Mini ITX build for NAS/media server

lamboman

lamboman

lamboman

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Joined
7 Apr 2008
Posts
2,655
Hi all,
I'm looking at replacing the Mac mini in my signature with something a little better suited to the requirements. OS X Server works, but it's just a bit finicky to manage and rather temperamental.

The spec is pretty much set, parts will only really change depending on price at the time of purchase, but it looks something like this:
i5 4590 - £146
8GB RAM - £60
SuperFlower HX 550W - £54
Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI - £94
Fractal Node 304 - £63 (fits within my size restrictions, and offers 6 drive bays)
SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 16GB (for the OS) - around £12
Total: approx. £429

The only thing that may change is the RAM and processor (depending on my OS/file system choice, may move to an i3 and 4GB of RAM, however the price difference isn't massive).

The big question, however, is which NAS OS and file system to go for. Right now I'll only be using the two drives I have (no RAID 1, just incremental backups). FreeNAS is almost certainly the most popular and has the biggest feature-set (and official support from various projects with official plugins, such as OwnCloud and Plex which I'd be using), however ZFS is required to use plugins as far as I can tell. From my extensive reading, ZFS is a potentially risky proposition without the use of ECC RAM (which of course would bump up the cost considerably). UFS is the only other option, however other OSs will offer wider file system support, and I could just use jails (e.g. with NAS4Free).

So what are your experiences, and what do you guys think would be my best choice?

Thanks in advance :)
 
I've got a G3220, 8gb ram, Asrock H97 to be fitted in my bitfenix prodigy and running with 2x500gb drives to start with till I can grasp freenas. Then take my 2x3tb from my gaming htpc machine into the nas and install it with mx100 512gb for steam/gaming storage.
 
Z97 chipset doesn't support ECC.

How about the HP Microserver? That does, and runs FreeNAS very well. It's on offer at £99 after cashback again...
 
MagicBoy said:
Z97 chipset doesn't support ECC.
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I know, that'd need at least "server" chipset, and a Xeon IIRC. The cost increase would come from those, not really the ECC RAM. In this build I'd be trying to spend as little over the Mac mini's resale value as possible, so such a build is not an option.

MagicBoy said:
How about the HP Microserver? That does, and runs FreeNAS very well. It's on offer at £99 after cashback again...
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Won't be able to transcode one 1080p stream, let alone two, and won't fit in the location it needs to be (there are no other options at all for this).

The Node 304 is the only case that really meets the requirements, an absolute maximum of 210mm tall.

The other option actually, come to think of it, would be to go AMD, which may offer more performance for my requirements at a lower price. Only concern is power usage and heat. Shame there's no space in the case for a grill!

EDIT: Just realised something quite obvious, I could use powerline adaptors. However that only really changes case options, and I still need some advice on potential file system and OS advice. Thanks :)
 
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If you convert your media to a format that most of your devices support then you can keep the need for transcoding to a minimum.

I tend to favor mp4, plays well on my LG TV, Samsung tablet and PS3.

I currently use NAS4FREE and use the ZFS file system, with RAIDed HDDs and a SSD as a disk cache. The only down side to this is the RAIDed HDDs regularly go to sleep. So if the data you want isn't cached in the SSD you have to wait several seconds for the HDDs to spin up and come back online.

The ZFS also benefits from lots of RAM, if you enable deduplication in ZFS then you will need lots of horses under the bonnet too!

I'm running NAS4FREE as a VM on a 4 core (AMD A10) system running ESX5, the only problem is it doesn't have enough grunt to enable deduplication in ZFS.

P.S I have passed through the physical drives to the VM for those wondering how you can get ZFS to work on a virtual machine!
 
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ASE001 said:
If you convert your media to a format that most of your devices support then you can keep the need for transcoding to a minimum.
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I know, however the main reason for transcoding would be for playing my media remotely, e.g. transcoding to 720p for my phone via the Internet, or similar. Also, Plex with the Rokus and subtitles is a bit all over the place, and may need subtitles to be burned in at times.

ASE001 said:
I tend to favor mp4, plays well on my LG TV, Samsung tablet and PS3.
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In my case I'd probably use MKV, as most of the time all that would be required would be a remux.

ASE001 said:
I currently use NAS4FREE and use the ZFS file system, with RAIDed HDDs and a SSD as a disk cache. The only down side to this is the RAIDed HDDs regularly go to sleep. So if the data you want isn't cached in the SSD you have to wait several seconds for the HDDs to spin up and come back online.

The ZFS also benefits from lots of RAM, if you enable deduplication in ZFS then you will need lots of horses under the bonnet too!

I'm running NAS4FREE as a VM on a 4 core (AMD A10) system running ESX5, the only problem is it doesn't have enough grunt to enable deduplication in ZFS.

P.S I have passed through the physical drives to the VM for those wondering how you can get ZFS to work on a virtual machine!
Click to expand...
Power usage isn't really a concern, I have WD Reds that are always spinning.

As far as I can tell, the main benefit of ZFS is to offer file system level RAID equivalent without some of the RAID drawbacks (proprietary RAID implementations, and the write hole). Would I benefit from using ZFS for a single drive? I wouldn't be using RAID-Z, as I want a backup, not redundancy. This said, a third drive for backup along with RAID Z could be an option.

Are you using ECC RAM in your setup? The only issue going with Intel is the lack of ECC compatibility. I'm a bit concerned about the risk of data loss using non-ECC RAM.

Also, won't be virtualising, running bare metal instead.
 
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lamboman said:
I know, however the main reason for transcoding would be for playing my media remotely, e.g. transcoding to 720p for my phone via the Internet, or similar. Also, Plex with the Rokus and subtitles is a bit all over the place, and may need subtitles to be burned in at times.
Click to expand...

I'm currently using MediaPortal with Web extensions to stream over the internet, live TV, recorded TV and movies (shows cover art and movie info etc). Take look, if not for you maybe it will give you some ideas?

lamboman said:
In my case I'd probably use MKV, as most of the time all that would be required would be a remux.
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I tried MKV, but the version of Puppes embedded in NAS4FREE seems to have a problem with this format. It works fine on some client devices but not others? I think the PS3 and my LG blue ray player wouldn't work but my LG TV did!

lamboman said:
Power usage isn't really a concern, I have WD Reds that are always spinning.
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The poor planet:)

lamboman said:
As far as I can tell, the main benefit of ZFS is to offer file system level RAID equivalent without some of the RAID drawbacks (proprietary RAID implementations, and the write hole). Would I benefit from using ZFS for a single drive? I wouldn't be using RAID-Z, as I want a backup, not redundancy. This said, a third drive for backup along with RAID Z could be an option.
Click to expand...

ZFA has some nice features, like storage pools and best of all using a SSD as cache drive makes my 6TB raid fly:) Also I found it more stable in NAS4FREE that standard RAID.

lamboman said:
Are you using ECC RAM in your setup? The only issue going with Intel is the lack of ECC compatibility. I'm a bit concerned about the risk of data loss using non-ECC RAM.
Click to expand...

Unless you have mission critical applications, then you don't need ECC RAM. It doesn't improve performance. If you want to protect data then invest in a UPS rather then ECC. You are more likely to have power cut than memory problem!
 
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ASE001, thanks for your reply, been doing plenty of reading!

It seems that running ZFS without ECC could potentially lead to more corruption purely because ZFS will "repair" in the event of a checksum error in RAM during a read. Considering the majority of the data will be static (rarely modified and left on the drive), it's just unnecessary risk quite frankly. In short, ZFS will have benefits if the RAM is good (prevents corruption), however it could be far more damaging if the RAM is bad. Any corruption is likely to come from writing initially, so all things considered, it's just not worth it.

That, and the fact that FreeNAS's extra features can't be used with UFS. I'd rather go with a plain old Debian install and use something I have a tiny bit of experience with (LVM and md).

All this means I could cut costs massively anyway. Could go down to a single 4GB stick of RAM without issue.
 
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You might also look at "older" kit... eg you can get 6 SATA port ITX mobos cheaper 2nd hand than new boards. Likewise CPUs a lot cheaper!
 
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