FadeToBlack
Cadet
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2014
- Messages
- 5
I've been using FreeNAS ever since v7 if I remember correctly, but I've mainly used it as a file/storage server. Over the years I've upgraded 3 times, starting with a amd E-350 to an Asrock Rack C2550D4I until my current Xeon E3-1220v5/Supermicro X11SSH-LN4F. My current system has 64Gb of ram, LSI 9305-16i HBA and a Chelsio T520-SO-CR, it has 2 vdevs of 10 disks in raidz2 (seperate pools).
As I've started playing with VM's lately I feel like I'm running into limitations with my cpu mostly, 4 cores without hyperthreading doesn't get you far I guess. So I started looking at new hardware. The idea was to use Proxmox as a hypervisor as I wanted to try that, but I've seen a bit to many threads advising against running TrueNAS virtualized that I'll skip that. I do want to run Pi-Hole/unbound, LanCache, mail server, some cloudstorage for friends/family, maybe PfSense and potentially some low trafic websites. I'm all new to this so I'll probably learn about other cool stuff to do with a home server as I go. I won't run a Plex server for example that needs to do 4k transcoding, it's mainly going to be some things that don't need a lot of resources (or at least I think they don't need much).
That said I've been looking at the new Intel Xeon Scalable (3rd gen) and I'm guessing the Intel® Xeon® Silver 4310 will probably suffise? For motherboard it's a bit trickier as there don't seem to be many socket 4189 boards available yet, but on Supermicro's website I found the X12SPO-NTF. At first it seemed to be lacking pci-e slots, but at that point I also din't know what those SlimSAS connectors were that it has 5 of. After reading an article on servethehome.com I came to realise that those could support 8 SATA/SAS drives each and I would just need a cable (SATA) to connect them. For memory I would probably start with 4 32Gb sticks, that would give me 128Gb and I could add more later on if I needed.
One thing to note maybe is that I'm using a Lian Li PC-D8000A for case and not a rackmount. It's the case I've been using for a while now and I like it, it's a lot more quiet then those rack mounted servers. It can fit a lot of spinning rust and those are mostly what I'll be using, ssd's only for boot and maybe one or two to host the VMs.
Now my questions/concerns:
- does TrueNAS support those SlimSAS connections (which would mean I can use my LSI HBA in another system or maybe even sell it)?
- are the intel x550 nics that are onboard good enough or do I need to keep my Chelsio?
- is that Xeon silver good enough or should I aim higher?
- any other concerns about my hardware selection?
Any suggestions for must-have VMs to run are also welcome.
I know it might be early to get some questions answered as these are just out, but I figured I'd try.
As I've started playing with VM's lately I feel like I'm running into limitations with my cpu mostly, 4 cores without hyperthreading doesn't get you far I guess. So I started looking at new hardware. The idea was to use Proxmox as a hypervisor as I wanted to try that, but I've seen a bit to many threads advising against running TrueNAS virtualized that I'll skip that. I do want to run Pi-Hole/unbound, LanCache, mail server, some cloudstorage for friends/family, maybe PfSense and potentially some low trafic websites. I'm all new to this so I'll probably learn about other cool stuff to do with a home server as I go. I won't run a Plex server for example that needs to do 4k transcoding, it's mainly going to be some things that don't need a lot of resources (or at least I think they don't need much).
That said I've been looking at the new Intel Xeon Scalable (3rd gen) and I'm guessing the Intel® Xeon® Silver 4310 will probably suffise? For motherboard it's a bit trickier as there don't seem to be many socket 4189 boards available yet, but on Supermicro's website I found the X12SPO-NTF. At first it seemed to be lacking pci-e slots, but at that point I also din't know what those SlimSAS connectors were that it has 5 of. After reading an article on servethehome.com I came to realise that those could support 8 SATA/SAS drives each and I would just need a cable (SATA) to connect them. For memory I would probably start with 4 32Gb sticks, that would give me 128Gb and I could add more later on if I needed.
One thing to note maybe is that I'm using a Lian Li PC-D8000A for case and not a rackmount. It's the case I've been using for a while now and I like it, it's a lot more quiet then those rack mounted servers. It can fit a lot of spinning rust and those are mostly what I'll be using, ssd's only for boot and maybe one or two to host the VMs.
Now my questions/concerns:
- does TrueNAS support those SlimSAS connections (which would mean I can use my LSI HBA in another system or maybe even sell it)?
- are the intel x550 nics that are onboard good enough or do I need to keep my Chelsio?
- is that Xeon silver good enough or should I aim higher?
- any other concerns about my hardware selection?
Any suggestions for must-have VMs to run are also welcome.
I know it might be early to get some questions answered as these are just out, but I figured I'd try.