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Finally planning a new build NAS.


HHawk

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Hi all,

It's been quite a while since I posted something here. Anyways, since my current XPEnology NAS is a bit outdated (and moreover lacking HDD storage space), I decided to do a completely new build.
It's mainly used for storage and downloading (unpacking needs to be quick) movies, series, games, etc. I will also store all of our pictures (from phones, laptop, etc.) from now on on the NAS, because I will have more space available then before.

Here is what I am planning to build:

- Motherboard: ASRock H370M Pro4
- CPU: Intel Pentium G5600
- RAM: G.Skill Aegis F4-2400C15D-16GIS (16GB is probably overkill?)
- PSU: Seasonic Focus Gold 550W
- Case: Fractal Design Node 804
- CPU cooling: Corsair Hydro H55
- RAID controller (IT-mode): Fujitsu 9211-8i D2607 LSI SAS2008
- Network: onboard or an older Intel 4-port PCIe adapter
- Storage: 4x Hitachi HGST Ultrastar He6 6TB in SHR mode

My current setup consists out 4x 4TB HDD's in RAID 10. So I will ditch RAID 10 in favour for SHR mode.
Way more space and still fast enough for most things, I guess (no experience with SHR though).

Will the above work with DSM 6.x without issues?
Any other recommendations, ideas, whatsoever?

Thank you in advance!

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It looks like the mobo has 6 onboard sata iii so you may not need the extra controller with only 4 drives

also SHR is 'legacy' in DSM6, there is a more traditional 'disk group/raid group/volume' setup, but you can re-enable it by editing the config (check the FAQs)

otherwise the spec should work ok I think

I would do a clean install of XPE/DSM6 on the new kit with the 4 new drives then once tested copy data across from the old NAS via File Station and a mounted folder.

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  • 1 month later...

Okay, I have finally decided on my final (new) NAS setup.
In bold are the changes.

- Motherboard: ASRock H370M Pro4
- CPU: Intel Pentium G5600
- RAM: G.Skill Aegis F4-2400C15D-16GIS (16GB is probably overkill?)
- PSU: Seasonic Focus Gold 550W
- Case: Fractal Design Node 804
- CPU cooling: Corsair Hydro H55
- Network: onboard or an older Intel 4-port PCIe adapter

- RAID controller: Fujitsu D2607 LSI SAS2008 (flashed to IT-mode)
- Storage: 4x SAS Hitachi HGST Ultrastar He8 6TB (HUH728060AL5200) in SHR

 

As you can see with my previous lists the harddisks changed. I also finally flashed the purchased RAID controller to LSI firmware 9211-8i in IT-mode (20.00.07.00).
Sidenote; if anyone is looking to flash a Fujitsu D2607 with stock LSI firmware, look here. Very good and detailed tutorial.

I am using the 4x SAS Hitachi HGST Ultrastar He8 6TB as these enterprise SAS HDD's last longer (in my experience) compared to consumer grade HDD's. Also Hitachi (even nowadays owned by Western Digital) has an excellent track record in regards to reliability.

I understand I could get SATA HDD's and connect them to the motherboard, but given the above reason along with future expansion / upgrades, I decided to use a RAID controller (in IT mode ofcourse).


 

Now I do have a few questions.

Question 1
Given the fact I am using a hardware RAID controller in IT-mode, will it still be able to read SMARTCTL information in XPEnology?
So when a harddisk is having issues, it will report these issues? I think it does, but I am making sure.

Question 2
My current setup is based on 4x 4TB Seagate IronWolf HDD's in RAID 10. I chose this option back then because of the performance.
However with a SHR setup, will performance be still good or similar. I do understand that RAID 10 is normally faster, but for downloading, unpacking, copying and backup's, etc. SHR will be sufficient right?

Question 3
My current (old) NAS setup has an Intel Core i3 4130 CPU. Compared to the newer Intel Pentium G5600, I will notice a bit of an increase right? Because of a slightly higher clock speed and newer technology?

Question 4
I asked this before, but just making sure. Will the above combination (motherboard, CPU, RAID controller and SAS HDD's) work without issues in XPEnology?

Sorry for all the questions, but I am just making sure everything will work and perform as expected.

Thank you in advance!

Regards

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Okay... I decided to test a few things first, but I cannot even find my Synology, so I cannot install it at all.
What I tried so far.

General information:

Quote

 

I flashed my Fujitsu D2607 LSI SAS2008 to stock LSI 9211-8i firmware in IT-mode
I flashed my Supermicro HBA AOC-S3008L-L8e card to stock LSI LSI 9300-8i firmware in IT-mode

I used an old Dell R410 PowerEdge server for testing

 



Next I followed the available tutorial for installing DS918, so I did all the USB things correctly, like setting up USB VID en PID (double checked).
I also looked up both MAC addresses for the onboad LAN ports (double checked). I also tried an older single port PCIe Intel NIC I had laying around (again made sure that I have the correct MAC address).

I generated a new serial for DS916+, as there is no generator for the DS918 and after searching the forums, someone in the French section said to choose DS916+.
So I did this (tried 3 different serials even).

The only thing I did not understand completely was the "SataPortMap" setting, however I tried various things, along with setting it to 42. However since I am using one of the mentioned controllers and disabled all onboard SATA controllers, I think a setting of only "2" or "4" should have been sufficient for 2 / 4 harddisk, right? And I only have one controller (if I install the flashed Fujitsu or the flashed Supermicro card), right? Or am I wrong here?

Now after doing all of the above steps (various times with different settings, serials and RAID cards) I still cannot find my synology (not through the webbrowser, nor through the Synology Assistent). No matter what I try. It just does not find it. And yes, the cable is connection and yes the MAC addresses were correctly written in grub.conf. I also tied an old PCIe Intel NIC card, but the same story. It simply refuses to see the Synology / NAS...

I did notice something weird, when Jun's loader was running / loaded, my router said the Dell R410 did not have an IP assigned to it? Apparently, something is causing that Jun's loader is not fully initialized and as a result there is no network connection and therefor I cannot find and install Synology on the machine.

Anyone has an idea? Maybe I overlooked something.

Other information (I could find / gather) are below

Quote

Onboard R410 NIC: Embedded Dual-port Broadcom® NetXtreme® II 5716 Gigabit Ethernet
Intel NIC PCIe card: Intel D33745 single port
Used Jun's latest loader: 1.04b (DS918)



If you need more information and/or details, please ask.

I hope someone has some advice. Maybe/probably I did something wrong...?

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@A__C

Thank you for responding. Highly appreciated.

The reason why I was testing 918 is because of the RAID controllers. I wanted to test it to see if they were "accepted" without errors...
So probably the reason is the hardware is to old? :S

I have not ordered the rest of the hardware, because I wanted to make sure it would run.

Sidenote; if I would order SAS to SATA adapters; in the worst case scenario, I would still be able to run it from the (new) motherboard's onboard SATA controller, right?

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Okay just a follow up. I have just tried 3615, but the exact same issue. It cannot find the Synology to install. :S
I will retry a few more things. But I have no clue what is wrong. Did all the necessary steps in grub.cfg.

Also with 3615 the R410 does not show up as it is having an IP assigned in the router. But when I boot the same machine to (for example) Parted Magic, it receives an (dedicated) IP.

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Well retrying both again on a R710. Which uses Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet (4 ports).
This NIC is supported by both loaders, but still, the same issue. No IP, so I cannot find the Synology to install.

Also tried both UEFI and Legacy BIOS, but no cigar.

Strange...

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  • 1 month later...

I been running 3617(1.03b ) with Fujitsu D2607 (flashed to IT-mode) with 8 HGST without problem.

3615 doesn't support LSI cards.

Try to use Intel NIC with following chip: 82575/82576/82580/I350/I210/I211 (as they are native to dsm)

BIOS: Enable CSM (If there is) and set everything to Legacy, Don't use UEFI mode.

 

Current DSM: 6.2.2-24922

 

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  • 3 months later...

Due to personal circumstances, I was not able to build my new NAS. However I am out of the hospital and finally can restart this.

I am ditching the RAID controller, as I will be using the onboard SATA controller. The only debate I have now is which processor to choose.
Currently I have a Intel Core i3-4360 in my current NAS.

I am looking for something more powerful which uses 1151 socket.

I also did some reading on the forums. However I need some more information on things;

  1. I believe the maximum CPU cores is limited to 8
  2. Threading is not supported by XPEnology
  3. Intel Turbo boost; is this used?

As you can read, I did find most information on the forums. However the only thing I am not sure about is the "Turbo boos" function. Is this supported in XPEnology and does it work?

Sidenote; does SSD caching nowadays work with XPEnology? I know there were issues with this in the past. And is it recommended? Or best left alone?

So far I am considering the following Intel CPU's:

  • Intel Pentium Gold G5620 - 2 cores @ 4.0 Ghz. (no turbo)
  • Intel Core i3-8300 - 4 cores @ 3.7 Ghz. (no turbo)
  • Intel Core i3-9350K - 4 cores @ 4.0 Ghz (4.6 Ghz. turbo)

If it does not matter much, my best bet would be the G5620. Or is going for 4 full cores (i3-8300) better in terms of performance on my XPEnology NAS?
I think the 9350K is overkill and to highly priced for a NAS.

Thank you for your input and suggestions! As always, highly appreciated.

Regards,
HHawk

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 9/14/2019 at 9:48 AM, HHawk said:
  • Intel Pentium Gold G5620 - 2 cores @ 4.0 Ghz. (no turbo)
  • Intel Core i3-8300 - 4 cores @ 3.7 Ghz. (no turbo)
  • Intel Core i3-9350K - 4 cores @ 4.0 Ghz (4.6 Ghz. turbo)

 

if you interested in a more energy efficient system with lower heat output (i have my system in the living room) you might consider a "T" intel cpu (35W TDP)

i was waiting for the 9100T as i was also not so eager to shell out to much money just for the cpu and wanted the latest

ram (docker, virtualization) and 2xssd as write cache might add more to performance then just MHz of the CPU

there are bigger "T" types too but atm intel seems to have problems with the actual 14nm cpu's so only the former/older 8100T and similar seem available

as i was unwilling to wait longer i just bought the cheapest 2core cpu available for my B360M board, maybe i will replace it next year with a beefier "T" cpu

i'd vote going with for 4 cores but low TDP

 

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2 hours ago, IG-88 said:

 

if you interested in a more energy efficient system with lower heat output (i have my system in the living room) you might consider a "T" intel cpu (35W TDP)

i was waiting for the 9100T as i was also not so eager to shell out to much money just for the cpu and wanted the latest

ram (docker, virtualization) and 2xssd as write cache might add more to performance then just MHz of the CPU

there are bigger "T" types too but atm intel seems to have problems with the actual 14nm cpu's so only the former/older 8100T and similar seem available

as i was unwilling to wait longer i just bought the cheapest 2core cpu available for my B360M board, maybe i will replace it next year with a beefier "T" cpu

i'd vote going with for 4 cores but low TDP

 


Thank you for your input. Highly appreciated. :-)
I will the information to good use.

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If the low-power CPU appeals to you, provided you can cost-effectively source a "T" CPU they can make sense, but it may be cheaper to just buy the lowest-performance "K" CPU available instead and underclock/undervolt it using a Z370/Z390 board.  The result will be essentially the same.

 

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Thank you flyride also for your reply. Might look into a lowest "K" CPU and undervolt it.

One more silly question. Will any of the processors mentioned by you be faster than my current: Intel Core i3-4130
I know it has less cores (only 2 cores), but has 4 threads but I don't the threads are used in XPEnology? Is this correct?

Also the Intel Core i3-4130 has a base speed of 3,4 GHz, though this is advertised in my XPEnology as 3.7 Ghz. Wrong?
Maybe this is incorrect, however it *might* be that I overclocked it a little back in the day. The current setup is (I guess) 2 years old.

I don't want to drop on core speed, because (if I understood and read correctly) core speed is important on tasks like unpacking / extracting in SABnzbd for example. True?
Maybe I mistaked or I have old ideas. :)

I am currently tempted by the Intel Core i3-8350K for my future build and undervolt it. However still not 100% decided on it obviously. Might go the 9100T route or any other decent T-version.
As I still need to find the time and energy to redo the complete XPEnology build, install and setup obviously.

Thanks again both for your input.

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