BUILD Advice on new build

[Jack Naisbett]

I've posted on reddit but wanted to ask here. I'm looking to build my first NAS with FreeNAS, and I've put together the below build. It should be ECC supporting if I've done it right! Will this work properly?

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/gtsb7P

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (£89.50 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: ASRock E3C226D2I Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (£164.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£89.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: 6 X Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (£113.94 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case (£61.58 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£48.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1138.69

 

[Jack Naisbett]

PSU replaced for 550W Seasonic G series following sticky's advice.

 

[Ericloewe]

Looks okay, but think the miniITX choice through very carefully. It will limit your future expansion by keeping RAM at 16GB.

 

[Jailer]

Looks like a good selection of parts as long as you'll never need more than 16GB of memory.

 

[religiouslyconfused]

I've posted on reddit but wanted to ask here. I'm looking to build my first NAS with FreeNAS, and I've put together the below build. It should be ECC supporting if I've done it right! Will this work properly?

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/gtsb7P

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (£89.50 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: ASRock E3C226D2I Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (£164.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£89.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: 6 X Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (£113.94 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case (£61.58 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£48.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1138.69

RAM does not appear to be ECC and you can get 16 GB (2x8 GB) ECC UDIMM's for roughly the same price as the regular memory. This build plus ECC memory should be fine.

 

[Jack Naisbett]

RAM does not appear to be ECC and you can get 16 GB (2x8 GB) ECC UDIMM's for roughly the same price as the regular memory. This build plus ECC memory should be fine.

Is it not ECC? It says it is on eBuyer and reviews on Amazon comment that it is ECC. Perhaps PCPartPicker got it wrong then!

 

[religiouslyconfused]

I checked the RAM and it appears to be ECC, so you are safe in that department. My bad! I think you have a very nice build there.

 

[Jack Naisbett]

Thanks. I'm umming and erring over whether bumping size to micro atx to leave room for ram expansion. Are there any boards to recommend? I was also looking at pentium g2358 vs the i3. Will performance suffer much when using just to stream videos, then nzb downloading?

 

[Ericloewe]

Are there any boards to recommend?

Too many to list. Assuming six drives, the X10SLM+-F is a popular choice. There's a guide to the various X10 boards, linked in the X10/X11 FAQ.

If you're feeling adventurous, you can also go with an X11 board, but they may have weird issues that still need to be ironed out and you cannot boot from USB. They do support up to 64GB of RAM, though.

 

[religiouslyconfused]

I recommend Supermicro as they seem to be good and I support what @Ericloewe says about Supermicro. If you want a cheaper board the X10SLL-F would also work as well. Core i3 is a good chip, but you could also get away with a g3220 or even a g3020.

 

[religiouslyconfused]

https://www.servercase.co.uk/shop/c.../server/supermicro-x10slm+-f-mbd-x10slm+-f-o/

Here is the board that @Ericloewe mentioned in his response.

 

[religiouslyconfused]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Supermicro-...=UTF8&qid=1452351284&sr=1-1&keywords=x10slh-f

This one is in stock at Amazon and is overkill for FreeNAS but should be fine for what you are doing! It is a step up to the X10SLM+-F but a board like that is more expensive on amazon uk, and works well. Has Dual Intel i210 lan chips, so it works well with freeNAS.

 

[Ericloewe]

The X10SLH-F is exactly like the X10SLM+-F, but uses a C226 PCH and, as such, all six SATA ports are 6Gb/s.
In fact, the BIOS even says it's a "X10SLM+F/X10SLH-F" (the correct model is visible in the setup menu, though).

 

[religiouslyconfused]

Ah, I see

 

[Dice]

If you're feeling adventurous, you can also go with an X11 board, but they may have weird issues that still need to be ironed out and you cannot boot from USB. They do support up to 64GB of RAM, though.

What sort of wierd issues?

 

[Ericloewe]

What sort of wierd issues?

Who knows. I don't really expect anything, but I don't want to suggest to people that they jump in head first with unproven hardware.

Anyone who buys X11 stuff should expect to have to debug some odd issues which might appear. That's the price of early adoption.

I'll be assembling a server using an X11 board in early February, so I hope to have preliminary results around the end of that month. I'll keep everyone updated when the time comes.

 

[religiouslyconfused]

I actually want to build an X11 build lol!

 

[Jack Naisbett]

I'm having trouble finding that board for less than £250, it was £200 before! Where's a decent seller for Supermicro in the UK?

 

[religiouslyconfused]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Supermicro-...qid=1453982786&sr=8-2&keywords=supermicro+x10
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C220/X10SL7-F.cfm
https://www.xcase.co.uk/supermicro-motherboards.html

Amazon is a good seller, and I found this might work for you. It has a LSI 2308 controller which can be flashed to IT mode for use in FreeNAS, and people say it is a good board. Probably overkill but a good option. Amazon.de is also good, but checkout Xcase as they have a whole lineup of Supermicro boards including the X11 boards which are Skylake platform which do work with freeNAS provided that you use a SSD or SATADOM to store the OS.

I know that ASRock Rack has a C236 Skylake board for ITX and mATX that are due to come out in the near future.