Advice on used Supermicro build

[Nidhogg]

Hi!

I want to build a new NAS to replace my old one, and need some help on what to buy.
I´ve looked at purchasing a used, refurbished Supermicro server chassie from Ebay, but the shipping on these heavy boxes to Sweden would be around $300-$600, almost the same as the servers themselves..

So, I found a company here in Sweden that sell used Supermicro servers, but they dont have a big selection of servers to choose from.
So I was thinking about this one:
http://ggsp.se/supermicro/2292-supermicro-sc826-2u-1xe5-4620-32gb-2x920w-rackskenor.html

It has the following components:
Supermicro 2U SC826
Xeon E5-4620 8-core 16 threads 2.2Ghz 95W TDP
Supermicro X9DRi-LN4F+
32GB RAM
12 HDD Bays and trays
SAS-826A
2x920W PSU
Rails included

I am going to use this NAS mostly for storage (movies etc) and backup (pictures and movies of the family).
It will be setup with 6 or 8 drives, probably 8TB, in a raidz2 config, and perhaps also 1 or 2 WD Purples for CCTV storage.

The price is around $630 (listed price in SEK minus taxes).

Is the CPU and motherboard a good setup for my intended use?
Is the backplane good?

Anything else to think about?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Chris Moore]

Anything else to think about?

From what you say, I know that you don't need that many bays, but you might want to look at a 3U or 4U server instead because they are usually not as loud. The fans on the 1U and 2U servers need to run fast (loud) to push enough air through to keep them cool.

 

[Nidhogg]

From what you say, I know that you don't need that many bays, but you might want to look at a 3U or 4U server instead because they are usually not as loud. The fans on the 1U and 2U servers need to run fast (loud) to push enough air through to keep them cool.

Yeah, I was thinking the same, but the problem is getting 3U+ cases with the right hardware here in Sweden.
One alternative is this one:
http://ggsp.se/supermicro/2615-supermicro-sc836-3u-1x-x5670-48gb-16x35-2x800w-a-bakplan.html

Chassie: Supermicro 3U SC836
Backplane: SAS836A
CPU: Xeon X5670 6-core 2,93Ghz 92W TDP
Motherboard: Supermicro X8DA3
Ram: 48GB DDR3 ECC RDIMM (3x16GB)
PSU: 2x800W

But this is an older motherboard thats discontinued, is it worth buying this one instead of the first for the 3U form factor, when it´s an older motherboard that for instance doesnt support USB3?
Also 6 core CPU instead of 8 core, but I guess that doesnt really matter for the type of workload I´m looking at, and its a higher clock frequenzy.

Although I do gain an floppy controller :D

 

[Chris Moore]

It is always possible to upgrade the system board later. I have a X8 generation board still in service. They can do useful work, but they do use a little more electricity to run. I will look at this link more closely when I get to my office.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Chris Moore]

Chassie: Supermicro 3U SC836
Backplane: SAS836A
CPU: Xeon X5670 6-core 2,93Ghz 92W TDP
Motherboard: Supermicro X8DA3
Ram: 48GB DDR3 ECC RDIMM (3x16GB)
PSU: 2x800W

That is a nice chassis, but I am not really excited about the system board. Here is why, it has an integrated Broadcom SAS1068E SAS controller. This controller will not allow you to use drives larger than 2TB. So, you will need to disable it in the BIOS if possible and not use that controller. An adapter card will be needed instead. This will add to the cost of the system a bit and I don't know how easy it will be for you to obtain the parts in Sweden.
If you want to get that system, the components you would need to install will depend, to a degree, on what is already in the system.
The backplane (SAS836A) is a 'direct attached' backplane which means there is what looks like a SATA connector on the inside of the backplane for each drive bay.
I would suggest getting a SAS controller like this one to run the drives:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-H220-6G...0-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162862201664
A single SAS HBA is able to control 256 drives, but you will need an expander card to go from the 2 ports on the front of the card to the number you need for the server chassis if you want all the bays to work. One like this should work well, I use two of them in my 24 bay system:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-46m0997-ServeRAID-Expansion-Adapter-16-port-SAS-Expander/192326557905
The SAS expander does not get any data through the card edge connector, only power. The data comes from the SAS HBA above through a pair of cables like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-579265-...e-For-Proliant-DL160-G6-DL180-G6/183129085895
Although, you can get along with just a single cable connecting from the SAS controller to the SAS expander. The ports on the front of the SAS HBA connect to the ports on the top of the SAS expander.
The ports on the front of the SAS expander connect to the backplane with breakout cables like these:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-SAS-t...Breakout-Internal-Cable-USA-SHIP/273292340661
That auction includes two cables, but you will need four. All of these items should be able to be sourced globally, but I know the availability can be different regionally.
A good thing about the SAS HBA and expander hardware is that you can move it to another system board later and continue to use it and the chassis for many years.

 

[Nidhogg]

Thanks for the reply! Great info, whatever extras I need I can get from ebay, as long as its smaller stuff like raid cards and cables the shipping is reasonable.
I even have a PO box through MyUS for those that only sell in the US, so parts should be easy to come by.

Also, today I got a reply from the company, and they said it would be possible to swap components, depending on what parts they have available.
So he said they have 3U SC836 chassie that they can fit with X9DRI-LN4F+, and also "TQ backplane and LSI 9211-8i".
I´m not really sure which backplane he means (if there are severals TQ´s?), but if I look at the chassie it says SAS836TQ included so I guess thats the one.

Looking through what they seem to have in stock, I guess these options are available:
Motherboard:
X9SRi-F
X10SLA-F
X7DB3
X10SLM-F
X9DRI-LN4F+
And also some other options like mATX and twin / quad nodes etc

But I think the X9DRI would be the best option?

So if I get the XC836, fitted with X9DRI-LN4F+, a proper CPU and a nice chunk of RAM, and use the SAS836TQ backplane and LSI 9211-8i and aquire the proper cables I should be "good to go"?

 

[Chris Moore]

The DRI is a dual socket board, and the SRi is a single socket system board. The single CPU could be enough and would use less power.

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[aaronouthier]

I have an X8DT3-LN4F board here in California. So far, I love it! 2x 5600 series Hex-Core CPUs (12-cores total). I put in 4x16 GB ECC RAM, and a few used 1 TB hard drives. I should probably start upgrading the drives to NAS types (WD-RED, instead of Green or Blue, etc). The PSU could use an upgrade, but overall, I’m quite pleased with it.

I have a SuperMicro PCI to 8x SATA adapter, and 2 of those ports are connected to a SATA to eSATA adapter back panel bracket. The LSI MiniSAS connectors are connected to a 2-port MiniSAS back panel bracket. I’ve been meaning to get my HP 25-port MiniSAS expander out of storage, just for kicks.

I definately use my 12-cores! Between my 2 Virtual Machines, and my 4 Plugins/Jails (My 2 VMs have 3-cores each).

Still more to do as far as upgrades.

@ the OP: All I’m saying is, just because it’s old and discontinued, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not useable. If you have the extra cash in-hand, then yeah, go ahead and get the newer board. Otherwise, get what you can afford now, and worry about upgrades later.

 

[aaronouthier]

The DRI is a dual socket board, and the SRi is a single socket system board. The single CPU could be enough and would use less power.

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On the topic of Single vs Dual CPU boards, most SuperMicro MoBos that I’ve seen can have a single CPU on a dual CPU board. I have not checked this particular model mentioned. The Single CPU would most definately use less power, and run cooler. Having a Dual-CPU board would also leave room for adding the second CPU in the future should it ever be needed. I should note that only 1/2 of the RAM sockets would be usable if you only install one of the two CPUs.

 

[Chris Moore]

So if I get the XC836, fitted with X9DRI-LN4F+, a proper CPU and a nice chunk of RAM, and use the SAS836TQ backplane and LSI 9211-8i and aquire the proper cables I should be "good to go"?

After compairing the specs on the boards, I would say that is probably the best option for the system board, however the LSI 9211 is an older model than the LSI 9207 that I had suggested. If you can get the 9207 revision of the board, it is better. The 9211 is PCIe 2.0 where the 9207 is PCIe 3.0

 

[Nidhogg]

@ the OP: All I’m saying is, just because it’s old and discontinued, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not useable. If you have the extra cash in-hand, then yeah, go ahead and get the newer board. Otherwise, get what you can afford now, and worry about upgrades later.

I don´t want to say the budget is unlimited in any way, but I don´t want to buy things now and then feel I "have to" upgrade a year down the line, making the total sum higher than if I had purchased the stuff from the start.
I will probably be happy using an older board as well, but the cost of upgrading to a newer board, some more RAM etc is pretty small when comparing the total investement (where the drives are the biggest cost), so I might as well get them from the start. :)

After compairing the specs on the boards, I would say that is probably the best option for the system board, however the LSI 9211 is an older model than the LSI 9207 that I had suggested. If you can get the 9207 revision of the board, it is better. The 9211 is PCIe 2.0 where the 9207 is PCIe 3.0

They seem to have 9207, both LSI 9207-8i and LSI 9207-8e, but I don´t need the external connections so thats an easy pick.
They also have LSI SAS 9311-8i, don´t know if that is compatible or not?

 

[Chris Moore]

I will probably be happy using an older board as well, but the cost of upgrading to a newer board, some more RAM etc is pretty small when comparing the total investement (where the drives are the biggest cost), so I might as well get them from the start.

I am not sure if you are changing your plan. Depending on how you want to use your NAS, the board you select now can easily continue to do the job perfectly well for six to ten years. The most demanding thing most FreeNAS servers do is the transcoding of video for Plex. If that becomes too demanding for the NAS to be able to handle, you might be better suited with a separate video rendering system running Linux where the video encoding can be handled by a GPU.
I have very few occasions where CPU load is more than 60% on my single CPU system using an eight core Xeon at 2.6 GHz and most of the time it is less than 10%

 

[Nidhogg]

I am not sure if you are changing your plan. Depending on how you want to use your NAS, the board you select now can easily continue to do the job perfectly well for six to ten years. The most demanding thing most FreeNAS servers do is the transcoding of video for Plex. If that becomes too demanding for the NAS to be able to handle, you might be better suited with a separate video rendering system running Linux where the video encoding can be handled by a GPU.
I have very few occasions where CPU load is more than 60% on my single CPU system using an eight core Xeon at 2.6 GHz and most of the time it is less than 10%

No, I havent changed my plan, it was just a response to aaronouuthier´s post, I think he was refering to the fact that we discussed the X8DA3 earlier, and that it would probably be good enough for me (in which he is probably right) :)
I want the build to be able to handle things I may not think of doing at the moment, so I´d rather chuck at couple of hundred dollars more at it now and have the room for whatever I can come up with, than sitting a year from now thinking of some cool idea and not have the hardware for it.
The problem for me is availability in Sweden, and although I could get an even better board from eBay and just source the (heavy, expensive shipping) chassie locally, I think I can get this company to assemble a functioning system with warranty if I purchase everything from them. The downside then is that I´m limited to what they have in stock, but I think I could get an ok system anyway.

The build I´m thinking about right now is:
SC836 3U Chassie, 2x800W, SAS836TQ
Supermicro X9DRI-LN4F+
1x Intel Xeon E5-4620 8Core 2.2 Ghz (although they have plenty of CPU´s in stock, will compare price and specs for final decision)
LSI 9207-8i
~48GB RAM

Thoughts?

 

[aaronouthier]

That’s fine - it’s your system. For me, I have a limited income per month, I usually get a part or two, then wait until next month to get another part or two. It sounds like supplies are limited where you are, so yeah, get the better stuff before someone else does...

With regards to RAM/Memory, note that SuperMicro supports both Desktop RAM and Server RAM on their boards, but you cannot mix the two! With Desktop RAM, they usually support up to 48 GB (Max 4 GB per slot) of DDR3. Server RAM can have up to 192 GB DDR3 (16 GB per slot). Server RAM is better quality, and can detect of one of the RAM modules is going out/failing.

 

[Chris Moore]

Thoughts?

That all sounds good, but you might want a little faster CPU if it doesn't cost crazy money. I went with a 2.6 GHz and it is working well for me. For purely using the system as a NAS, you probably don't need the faster CPU, but I went with the faster one so I would be able to transcode video in the Plex plugin and I wanted to be able to use FreeNAS to potentially run a couple Linux VMs. It is something you can change later, so not that big an issue.
I would suggest using a small capacity SSD for the boot device on FreeNAS and that can connect to one of the SATA ports on the system board. If I recall correctly, there is a space in that chassis to mount a 2.5" drive next to the CD drive. If it has a CD drive mounted, you can take that out and substitute a hard drive mount like this:
https://www.amazon.com/CJESLNA-cadd...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=32ERFGMBAYA6NMWNDJ05

 

[aaronouthier]

I would suggest using a small capacity SSD for the boot device on FreeNAS and that can connect to one of the SATA ports on the system board. If I recall correctly, there is a space in that chassis to mount a 2.5" drive next to the CD drive. If it has a CD drive mounted, you can take that out and substitute a hard drive mount

Another option is to get a DOM or Disk on Module. Those sit directly on the Motherboard and don’t need a hard drive bay. Something like this:
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/202287947650

That particular one says it doesn’t need the 5 volt cable. I’ve never heard of this, but if it says so...

I bought an 8 GB model with the 5 volt cable and have no complaints. It should be noted that if you do need to run the 5 volt cable, make sure that there is a port for it next to one of your SATA connectors on the board. Also, make sure it is a regular SATA model, not mSATA, IDE/ATA, or USB.

 

[Chris Moore]

That particular one says it doesn’t need the 5 volt cable. I’ve never heard of this, but if it says so...

It doesn't need the 5 volt cable if it is plugged to one of the yellow sockets on a newer Supermicro board that is able to supply power through the SATA port. On older boards that do not supply power through the SATA port, it does need the 5 volt line installed.

I bought an 8 GB model with the 5 volt cable and have no complaints.

That is a bit on the small side as 8 GB is the bare minimum. http://www.freenas.org/hardware-requirements/
Also, these modules are a lot more expensive than a small SSD like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SanDisk-2-...6-0Gbps-HP-680675-001-724416-001/163051680337
or this
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Crucial-M4-64GB-SSD-Solid-State-Hard-Drive-CT06M4SSD2/113253813156
The larger capacity, less expensive, SSD can be better because it gives more room to hold on to your previous boot environments so it is possible to roll back to a previous state.
Any of these options depend on what is available in Sweden, as the OP states:

The problem for me is availability in Sweden

Price and availability are not consistent globally.

 

[aaronouthier]

It doesn't need the 5 volt cable if it is plugged to one of the yellow sockets on a newer Supermicro board that is able to supply power through the SATA port. On older boards that do not supply power through the SATA port, it does need the 5 volt line installed.

That is a bit on the small side as 8 GB is the bare minimum. http://www.freenas.org/hardware-requirements/
Also, these modules are a lot more expensive than a small SSD like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SanDisk-2-...6-0Gbps-HP-680675-001-724416-001/163051680337
or this
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Crucial-M4-64GB-SSD-Solid-State-Hard-Drive-CT06M4SSD2/113253813156
The larger capacity, less expensive, SSD can be better because it gives more room to hold on to your previous boot environments so it is possible to roll back to a previous state.
Any of these options depend on what is available in Sweden, as the OP states:

Price and availability are not consistent globally.

I hope you don’t think I’m trying to “get into it” with you or compete with you - you clearly seem to know more about these boards than I. I’m just trying to contribute what info I have to help the OP make an informed decision. With that out of the way...

Regarding the 8 GB SSD: yes, I was worried about it being only 8 GB also, but I had just bought 3 other parts for my server, and had just a few dollars left when I realized I needed a boot device. I couldn’t afford a 16 GB at the time, so I bought what was in reach, so to speak. Then again, I have my current boot environment, and 4 others, and it is taking less than 2 GB of space. I’m no longer worried about it.

Yes, they are slightly more expensive than a 2.5” model, but my point was that he wouldn’t need to convert a 5.25” optical bay to hold a 2.5” SSD.

 

[Nidhogg]

Regarding the SSD, I have a couple of spare SSD´s lying around (32 up to 128 GB), so I will probably just fit one of them :)

I will also swap the CPU to Intel Xeon E5-2650 V2, 2,6 Ghz base, but still 95W TDP.
Should be good for the future as well :)

 

[Chris Moore]

Regarding the SSD, I have a couple of spare SSD´s lying around (32 up to 128 GB), so I will probably just fit one of them

Excellent. No extra cost when you already have it...