Hi guys so… I am now on a Raspberry pi with a iscsi nas. I want to move to freenas as this can run docker images aswell. And I can create some sort of raid.
Anyone uses this combo? Or can I better go native ubuntu.
Also how many nodes do you guys think I can run with:
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/D1800M/
Got this one lying around and only uses 20 watts.
In combination with a pci-e Sata 10 port card.
Thanks in advance like to see the responses.
I don’t think the number of nodes will be a problem, I have heard of people running 4 nodes on a raspberry pi without any problem as long as the drives aren’t SMR.
You’ll only need one node if you use raid anyway but you can spin up one node per HDD on that setup no problem.
As for the operating system I couldn’t say, I run ubuntu headless and I got used to it. Maybe there’s an advantage running raid on ubuntu vs freenas but I’m not knowledgeable enough to give you an answer.
Anyway that should be a very nice setup !
looks like a fine mobo since you got it on hand, tho i wouldn’t want to buy new cpu or ram for it, but you can most likely find some very good deals second hand, if you aren’t to picky about it being top tier parts for it.
cpu usage doesn’t really look to be much in general… for me my big node uses a couple of gb of ram from time to time… but thats about it and it seems to only need it if its there for it to use…
the TOS of Storj Labs does state that there should be only 1 storagenode per core… but i think that’s a recommendation like most other things, and doubt it will be enforced and it’s a stupid requirement anyways since cpu cores are vastly different…
one thing you might want to keep in mind would be airflow over the hdd’s … if you do plan to put like 10 hdds in a case, then with this low of a wattage usage the hdd’s would be what pulls the most watts and thus produces the most heat… and you want to keep your disks at around 30 degrees C maybe 40 for optimal life, so one could easily imagine overheating the drives which can cause immediate failure…
so keep the air flow in mind, if you are planning a big build, and ofc have psu that is fit for the job…
another issue might be disk spin up… not sure you are at the level where it’s a consideration with 10 drives… but eventually with enough drives… because each of them have a electric motor, and these will pull up to or over 10x their rated power at start up, then the system will eventually have to spin up the disk out of sync, to ensure it doesn’t overload the power supply or other such things…
but like i said, its most likely much larger systems, but using consumer grade hardware one can run into such headaches that enterprise gear would have solved pr default…
also if you are aiming for lowest possible power profile, then keep in mind that psu’s will consume the least power running with in a certain 80% of their usage… and if you are over or under you will use more power…
don’t overspend and be sure you can do easy upgrades, often doesn’t cost much to plan for possible upgrades and include those little changes… such a using a proper case… which might also solve the airflow issue and give good room for disks in the future… and ofc if it’s a semi nice big case, you can always add / switch out all the hardware later… since it’s just spare parts you have on hand.
worst thing i hate about my server is its small noisy fans… bigger fans are more quite… 
also an advantage of a big case
i think you should use the OS you are the most familiar with, unless if you are doing it to learn new stuff.
you will find some kind of limit… my guess would be ram then hdd capacity in the case / sata ports and then cpu …
but it’s never the limitations one sees that gets you… its like the internal max speed of the pcie bus or the PSU or case airflow…
you can run enough nodes until some part of the hardware is a bottleneck…
if you plan on running zfs… i’m not sure it’s a great system for that, might not manage a full set of 100tb worth of hdd’s… but maybe…
fitting out such a system with 10x near max capacity hdd’s are also not a small investment
15$ pr tb and even that system will do 100tb would be my guess… and function okay for the most parts sharing it over storj
but thats easy 1500$ + just in hdd’s and if you psu decides to fry because it was to cheap, then you could fry all the hdd’s… and then the cascade starts of priorities… where does one dare to cheap out and where is it just a bad plan.
so i say, slap something together, and expect to want to replace most of it in the future anyways, and keep easy upgrade paths in mind… because you might like what you build…
Wow thanks for the info this really helps allot! I’d like to learn freenas as this can create simple vdevs/pools and mirrors.
Also I’d like to buy this case, it’s only 150 euro’s and give good cooling and disk space.
Got a 750 watts psu with this case and starting with 4x 4TB iron wolf disks in raid 10 to start that I will buy new. I am in for the long run so a little investment is alright by me. As this is also a learning thing for me. I am a network engineer that wants to learn more about storage as I noticed it is a whole other world with allot of new things to learn!