> Other than that I believe Threadripper to be a solid platform.
been a little over a month since your post, wondering if you still feel that way? :) I would like to build a FreeNAS build
I am looking to build a threadripper build, are you using bhyve at all for multiple VMs?
can you share the hardware you have? (I notice you mention 2950 and 1900 in this thread, seems that you used 1900 for FreeNAS and not 2950? curious to know if there was a specific reason why?)
I still feel very strong about the Threadripper build.
I bought the 2950 when it came out as my desktop was getting antiquated and one of the Windows 10 update and Intel lack of support against the latest security threat for the CPU retired it officially.
With the 2950 at hand, I was able to put it to the test on Freenas 11.1 and was very pleased with it.
At the same time, my Xeon-E3 was giving me more trouble than ever (most likely caused by Freenas 11-1/11.2 still being in Beta) as it would render my Nextcloud unuseable because the the jail would loose network connection or because some background jobs would be killed due to memory starvation. Possibly a mix of bugs and lack of sufficient amount of RAM.
However, while I still get some warning or critical status from NetData, I no longer get those on a regular basis. Once in a while and mostly because of replication as replication is going to consume as much RAM as needed which kinds of sucks.
I was hopping to upgrade to an 8 core on second Gen Threadripper, but the 1900x was never going to make it to second Gen as a 2900x so I gave up on the idea. The next one in line was the 2920x I believe (12 cores) but was not yet available and pricing would have most likely been a bit steep.
At work we have one Threadripper 1950x which has been running on Ubuntu for over a year now, I believe and is doing some Android builds on a regular basis. It has been a very strong performer and very reliable as it seems.
The 1900x I bought was on sale and I decided to make the jump when I did. I must have got it when it was at its lowest price point I think. I was a bit cautious because the test I performed on the 2950X was no guarrantee to be the same with the first gen do to hardware differences.
As I am writing this post, I decided to run some test in term of throughput from my Nextcloud iocage jail.
The schreenshot attached is a quick test I have been running while writing this post.
The screenshot shows throughput conducted from my Nexctloud jail synching into my Windows 10 2950x NVME drive.
in just 15 minutes later, I was able to sync well over 80GB of photos, quite impressive. It doesn't quite max out the LAN but can easily hit 940Mbit/. I must add, that my Nextcloud connection is being routed through my haproxy running on my pfsense.
Compared to my Xeon E3 and Pentium G4600, Threadripper is a beast.
I am still using the G4600 for servicing my backup volume via replication.
The XEON E3 in comparison is like a dinosaur.
I am hitting 970Mbit/s throughput during replication whereas XEON E3 couldn't do more than 650Mbit/s. I guess encrypted volumes and SSL encryption was too much for it.
I am running on Nextcloud 13.7 and have been trying to migrate to 14 but I am hitting some snags with the upgrade. This is not Threaripper issue.
Because of it, I haven't had a chance to proceed with the move to VM and Rancher OS (Docker container ) yet. I didn't have much time to go through the process either.
I have however performed numerous install in different iocage jail with Danb35 script for Nextcloud and since Freenas 11-2 RC1, I haven't experienced any show stopper. Behavior has been very predictable and installing a full fleidge Nextcloud jail takes a mere 6 minutes or so.
I am running the Plex plugin and it has been stable too.
On the other hand I have a few issues that may or may not be specific to Threadripper.
I did order a LSI 9240-8i (I Flashed ii to IT mode) to be used on my 10 disk volume but under Pre Freenas 11.2-RC1, I would get LSI related errors that would cause my system to freeze.
Because of it, I have been using my old hpt2320 to host my boot volume and 2 of my 10 disk drive ( the 8 remaining disks are connected to the 8 SATA ports) . I know the hpt is not an ideal solution but for now it works without any issues.
I will have to conduct some more test with my 2950x when I get a chance.
For some reason, sending the shutdown command will cause the system to initiate shutdown but the system will not power-off. Initiating a restart doesn't exhibit such issue.
Trying to run concurrent Plex transcoding (playing a few 4K video and 1080p 20Mbit/s+) onto a few Firefox instances on my Windows PC was no real issues until I loose network connection and apparently having Freenas freezing on me. I suspect a Jail plugin crash but I can't say for sure.
I have run iperf and replication and system is very stable, while servicing Plex and Nextcloud. I suspect temperature could be the issue has 1900X would easily peak in the high 80% CPU usage when transcoding videos. The transcoding test was on about 4-6 different 4K and 1080P video being transcode to much lower resolution and bitrate.
Other than that it has been running solid for the last 17 days around the time of Freenas 11.2-RC1 update.
Power consumption isn't too bad on the low 120W and can peak to above 200W when taxing CPU's during transcoding.
One criteria I had in mind when purchasing AMD for this build was the availability of the NVMe interfaces in the event RAM would still be an issue.
With 80GB being completely used I do not experience any perceiveable performance degradation and Freenas Web interface hasn't been this fast and fluid. I can say the same of Nextcloud.
This is litteraly night and day.
I am hoping to play with PCIe NVMe as L2Arc but it is not going to be anytime soon anyway. For now I don't see it to be a requirement.
My ARC Hit ratio is in the high 90%.
Was this a good choice? Well so far I am still very impressed by the performance. Neither one of the Intel platform I have could match it. The G4600 could be a contender but lacks the number of cores and is still can't use more than 64GB of RAM.
Not having IPMI capability is a small sacrifice to pay. This is why I have a small video card installed on the motherboard.
I have a few areas