It's not bad. It'll use more power than a more modern system. You'll want to get an lsi 9211-8i for it.Is this a good deal? I am looking for something cheaper than my X10 for a secondary system.
Supermicro X8DTH-6 with 2x Xeon E5620 and 48GB of ECC R RAM for $325
That's cheap, and there is a reason :)Supermicro X8DTH-6 with 2x Xeon E5620 and 48GB of ECC R RAM for $325
That's cheap, and there is a reason :)
My biggest concern is the CPU's use a front side bus, and a relatively slow one at that, which is a big bottle neck for FreeNAS use. But as you plan on making this a secondary system, it might not be a concern for you.
As for the on-board controller, according to SM's site, it's a LSI 2008 chip, which is what is used on the LSI 9211-8i and IBM M1015, per the confused about that LSI card thread, so it should be fine as long as you flash it to IT mode.
X8DTH-6 / xeon E5620 doesn't have an FSB. Below is a diagram of Nehalem architecture
Thank you. FSB died with the 5400 series and FBDIMMs, and while the 5600 series isn't going to set any benchmark records versus a modern Sandy/Ivy or Haswell, it doesn't mean that they're useless paperweights.
Does the $325 price include a (quality) case and drive trays/expander/backplane?
I believe mine came with a BPN-SAS2-EL1 backplane. Power-hungry? Yes, but you could certainly do worse at the <$500 price point. :DNehalem is still a power Hoover, and I want to say that machines of that era are likely to be 3Gbps SAS, which is "watch yer back" territory.
It may be more noticeable of a difference over the course of a year, but not so much if you're only considering the monthly utilities.
stay the hell away from LGA771.
Yep. Just try to avoid the really power-hungry stuff - avoid the 135W X5680s, buy your RAM as 2x8GB vs 8x2GB, and stay the hell away from LGA771.
I stand corrected, thank you for that. Seems that many sites list it as having a FSB still. My apologies to the OP of that piece of misinformation, my google-fu was flawed.X8DTH-6 / xeon E5620 doesn't have an FSB. Below is a diagram of Nehalem architecture
I stand corrected, thank you for that. Seems that many sites list it as having a FSB still. My apologies to the OP of that piece of misinformation, my google-fu was flawed.