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I'm interested in building a personal server/file repository using ZFS. I'd like to have space to back up my machines, and to place files for long term storage (photos, old documents, things like that). I discovered ZFS while researching and I think I'd like to use that. I plan to build the machine, starting with maybe 3 1Tb drives, then expand as I see fit later.

At my current level of understanding, I have the following parts list: * Motherboard * RAM (8-16Gb) * Processor * Power Supply * Fans * Housing * Hard Drives (several) * SATA cables and other

It appears that, in essence, I would be building a small PC. Do I need to do that, or is there some hardware that I can cut out? Are there dedicated systems that I could use, that would also be expandable to more drives? And if so, would building one be more cost effective than purchasing one of those? If I must build, what parts could I get used/cut cost on, and which should I spend more money on?

Thanks.

SB316
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  • A bit on the high end for soho, but https://www.ixsystems.com/freenas-mini/ – Zoredache Nov 14 '16 at 17:33
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    I strongly recommend spending the extra money to get a combination of RAM, CPU and motherboard that uses ECC RAM. It's possible that things will work out fine for you with non-ECC RAM, but it does increase the risk. ECC RAM is not that much more expensive than non-ECC, and most AMD CPUs along with many Intels above the lowest end support ECC RAM. – user Nov 17 '16 at 13:10

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For a "first-time" setup, and assuming you're doing this for yourself, starting with commodity hardware is probably better. If you start searching for the perfect case or enterprise grade components, the bill would grow very fast.

Running ZFS on top of SoHo NAS is doable - I still have mfsBSD on some QNap, works as a charm - although you'ld probably have better CPUs and/or more RAM on your commodity hardware.

SYN
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If you want to minimize everything, you could run with 2GB Non-ECC RAM, a fanless SoC processor/low power mainboard, no case and a single disk. But you would gain very little from that in times where you can get an upgradable dualcore Celeron, 4GB ECC RAM, fans, a small case, dual GBit ethernet, cabling and space for 4 HDDs for about 170 EUR including warranty (HP Microserver). Economies of scale are pretty much unbeatable at this price point.

Price ranges and choices:

Essentially it is this (prices without any disks):

  • If you have almost no money and are willing to compromise, use old hardware with ECC if your electricity costs next to nothing or buy any small new device with x64 (none of them have ECC support). Price range is 10 to 150 EUR.
  • If you have some money, but not that much, ready-made microservers are your best bet regarding energy consumption, price, features and build quality. Examples are HP Microserver or Dell T20. The prices may vary, but it's usually the best for 150 to 500 EUR
  • If money is not a problem, you can build your own system with focus on your goals (performance, space requirements, expandability, mobility, price, warranty, noise, power consumption etc.). Price range is about 500 to unlimited, but most homes will stay under 2500 EUR.

What to look out for:

  • ECC RAM is preferable to non-ECC, but is absent in nearly all cheap sub 150 EUR mainboards (except in assembled systems mentioned above).
  • Depending on where you live, 1 KWh may cost less than 10 cents or more than 30, so for 24/7 operation this may add up quickly and it may be cheaper to buy new and energy-efficient hardware (sometimes the new hardware is even "free" after 3 or 5 years). For example, a new Pentium-D SoC on a board of 350 EUR consumes on average 25 W for the whole system. An older used Xeon board may consume about 50 W, with 30 cents/KWh this means that after 5 years, your board is essentially paid for, even if the price upfront is high.
  • If you have 3 disks, I suspect you use RAIDZ1. For disk sizes above 1TB, this is a bad idea. Also expanding them later is difficult, as you can only add new vdevs or increase the sizes of all disks, but not change the vdev type to RAIDZ2 or change the number of disks in it. I would suggest to use mirrors, they have fewer headaches in the long run.
user121391
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  • Thanks for the response. I am looking for very cheap. *Dirt Cheap* Currently I'm looking at the [ASRock C70M1](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157594), an SBC (am I using that term correctly?) utilizing an AMD Ontario Dual-Core processor, which will run me around $35. Thanks for the tip about mirroring. I had been thinking RAIDZ1. I hadn't, thought about power consumption. I can't find any information for my motherboard on the website. How would I calculate its power consumption? – SB316 Nov 15 '16 at 17:21
  • @SB316 There exists nothing on the market in this price range with ECC, so any board will essentially be the same feature-wise. Next step up would be PCEngines APU2C4 with ECC for about 100 EUR + taxes (but with other downsides). If you are not using ECC RAM, I would test the memory regularly with memtest86+. – user121391 Nov 16 '16 at 07:55
  • @SB316 Power consumption has to be measured and/or estimated. Look for reviews of your board online with keywords like "kw/h", "watt", "power consumption", "energy consumption" and similar. Better review sides do test this. If you do not find anything, you have to estimate from the various parts of the board, because they are often shared between boards. Another way would be to buy the board, test it and return it if it is too high (if you live in a country with customer protection laws that allow this). – user121391 Nov 16 '16 at 08:00
  • Celeron + ECC doesn't sound right. I'm reasonably certain that the Celeron doesn't even support ECC. – user Nov 17 '16 at 13:07
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    @MichaelKjörling Intel has reused the Atom, Celeron and Pentium brand names multiple times for essentially completely different CPUs. I was talking about the current generation chips on sockets 1155, 1150, 1151 and non-socketed ones from the last 3-4 years. Those CPUs have ECC support (have a look at ARK). Now, consumer boards often only support normal RAM, but the CPU would be capable of it nevertheless. There are also some (very few) i3 models and I think one or two i5 and i7 models, but they are as expensive as Xeons, so I did not talk about them. – user121391 Nov 17 '16 at 13:34
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    Slight correction to my last comment: as per Intel on http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced?s=t&FamilyText=Intel%C2%AE%20Celeron%C2%AE%20Processor&ECCMemory=true , only 28 of 110 Celeron SKUs support ECC. 44 of 98 Pentiums do, as well as 9 of 57 Atoms. – user121391 Nov 17 '16 at 13:38
  • @user121391 Huh. Well, that's useful to know. I've been running AMD for over a decade, and rarely buy new CPUs. – user Nov 17 '16 at 13:38
  • @MichaelKjörling They are not advertised much, but Dell, HP and others use them for their small offices lines and entry workstations. Also because of low number of cores and high frequency (3-3.5 GHz for 40-100 EUR) they are a good choice for budget gaming systems. But in summary with all board features combined, the new integrated Pentium-D boards have lower power consumption and more performance per Watt, so I would prefer them for servers that are not upgraded on the CPU side but built for purpose. – user121391 Nov 17 '16 at 13:43