BUILD 2nd FreeNAS box. Looking for Supermicro ITX mbo

[Slacker ITADM]

I need a second box(various reasons) and would like to try an ITX build. I am aware of the ASRock 2550 and its more expensive brother but would like to keep it in the $300 range. It will be used as a backup to my main box but would probably run a couple of jails (syncthing, owncloud) and 1 plex stream. I run 4 HDD's and 1 SSD for boot and jails.
Not sure if the C2550 has enough horsepower and the C2750 is too pricy so I was thinking of a Supermicro ITX mbo. They aren't mentioned much on the board so I was wondering if they just don't preform well or maybe have some issues.
Or maybe the C2550 has the power to do what I need.
Looking for opinions.
Thanks in advance.

 

[nojohnny101]

I have a box built around the ASRock C2550 and it used to be my primary, now it is my backup box that I replicate to over SSH. I had plex and plexpy (each in its own jail) along with 4 x 2tb in raidz2. I had about 6 datasets with 6 users (3 remote) and 3 local. It could easily handle 2-3 concurrent streams.

 

[Slacker ITADM]

Excellence news.
Thank you

 

[Ericloewe]

The only problem is that the Marvell SATA ports on those are dodgy.

 

[nojohnny101]

True. Even in the manual that comes with the mobo, they recommend using the Intel Sata ports before using the marvel ones. I had an initial problem with my marvel ports but a simple pull of the CMOS battery brought everything back to normal and I haven't had problems since.

 

[Ericloewe]

Even in the manual that comes with the mobo, they recommend using the Intel Sata ports before using the marvel ones.

Wow. That I did not know.

 

[Slacker ITADM]

I believe that of the 12 SATA ports 6 are Intel and 6 are Marvell.
Isn't ITX Systems using the C2750 in their new Mini XL?
It has 8 drive bays so they must be using some of the 2750's Marvell ports.

 

[nojohnny101]

yea I believe they are using the C2750. The C2750 and C2550 are much more capable than people are led to believe. Certainly won't be running any VMs on it but it handles most things well.

I had 10 drives connected to the ASRock with the C2550 for a while when I was replicating my TBs of data to a different FreeNAS box that is now my primary and the C2550 is now running my backup box.

@Ericloewe yea I'm not really sure why they recommend that, if I remember correctly they never explicitly stated why in the manual. Obviously though they know about the Marvells flakiness enough to put it in the manual.