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Beginner question about server


Jamzor

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Hi,

 

I have had a Synology NAS 411 for a few years now. I love the DSM and now that Im looking to upgrade I got interrested in the xpenology stuff...

What Im looking for is something like a synology DS1815+ standard but I want to build it myself with a server and xpenology. as I understand it I will have all the functionality of the synology server except for ease of updating firmware until xpenology update is released and working..?

 

Im looking at these two options and wonder how they fare towards eachother and compared to the DS1815+ (except they wont be able to have 8 drives I know this already, but performance wise)

 

Dell Poweredge T20 mini

HPE proliant microserver Gen 8

 

Ive heard a lot of good stuff about the proliant server and Im sure it will work well. However the dell server is only slighlty more expensive which is fine, but it has a quad core cpu while the HP has dual core. Since the original synology ds1815+ has quad core as well Im thinking that this will match the speed to be able to do the encryption on the fly for example..

 

What do you guys think? Is there another server which will work better? Will the dell poweredge work as well as Ive heard the HP proliant has?

 

Thanks for the help guys!

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You're probably better off with a custom built config. You can finetune it better, plus it's more flexible.

 

Can you list your requirements regarding:

 

- Processing power

- Memory-heavy applications

- Storage (how many disks, mainly)

- Space restrictions

- Network interface requirements

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Hi,

 

You mean build my own server with own parts? Feels like thats gonna be more expensive compared to this deal on the T20 for example.. I can get the T20 for about 400 usd.

 

My requirements are minimum 4 HDD drives for storage. A SSD for cache / bios or whatever you need for xpenology.

Well basically I want it to be able to match or out-do the synology DS1815+ in performance. But several networkports are not necessary and neither is 8 drives..

 

I want it for storage (was thinking couple WD RED 8TB drives), streaming large files to mediadevices (like 50gb blurays that I wanna rip from my physical bluray discs so dont need to constantly find the disc) through plex or something. And also I want it to be able to encrypt data on the fly like the 1815+ can.. and maybe more stuff like IPcameras or whatever.. I dont know all I wanna do with it yet :smile:

 

I would have no problems building it from scratch if the parts are not too xpensive.. I can build PC's myself no problem.

 

Thanks again for all the help.

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Hi,

 

You mean build my own server with own parts? Feels like thats gonna be more expensive compared to this deal on the T20 for example.. I can get the T20 for about 400 usd.

 

My requirements are minimum 4 HDD drives for storage. A SSD for cache / bios or whatever you need for xpenology.

Well basically I want it to be able to match or out-do the synology DS1815+ in performance. But several networkports are not necessary and neither is 8 drives..

 

I want it for storage (was thinking couple WD RED 8TB drives), streaming large files to mediadevices (like 50gb blurays that I wanna rip from my physical bluray discs so dont need to constantly find the disc) through plex or something. And also I want it to be able to encrypt data on the fly like the 1815+ can.. and maybe more stuff like IPcameras or whatever.. I dont know all I wanna do with it yet :smile:

 

I would have no problems building it from scratch if the parts are not too xpensive.. I can build PC's myself no problem.

 

Thanks again for all the help.

 

My NAS (see in my signature) cost me ~200$, including all parts. Though it is true that I bought the PSU and case used.

The HW itself is a lot stronger than the Microserver, and possibly outdoes the T20 (you did not say which config it was exactly).

 

You can go a bit higher and get an i3-7100, or a 6200, and still be under 300$ in total.

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Hi,

 

You mean build my own server with own parts? Feels like thats gonna be more expensive compared to this deal on the T20 for example.. I can get the T20 for about 400 usd.

 

My requirements are minimum 4 HDD drives for storage. A SSD for cache / bios or whatever you need for xpenology.

Well basically I want it to be able to match or out-do the synology DS1815+ in performance. But several networkports are not necessary and neither is 8 drives..

 

I want it for storage (was thinking couple WD RED 8TB drives), streaming large files to mediadevices (like 50gb blurays that I wanna rip from my physical bluray discs so dont need to constantly find the disc) through plex or something. And also I want it to be able to encrypt data on the fly like the 1815+ can.. and maybe more stuff like IPcameras or whatever.. I dont know all I wanna do with it yet :smile:

 

I would have no problems building it from scratch if the parts are not too xpensive.. I can build PC's myself no problem.

 

Thanks again for all the help.

 

My NAS (see in my signature) cost me ~200$, including all parts. Though it is true that I bought the PSU and case used.

The HW itself is a lot stronger than the Microserver, and possibly outdoes the T20 (you did not say which config it was exactly).

 

You can go a bit higher and get an i3-7100, or a 6200, and still be under 300$ in total.

 

Im actually looking in to this now. It seems better and mroe fun to build my own device.. But then everything will work flawless with XPEnology the same way a A20 or the microserver will?

The T20 config I saw is :

Dell PowerEdge T20 Mini Tower Server

Intel E3-1225V3 4GB

 

I read now that XPEnology needs 2 SSD for read and write cache.. so if I would want 2 SSD for this (i guess small 60gb would be enough?) then I can only have 2 HDD drives total? because it has only 4 sata ports right?

 

If this is true then I guess I need to build something that has a motherboard with something like 6+ sataports so 4+ HDD drives (will be using some sort of RAID-5 or synologys own RAID) and 2 SSD for cache. and the synology OS runs from a memory stick on USB port right.. ?

I also want EEC memory I think.. or maybe its not that necessary I dont know about that one yet...

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Im actually looking in to this now. It seems better and mroe fun to build my own device.. But then everything will work flawless with XPEnology the same way a A20 or the microserver will?

The T20 config I saw is :

Dell PowerEdge T20 Mini Tower Server

Intel E3-1225V3 4GB

 

For 400$ that's a pretty low-end config. The only reason why you should go with that, or a Gen8, is because it's pre-built and ready to use. Though the HP has that really awesome hotswap 3.5" grid, so...

 

I read now that XPEnology needs 2 SSD for read and write cache.. so if I would want 2 SSD for this (i guess small 60gb would be enough?) then I can only have 2 HDD drives total? because it has only 4 sata ports right?

If this is true then I guess I need to build something that has a motherboard with something like 6+ sataports so 4+ HDD drives (will be using some sort of RAID-5 or synologys own RAID) and 2 SSD for cache. and the synology OS runs from a memory stick on USB port right.. ?

I also want EEC memory I think.. or maybe its not that necessary I dont know about that one yet...

 

You can use a PCIe SATA/RAID card, which can add up to 8 more devices, so no, there's no need for 6 or more SATA ports onboard. Actually, the amount of mITX boards that have 6 or more SATA is pretty low.

 

My usage seems similar to yours. Honestly, I don't think you need SSD cache. But even if you do, I think a single SSD will do, especially if you buy a high-speed one and use the motherboard's M.2 NVMe port on the back.

 

ECC RAM is completely unnecessary for home use. For one, you're keeping minimal data in RAM, so corruption won't effect you much (if you used FreeNAS with ZFS, that would be another case...). For two, it's more expensive.

 

Synology uses a USB drive to boot, yes. That drive contains the bootloader, kernel, and some modules. The rest of the system is installed on ALL disks (basically when you install Synology DSM on any hardware, or in other word, "initialize" a disk, it creates a small RAID1 partition spanning all disks, which gets extended automatically when you add a new disk. It takes up roughly 5GB from each disk at max). Since the loader is only used for booting, you won't even need a large one, or a USB3 drive.

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Im actually looking in to this now. It seems better and mroe fun to build my own device.. But then everything will work flawless with XPEnology the same way a A20 or the microserver will?

The T20 config I saw is :

Dell PowerEdge T20 Mini Tower Server

Intel E3-1225V3 4GB

 

For 400$ that's a pretty low-end config. The only reason why you should go with that, or a Gen8, is because it's pre-built and ready to use. Though the HP has that really awesome hotswap 3.5" grid, so...

 

I read now that XPEnology needs 2 SSD for read and write cache.. so if I would want 2 SSD for this (i guess small 60gb would be enough?) then I can only have 2 HDD drives total? because it has only 4 sata ports right?

If this is true then I guess I need to build something that has a motherboard with something like 6+ sataports so 4+ HDD drives (will be using some sort of RAID-5 or synologys own RAID) and 2 SSD for cache. and the synology OS runs from a memory stick on USB port right.. ?

I also want EEC memory I think.. or maybe its not that necessary I dont know about that one yet...

 

You can use a PCIe SATA/RAID card, which can add up to 8 more devices, so no, there's no need for 6 or more SATA ports onboard. Actually, the amount of mITX boards that have 6 or more SATA is pretty low.

 

My usage seems similar to yours. Honestly, I don't think you need SSD cache. But even if you do, I think a single SSD will do, especially if you buy a high-speed one and use the motherboard's M.2 NVMe port on the back.

 

ECC RAM is completely unnecessary for home use. For one, you're keeping minimal data in RAM, so corruption won't effect you much (if you used FreeNAS with ZFS, that would be another case...). For two, it's more expensive.

 

Synology uses a USB drive to boot, yes. That drive contains the bootloader, kernel, and some modules. The rest of the system is installed on ALL disks (basically when you install Synology DSM on any hardware, or in other word, "initialize" a disk, it creates a small RAID1 partition spanning all disks, which gets extended automatically when you add a new disk. It takes up roughly 5GB from each disk at max). Since the loader is only used for booting, you won't even need a large one, or a USB3 drive.

 

Hi m8!

Excellent info here! I really appreciate it!

 

Ok so to begin with I now understand that I can go for a regular m-itx MB with 4 sata ports and maybe use a m2 card for a single cache disk instead.. My thinking for the cache is that the encryption on the fly probably beenfits a lot from a good cache drive right..?

 

I definitly will skip EEC as I think you are totally right.. You are the 2nd person to tell me this about EEC in the last hour.

 

Im now looking at building my own machine instead.

Ive been looking around for an hour or so and heres what Ive come up with:

 

Fractal Design Node 804

 

The chassi is small yet you can house up to ten 6 x 3.5" . It seems most other m-itx chassi Ive seen mostly have like 2 or 3 3.5" spots so this seems really good..

 

Now about the CPU and Motherboard Im unsure.. For CPU they are pretty decent prices for 2 cores 4 thread type of CPU's like the

Intel Pentium G4560 3.5 GHz 3MB

 

However I dont know how it works with threads here in a NAS. I want similair or as good performance as the own synology DS1815+ for example. That one has a 4 core CPU so how you think this 2 core 4 thread cpu fairs vs a CPU like the one in the synology...?

 

Motherboards are more expensive then I thought.. cant really find a cheap one.. They have a lot of crap I dont need like RAID and Wifi.. they are like 120 USD each I guess thats the price u have to pay?

 

RAM: I guess best to go with something low profile and maybe just 1 RAM stick is best? Like a 8GB DDR4 like this for example:

Kingston HyperX 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 2133MHz CL14 Fury

 

And then we have PSU . Here Im not sure what watt and what certification I would need.. is gold+ good enough? Something like 350w? Not so many of them are modular unfortuanately..:S

 

 

am I on the right track here? or did I overlook something.. Thanks again for all advice!

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Hi m8!

Excellent info here! I really appreciate it!

 

Ok so to begin with I now understand that I can go for a regular m-itx MB with 4 sata ports and maybe use a m2 card for a single cache disk instead.. My thinking for the cache is that the encryption on the fly probably beenfits a lot from a good cache drive right..?

 

I'm not sure - I don't use encryption, and I don't see how it would benefit home use at all. Unless you store some very sensitive data.

 

I definitly will skip EEC as I think you are totally right.. You are the 2nd person to tell me this about EEC in the last hour.

 

Im now looking at building my own machine instead.

Ive been looking around for an hour or so and heres what Ive come up with:

 

Fractal Design Node 804

 

The chassi is small yet you can house up to ten 6 x 3.5" . It seems most other m-itx chassi Ive seen mostly have like 2 or 3 3.5" spots so this seems really good..

 

ECC is good for servers where lots of data is in RAM. But since it's home use, no need for it.

 

That case, however, is an overkill in my opinion. It can house a full mATX board... There are some mITX cases with a lot smaller footprint, that can hold up to 8 disks - look around at Silverstone's cases, a bit pricier but they usually even have a SATA backplane, so less cabling! You can also go with Bitfenix cases, the Colossus is perfect (5+1 internal 3.5" HDDs, and with a 5.25" to 4x 2.5", you can add 4 more 2.5" disks) for this role.

 

Now about the CPU and Motherboard Im unsure.. For CPU they are pretty decent prices for 2 cores 4 thread type of CPU's like the

Intel Pentium G4560 3.5 GHz 3MB

 

However I dont know how it works with threads here in a NAS. I want similair or as good performance as the own synology DS1815+ for example. That one has a 4 core CPU so how you think this 2 core 4 thread cpu fairs vs a CPU like the one in the synology...?

 

Synology's DSM is simply Linux, with some small modifications, and a web UI. Nothing more. It can use all four threads no matter what. And yes, the G4560 is a bit lower power than the linked Xeon, but it also eats less power (I'm measuring around 25W with 2x 2.5" 1TB disks and the motherboard!), and is in general better with power usage.

 

Motherboards are more expensive then I thought.. cant really find a cheap one.. They have a lot of crap I dont need like RAID and Wifi.. they are like 120 USD each I guess thats the price u have to pay?

 

RAM: I guess best to go with something low profile and maybe just 1 RAM stick is best? Like a 8GB DDR4 like this for example:

Kingston HyperX 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 2133MHz CL14 Fury

 

And then we have PSU . Here Im not sure what watt and what certification I would need.. is gold+ good enough? Something like 350w? Not so many of them are modular unfortuanately..:S

 

 

am I on the right track here? or did I overlook something.. Thanks again for all advice!

 

For motherboard, well, prices are going up a bit. You can find the B250I PRO (not the gaming version!) for around 80$. Wifi can come handy, as a secondary network connection (syno can bind the networks together and use both to provide even better bandwidth). That RAM choice is good though.

 

And for PSU... Go for a bigger brand, and you shouldn't care much about modularity. It's a NAS, you put it together once, then use it as-is. Especially if you choose a case that has a SATA backplane. 300-350W is more than enough, my config is yet to go over 150W with 6 disks in total.

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Hi m8!

Excellent info here! I really appreciate it!

 

Ok so to begin with I now understand that I can go for a regular m-itx MB with 4 sata ports and maybe use a m2 card for a single cache disk instead.. My thinking for the cache is that the encryption on the fly probably beenfits a lot from a good cache drive right..?

 

I'm not sure - I don't use encryption, and I don't see how it would benefit home use at all. Unless you store some very sensitive data.

 

I definitly will skip EEC as I think you are totally right.. You are the 2nd person to tell me this about EEC in the last hour.

 

Im now looking at building my own machine instead.

Ive been looking around for an hour or so and heres what Ive come up with:

 

Fractal Design Node 804

 

The chassi is small yet you can house up to ten 6 x 3.5" . It seems most other m-itx chassi Ive seen mostly have like 2 or 3 3.5" spots so this seems really good..

 

ECC is good for servers where lots of data is in RAM. But since it's home use, no need for it.

 

That case, however, is an overkill in my opinion. It can house a full mATX board... There are some mITX cases with a lot smaller footprint, that can hold up to 8 disks - look around at Silverstone's cases, a bit pricier but they usually even have a SATA backplane, so less cabling! You can also go with Bitfenix cases, the Colossus is perfect (5+1 internal 3.5" HDDs, and with a 5.25" to 4x 2.5", you can add 4 more 2.5" disks) for this role.

 

Now about the CPU and Motherboard Im unsure.. For CPU they are pretty decent prices for 2 cores 4 thread type of CPU's like the

Intel Pentium G4560 3.5 GHz 3MB

 

However I dont know how it works with threads here in a NAS. I want similair or as good performance as the own synology DS1815+ for example. That one has a 4 core CPU so how you think this 2 core 4 thread cpu fairs vs a CPU like the one in the synology...?

 

Synology's DSM is simply Linux, with some small modifications, and a web UI. Nothing more. It can use all four threads no matter what. And yes, the G4560 is a bit lower power than the linked Xeon, but it also eats less power (I'm measuring around 25W with 2x 2.5" 1TB disks and the motherboard!), and is in general better with power usage.

 

Motherboards are more expensive then I thought.. cant really find a cheap one.. They have a lot of crap I dont need like RAID and Wifi.. they are like 120 USD each I guess thats the price u have to pay?

 

RAM: I guess best to go with something low profile and maybe just 1 RAM stick is best? Like a 8GB DDR4 like this for example:

Kingston HyperX 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 2133MHz CL14 Fury

 

And then we have PSU . Here Im not sure what watt and what certification I would need.. is gold+ good enough? Something like 350w? Not so many of them are modular unfortuanately..:S

 

 

am I on the right track here? or did I overlook something.. Thanks again for all advice!

 

For motherboard, well, prices are going up a bit. You can find the B250I PRO (not the gaming version!) for around 80$. Wifi can come handy, as a secondary network connection (syno can bind the networks together and use both to provide even better bandwidth). That RAM choice is good though.

 

And for PSU... Go for a bigger brand, and you shouldn't care much about modularity. It's a NAS, you put it together once, then use it as-is. Especially if you choose a case that has a SATA backplane. 300-350W is more than enough, my config is yet to go over 150W with 6 disks in total.

 

Hi Again m8.

I was thinking about encryption just for safety in case of theft or anything.. Like for all personal stuff like pictures and etc... But I dont know maybe its not that important but probably will work fine with a simple CPU like the one I showed, and a ssd cache (dont know if its better to use it for write or for read then..?`)

 

I will look around for more chassi cases.. from my research it was the smallest one that can actually house many 3.5" units. But I will look at your alternatives also!

 

The G460 cpu if I understand you correct was less power then the one used in for example 1815+ ? In that case what CPU would match it better? I dont mind a few bucks more on the CPU department to not have a bottleneck in power..

 

Can XPEnology link wifi and wired connection together for higher speeds? That sounds crazy... I did however see some motherboards that had two wired ethernet connections like for example:

Gigabyte H270N WiFi

I dont know if both can be used simultaneously though . It says one is Intel I219V and other is Intel I211 if I understand it correctly..

How much difference would it make to choose this in that case and use both ethernets for maximum speed..?`earther then just one gbit network connection..?

 

PSU I thought modularity cus these cases generally seem so small so maybe hard to do the cablemanagement with bunch if leftover cables..

 

 

Thanks!

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No, I'm saying the G4560 is less powerful than the Xeon in the Dell T20 you mentioned. Single thread it is more powerful, but multi-core the Xeon beats it.

 

But both CPUs beat the hell out of the Celeron C2538 that ships in the DS1815+!

 

XPEnology can do pretty much the same a regular Syno device can. If the wireless chip is supported, it can use a bonded interface. Same applies for two or more wired connections (though the drivers for these tend to be there from the get-go, unlike with wifi stuff).

 

For PSU, the models in this range usually come with a 20+4 mobo connector, a 4-pin CPU cable, a 6-pin PCI power one, and a bunch of Molex and SATA cables. Since you want to use 4 or more disks, I think you'll need all of those, sans the 6-pin PCIe power cable, which you can just tuck away. The rest will be used any way :wink:

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No, I'm saying the G4560 is less powerful than the Xeon in the Dell T20 you mentioned. Single thread it is more powerful, but multi-core the Xeon beats it.

 

But both CPUs beat the hell out of the Celeron C2538 that ships in the DS1815+!

 

XPEnology can do pretty much the same a regular Syno device can. If the wireless chip is supported, it can use a bonded interface. Same applies for two or more wired connections (though the drivers for these tend to be there from the get-go, unlike with wifi stuff).

 

For PSU, the models in this range usually come with a 20+4 mobo connector, a 4-pin CPU cable, a 6-pin PCI power one, and a bunch of Molex and SATA cables. Since you want to use 4 or more disks, I think you'll need all of those, sans the 6-pin PCIe power cable, which you can just tuck away. The rest will be used any way :wink:

 

 

Ahh my friend you are definetly right about modular PSU.. I didnt think about that but yes most stuff u generally dont use in a normal gaming rig is all the damn harddrive cables that Im actually gonna use now :smile: . Probably will just have a PCI-E cable over that wont be used..

 

Something about me dont like the fact that the CPU i picked is worse off then the T20 server.. Could you please find me a better option for CPU to use in this build that will for sure be powerful enough and defnitly not worse then the T20 server :smile:

 

I didnt really understand what u said about the dual ethernet compared to one ethernet and one wireless.. " (though the drivers for these tend to be there from the get-go, unlike with wifi stuff)." . sorry english is not my primary language..

Your sayind I need to work with sorting drivers etc to get both ethernet to work in dual mode but the 1x ethernet + 1x wireless works better out-of-the-box .. ?

Or your saying the opposite of that? :smile:

 

Thanks mate!

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For the CPU, trust me, it's working fine. I'm using Plex to transcode 1080p content to two-three devices at the same time, and while that maxes it out in theory, all file copying, etc. works just fine.

 

But pretty much with this config you can go with any Skylake or Kaby Lake CPU. I recommend the G4560 because it's practically an underclocked i3-7100, at half the price. It's slightly weaker than the one in the T20, yes, but it makes up by using considerably less power. You can check around with i3-7xxx and i5-7xxx CPUs but those will significantly raise the price.

 

What I meant with that sentence about the drivers means that currently Jun's loader only includes the most widespread drivers (and as far as I checked, no WiFi ones). So yes, for WiFi you need to build your own, unfortunately (but I'm already working on a loader which is based off of Jun's, but with more drivers and some small stuff changed :wink: ). Ethernet SHOULD work on both.

 

About that chassis - way too expensive for a 4-bay one. I'd suggest going for the Silverstone DS380, CS280B or CS01B-HS. These are all NAS-oriented cases, with hot-swap disk storage, just like the HP Gen8 microserver. There are some other manufacturers, but it's rare to have an mITX case with more than 2pcs of 3.5" space. Your best bet are either these, or one of the Bitfenix cases (they go around 60-80$, and you can probably find a better deal on Ebay or Craigslist).

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For the CPU, trust me, it's working fine. I'm using Plex to transcode 1080p content to two-three devices at the same time, and while that maxes it out in theory, all file copying, etc. works just fine.

 

But pretty much with this config you can go with any Skylake or Kaby Lake CPU. I recommend the G4560 because it's practically an underclocked i3-7100, at half the price. It's slightly weaker than the one in the T20, yes, but it makes up by using considerably less power. You can check around with i3-7xxx and i5-7xxx CPUs but those will significantly raise the price.

 

What I meant with that sentence about the drivers means that currently Jun's loader only includes the most widespread drivers (and as far as I checked, no WiFi ones). So yes, for WiFi you need to build your own, unfortunately (but I'm already working on a loader which is based off of Jun's, but with more drivers and some small stuff changed :wink: ). Ethernet SHOULD work on both.

 

About that chassis - way too expensive for a 4-bay one. I'd suggest going for the Silverstone DS380, CS280B or CS01B-HS. These are all NAS-oriented cases, with hot-swap disk storage, just like the HP Gen8 microserver. There are some other manufacturers, but it's rare to have an mITX case with more than 2pcs of 3.5" space. Your best bet are either these, or one of the Bitfenix cases (they go around 60-80$, and you can probably find a better deal on Ebay or Craigslist).

 

Hey

 

I decided for the final verdict here..

going with this:

 

Case: Fractal Design 304 -

MB: Gigabyte GA-H270N-WIFI - has dual ethernet and 6 sata ports. perfect but a bit pricy.. I found no other m-itx card that could provide those 2 features..

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 3,5GHz -

CPU cooler: Corsair Hydro H55 - just using a watercooling kit cus it helps to get out warm air in these small chassis and also its smaller size is convinient in this chassi they said in a review

RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury Black DDR4 PC17000/2133MHz CL14 8GB

PSU: Be Quiet! Pure Power 10 300W

WD RED: 4x 6 eller 8 TB didnt decide yet

 

Also I need something small to connect to the usb stick for booting XPEnology from. I want this USB stick inside the PC so I guess I need a little adapter for internally giving out a usb port from directly on the motherboard.. it has to be USB2 right not USB3 for just booting xpenology..?

 

Well thats it... What do you think..? Plan is also to be able to transcode 4k HDR bluray rips in the future.. You think it could manage..? Any other thoughts like something Im missing.. ?

 

EDIT:

Oops need new PSU.. it only has 4 HDD connectors..

 

EDIT 2:

Actually no.. Just needed a adapter Molex ha-2x SATA ho :smile:

 

I wonder also how often is the system booting from the memorystick. Is it just first time boot or is it everytime it wakes up from sleep?`Thinking about the speed of the memorystick with the boot and also for the cable/adapter for the internal motherboard connection. Basically USB 2 or USB 3 ..? If its for everytime efter sleep then I will go for a fast USB3 memory stick or maybe even M2 disk..?

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Nice choices.

 

For the case, I like Fractal Design stuff, but they did not have a case that would've supplied for my use-case scenario. The Bitfenix ones are more of a fit.

 

For the motherboard, it's also a great choice, however the H270 chipset feels a bit of an overkill. A B150 is more than enough in my opinion. But if you need the 6 ports, well, you need the 6 SATA ports.

 

CPU cooler: There's literally no need for it. I mean, the G4560 provides pretty good performance even on conservative governor, in idle. I never had it go over 70°C with the stock cooler that came with it. So I'd leave it out for now, and if it's too hot for your preference, you can always grab one and install it later.

 

RAM is also a nice choice, maybe a bit of an overkill though. PSU is fine, I believe you can connect up to 4 disks per Molex, though it depends on the PSU's total output on the 3.3V and 5V lines.

 

WD RED drives are pretty good, I'm running 3 RE3's right now (1TB only, but planning on upgrading in the future, to 4x4TB 3.5", 4x1TB 2.5", and 4x2TB 2.5". Also a nice little SSD cache for downloads to keep the disks sleeping if not needed immediately.

 

For the boot drive, I repurposed an "old" dual USB drive. I had a one year old 8GB Kingston MicroDuo, but since I swapped to a phone with USB Type-C, it became obsolete. However it's very small. I plugged it into one of the USB2.0 ports under the PS/2 ports, so it does not take away external expansion possibilities. But you can probably use something like this or like this.

 

The system boots from the USB drive every time you actually boot - this includes updates to DSM, system reboots, etc. Since it only loads ~15MB from the USB drive, it does not matter much if it's a USB2 or USB3 drive. However, some motherboards had issues with booting from USB3. When it goes to "sleep" it just goes into a low-power state, since a NAS doesn't really "sleep" per se. Best you can do is spinning down the disks after a certain time, and making sure the conservative governor is set (so CPU idles at its lowest frequencies instead of the stock "stick to highest freq" governor).

 

The boot process is pretty simple though:

 

- Boot system

- BIOS/UEFI finds boot disk, loads GRUB from it

- GRUB loads modules, and config

- GRUB config is set ot a 1s timeout, that happens

- GRUB loads the kernel zImage (3MB), initramdisk (7MB) and XPE ramdisk (2MB)

- zImage mounts the initramdisk and XPE ramdisk as root

- Syno scripts run, discover system, including if DSM is installed on the hard drives

- If yes, they load the system from there (this is after the XPE ramdisk is done patching), if not, it falls back to install mode

 

The way DSM works, the first time you "install" it, it initializes all disks in the machine. This initialization consists of creating a new partition table (GPT) on each disk, then creating a 3GB (2.7GiB) partition and creating a soft RAID1 volume out of these. This is then used as a boot device, mounted as / - basically, this is your system here. Yes, this literally means that DSM is on each and every disk in your system. So no, a faster boot disk won't make things faster, since a good majority of the system is loaded from all HDDs simultaneously.

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Nice choices.

 

For the case, I like Fractal Design stuff, but they did not have a case that would've supplied for my use-case scenario. The Bitfenix ones are more of a fit.

 

For the motherboard, it's also a great choice, however the H270 chipset feels a bit of an overkill. A B150 is more than enough in my opinion. But if you need the 6 ports, well, you need the 6 SATA ports.

 

CPU cooler: There's literally no need for it. I mean, the G4560 provides pretty good performance even on conservative governor, in idle. I never had it go over 70°C with the stock cooler that came with it. So I'd leave it out for now, and if it's too hot for your preference, you can always grab one and install it later.

 

RAM is also a nice choice, maybe a bit of an overkill though. PSU is fine, I believe you can connect up to 4 disks per Molex, though it depends on the PSU's total output on the 3.3V and 5V lines.

 

WD RED drives are pretty good, I'm running 3 RE3's right now (1TB only, but planning on upgrading in the future, to 4x4TB 3.5", 4x1TB 2.5", and 4x2TB 2.5". Also a nice little SSD cache for downloads to keep the disks sleeping if not needed immediately.

 

For the boot drive, I repurposed an "old" dual USB drive. I had a one year old 8GB Kingston MicroDuo, but since I swapped to a phone with USB Type-C, it became obsolete. However it's very small. I plugged it into one of the USB2.0 ports under the PS/2 ports, so it does not take away external expansion possibilities. But you can probably use something like this or like this.

 

The system boots from the USB drive every time you actually boot - this includes updates to DSM, system reboots, etc. Since it only loads ~15MB from the USB drive, it does not matter much if it's a USB2 or USB3 drive. However, some motherboards had issues with booting from USB3. When it goes to "sleep" it just goes into a low-power state, since a NAS doesn't really "sleep" per se. Best you can do is spinning down the disks after a certain time, and making sure the conservative governor is set (so CPU idles at its lowest frequencies instead of the stock "stick to highest freq" governor).

 

The boot process is pretty simple though:

 

- Boot system

- BIOS/UEFI finds boot disk, loads GRUB from it

- GRUB loads modules, and config

- GRUB config is set ot a 1s timeout, that happens

- GRUB loads the kernel zImage (3MB), initramdisk (7MB) and XPE ramdisk (2MB)

- zImage mounts the initramdisk and XPE ramdisk as root

- Syno scripts run, discover system, including if DSM is installed on the hard drives

- If yes, they load the system from there (this is after the XPE ramdisk is done patching), if not, it falls back to install mode

 

The way DSM works, the first time you "install" it, it initializes all disks in the machine. This initialization consists of creating a new partition table (GPT) on each disk, then creating a 3GB (2.7GiB) partition and creating a soft RAID1 volume out of these. This is then used as a boot device, mounted as / - basically, this is your system here. Yes, this literally means that DSM is on each and every disk in your system. So no, a faster boot disk won't make things faster, since a good majority of the system is loaded from all HDDs simultaneously.

 

Hey m8! great info as usual! Thanks a lot!

 

I know some of my stuff is overkill.. For motherboard for example it is for sure heavy overkill.. But mostly because the double ethernet and 6 sata together with m-itx.. not so many choices then.. I could go for a 4 sata MB but then I have to add a expansioncard later which would cost about the same as the actual upgrade of motherboard. So basically I get the double ethernet as a bonus if I put down the investment right now instead of wait..

 

The same goes for my CPUcooler but not in cost investment.. But time and PAIN.. Pain being to have to go back later in to the chassi to unmount a stockcooler and mount on another cooler like a watercooler like this.. In a small case like this that pain is really not worth holding back a couple extra dollars at this moment.. the cooler is actually pretty cheap..

 

I like your idea of a diskcache actually for some kind of temporary usage so you dont put unnecessary strain on the disks.. How would you set up that exactly? Is it a write cache disk like or is it its own volume that you mounted containing a single disk..?

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WD RED drives are pretty good, I'm running 3 RE3's right now (1TB only, but planning on upgrading in the future, to 4x4TB 3.5", 4x1TB 2.5", and 4x2TB 2.5". Also a nice little SSD cache for downloads to keep the disks sleeping if not needed immediately.

 

 

Hey again m8 sorry to bother you so much..

I was curious about this that you said highlighted. How exactly do you plan on setting up this cache disk for downloads? The idea sounds good that if for example your downloading something through torrents directly on the NAS, you do it just to this cache SSD disk to start with. Then if you want to move it to main folder on the HDD then the drives wake up from sleep. Instead of them awake all the time while just downloading.. Did I understand this correct? The main hDD drives will still sleep while downloads are going just to SSD ..?

Dont you also need to someway make the OS run from this SSD drive as well then? I mean the application for use of downloading for example transmission, its on the main HDD disks probably right (if say you have 1 volume based on 4 HDD disks and then 1 volume of cache for the 1 SSD disk). am I understanding you correct..?

 

Also if I want 4 main HDD disks and 1 SSD cache disk like you described I would need a motherboard with 5 sata correct? or at least 4 sata + a extra pci card with extra satas..

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WD RED drives are pretty good, I'm running 3 RE3's right now (1TB only, but planning on upgrading in the future, to 4x4TB 3.5", 4x1TB 2.5", and 4x2TB 2.5". Also a nice little SSD cache for downloads to keep the disks sleeping if not needed immediately.

 

 

Hey again m8 sorry to bother you so much..

I was curious about this that you said highlighted. How exactly do you plan on setting up this cache disk for downloads? The idea sounds good that if for example your downloading something through torrents directly on the NAS, you do it just to this cache SSD disk to start with. Then if you want to move it to main folder on the HDD then the drives wake up from sleep. Instead of them awake all the time while just downloading.. Did I understand this correct? The main hDD drives will still sleep while downloads are going just to SSD ..?

Dont you also need to someway make the OS run from this SSD drive as well then? I mean the application for use of downloading for example transmission, its on the main HDD disks probably right (if say you have 1 volume based on 4 HDD disks and then 1 volume of cache for the 1 SSD disk). am I understanding you correct..?

 

Also if I want 4 main HDD disks and 1 SSD cache disk like you described I would need a motherboard with 5 sata correct? or at least 4 sata + a extra pci card with extra satas..

 

DSM has a built-in SSD cache feature, which you can easily use for this very purpose. It will load stuff that's accessed frequently (say, a torrent download), and use the whole SSD storage for caching.

 

And no, you don't need an extra SATA port. The motherboard you chose already has an M.2 key M (or key B?) slot, where you can add an SSD (which has improved speed over SATA, with select models you can reach 2000-2500MB/s write speeds).

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WD RED drives are pretty good, I'm running 3 RE3's right now (1TB only, but planning on upgrading in the future, to 4x4TB 3.5", 4x1TB 2.5", and 4x2TB 2.5". Also a nice little SSD cache for downloads to keep the disks sleeping if not needed immediately.

 

 

Hey again m8 sorry to bother you so much..

I was curious about this that you said highlighted. How exactly do you plan on setting up this cache disk for downloads? The idea sounds good that if for example your downloading something through torrents directly on the NAS, you do it just to this cache SSD disk to start with. Then if you want to move it to main folder on the HDD then the drives wake up from sleep. Instead of them awake all the time while just downloading.. Did I understand this correct? The main hDD drives will still sleep while downloads are going just to SSD ..?

Dont you also need to someway make the OS run from this SSD drive as well then? I mean the application for use of downloading for example transmission, its on the main HDD disks probably right (if say you have 1 volume based on 4 HDD disks and then 1 volume of cache for the 1 SSD disk). am I understanding you correct..?

 

Also if I want 4 main HDD disks and 1 SSD cache disk like you described I would need a motherboard with 5 sata correct? or at least 4 sata + a extra pci card with extra satas..

 

DSM has a built-in SSD cache feature, which you can easily use for this very purpose. It will load stuff that's accessed frequently (say, a torrent download), and use the whole SSD storage for caching.

 

And no, you don't need an extra SATA port. The motherboard you chose already has an M.2 key M (or key B?) slot, where you can add an SSD (which has improved speed over SATA, with select models you can reach 2000-2500MB/s write speeds).

 

Ahh great mate.. Thanks!

I decided to do this as well.. here is now my total build list :smile:

 

Chassi: IN WIN IW-MS04-01-S265 Black

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560

RAM: 8GB Corsair ValueSelect DDR4-2133 DIMM CL15 Single

Motherboard: MSI H110I PRO Intel H110 So.1151 Dual Channel DDR4 Mini-ITX Retail

M2 card for cache: 240GB WD Green M.2 SATA 6Gb/s TLC Toggle (WDS240G1G0B)

disk for storage: 8000GB WD Red WD80EFZX 128MB 3.5" (8.9cm) SATA 6Gb/s

 

Finally took that chassi anyway.. it was actually not that expensive for a high quality chassi with PSU compared to the fractal design 304 without PSU. But much smaller like half the overall size. And has sata backplane and motherboard tray which seems really easy. Drawback is only space for 4 HDD but still if I go for 8TB HDD it should be enough for many years...

 

I decided to just start with one 8 TB HDD now.. then add one in a month or two for redundancy.. then later on buy a third and go RAID-5 or synologys own raid-5 system..( SHR? forgot name ). And eventually when needed extend the volume with the last 8TB disk in the raid-5 system..

With the sata backplane system of a chassi like this it seems effortless to do a progressive build like this..

 

Whats your final thoughts mate? :smile: Thanks again for all help!

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That motherboard and SSD combo is no good. The MB only supports PCI-E M.2 cards, while the one you choose is a SATA one. If you want to save some headaches, go with the B250I PRO (just ignore the 1xx series chipset motherboards altogether as they need a BIOS update to function with newer, 7th gen CPUs like the G4560). The B250I PRO is 20$ or so more expensive than the H110I, and brings quite some to the table at that price.

 

The rest is perfect choice, mostly matches my config. The case, I dislike, but if you want that, well, it's your NAS.

 

 

Also, er du svensk?

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That motherboard and SSD combo is no good. The MB only supports PCI-E M.2 cards, while the one you choose is a SATA one. If you want to save some headaches, go with the B250I PRO (just ignore the 1xx series chipset motherboards altogether as they need a BIOS update to function with newer, 7th gen CPUs like the G4560). The B250I PRO is 20$ or so more expensive than the H110I, and brings quite some to the table at that price.

 

The rest is perfect choice, mostly matches my config. The case, I dislike, but if you want that, well, it's your NAS.

 

 

Also, er du svensk?

 

Hi!

 

I see my mistake now.. Upgraded to a

MSI B250I Pro Intel B250 So.1151 Dual Channel DDR4 Mini-ITX Retail

and now looking for a M.2 2280 drive.. For the cache as we talked about.. I wonder which one would be the best..

 

I found another WD green one that was cheap but just 120GB.. : 120GB WD Green M.2 2280 SATA 6Gb/s TLC Toggle

Controller: Silicon Motion SM2256

Chiptyp: TLC Toggle

 

Then you have: 275GB Crucial MX300 M.2 2280 M.2 6Gb/s 3D-NAND TLC Toggle

Controller: Marvell 88SS9174

Chiptyp: 3D-NAND TLC Toggle

 

This one also had something called: Power-Loss Protection, SSD .. Not sure how it works..

We'll guess I will have to look around a little and read about the different types.

 

I received my Chassi today... I love how simple it is but its nice.. Dont know why you dont like it.. Is it cus it just holds 4 disks? Its really not that expensive compared to the others if you count the powersupply as well.. The other ones like the bitfenix ones etc are way to large for my liking :smile:

 

Also might as well put a 5-6 € more on the RAM stick to get it to 2400mhz now that the motherboard accepts it.. :smile:

 

och ja är svensk :smile:

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Well I bought a 400W PSU and a Bitfenix Prodigy for less than 50$, so in comparison, it is expensive :smile:

 

I dislike it because its value/price ratio is not that great, and future expansions are hard to achieve. A Silverstone case would make more sense. Also the case makes it hard to access the motherboard after installation of the PSU.

 

For RAM, the freq does not matter. It will work just fine :smile:

 

Jeg studerede i Danmark for to år, men jeg taler lidt dansk :sad:

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hehe I see.. Cool m8.. I dont understand dansk so good though :smile:

 

The bitfenix is nice but a bit too big for my space.. but that package for 50$is good.. It would be about 100$+ here if I would buy it..

to be honest future expansion for me since going for 8TB drives is really in the far future.. and by then I might just build a new NAS that would just use this current NAS as another network storage.. So at that time I might hopefully live a bit larger then now so I can have the space for it..

 

I dont think it is hard to access the motherboard since it has got a removeable motherboard tray. So it seems really easy to build in it..

 

What do you think about the m2 SSD i bought now?

275GB Crucial MX300 M.2 2280 M.2 6Gb/s 3D-NAND TLC Toggle

 

Seems to have gotten really good reviews on amazon too..

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It's still a SATA M.2 SSD, not PCIe (NVME) SSD. Luckily the MSI B250I supports both :smile: Do tell the results you get with it! I'm planning on grabbing a 256GB Samsung P950, which has a theoretical write speed of 1500MB/s, and 3200MB/s read speed. A bit faster than what you got, but IMO it's the only one worth it (around 150$, and in speed it's 3x better, plus utilizes less resources AFAIK).

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It's still a SATA M.2 SSD, not PCIe (NVME) SSD. Luckily the MSI B250I supports both :smile: Do tell the results you get with it! I'm planning on grabbing a 256GB Samsung P950, which has a theoretical write speed of 1500MB/s, and 3200MB/s read speed. A bit faster than what you got, but IMO it's the only one worth it (around 150$, and in speed it's 3x better, plus utilizes less resources AFAIK).

 

Hey m8..

 

Im getting cold feet... Thinking about returning my chassi and going with the fractal design node 304..

In this case I need motherboard with 6xsata. so

 

Gigabyte GA-H170N-WIFI Intel H170 So.1151 Dual Channel DDR Mini-ITX Retail

 

What do you think? the cheapest one I found with 6x sata and also has 2x ethernet..

 

EDIT:

Seems I have to go for 270 series instead which is like 150€ ... damn motherboards are expensive...

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