Hello, new Dell Poweredge T20 build

[RealiBrad]

So, I have been wanting to set up a central location for my data for years.  I have 3 computers and having data split between all three is annoying.  I am also running out of room for backups and wanted to create a nas to solve this. 

 

Recently slickdeals ran an add for the Dell PowerEdge T20 with a Xeon E3-1225 v3 3.2GHz for $249 after rebate.  I had been looking for a nas enclosure for around $300-$400 but this system would blow those away for around the same price.  Pulled the trigger and it arrives today.  I picked up 2 WD Red 4TB drives and a 16gb kit of ram.  For now, I should have all the hardware to get everything up and running which brings me to my main problem.

 

I had been looking at FreeNas because of ZFS.  Its a robust system but for me to take full advantage I would need to buy more drives.  I would also not have an easy way to expand my system.  I had seen unRAID on LTT and started digging into what it can do, and I think its a much better fit.  I plan on expanding my system as time goes on, and unRAID seems perfect for that.  The data I will have on the system will not be super important so data integrity is not my main concern.

 

The system will be for backups, media (plex), and a central storage location.  I have been looking into OpenVPN but that would be later and is not a huge feature for me right now. 

 

So, based on my lack of knowledge, here is the plan I came up with.

Run the system as mirrored for now.  This will give me just under 4tb after formatting which should be enough.  Later on I should be able to add another drive and use that as a parity disk which should give me 4+4 and 1 parity right?

 

Anyway, this should be fun.

[ucliker]

So, I have been wanting to set up a central location for my data for years.  I have 3 computers and having data split between all three is annoying.  I am also running out of room for backups and wanted to create a nas to solve this. 

 

Recently slickdeals ran an add for the Dell PowerEdge T20 with a Xeon E3-1225 v3 3.2GHz for $249 after rebate.  I had been looking for a nas enclosure for around $300-$400 but this system would blow those away for around the same price.  Pulled the trigger and it arrives today.  I picked up 2 WD Red 4TB drives and a 16gb kit of ram.  For now, I should have all the hardware to get everything up and running which brings me to my main problem.

 

I had been looking at FreeNas because of ZFS.  Its a robust system but for me to take full advantage I would need to buy more drives.  I would also not have an easy way to expand my system.  I had seen unRAID on LTT and started digging into what it can do, and I think its a much better fit.  I plan on expanding my system as time goes on, and unRAID seems perfect for that.  The data I will have on the system will not be super important so data integrity is not my main concern.

 

The system will be for backups, media (plex), and a central storage location.  I have been looking into OpenVPN but that would be later and is not a huge feature for me right now. 

 

So, based on my lack of knowledge, here is the plan I came up with.

Run the system as mirrored for now.  This will give me just under 4tb after formatting which should be enough.  Later on I should be able to add another drive and use that as a parity disk which should give me 4+4 and 1 parity right?

 

Anyway, this should be fun.

 

Greetings,

 

I started my NAS/Server endeavour with an HP ProLiant ML10 which had identical specs to your dell. I started off running Freenas because I had never heard of unRAID at the time. The issue with Freenas especially running ZFS is the amount ram needed to keep the system stable and fast. The given rate is roughly 4-8GB of ram for the system and 1GB per terabyte of storage space. After a while the HP ProLiant ML10 wasn't cutting it anymore, there was only a limited amount of drives that the tower could hold without heavy modifications. I ended up selling it than building a monster X99 Xeon e5-2670v3 system and yes freenas incredibly well but it was such a resource hog in my opinion. I wanted my system to be more robust and adapt to my needs over time i.e. vm's  etc. I watched Linus's video and I was sold. But after loading up unRaid I figured out that for my personal needs my X99 system was beyond overkill. I ended up selling that lol and now I run off an HP Proliant Microserver Gen 8. It has 4 drive bays and can hold a bunch of ssd's in various places with an addition raid card or HBA. The fan was super loud for awhile but I just acquired the latest firmware/bios update from a guy on reddit and now it's silent. this thing is tiny 10"x 9" x 9" powerful (16GB ECC E3-1265L v2) and uses like 60 watts under heavy loads. I think I'm either getting another one or maybe something a little bigger to add to the collection for long-term storage. In my opinion, unRaid is just as safe and stable and Freenas with zfs if you take the proper precautions. I think no matter what OS you run on whatever hardware your running it on you still need to do backups.

[twok]

I'm running a similar T20 build the last 2 years in Unraid. In those years I had 2 disk failures on my old storage disks I used and thanks to parity drive I haven't lost any data at all. in addition the monitoring tools and reports from disk help me to prepare when something might happen soon.

 

further I could increase my storage space from 6 tb to now 14 tb as I needed it without any issues. my recommendation is go with Unraid, there so many things to do (easily!) that even a no-brainer like myself can handle it. And best of all your VMs, Dockers in are just a mouse klick away.

 

last but not least - there is this great forum with all those amazing guys who are not to pro to help you handle any issue you might have.

 

good luck with your decision.

 

cheers

Matt

[HellDiverUK]

FreeNAS is great for a corporate NAS system where it sits and does file sharing 24/7 for 5 years.

 

For a home server, it sucks, though.  ZFS makes expanding your storage difficult at best.  Plugins run on BSD Jails which are a nightmare compared to Docker.  Like having a different IP address used for each jail?  Then FreeNAS is for you! 

 

 

I'm a tinkerer, and I like trying things.  I always end up back with UnRAID, though.  It works well for me, which I run Plex and various downloading programs like Sonarr, Deluge and NZBGet.