BUILD ASRock C2750 build check

[Ryanolo]

Hi all,

I'll (hopefully) be building a NAS server in a week or two with a similar spec to Linus' 48tb build ()

Component list:
- C2750D4I Intel Asrock Mini ITX Motherboard
- Crucial DDR3 16GB ECC-Registered Server Memory PC3-12800 (1600) * 2
- Silverstone Strider ST45SF-G 450W 80+ Gold SFX Modular Power Supply (PSU)
- Silverstone DS380B 8 Bay NAS Chassis Small Form Factor 12 Drive Support 8 Hot-swappable
- Western Digital 6TB Red WD60EFRX * 3

Hardware links
- http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asro...oton-c2750-ddr3-sata-iii-6gb-s-d-sub-mini-itx
- http://www.scan.co.uk/products/16gb-crucial-ddr3-pc3-12800-(1600)-240-pins-ecc-registered-cas-11
- http://www.scan.co.uk/products/450w-silverstone-sst-st45sf-g-strider-sfx-modular-80plus-gold-psu
- http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8-ba...nas-case-with-3-fans-35-25-hdd-ssd-sata-sas-w

TLDR?
Intel Atom C2750 CPU, 32Gb ECC Ram, 18Tb Storage

Questions:
- I would like to get the biggest disks available and expand the zpool as I need it, however I've been seeing a few bad reviews on new 6Tb WD Reds, should I be concerned? Anyone had problems with these?
- Is that RAM good for this build? Recommendations?


All comments are appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Ryan

 

[mjws00]

The Avoton will not take registered RAM. There are 16GB unregistered ecc dimms available, but they are pricey and tougher to come by. I wouldn't sweat the Reds at all, they are a good choice.

Should be a great box.

 

[Ericloewe]

3 HDDs? That doesn't sound good, unless you're going with a 3-way Mirror (totally legitimate if you only need 6TB). If you were planning on RAIDZ1, I strongly recommend you go with RAIDZ2, at least. It's rather easy to lose a pool if one of the drives goes bad with RAIDZ1.

 

[joeschmuck]

Here is a RAID Calculator. Tell it the RAID Mode you want such as RAIDZ = Z1, RAIDZ2=Z2. Be careful in your drive configuration setup, if you do it wrong, a single drive failure could mean the loss of all your data.

 

[Ryanolo]

Thanks @mjws00

In the youtube video Linus uses 16gb sticks of ram. I cannot find any ram that is DDR3, ECC and Unbuffered for that size.
http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/memory/ddr4--ddr3--ddr2--ddr--sdram--crucial
http://www.kingston.com/en/memory/search/MemoryType/Default.aspx?MemoryType=DDR3 1600MHz,,18,49
Does anyone know where to locate these mythical sticks?

@Ericloewe I currently have an 8 bay QNAP 869 Pro with 16tb in Raid 5. It has started to play up a little and I am looking to duplicate the data, with the intention of expanding it once I can afford to replace those 8 drives & add to the Freenas. The eventual plan is the Freenas to rsync its data to the QNAP & act as the backup. So at this moment I'm not too concerned with RAID setup.

 

[mjws00]

www.intelligentmemory.com makes them. Haven't seen widespread use or availability, sorry.

 

[marbus90]

If you want 64GB RAM, go for a Xeon E5 system. I did the math, that Asrock board with 4x16GB unbuffered unregistered ECC runs ~1700EUR, a Xeon E5-1620 v3 with 4x16GB registered ECC including a board with 10x Intel SATA will run you ~1300EUR. Even with 2x16GB DIMMs the difference is still in favour of the Xeon E5.
Also let it be noted that the Marvel SATA controllers on the Asrock board aren't playing nice with FreeNAS.

Even as backup-device I would use at least single-drive redundancy. Also 16TB with single-drive redundancy isn't exactly what FreeNAS users would recommend. As soon as one of those 3 Reds fails, you lose *all* data on the 3 striped disks and need to start over with the backups. As good as Reds are deemed, they still have an AFR of 8.8% in the first 6 months according to Backblaze.

 

[mjws00]

I think the intent is the m-ITX form factor. Agreed that the Avoton 64Gb build is not cost effective. It's fine at 32Gb and very comparable to an e3 build. But gets into the small box easily. Plus low power, low heat. This is definanately the cheapest 32Gb+I'm not a fan of the Marvell controller either, but hopefully it can be mitigated. m-ATX solves all those downsides.

You couldn't pay me to put 6TB Reds in Z1. Either get the extra drive for Z2 or drop down to 4TB drives and get 4 or 6. Sitting around on pins and needles while you wait 20 hours for a resilver, with no redundancy and a high probability of a URE is not gonna be fun. But that has been mentioned twice already.

I REALLY like this build done with the E3C224D4I-14S but it requires a flex-atx power supply to shoehorn it into the case. And the cost goes up to the point where, just flipping to m-ATX and a x10SL7-F is tempting to save the dough and add the flexibility. But it sure would be a whack of fun in a tiny form factor. :)

 

[Tywin]

I think ASRock really missed the boat with the E3C224D4I-14S. I understand that it was developed for one of their ASRock Rack systems, so they could design the case to fit, but I think they could have gotten a lot of sales out of having the only mITX C224/C226 motherboard with for DIMM slots. Bump the chipset to C226 (for VT-d support), squeeze it back to mITX, and you've got an ideal mini home-lab.

 

[Ericloewe]

I think ASRock really missed the boat with the E3C224D4I-14S. I understand that it was developed for one of their ASRock Rack systems, so they could design the case to fit, but I think they could have gotten a lot of sales out of having the only mITX C224/C226 motherboard with for DIMM slots. Bump the chipset to C226 (for VT-d support), squeeze it back to mITX, and you've got an ideal mini home-lab.

It most likely won't fit, otherwise their C226 miniITX board would have four DIMM slots as well.

 

[mjws00]

There seem to be folks running that board with vt-d. This guy using esxi and unraid. It's in the BIOS, I would expect it to work... but now you got me wondering. My intent has always been to passthrough the sas controller. But it is quite a premium to go that small.

 

[Tywin]

It most likely won't fit, otherwise their C226 miniITX board would have four DIMM slots as well.

If you drop the LSI 2308, I'm convinced you could make four dimms fit; I guess they just decided the market was too small to warrant the effort.

There seem to be folks running that board with vt-d. This guy using esxi and unraid. It's in the BIOS, I would expect it to work... but now you got me wondering. My intent has always been to passthrough the sas controller. But it is quite a premium to go that small.

I've seen a number of anecdotes about VT-d and C224, I'm just really skeptical given that Intel lists support explicitly for C226 but not for C224.

 

[cyberjock]

If you drop the LSI 2308, I'm convinced you could make four dimms fit; I guess they just decided the market was too small to warrant the effort..

Then give AsRock a call and let them know what's up! ;)

 

[sremick]

It most likely won't fit, otherwise their C226 miniITX board would have four DIMM slots as well.

Oh how I wish it did. I would've given my server 32GB from day one.

 

[RobertT]

You should be able to get 32GB on the C2750D4I from the start.
I have that board. I have two 8GB sticks on it and it has four slots.

 

[jgreco]

The C2750D4I takes 32GB just fine.

 

[Tywin]

Yes it will, and the OP even says he's going to use 32 GiB of ECC RAM. sremick was talking about a mITX C226 board, though, of which there are none with four DIMMs. There's an extended mITX, but that's not quite the same.