Hello all! I have been running a Freenas->Truenas server for 12 years and am planning a brand new server. I am the “do tons of research, do the thing, forget everything till next time” kind of guy.
That being said, I would like some feedback on the components that I have selected for my new build.
LSI 9300-8i RAID Controller Card PCI E 3.0 12Gbps HBA IT Mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID RAID Expander + 2 SFF-8643 SATA Cable
$139.00
$139.00
2
KSM48E40BD8KM-32HM
Kingston Server Premier 32GB 4800MT/s DDR5 ECC CL40 DIMM 2Rx8 Hynix M Server Memory - KSM48E40BD8KM-32HM
$249.99
$499.98
8
HDWG51GXZSTB
Toshiba N300 PRO 16TB Large-Sized Business NAS (up to 24 bays) 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive - Up to 300 TB/year Workload Rate CMR SATA 6 GB/s 7200 RPM 512 MB Cache - HDWG51GXZSTB
$294.99
$2,359.92
1
SST-CS382
SilverStone Technology CS382 8-Bay SAS-12G / SATA-6G Hot-swappable High Performance Micro-ATX NAS Chassis, SST-CS382
$278.03
$278.03
1
BP006US
be quiet! Power Zone 2 750W ATX 3.1 PSU 80 Plus and Cybenetics Platinum Efficiency Zero RPM Low-Noise Power Supply PCIe 5.1 Ready Black BP006US
1
BK035
be quiet! Dark Rock 5 CPI air Cooler Extremely high Cooling Performance 6 high-Performance Heat Pipes Silent Wings 4 120mm PWM Fan high RAM and VRM Cooler Compatibility BK035
I plan to run a ZFS pool with RAID-Z2.
I have some concerns around squeezing things into this case (air-flow, and potential cpu cooler clearance) but I have built lots of PCs and take time and effort to zip-tie and route efficiently – so I won’t make mistakes there – just practical limits to what I might be able to do.
The case has two big fans drawing air through the drives, I intend to add one (or two if needed) noctura fans on the back to assist air out.
So, anything wrong with – overkill with – opportunities missed with the proposed build?
Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.
14th gen. with W680 feels “too new” for my taste, and overpowered if you don’t intend to run some heavy apps/VMs on your NAS. I’ve hade unpleasant experiences with Silverstone cases, in particular the “drive cooker” DS380, and would never pick up one of their cases ever again—but I can’t say anything specific about the CS382.
Thanks again for your time and consideration. I am curious about “too new.” And if that represents a risk that I don’t need to take. My last build lasted 12 years … its falling down now … even while I have a few concurrent plex users at once. But I have had to limit it from downloading 4k and beyond media.
I guess what I am getting at is I like to future-proof and not have to mess with this again. At 67, its likely my last Media server build – so I want to push it without it pushing me. I too had concerns about the case being too compact without enough room to keep drives cool. Historically, drive cooling has been my achilies heel. So I may just scrap that now since you have pointed to the thing that I already felt uncomfortable about.
So, is too new, mean I will suffer? Or just that its more than I probably need? I am ok with the second answer
Do you have a suggestion for a good cooling case that includes or has space for hot-swap backplane?
As for the case… Lian-Li PC-Q26 is well cooled with non-hot swap backplanes (no capacitors—solder your own?), but production stopped long ago. Unobtainium.
If you don’t mind the noise, server chassis are well-cooled.
If it has to be quiet, I’d suggest to drop the hot-swap backplane. Shutting down to change drives is likely acceptable for home use.
Re: the capacitor-less Lian-Li backplane: Putting in the requisite ceramic caps and electrolytic friends is not too difficult as long as you have a solder sucker, desoldering braid, and perhaps some desoldering solder as well. I found adding the ceramic caps to be the trickier part, i.e. those 0603’s are pretty small for these old eyes and holding them in place while soldering them is not a small challenge.
It is an Amazon part number. I was under the impression that using a card like this would generally make an 8drive setup smoother. I guess I was also under the impression that this device could do IT mode … though I honestly don’t know the significance of that nor how to determine if a particular HBA meets my needs. So I asked ChatGBT – which I have found to be reliably stupid – which is why I am here
So my assumption: An HBA will make things easier in the long run rather than having to select a MB for it’s sata connectors and running individual sata cables.
The HBA needs to run IT mode. How to tell if it does – when it says it does – Im at a loss.
Thank you for anything you could add to this that would enlighten me to my clear confusion.
He is saying that the card needs to be one ‘flashed to IT mode’.
We usually double check the firmware and how it is flashed with the following commands on Scale. They are used for different LSI / Broadcom type cards. Ordering of of Amazon may get you ‘fake’ cards, along with Ebay, etc. Usual suggestion is to buy from trusted vendors that deal in refurbished or new equipment.
sudo sas2flash -list
sudo sas3flash -list
sudo storcli show all
What’s all the noise about HBA’s, and why can’t I use a RAID controller?
I’m a big fan of EPYC 7000 series right now. There’s alot of good deals to be found as retailers are making room for 9000 series stuff. It’ll still be a few years before its “cheap”, but you can absolutely get a solid EPYC sysem at your price point. You’ll get much better PCI-E connectivity.
So the HBA may be fine, but I need to be sure to check bio for IT mode and be prepared to flash accordingly… ?
Who would be a ‘trusted’ vendor for this product?
Trusted vendor is a bit harder. New cards should be okay directly from major retailers. Used and refurbished you try to look at vendors that their primary business is that and get good, repeat reviews. Art of The Server on Ebay would be one example as I see that store mentioned here and at Serve The Home forums.
I do my “second hand enterprise” shopping on eBay primarily. You find some good deals if you know what to watch for.
I really like TheArtOfServer personally. Not any kind of official endoresement, I just have had good luck with his stuff. He even has a YouTube channel where he takes you under the covers of his business…which I like.
You can buy from another (cheaper) vendor and it’ll probably be fine, but at least you know this guy knows his trade craft and you probably won’t get a Shenzen clone. There’s alot of fake cards in circulation.
Another strategy can be to look for vendor specific part numbers. IIRC there’s a thread on STH that has OEM part number mappings for HBAs. You’ll often times find a Dell or Cisco or HP branded version of the 9300 for less, and sometimes you’ll still find new-old-stock for cheap.
The 920(5/7)-8i is also fine. It’s the first LSI PCIE 3.0 card. I’ve bought tons of “HP H220s” over the years and they are ~$30 now. The 7s are basically overclocked so they run hot.
I think you are being a bit confusing without give examples. Is a LSI 9300-8i an HBA or RAID controler.? The original post with data from Amazon mixes up the correct terms and gives ‘red flags’ because we don’t know where the listing errors are.
Broadcom builds both and you have to check the model numbers. These are the current models below.
If it is a 9300-8i, it is a fine HBA.
My guess is that the seller is just labelling it, wrongly, as “RAID” controller.
In doubt, buy from The Art of Server.
Not sure why you think one needs a monster CPU for zstd—or even what kind of CPU would be suitable for zstd if a 5 GHz 14700K is not up to it.
I handle zsdt with a Xeon D…
Because I’ve made some tests with my 12400 and got around 300-400 MB/s (~2.5Gbps) for zstd-3. I didn’t say that it’s not suitable for zstd. OP didn’t say he would have a 10G net or would require 10G writes either.
The whole point of my post was to show that a powerful CPU can be preferable even in the pure NAS scenarios w/o any VMs. Moreover, depending on the pool size, data compressibility, and desired (write) speed, the more powerful CPU can be economically justified (as you virtually would get more usable space). Perhaps it’s not the case for the single 8-bay home NAS, but it easily could be if we are speaking about the 3-2-1 strategy when usable space costs 2-3 fold.
I’ll add that every SMB connection remains single-threaded for now and that I manage to max out a single core with SMB every time I do heavy transfers to backup. Thus, a high clock speed / high single-threaded performance is key to not bottlenecking a 10GbE system, even if it relies on HDDs in its VDEV(s).
