AM4 based i. e. Ryzen 7 3700x versus LGA1200 based i. e. Xeon E-2356G

CL67

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Hello,
completely new to TrueNas I am just searching for the best set up for our new NAS.
We need mainly data storage and eventually some Plex use. Most company work loads are virualized on a HP enterprice server
Main question is to go with which platform?
Think the Ryzen 7 3700x is a quite performant option but I am reading that there might be compatibility issues?
On the other hand LGA1200 based Xeons seem to be an interesting and save choice. Here I found the E-2356G at an aceptable price.

Both platforms are suportet by a varaity of AS Rock Rack MB

What platform does make more sense? Pros and cons? Alternative CPU´s in the price range 250 - 350 EUR?

Other considerations:
- 10 GB network ideally via SFP + (recomendations? Chelsio seems to be quite hard to get or expensive in Germany) > counterpart is a Unifi 10GB agregation
- 64 GB ECCRam or is 32 GB enough for a start?
- 4-6 14-18TB HDD for a start option to max 12 > large HDD to save power
- Graphic card needed for decoding on Plex? Our main server has no graphic support
 

sretalla

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Think the Ryzen 7 3700x is a quite performant option but I am reading that there might be compatibility issues?
I see plenty of folks who have worked through the issues and seem to have a working setup which they like. It is not "issue free" at present and support isn't based on even close to as many running hours with drivers, etc.

- Graphic card needed for decoding on Plex?
Not required, but can help if it's on-CPU Intel... or if you're going to consider SCALE, maybe an nVidia.

- 64 GB ECCRam or is 32 GB enough for a start?
32 may be a fine starting point, but be ready to increase it with your workload/demand.

- 10 GB network ideally via SFP + (recomendations? Chelsio seems to be quite hard to get or expensive in Germany) > counterpart is a Unifi 10GB agregation
Chelsio seems to have good results for folks, but I also see good feedback on the Intel 500 series adapters.

What platform does make more sense? Pros and cons?
Generally, Intel.

Pros
Intel NICs generally onboard.
Millions more hours of testing and feedback on the OS and drivers
More knowledge in the forums (and at iX too, I think).

Cons
Price
 

CL67

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sretalla, thank you very much for your insight

The upcoming AS Rock Rack E3C256D4U-2L2T should be the perfect fit with the E-2356G Xeon or is there a more sensefull combination?
Does it make sense to use the onboard 10GB X710-AT2 copper NIC and the onboard 8 * Sata ports?

There is alternative boards available with 2 OCuLInk (PCIe3.0 x4 or 4 SATA 6Gb/s) This boards are limited to 1M2
Generally the Ryzen boards are already available since a while. The LGA 1200 boards can be found on the AS Rock Rack web page but they seem not to be available so far. 1.0 Rev is sometimes tricky.
 

LarsR

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I'm one of the few who use a ryzen setup, but in my case it's a ryzen 5 1600x.
Some things to concider:

1.You need a small graphicscard, the x-series processors dont have an integrated graphics card and without the system won't boot.
2. There are some bios settings that need to be turned off, at least with 1st gen ryzen. Otherwise the advanced power saving options can cause
a hard lockup and the sytem can completly freeze. Only a hard reset can recover it. Those Bios settings, in my case, were:
AMD Cool & Quiet, Global C-States and ERP-Ready.
3. Most AM4 Board have a realtek nic which can also cause problems - think about an intel add-in card.

After fiddling for around 2 weeks my system is now perfectly stable and, at least for my use cases, fast enough.
 

Etorix

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"More sensefull combinations" would be any earlier generation: C246 with Core i3-9xxx/Xeon E-2xxx, C236 with Core i3-7xxxx/Xeon E3v5/6, Supermicro X9 boards with Xeon E5, or embedded solutions such as X10SDV (Xeon D-1500) or A2SDi (Atom C3000).
A file server does not need the latest and greatest CPU; old second-hand servers do very well.
 

AdrianB1

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If you did not start purchasing the parts, here are some comments:
- AMD or Intel - whatever you want, I had a Ryzen 2700 and now a Ryzen 5600x (virtualized) as the main host with no problems at all. I used add-on Intel network cards because I had some, but I would use the Realtek 2.5Gbps integrated one if I would have faster ports in the switch
- CPU power: just for the NAS part, any recent 4 core CPU should be more than enough. You cannot find modern 2 core CPUs, otherwise it would be fine. For Plex I have no idea what are the requirements. For example on my Ryzen 5600 I run 24x7 a small SQL server and 3VMs, some time other 3-4 VMs, this is what is keeping it busy, not TrueNAS.
- HDD size: it depends on the capacity that you want to get, but 8 TB was the sweet spot from the price/TB point of view. Noise and power consumption is also an argument to keep the drive count low.
- RAM: it depends on what else you do with the system, just for a home NAS 64GB is probably not needed unless you do strange things like deduplication. If you want to run VMs, do the math and see what you need, keep 32GB for the NAS part
 

CL67

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Thank you very much Adrian for your comments,

did order a Core I3 9100 for a start as well as 32 GB ECC RAM and a toatal of 6 Thosiba 14 TB Enterprice Capazity drives for a start. 2 small ssds will hold system.
Not sure for now if I will go with mirrors or Raid Z2.
Will dublicate system to another building as well later on so maybe even Raid Z1 would be fine?
 

Etorix

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Storage => raidz2
Z1 with such big HDDs is asking for trouble and it would not be fun to restore tens of terabytes over the network from another building.
 

CL67

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Thank you Etorix,
have seen the recommendation to go for Raid Z2 on large spinners as well. Just thought if there is replication via 10 GB NIC Raid Z1 would be an option. Better go for mirrors and group them? Understand I would loose 14TB of capzity but gain a lot of speed.
 

Etorix

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Mirror stripes are good for IOPS and write speed. Raidz# is not bad for read speed and most indicated for "data storage".
As an aggravating factor, 14 TB gets to the point where the humble 2-way mirror vdev becomes vulnerable to an URE after loosing a drive—just like raid-5 some years ago. To be on the safe side, you'd need three-way mirrors. Ouch!
 

CL67

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Our use case is mainly backups via Veeam from our main server. This server is 100% ssd based. Beseide of that it is storing relatively cold data beside of some media stuff. Would like to run Veeam on the NAS as well in a VM.
This said I think we should go with RaidZ2.
 
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