Advice needed for ITX Build

[bsk997]

Hi Guys,
New to FreeNAS and have read back about 20 pages of builds and trying to gather as much info as I can.
Looking for a NAS for my home server to be mainly used to store Movies and Photos, backups with maybe 1 VM and if we can run a Security Camera plug in or Blue Iris on the same box then that'd be great.
Main purpose would be for Movies, Photos and Backups.
Playback devices would be a Nvidia Shield, Firesticks, PC for the most part with Kodi as the front end.
Was thinking about installing Plex but that's not a priority.

I have an extra LianLi PC-Q25 ITX case that I was going to use for the NAS. It's nice and compact with hot swappable drives.
That limits my motherboard choices though.
The two I'm looking at are the following:
ASRock C2750D4i 2.4Ghz (Passmark of 3850)

ASRock E3C236D2I with I3-6100 (Passmark of 5450)
ASRock E3C236D2I with E3-1230v5 (Passmark of 9655)

I'd have 32GB of ECC Ram
4 - 8TB WD Reds

Which mobo/cpu combination should I choose based off my needs?
Thanks!

 

[m0nkey_]

Any of the three you've specified will work very well with FreeNAS.

 

[Arwen]

Plex does add a few wrinkles. If you need to transcode the videos, Plex wants a Passmark of 2000 per HD transcode running.
Thus, the C2750D4I would handle 2 transcodes at most, (and potentially only 1 stream reliably).

Just something to keep in mind.

 

[diskdiddler]

There's some new Xeon D's coming quite soon which might do what you want on lower power.

 

[Stux]

Was about to say, it's worth at least looking st the Supermicro XeonDs.

Lots of power, itty bitty living space.

Show

 

[ljdelight]

This is my mini-ITX build running FreeNAS. The X10SDV-4C+-TLN4F-O covers low-PDU @35W and moderate compute power. I have plex on another machine, but I'll soon try a bhyve linux VM with plex (I have learned to avoid using jails -- linux docker is by far the easier approach).

Code:

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Dd9jM8
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Dd9jM8/by_merchant/

Memory: Crucial - 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  (Purchased For $169.40) 
Memory: Crucial - 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  (Purchased For $169.40) 
Case Fan: Noctua - NF-S12A PWM 120mm Fan  (Purchased For $19.95) 
Case Fan: Noctua - NF-A14 PWM 82.5 CFM  140mm Fan  (Purchased For $23.16) 
Other: StarTech USB A to USB Motherboard 4-Pin Header F/F 2.0 Cable, 6" (USBMBADAPT)  (Purchased For $4.51) 
Other: StarTech USB A to USB Motherboard 4-Pin Header F/F 2.0 Cable, 6" (USBMBADAPT)  (Purchased For $4.51) 
Other: Intel Xeon D-1518 4-Core, 8 Threads, 2.20GHz, 35W (embedded) ($0.00)
Other: Supermicro X10SDV-4C+-TLN4F-O Mini-ITX Intel Xeon D-1518 DDR4 Motherboard and CPU (Purchased For $529.99)
Other: SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive (SDCZ43-032G-G46) (Purchased For $14.39)
Other: SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive (SDCZ43-032G-G46) (Purchased For $14.39)
Total: $949.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-31 23:38 EDT-0400

 

[diskdiddler]

Denverton C3xxx still not out and yet gemini lake is coming in only 15 weeks, what on earth.....? (Isn't gemini, replacing apollo, which c3xxx is based on? what?.....)
Google it, silly stuff?

Was really hoping it might make for an amazing, cheap FreeNAS machine, 4 or 8 core 25w processors under $60 US (at a wild, wild guess)

 

[Ericloewe]

Yeah, C3000 is so delayed that I'm starting to believe that C2000 might just end up being the Atom platform until its end of life, in some 3-4 years.

 

[diskdiddler]

C3000 is annoying me it's so slow and now there's already Gemini Lake talk regular in news sites (I have google alert configured)

Screw c2000 - it sounds like a risk to me, I'd rather wait and be sure, personally.

 

[MrToddsFriends]

C3000 is annoying me it's so slow and now there's already Gemini Lake talk regular in news sites (I have google alert configured).

The Supermicro OS Compatibility Chart lists several Denverton boards (note the mention of "FressBSD 11 64bit" for one of these boards, which most likely is a typo):
https://www.supermicro.com/support/resources/OS/Denverton.cfm

In addition there is a Czech retailer who gives the designation "not before 21st Aug 2017" to at least some of these boards:
https://www.abacus.cz/a2sdi-4c-hln4...-ipmi-not-before-21st-aug-2017-_d5084085.html
https://www.abacus.cz/a2sdi-8c-hln4...-ipmi-not-before-21st-aug-2017-_d5084086.html
https://www.abacus.cz/a2sdi-12c-hln...-ipmi-not-before-21st-aug-2017-_d5084087.html

Perhaps we will know more in a few days.

 

[Max Ng]

I'm putting together a similar build so this thread may be useful to you: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/mini-itx-build-question.56986/

The spec is lower than yours but I believe both the CPU and RAM can be scaled up if you need more power.

The machine is not up yet though – I just bought the parts and now I'm waiting anxiously for them to arrive...

 

[Arwen]

The Intel Denvertons, (aka C3000s), seem crippled, (in my opinion). The number of PCIe lanes is directly related and inversely related to the amount of SATA ports. So if you want the maximim SATA ports, it appears you loose all your PCIe ports.

What I would have expected, is at least 8 PCIe lanes and 6 SATA ports, AT THE SAME TIME.

Please, someone tell me something different.

 

[Ericloewe]

IIRC, the larger models, yet to be released, have something like 30 channels total, like the C2xx PCHs, making them much more viable.

 

[Stux]

Well, this looks ideal.

https://www.servethehome.com/gigabyte-ma10-st0-intel-atom-c3958-released/

16 drives. 8x PCIe, dual gbe, dual 10gbe (sfp+), IPMI, 4 DDR4 ECC rdimm/undimm slots (128GB?), 16 cores, and even has 32GB of embedded flash for the boot drive! And mini ITX.

16 atom cores seems to be more powerful than 16 Xeon d threads....

 

[Arwen]

Yes, looking at Intel Ark for the C3958, (16c/16t), and the C3858, (12c/12t), they are MUCH better for both SATA IO and PCIe lanes.
Okay, I feel better now . They even have 4 x 10/2.5/1Gbps Ethernet, (though I wonder why they dropped the 5Gbps Ethernet speed).

 

[Ericloewe]

Not today! I needed to be productive, Intel!

 

[Ericloewe]

Okay, I feel better now :)

Just don't look at pricing...

 

[Ericloewe]

Well, this looks ideal.

https://www.servethehome.com/gigabyte-ma10-st0-intel-atom-c3958-released/

Nah, that thing is going to make a Xeon E5 system look cheap. The CPU we're interested in is the C3758. 8 cores, all 20 lanes, "medium" Quickassist... It's only lacking turbo, but to get turbo with the full 20 ports would require a much more expensive part.

 

[Stux]

Was thinking the c3758 looked like the sweet spot. Right in the middle between the C2750 and the E3-1230v6 in perf.

Ironically, thus has me more excited than the Xeon scalable series.

 

[Stux]

Yes, looking at Intel Ark for the C3958, (16c/16t), and the C3858, (12c/12t), they are MUCH better for both SATA IO and PCIe lanes.
Okay, I feel better now :). They even have 4 x 10/2.5/1Gbps Ethernet, (though I wonder why they dropped the 5Gbps Ethernet speed).

They talk about maximum capacity of 20gbps (in tight circumstances) which I read as it can *just* do 20gbps, downhill hill, with the wind behind it.

Well, I think anyone pushing >1GB/s with one of these should be happy.