T. stats tonight after it's been running for a few hours. The positioning of the fan on the Noah case means the drive gets good airflow, but it is quite cosy as far as component/cable density goes because it's such a tiny case.
The FreeNAS OS is installed on a 256MB IDE flash key.
Couple of things to watch out for.
If you're running the same board as me (intel D945GCLF2), the onboard gigabit Realtek NIC isn't supported on the latest stable release of FreeNAS (0.69.x). You can either do what Randal did and use one of the alpha builds (v 0.7), or do what I did and add the driver for the NIC to v 0.69. This link may be of assistance if you choose to add the driver: http://www.sebsgarage.com/2009/01/realtek-rtl8111c-freenas-0-69
I just copied it over from a USB key and modified loader.conf as above.
The throughput using SMB isn't as fast as Windows. From what I gather from various sources, this is a long standing problem affecting all OpenBSD based operating systems (including Mac OSX), and something that has no real solution currently. The data rates aren't bad (more than ample for streaming even high bitrate HD video), but even so, you shouldn't expect the same throughput you get using Windows file shares. Other services such as FTP etc seem fine though.
As long as you're ok with these 2 things, then go for it. FreeNAS is a great app.
Just fancied trying something new, and the concept of an ultra-lightweight storage solution seemed like a nice project. I already have XP and Linux machines, and liked the look of FreeNAS from the pics in this thread. Simple as that really. Not belittling Windows/Linux in any way.
Just fancied trying something new, and the concept of an ultra-lightweight storage solution seemed like a nice project. I already have XP and Linux machines, and liked the look of FreeNAS from the pics in this thread. Simple as that really. Not belittling Windows/Linux in any way.
I've got XP on and it looks like I'm going to keep that on rather than going down the NAS route. I've got my software all sorted out and working perfectly on it so don't see the need to change it yet. I log on with Logmein and it's a doddle to move files etc. Currently my HDD in the Noah case is running at 36C whereas my HDD in my main rig is running at 20C.
Hi. Great thread/idea. I was looking for a replacement for my ageing ATX Windows server, and this inspired me. I decided to build an almost identical system, only I went for the dual-core intel atom board. Very pleased with the Noah mini-itx case (I went for the black version). FreeNAS is a great piece of software, but I was initially disappointed about the lack of a usenet client built into it (despite it having bittorrent). I've got the OpenBSD port of SABnzbd+ installed and running on it now though which solves that problem.
Hey hey, sounds good. How are you finding the dual core atom with FreeNAS? Any problems? I doubt you'll get any with performance, the single core version I've got heardly breaks a sweat with day-to-day file serving and proxying.
Also that's one of the main reasons I opted for FreeNAS - the simplicity of adding packages with the added security of BSD was enough to win me over. Sure Windows software is easy to install, but having everything presented in a web page or on a command line is much nicer and better for my needs. Setting up torrents with an iPhone remotely etc.. Or logging in via SSH to start stuff up/shut stuff down. Again, do-able over the iPhone whereas a Windows setup would take a lot more jiggering or need VNC/TS running.
1) It's free.
2) I prefer having BSD to Windows on a box that's facing the Internet.
3) It's extremely configurable, modular, and has an active community for assistance and packages.
4) It's lightweight and runs very well on lower powered hardware.
5) Small installation footprint.
6) Did I mention it was free?
It should work with the 20pin adapter, I ran an old AMD X2 setup with a 24pin mobo connector with a 20pin PSU for months with no worries.
How do you do the HTTP downloads on FreeNas? You mentioned that was one of the things you wanted it todo... I cannot for the life of me figure out how
Not as graceful as the web GUI for Transmission or shares, but wget suits me for what I need it for.
Code:
chunky:~# pkg_add -r wget
Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-7.2-release/Latest/wget.tbz... Done.
Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-7.2-release/All/libiconv-1.11_1.tbz... Done.
Fetching ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-7.2-release/All/gettext-0.17_1.tbz... Done.
chunky:~# wget
wget: missing URL
Usage: wget [OPTION]... [URL]...
Try `wget --help' for more options.
chunky:~#