Is this a good deal?

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jgreco

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The X9SCM has a better configuration for expansion (4 slots) but has less memory. Six of one, half a dozen...
 

Fuganater

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They both max out at 32GB. Not sure if this is a show stopper but it is a concern. The X10SLM comes with 32GB and the X9SCM comes with 24GB.

Either way I am a smidge hesitant to put a Micro ATX board into a rack mount chassis. Just feels like a waste or am I being picky?
 

jgreco

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The chassis should be dictated by the drives, not by the mainboard. If it makes you feel any better, the way you add 24 drives worth of expansion is to take a 4U 24 drive SC846 chassis, put *NO* motherboard in it, and run the SAS lines out the back. Nobody considers that a waste.
 

Fuganater

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Well I wanted to have 2x independent chassis so the secondary could backup important files on the primary. If I put my mobo in my 826, then do as you said and add a SAS line to my 846, could I accomplish what I want to do? It seems like I would just be making 1 large system instead of 2.
 

rogerh

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Well I wanted to have 2x independent chassis so the secondary could backup important files on the primary. If I put my mobo in my 826, then do as you said and add a SAS line to my 846, could I accomplish what I want to do? It seems like I would just be making 1 large system instead of 2.
Agreed, you'd just be making one bigger server, not two independent servers - that wouldn't meet your objectives. But on the point of the MB size, if the micro ATX one does all you want (RAM as much as the CPU will allow, and enough PCIe slots) there is no point in worrying about the size.
 

Fuganater

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Another thread mentioned the Supermicro X9DRI-LN4F+ which I can get for an awesome price on Ebay. I may go this route and then I have the ability to create some VMs to play with.
 

jgreco

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Yes, that'd be making one large system. That's how people build a setup with hundreds of drives.
 

Fuganater

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Do note that you need to pay attention to the memory; those boards take registered memory (and an E5-26xx CPU).

Memory Capacity
  • 24x 240-pin DDR3 DIMM slots
  • Up to 1.5TB DDR3 ECC LRDIMM
  • Up to 768GB DDR3 ECC RDIMM
  • Up to 128GB DDR3 ECC/non-ECC UDIMM
UDIMM is unregistered right? Either way thanks for the heads up. Prices are on par for what I was looking to pay. ~$110 per 16GB
 

Ericloewe

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jgreco

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Memory Capacity
  • 24x 240-pin DDR3 DIMM slots
  • Up to 1.5TB DDR3 ECC LRDIMM
  • Up to 768GB DDR3 ECC RDIMM
  • Up to 128GB DDR3 ECC/non-ECC UDIMM
UDIMM is unregistered right? Either way thanks for the heads up. Prices are on par for what I was looking to pay. ~$110 per 16GB

Correct. Also note that E5-16xx CPU's may not take LRDIMM (which is probably more expensive anyways). If you go with the 16xx's, you're locked into a single CPU config. You can also do a single CPU config with the 26xx's. It is absolutely fine to fill just one CPU socket right now and outfit it as a single CPU box. Some of the PCIe slots won't work if you do that, but it's a completely viable alternative. This gives you some serious options moving forward as to expandability of your hypervisor platform, without costing an arm and a leg today.
 

Fuganater

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E5-2670 are actually pretty cheap. (less than $175 each). Seems like a good price for what you get. So here is my thinking...

Dual CPU Setup
$230.00 X9DRI-LN4F+
$440.00 64GB RAM
$330.00 2x E5-2670 CPU
$80.00 2x CPU Coolers
$1,080.00 Total

Single CPU Setup
$280.00 X10SRL-F-B
$266.00 32GB RAM
$311.00 E5-1620 V3 CPU
$40.00 CPU Cooler
$897.00 Total

The dual CPU is actually more cost effective because adding 64GB to the X10SRL adds another $266 which makes the total $1163. The X9DRI-LN4F+ "seems" like a better bang for the buck. Right?
 

jgreco

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For a hypervisor? Probably, yeah. For a NAS, I'd do the 1620 (actually we really like the 1650 here, best bang for the buck of all the E5's).
 

Fuganater

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Man now you have me thinking again... Running VMs would be nice but there are cheaper alternatives and I could just put that in a 1U and run ESXi on it. I already have 1x X10SRL-F-B system so I could just buy that again.
 

jgreco

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The wonderful things about hypervisors is that there are so many frickin' ways you *could* do it.

For whatever it is worth, the current hypervisor recipe around here is:

A WIO based system (because the mainboard is shared between some 1U and 2U configurations)
Supermicro SC213A-R740W
Supermicro X10SRW

Intel E5-1650V3
64GB or 128GB DDR4 2133MHz

Supermicro AOC-S3108L-H8IR 2GB LSI RAID Controller
plus the optional Supercap/TFM BTR-TFM8G-LSICVM02

That gives a very nice, high performance local I/O system. It's 8 ports of 12Gbps while the host chassis is 16 ports of 6Gbps but that isn't an issue for us. A M1015 optionally services the second 8 ports.

Two Intel X520-SR2 dual 10G SFP+ network (four interfaces total)

This is a great hypervisor platform which is fairly flexible. We've found that the balance of 6 cores to around 64-96GB of memory seems to suit the purpose around here; that probably explains why the quad core E3's with their 32GB were never an ideal fit.
 

Fuganater

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That is a really nice setup. My eyes are probably bigger than they should be. This board selection is for a first and foremost secondary NAS.

Thanks for all you input jgreco.
 

jgreco

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The X10SR* (we're using the X10SRW but you may not want the WIO restriction) is a great NAS board. A different version of the system outlined above, using a SC216 chassis with 24 bays, is what we're using for our FreeNAS based VM filer. Very pleasant machine to work with.
 
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