4U Supermicro Build

[svtkobra7]

I'd like the community's thoughts on purchasing a used Supermicro server and where it may fall short. I'm aware that 2 E5-2670s are overkill, but as I wanted to use the same server for VMs, I figured this would work OK. Specs are listed below and it is listed for $1,426. I can't even determine if that is a good or bad deal as I can't find comparable servers (I'm still learning). I will be using 16 existing HGST DeskStar NAS 6TB HDDs. Better options are more than welcomed!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERMICRO-...LSI-9210-8I-/381953625205?hash=item58ee35cc75

SUPERMICRO 4U 846BA-R920B
DUAL INTEL XEON PROCESSOR E5-2670 EIGHT CORE 20M CACHE 2.60GHZ
128GB MEMORY (16x 8GB) DDR-3 ECC REG
3x LSI 9210-8I

 

[Ericloewe]

Seems like a decent deal. Nothing special, but reasonable.

 

[svtkobra7]

Seems like a decent deal. Nothing special, but reasonable.

Do the specs seem reasonable? 2 E5-2670s / 128 GB Memory? Or am I headed down the wrong path? My last NAS (COTS) was a QNAP TVS-871 (i7 / 16GB) and I'm hoping this build will blow it out of the water performance wise (of course, that is an apples:oranges comparison, though). I should be able to just add boot drive / SSD and be good to go right?

 

[Ericloewe]

Well, what's the workload?

 

[svtkobra7]

I can't give you a great answer there as I've never used FreeNAS before and I'm unaware of all functionality offered at the moment (I expect a somewhat steep learning curve, and don't mind putting in the time to learn).

My driver for switching to FreeNAS is to move to a NAS with at least 16 bays, something that is rack mountable, and has plenty of headroom for years to come. Obviously I see merit in ZFS etc (it is more than wanting to get away from COTS NAS appliances). This is for a home lab (I guess they are called), so only a single user (me), and workload would primarily consist of SMB/CIFS & Plex (of course), 4 VMs, real-time backup offsite (RTRR or rclone in prior world). Ultimately, I'd like to upgrade to 10 GigE and would like to see nice speeds there (I would hope that server can saturate 1 Gig link as is.

I know that response is less than stellar.

 

[Ericloewe]

No, it's a good enough description of the workload.

That server is on the high end for what you described, but building a less capable one might not be much cheaper.

With some scouring, you might be able to piece together something better at the same price, but the time investment is much greater.

 

[melloa]

@svtkobra7, no questions on that's a killer server. Just think on what you want to have on your "lab". Sometimes is better to divide and conquer. There are several options: Put it all in one server, where either you will run FreeNAS on a esxi or run VMs inside FreeNAS (Your option with one server); split in a decent FreeNAS server and another virtualizer server (esxi, virtualbox, Xen, KVM, etc).
Also consider where you are going to have your server running, as sometimes they are loud. Mine are 2 ft from my desk and I can't barely hear them, but it took some work to change fans, PSUs, etc.
I do trust Eric's opinion a lot, so if he's saying the server is good, believe it. Just adding food for though ;)

 

[chrisada]

Sometimes is better to divide and conquer. There are several options: Put it all in one server, where either you will run FreeNAS on a esxi or run VMs inside FreeNAS (Your option with one server); split in a decent FreeNAS server and another virtualizer server (esxi, virtualbox, Xen, KVM, etc).

Interesting that you brought that up. I'm contemplating upgrading my current FreeNAS 9.10 box because I want to do more VM stuffs and the current E3-1231 v3 and 16GB RAM (max they the motherboard allowed) is not going to be enough.

I could keep the current box as pure storage and build another box to host VMs, out build a new big server that do both. (probably FreeNAS 10 + bhyve/Docker)

What factors would sway you one way or another?

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

[melloa]

I could keep the current box as pure storage and build another box to host VMs, out build a new big server that do both

My current setup are two FreeNAS 9.10 as file servers using RAIDZ2. The main one is 24x7, the backup one comes live when I make changes or once a week. My esxi server is another box hosting all my servers. I do believe on using the best for each scenario: NAS - FreeNAS for sure, router - pf, etc.

I do have another server running FreeNAS 10 for testing, learning, to get comfortable to a point I will move my FN 9.10 servers to it, bhyve/dockers. Talking about dockers, i also have another server just for that.

What factors would sway you one way or another?

Existing platform would be one. Expansions plans another. Comfort level on integrating things, like the video ix shared on the monthly News letter building a VMWare server to run FreeNAS as a VM, etc, but as you can see from the statements above, my way of doing things is to run in different servers to won't depend on any distro/release from any particular one, making easy to migrate from one to another.

 

[NAS777]

I seem to have a very similar setup as the op. How would you advise dividing the vdevs up? I am looking for read speeds mostly but will be limited by what the aggregated 4 1gb Ethernet can do. Secondly I am looking for Mac space and third redundancy

 

[melloa]

How would you advise dividing the vdevs up?

I think you will find this a good reading: https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/