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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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2 Answers2

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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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