AMD FX Processors

[Scott McCarthy]

I know that FreeNAS loves Intel and doesn't speak to highly of AMD but I want to know if anyone else out there is running FreeNAS on AMD FX series processors. We run the 6000 and 8000 series with several FreeNAS enterprise level storage units and we haven't had any issues whatsoever. The one thing I have found is that we will typically add a good quality NIC onto the Motherboard and generally not use the build in NIC ports as it seems to be much more stable this way.

Anyway, I want to know if anyone else out there runs AMD FX Processors and what your experience has been. I do agree that Intel is an excellent choice but we have been using the AMD FX Series on all our servers due to cost and performance and we haven't had any issues whatsoever. I don't know if we are lucky or what the story is.

Thanks in advance if you respond.

 

[gpsguy]

Yes, there are users who run FreeNAS on the AMD FX series CPU's. And, are happy with their solution.

One of our moderators, @joeschmuck runs FreeNAS on one. He has an AMD desktop board and added an Intel NIC to replace the onboard Realtek NIC.

 

[joeschmuck]

There is nothing wrong with most of the FX CPUs. I've been running for a very long time and many people have based their systems off of mine (see my system specs). I have heard of some people having issues with some of the APUs and some folks had no problems with APUs but I'd recommend staying away from those unless you can use one as a test bed and to put it through it's paces.

Id' say the most difficult part is the ECC RAM support. Yes the FX CPU may support it but finding a motherboard that actually indicates when a failure occurs might be a tuff thing to find. I only hope that if I have a RAM failure, there is some obvious way to identify it.

The only other issue to be aware of, which has nothing to do with the FX CPU line is the NIC, and although I fought it, I eventually caved in (since I developed a problem eventually) that RealTek NICs are not good enough in a FreeNAS environment. It's not having great device drivers for RealTek, so ensure you are running something other than Realtek.

EDIT: And I see gpsguy just mentioned me. Thanks for the shout-out!

 

[Cpuroast]

I can't imagine why an AMD FX wouldn't work, as long as you are using a good board with ECC support, ECC memory, an Intel or Broadcom NIC and an LSI SAS HBA. With said components, the system should be quite solid under FreeNAS.

The issues usually associated with AMD systems and FreeNAS are related to the use of onboard Realtek NICs and onboard AMD or Marvell SATA controllers.

 

[malcolmputer]

I have three freenas systems using AM3 processors. Two are FX4130's (Microcenter had a sale for $30 each), and one is a 945. I am using ECC supporting motherboards, and ECC ram, and according to the processor docs (and the AMD engineers I talked to at CES) the AM3 CPUs all support ECC.

One of the three system's Realtek NIC has been replaced with a intel one, and all told between the three systems I have about 6 years of uptime. The only hardware failure (besides drives of course) has been the watercooling set up I was testing on one of them (stick with standard coolers, water cooler look neat, but you don't save on sound with the drive fans spinning).

The main problem with them has already been mentioned, you can't verify the ECC works, and I have yet to find a motherboard that supports monitoring/logging ECC events. The best I have gotten so far was demidecode saying that ECC was "enabled".

 

[Scott McCarthy]

Thank you all for the great information! I was just curious because I saw the FreeNAS documentation basically saying that Intel was strongly recommended and we run all FX processors and have never had any issues - they have actually been more reliable than the Intel processors believe it or not. You guys mention ECC memory. What is the downside of not running ECC memory? If a chip goes bad or something happens with a memory chip, can't you just replace it? Will the non ECC do so much damage that it destroys the setup? I am just trying to figure out the worst case scenario here when running non ECC memory. All our systems run non ECC memory and I haven't had any issues to date besides a server starting to act weird and we simply just replace the memory and everything is fine. It's pretty easy, in my opinion, to figure out it's memory issues and it only takes a few minutes to replace the chips as a precaution so if you guys can let me know if there is some big downside with non ECC with FreeNAS that would be great!

Thanks to everyone for the great feedback.

 

[malcolmputer]

so if you guys can let me know if there is some big downside with non ECC with FreeNAS that would be great!

You have a lot of reading and then crying to do if you think non-ECC is even remotely safe. Also, that is the main gripe people have with the AMD hardware and not being able to monitor your ECC. Is it working? Who knows until something really bad happens.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/ecc-vs-non-ecc-ram-and-zfs.15449/

 

[Scott McCarthy]

Yes, there are users who run FreeNAS on the AMD FX series CPU's. And, are happy with their solution.

By the statement above, that means there are many people running non-ECC memory. AMD processors don't support ECC so by nature, many people on here run FreeNAS without ECC. I do agree that ECC is safer and probably a great option but there are obstacles and costs to running it and I think it's a matter of weighing out the risk and making your own decision. I appreciate the feedback and points of view on here as I have learned quite a bit in a short time. I am going to give the ECC points some thought.

There are also counter points to this argument as well which make some good points:
http://blog.brianmoses.net/2014/03/why-i-chose-non-ecc-ram-for-my-freenas.html

 

[malcolmputer]

AMD processors don't support ECC so by nature, many people on here run FreeNAS without ECC.

AMD processors do support ECC. I am currently one of those people running ECC with my AMD processors. The problem is, there is no way to *verify* that I am running ECC besides trusting the MB, CPU, and RAM vendors when they say it is "enabled".

As far as whether you need ECC or not, that article mentions for home backups the guy is comfortable with not having ECC, and talks about the probability of a failure being 1/12. The moment you have more than one machine that you use for just home backups, you need to start worrying what happens with the 1/12 of the RAM sticks that fail. In my case, I was happy with AMDs ECC support because I have 4 sticks of RAM total across three systems, and if I lose all of my data, eh, no big deal. In your case, I don't think that is true.

"several FreeNAS enterprise level storage units" is not exactly what that blog post's counter points is catering to.

The reason everyone goes intel is their ECC works, you can verify it, and the total cost increase to the system is "nothing" when you consider the cost of the drives. If you can afford 24X2TB then you can afford an extra $150 for the correct RAM/CPU/MB.

 

[Scott McCarthy]

Then do you know of a motherboard that supports ECC memory and AMD FX processors? The problem I have is that I cannot find a motherboard that supports both FX processors and ECC memory.

 

[malcolmputer]

Then do you know of a motherboard that supports ECC memory and AMD FX processors? The problem I have is that I cannot find a motherboard that supports both FX processors and ECC memory.

Sure, the two I use are the one listed here:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/6-drives-with-ecc-on-a-spousal-budget.16368/

and a Sabertooth 990FX

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_990FX/

Asus seems to be the best MB manufacturer to look at for ECC support. I believe joeschmuck's sig also has another.

 

[Scott McCarthy]

Sure, the two I use are the one listed here:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/6-drives-with-ecc-on-a-spousal-budget.16368/

and a Sabertooth 990FX

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_990FX/

Asus seems to be the best MB manufacturer to look at for ECC support. I believe joeschmuck's sig also has another.

This is great information. Thank you! One question. How do you tell the memory in the 1st recommendation is ECC? I don't see anything to indicate it's ECC:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NU48JG/?tag=ozlp-20

I am going to purchase ECC and would like to make sure I know how to identify it's truly ECC. Thanks in advance.

 

[malcolmputer]

How do you tell the memory in the 1st recommendation is ECC? I don't see anything to indicate it's ECC:

The best way I have found is to go to the manufacturer's website and look up the exact part number. Be very careful with amazon, they seem to be horrible at labeling. From what I can tell from the pictures in that listing you sent me, the 8GBx2 "looks" like ECC, but the 8GB is definitely NOT ECC. (You can tell by the way the PCB is laid out on the stick, and the number of memory ICs soldered to the PCB, 9 is ECC, 5 is ECC, 4 and 8 are NOT).

If this was for an intel system, the best method would be to look at the qualified memory vendor/part list, and see which exact memory parts your motherboard supports. In this case, I can confirm that those exact ones are well respected micron memory chips that Corsair sells.

If you have to google for the memory, you want Unbuffered ECC DDR3. You don't want Registered, and you don't want Non-ECC of course.

 

[Scott McCarthy]

The best way I have found is to go to the manufacturer's website and look up the exact part number. Be very careful with amazon, they seem to be horrible at labeling. From what I can tell from the pictures in that listing you sent me, the 8GBx2 "looks" like ECC, but the 8GB is definitely NOT ECC. (You can tell by the way the PCB is laid out on the stick, and the number of memory ICs soldered to the PCB, 9 is ECC, 5 is ECC, 4 and 8 are NOT).

If this was for an intel system, the best method would be to look at the qualified memory vendor/part list, and see which exact memory parts your motherboard supports. In this case, I can confirm that those exact ones are well respected micron memory chips that Corsair sells.

If you have to google for the memory, you want Unbuffered ECC DDR3. You don't want Registered, and you don't want Non-ECC of course.

Thanks! I was able to find the following ECC memory on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008EMA5VU/?tag=ozlp-20

I have this board and believe it supports ECC and am going to give it a try:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005UDITPK/?tag=ozlp-20

Thanks for all the information. I am definitely going to go with ECC given the discussion here.

 

[malcolmputer]

I have this board and believe it supports ECC and am going to give it a try:
http://www.amazon.com/P8Z68-V-PRO-GEN3-Intel-Motherboard/dp/B005UDITPK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432667622&sr=8-1&keywords=P8Z68-V+PRO/GEN3

Sure you pasted the right link? That is an intel CPU board, and I don't know if the 1155 chipset supports ECC (not an intel guy, feel free to jump in someone more experienced there).

 

[Ericloewe]

Z68 boards DO NOT SUPPORT ECC.

If you want to buy a motherboard, please read the hardware sticky for recommendations. If you're confused by all the Supermicro X10 motherboards, read the X10 FAQ.

The P8z68V-Pro is a nice board, but not for a server. (I feel a bit silly saying this, since my old WHS 2011 frankenserver uses that board, but the point is valid. :D)

 

[marbus90]

We've got an Asus M5A97 around, that is supposed to be ECC capable and holds a watercooled FX-8350.

For pfSense. *chuckles*.

 

[joeschmuck]

Then do you know of a motherboard that supports ECC memory and AMD FX processors? The problem I have is that I cannot find a motherboard that supports both FX processors and ECC memory.

I kind of feel like you didn't even read my posting nor my system configuration.

I think you are jumping around a bit. One thing for certain, if you are building a production system, you must have functional ECC RAM in a ZFS file system for data reliability. You can use certain AMD FX CPUs without issue but the MB must be able to support ECC RAM. You will need to see what CPUs, MB's and RAM you have available to use and you may need to purchase new parts just to make a complete compliant system. And you could go for an Intel system as well, those are really nice if you get some of the motherboards with the cool features.

Whatever you do, write down your system requirements, what you expect your system to be able to do, then spec the parts.

 

[Scott McCarthy]

Let me clarify - I have a few Intel boards with processors around and the P8z68V-Pro is one of the Intel's I have. I would like to know - although this board is not server class - if it will still support the ECC. The biggest thing I want to get right is the ECC. This particular application doesn't need nor warrant a server class motherboard in my opinion. I would just like to know if the P8z68V-Pro will support the ECC. If not, then I will go with the ASUS M5A78L-M LX PLUS.

So my question is does ECC work with the P8Z68V-Pro or do I have to go with the ASUS M5A78? I have both Intel and AMD procs I can use.

Thanks.

 

[gpsguy]

ericloewe already told you that a Z68 based mobo doesn't support ECC RAM.

Note, the Asus M5A78L-M LX PLUS only supports up to 16GB RAM, whereas the Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 can hold 32GB.