First Build 2018
I had a 8TB QNAP TS-412 NAS server running in RAID5 with 6TB usable storage, which served well for over six years but was getting slow and almost full. It was time to upgrade to something a bit bigger storage wise and, more importantly, which can run a PLEX server effectively too.
After much research online into available ready-made NAS servers (e.g. QNAP or Synology) I came to the conclusion that what I wanted was going to cost nearly £2000 just for the enclosure without drives. As I am quite comfortable building my own computers I decided it would be much cheaper, and probably more fun, to build my own including a move to FreeNAS.
Components
| # | Item | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Case: Fractal Design Define Mini (FD-CA-DEF-MINI-BL) | £84.95 |
| 2. | Motherboard: SUPER MICRO MBD-X11SSH-F-O Network Server | £210.10 |
| 3. | PSU: Be Quiet! 450W Straight Power 11, Modular, 80 PLUS Gold ATX PSU (BN280) | £75.48 |
| 4. | CPU: Intel i3-7100 Skylake 3.9GHz | £135.99 |
| 5. | Memory: 2x Kingston 8GB DDR4 2400 ECC DIMM (KVR24E17S8/8) | £189.02 |
| 6. | HDD: 5x WD Red 4TB NAS | £572.00 |
| 7. | SSD For Jails: 2x SanDisk SSD Plus 120GB | £49.96 |
| 8. | FreeNAS OS Drives: 2x Cruzer Fit 32GB USB Flash Drive (SDCZ33-032G-B35) | £13.98 |
| TOTAL | (including HDD) | £1331.48 |
The logic behind my choices was:
- Case: I wanted a case which could take up to 6 drives for future growth. I wanted it as small as practical, but did not want to be constrained as to motherboard type so chose a mini-tower, and I wanted good airflow to keep things cool
- Motherboard: I was struggling to find a recommended board that was actually available to buy in the UK, and eventually settled on the Super Micro board which had 8 SATA ports
- CPU: I was not expecting high transcoding needs, indeed at home all my PLEX clients can run X265/HEVC natively, so I opted for the i3 as it was half the cost of the equivalent Xeon
- Memory: It proved very difficult to source memory listed on the Super Micro website, so I did the selection in reverse; what is available, does the supplier say it is compatible? And I ended up with the Kingston RAM. The motherboard has 4 slots so there are 2 spare if I need another 16GB
- SSD: I had read in a few places that having a separate SSD for running Jails in had a performance improvement and, as they were inexpensive and I had enough SATA ports, I bought a pair so that I could mirror them
- USB drives: It was recommended to run the FreeNAS operating system from USB thumb drives, so I had a pair of these, again so that I could mirror them.
With regard to the power supply I wanted something reliable and efficient. In terms of size I found this posting in the FreeNAS forums which led me towards a 450W PSU based on the calculations below. A colleague had recommended the BeQuiet PSUs and using the calculator on their website the optimal choice was confirmed as 450W so I went with that.
| Item | Power |
|---|---|
| Each HDD approx 30W (WD 4TB), max 6 drives | 180W |
| Motherboard | 25W |
| CPU Max TDP | 51W |
| Each memory stick 6W, max 4 sticks | 24W |
| 2x case fans and 1x CPU fan at 30W worse case each | 90W |
| TOTAL (inc extra 25% margin) | 463W |
The Build
The build went very smoothly as there is plenty of room in the well designed case, and I was done in a couple of hours.
There is an “inner wall” between the main motherboard / drives area on the left side and a cabling space between that wall and the right hand case side. Most of the cabling goes through rubber “grommets” into this cabling space leading to a very tidy install. Using a modular PSU meant that I could just leave out a number of unwanted cables for graphics cards, etc which left even more space.
I fitted the 5x HDD drives in the upper drive spaces, and the 2x SSD in the bottom bay with one stuck on top of the other with double-sided sticky pads. I originally had the drives oriented so that cables went out into the cable space direct, but decided to swap them around as I only then needed to remove the left side panel to make changes, rather than both. The 2x USB drives went into the rear panel USB slots.
Following advice from “Fester’s” guide, I made up a couple of CDs (having had some issues with USB sticks and my Mac) with “Breakin” and “MemTest86+”. I ran the memory test for 24 hours, no problem, and the CPU test for an hour as its temperature got up to 73C under 100% load and I chickened out.
FreeNAS installed without issue from a spare USB drive plugged in the front, onto the mirrored drives and I then ran further tests on the HDD, again using Fester’s guide.
I have been busily copying 5TB of data onto the server over the last couple of days and it has gone well, and a lot quicker than the last time I had to rebuild the TS-412 after a double drive failure! The CPU is hovering around 35C and the hard drives around 30-34C with the case fans running quietly.
Update 2021
- FreeNAS now replaced by TrueNAS 12.0
- Added an APC UPS to allow controlled power down in the event of a mains failure. Configured using this guide (copy in Archive folder)
Update 2022
- 5x 4TB drives replaced by 5x 12TB drives (shucked from WD Elements external drives)
- Took one drive offline, shutdown server, replaced drive, restarted server, brought drive back online, await completion of silvering process (many hours). Then repeat for each other drive in turn. Once all drives replaced, pool size is automatically increased
- Had issue with one 12TB drive which would not be recognised by TrueNAS. Tried 8TB drive from an existing WD Elements external drive (TITAN backup) which had same issue. Discovered that some drives have a “WD Power Disable Pin” (link, copy in archive) which does not work with some motherboards / cables. Simple solution is to use a “Molex to SATA” adapter, which I happened to have one of. Problem fixed
- Left 8TB drive in place, so pool expanded to ~23TB. Need to replace this in due course with the 12TB version currently being used for backup. Pool will then expand to ~35TB
Update 2023
- Moved from bare-metal install, to installing Proxmox Virtual Environment, and running TreuNAS Core, Plex, Home Assistant in Virtual Machines
The Build Guide
My build notes are here.
References / Resources
- Website info
- The X11SSH-F motherboard supplier’s website
- BeQuiet PSU calculator
- Uncle Fester’s FreeNAS Configuration Guide (includes stress testing the hardware)
- YouTube Video: Fractal Design Define Mini case review including FreeNAS re-home
- Brian Moses’ DIY NAS 2017 Edition (what I would have liked to build! Maybe next time?)
- TrueNAS User Guide (everything you need to know about TrueNAS)
- Files on Titan:
/Archive_Jekyll/files/computer/titan-docs/…- Titan server parts list (XLS)
- Manuals for X11SSH motherboard and BeQuiet PSU