9 Building a 12TB Mini ITX FreeNAS Server

http://samkear.com/freenas/how-to-build-a-12tb-mini-itx-nas-server

There has never been a better time than now to build a high capacity mini NAS system. In this post

you’ll find a step by step guide to building your mini NAS using Fractal Design’s new Node 304 case.

Mini ITX systems are becoming very popular with hardware enthusiasts and it’s not hard to see why.

Hardware designers are packing tons of powerful features into ITX motherboards leaving no

compromises for builders.

Many of the mini ITX boards have just as many features as their full ATX counterparts with simply

less PCIe slots. ASUS is even building mini ITX boards such as the Maximus VI Impact designed for

overclockers

This build addresses many of the issues with FreeNAS Mini clone build I posted last year. The Node

304 chassis has much more room, and provides better airflow than the ARK ITX chassis in the

previous build. The Node 304 doesn’t have hot swappable drive bays but the many benefits of this

chassis outweigh the loss of this feature.

What This NAS is Designed ForThis build is intended to be a high performance yet efficient home data storage system. By using the

mini ITX form factor the overall size of the system is very small yet provides plenty of flexibility and

room for future expansion. This NAS runs both cool, and quiet making it ideal for placement almost

anywhere.

Keeping size and noise in mind this NAS still aims to maintain high performance data transfer

speeds. The intel Core i3 processor combined with 16GB of ram provide plenty of power to run the

ZFS filesystem.

System Specs

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This configuration maxes out the memory capacity of this motherboard at 16GB but still leaves room

to add two additional hard drives

Storage Capacity – 12TB 4 x 3TB

CPU – Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz

Memory – 16GB DDR3 ( 2 x 8GB)

Network – Intel 1Gb

Operating System – FreeNAS 8

Power Usage – 45 watts (idle) 65 watts (under load)

Size – 9.84″ x 8.27″ x 14.72″ (H,W,D)

Parts ListBelow you’ll find a complete list of all of the parts I used to build this NAS. I chose to use high quality

components since I wanted this NAS to last a long time and I didn’t want to put my data at risk of

being lost.

The ASUS motherboard I used does have onboard LAN but since it uses the Realtek chipset I chose

to include a dedicated Intel network card. Unlike Realtek the Intel ethernet cards have a proven

record of reliability with FreeNAS. While there are cheaper ITX boards available I think this ASUS

board is well worth a bit of extra money . As many people have discovered the cheaper boards like

ASRock just can’t compete with the quality of ASUS products.

Component Item Quantity

Unit cost

Extended cost

Chassis Fractal Design Node 304 Black Aluminum Mini ITX Case

1 $54.99 $54.99

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Power Supply Corsair CX430M 430W ATX 80 Plus Power Supply

1 $52.99 $52.99

Motherboard ASUS P8H77-I LGA 1155 Intel Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

1 $100.06

$100.06

Processor Intel Core i3-3220 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz LGA 1155 55W Dual-Core Processor

1 $118.99

$118.99

Memory CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

1 $144.99

$144.99

Boot Drive SanDisk Cruzer Fit 8GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive 1 $9.31 $9.31

Hard Drive Western Digital Red WD30EFRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive

4 $134.36

$537.44

Sata Cable OKGEAR 10″ SATA 6Gbps Cable 2 $5.09 $10.18

Network Card Intel EXPI9301CTBLK Network Adapter 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps

1 $27.99 $27.99

Total Project Cost

$1056.94

If you’re looking to trim costs and you don’t plan to start with 12TB of storage you could potentially

drop the memory from 16GB to 8GB. It’s easy to add in another 8GB module at some point in the

future. Although if you do plan to use 12TB of storage with ZFS I highly recommend sticking with

16GB of ram. ZFS is very memory hunger and the file system performance is directly correlated to

the amount of RAM available.

The video below will give you an idea what to expect from the Node 304 chassis.

Remove the Drive Bays

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To get started remove all three hard drive bays in order to provide extra room to work while

mounting the motherboard and power supply. Each bay is secured to the chassis with 2

thumbscrews and 1 Phillips screw.

Install the Motherboard StandoffsInstall the four motherboard standoffs to support the ITX motherboard. I used a ratchet for this step

since the threads were such a tight fit.

Install the Processor

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When building an ITX system its easier to install the CPU before the motherboard has been mounted

in the case. This makes it much easier to make sure that the CPU is properly mounted before

securing the tension lever.

Install the IO ShieldInstall the IO shield included with the motherboard into the chassis by snapping it into place. It

should fit nearly flush with the chassis when its installed correctly.

Mount the MotherboardPlace the motherboard inside the chassis and press it up against the IO shield. Secure the

motherboard to the chassis using the 4 flat black screwed that came with the case.

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Install the Processor Heatsink / FanI recommend installing the heatsink on the processor before it starts to get too crowded inside the

case.

Intel heatsinks normally come with thermal compound pre-installed so it can be placed on the

processor right out of the box.

Line up the heatsink with the four mounting holes around the processor and press down on the black

pads to snap it into place. Its best to snap them into place in a diagonal patern to make even contact

on the processor.

Connect the fan cable to the CPU fan header near the VGA port on the board.

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Install the Memory ModulesInstall both of the 8GB memory modules into the board and snap them into place.

Install the Power SupplyUnlike most cases the power supply in the Node 304 mounts toward the front of the case.

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Mount the power supply with the fan facing downward. This may seem counterproductive but there

is a air inlet with a filter directly below the power supply which allows the flow of air.

Since the power plug is in the back of the the case the designers added a power extension cable to

complete the connection.

Connect the main ATX power connector to the motherboard.

Connect the additional 4 pin CPU power connector to the board. The 8 pin cable provided by Corsair

can either be separated or simply plugged in with the other 4 pins hanging over the side.

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One of the nice features included in the Node 304 is a 3 port PWM fan speed controller. The fan

controller has three speeds settings to control the two front intake fans, and the rear exhaust fan.

The fan controller is powered through a single molex power connector.

Connect the Motherboard HeadersConnect the front panel USB 3.0 Header to the blue header port on the motherboard.

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Connect the power switch, power LED, and HDD activity LED to the front panel headers. The node

304 doesn’t have a reset switch so that header will go unused.

Install the PCIe Network Card

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Remove the expansion slow cover closest to the IO ports on the board and install the Intel PCIe

network card.

Mount the Hard Drives in the BaysUse 4 of the long screws for each drive to secure them to the bays. I decided to leave the bay on the

right side empty since it was near most of the excess cables.

While you could remove the unused bay I think it’s best to leave it in for cable management.

Connect the Power and SATA Cables to the DrivesThe Asus P8H77-I has a total of 6 SATA ports, 4 SATA 3G (blue ports) and 2 SATA 6G. (white ports).

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You might be wondering why I connected all four drives to the blue ports (3G controller). Like most

mechanical drives the WD Red drives are not able to even saturate all of the bandwidth available on

a 3G port making 6G just plain overkill.

The SATA 6G ports might be useful for connecting one or more high speed SDDs for use as a ZFS

cache drive to accelerate performance.

The Finished SystemThe end result is a stylish, and compact home storage system!

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Installing FreeNASIn this build the Sandisk USB drive servers as the “hard drive” for the FreeNAS installation. The

Sandisk Cruzer Fit drives are extremely small and can barely be noticed on the back of the NAS. If

you want to internalize the USB boot drive you can purchase an internal USB port header like the

Koutech USB header adapter. The internal adapters are useful if you’re afraid someone might unplug

the USB drive potentially taking the NAS offline.

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The quickest way to load the FreeNAS operating system is to load the OS image directly to the USB

drive. Once the USB drive is imaged set the BIOS boot order to boot via USB and FreeNAS should

start automatically when the system boots.

Performance TestingCIFS Performance

I was able to achieve data transfer rates of ~100MB/s which is very close to the upper limit of gigabit

ethernet.

Network Throughput

Regardless of how fast the disks are a NAS can only move as much data as the network card allows

which is why it’s important to test pure network throughput.

Testing with JPerf showed the system had no issues fully saturating the Intel gigabit network card.

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Documentation Links

Fractal Design Node 304 Product Sheet

Corsair CX430M Spec Table

Asus P8H77-I Users Manual

Intel Core i3-3220 CPU Reference Page

Sam KearSam graduated from the University of Missouri – Kansas City with a bachelors degree in Information

Technology. Currently he works as a network analyst for an algorithmic trading firm. Sam enjoys

the challenge of troubleshooting complex problems and is constantly experimenting with new

technologies.

Circle Sam on Google+!

This entry was posted by Sam Kear on August 25, 2013 at 9:00 am, and is filed under FreeNAS, Hardware. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Comments (7)

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#1 written by Dominique 4 months ago

Umm, the parts list you have adds up to $926.25 not $802.26. It would also be interesting to

mention where you got these prices.

Nice article otherwise

Reply Quote

#2 written by Sam Kear 4 months ago

Thanks for catching that mistake! I went ahead and refreshed the current prices for each of the

items as well. You can click the link for each item in the item column of the price list to see where

I obtained the prices from.

Reply Quote

#3 written by TechGuy 3 months ago

You referenced WD 3TB Red drives but linked to the 2TB version and used the 2TB versions price…

Reply Quote

#4 written by Sam Kear 3 months ago

Thanks for catching that, I’ve updated the link and price.

Reply Quote

#5 written by Brad 2 months ago

Great article!

I’m new to FreeNAS and was wondering about your choice of memory.

Reading on freenas.org, there seems to be a large amount of finger-waving if one doesn’t use ECC

RAM in the build.

Do you have any comments or opinion on that?

Reply Quote

#6 written by Sam Kear 2 months ago

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Thanks Brad!

Yes, there are a lot of people who think it’s crazy not to use ECC memory in a NAS, especially with

ZFS. While it’s certainly not a bad idea to use ECC I’m not fully convinced it’s necessary for a

home NAS. I’ve been using FreeNAS for years accross multiple different pieces of hardware that

did not have ECC memory and I have not had any instances of data corruption or loss.

Also the folks at iXsystems who run the FreeNAS project sell their FreeNAS mini which doesn’t use

ECC memory either.

http://www.ixsystems.com/mini/

My thought is if you plan to use FreeNAS in an enterprise environment then use enterprise

hardware to back it up. If you plan to use it as a home file server then most commodity hardware

should be fine. If you have super critical data on the NAS you should still back it up anyway since

ECC memory and RAID are not a substitute for an actual backup.

Hope this helps!

Reply Quote

#7 written by Bruce Schwager 2 weeks ago

This is exactly what I’m looking to build, but the ASUS P8H77-I motherboard doesn’t seem to be

available much anymore, either at Newegg or Amazon.

What would you substitute for it? Would the ASUS H87I-PLUS be a good alternative? It already has an

Intel Network card integrated. Is the UEFI BIOS going to cause problems?

Thanks!

Reply Quote

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