Build Feedback Requested

[Knowltey]

So since this is really my first venture into server hardware figured I should get feedback here. Gathered information from the various threads, stickies, and what other people here are using in their builds and came up with this:

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X10SLM-F-O: $164.99
CPU: Intel Pentium G3220 Haswell: $69.99
RAM: Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 ECC KVR1333D3E9S/8G: $84.99
Case: Antec 300: $0 ($0 used from here on to indicate already owned hardware)
HDDs: 2x 1TB 7200RPM in RAID1: $0 (a WD Caviar Black and a SpinPoint F3)
PSU: Silverstone Strider 700W
UPS: Tripp-Lite SMART1500
USB: Don't remember the exact make and model I'm using, but it's 8GB and works fine in my current build.

So my main question is, for the RAM, if I want to have 8GB, is that one stick fine or do I have to do 2x4GB to get 8GB? ie, will it boot with just one?

With the HDDs I intend to eventually upgrade to 2x2TB WD Red, but that's a bit off.

This would be to upgrade from a Pentium D SL88T based build.

Oh, and I'm not running encryption, so don't need AES-NI, and I'm only running compression on a very small section of the pool (<4GB and rarely accessed) so performance loss from that isn't a concern to me.

Would this be the most cost effective upgrade to ECC/server hardware, or might it be a bit overkill still?

 

[Michael Wulff Nielsen]

Without having tested a SuperMicro board I have to say that I would be very suprised if it couldn't boot with a single stick of ram.

I believe that the most cost effective freenas hardware I have seen so far was an AMD system as described in this thread.

So you might actually be able to get by with a cheaper system. Is the system for home use? Also a 700W PSU might be a bit overkill for the system as a whole.

 

[Knowltey]

Cool, that's what I figured it would be, I've just never personally built a computer that only utilized 1 stick of RAM so I wanted to make sure that was actually a possibility.

> So you might actually be able to get by with a cheaper system. Is the system for home use? Also a 700W PSU might be a bit overkill for the system as a whole.

Oh it definitely is way overkill, I just already own and know it works so might as well use it. It's already in the case and all, this build here is basically just a MB/CPU/RAM swap. It's from an older gaming rig build of mine so that's what's up with the high wattage. (Everything below the RAM is already owned equipment)

It's home use basically yeah. It'd be basically data storage, scheduled backups of computers, and some other backups (Steam installs), Music and Video Streaming. (Just basic opening the files in VLC streaming nothing special) Some can be fairly high bitrates though which sometimes can push my current setup a tad hard.

How does that AMD processor compare to the one I've selected in terms of performance in single-threaded applications?, I'm not all too familiar with AMD? Although as I understand that motherboard has a Realtek NIC correct? Trying to avoid that.

 

[Michael Wulff Nielsen]

Here is the cpu benchmark for the AMD:

Athlon 270.

You can compare it to the Pentium you selected:

Pentium G3220

So there is less single threaded power in the chip, but it is also way cheaper. But it depends on your application, if you want to do plex transcoding you need more power. If you are just storing personal files locally you might get by fine with a lot less power.

As for the realtek nic I would probably spend the $20 and get an Intel NIC as they are very well supported.

But since I forgot to say it in the first post: Your build looks fine and will probably work very well.

 

[Knowltey]

> So there is less single threaded power in the chip, but it is also way cheaper

The Intel seems to be just under twice as powerful (if I'm understanding the number correctly in that benchmark?) and it's only 12 dollars more $57 vs $69

Yeah, I plan in the future to add more stuff to what I do on the NAS though, not sure what PLEX transcoding is, but I currently have another machine that also has a webserver and voip server on it that I hope to perhaps get combined into a single machine, so I may need the higher power eventually.

 

[enemy85]

for the ram should be ok just one 8Gb stick and it's even better in case of future upgrades in order to have more free slots on the mobo. Plus i'll go for the pentium...

 

[JohnK]

You might want to make sure your PSU is Haswell supported. I'm sure it is, but it is worth checking.
If you shop around you could get the G3420 (support 1600 ram) and Kingson 1600 ram for the same price.

 

[Knowltey]

You might want to make sure your PSU is Haswell supported. I'm sure it is, but it is worth checking.
If you shop around you could get the G3420 (support 1600 ram) and Kingson 1600 ram for the same price.

How would I find this out? It's a couple years old though, I think from before Haswell existed, so I assume not in that case then? Although looking around it seems that worst case scenario I don't have a Haswell supporting PSU I just have to disable the processor's C6 and C7 states in the BIOS.

 

[JohnK]

you can check out their website. I'm not sure what model you have, but if you look under specification it mentions Haswell support for the SST-ST70F-ES

I will be honest that the SuperMicro bios is not the best documented bios out there. It took me reading post in here to figure out how to disable USB3. So no comment about disabling states

 

[Knowltey]

It's not an ES series, iirc, it's a ST70F-P

Looked around at some images of the SuperMicro BIOS and it seems like a pretty general BIOS.

Also do I need to disable USB 3.0?

 

[JohnK]

Your PSU seems supported. http://www.silverstonetek.com/downloads/PSU/2013_H_CPU_support.pdf

The Bios in not rocket science, but it would have been nice if either the manual or help function were a little more descriptive for a non tech savy person.

Yes, you need to disable xHCI mode in the BIOS. After that you can stick the USB into the USB3 slot mounted on the board and everything should work.

 

[Knowltey]

Ah, that's what I was wondering was if I was able to stick a USB stick directly in that port on the board so it wouldn't be sticking out the back of the machine.

 

[Michael Wulff Nielsen]

That should work. It works on my Asus P9D-M. :)

 

[cyberjock]

Honestly, if you don't have disks spinning down you'll certainly have enough load even with the "non-haswell compatible" PSUs to prevent the UVP from tripping.

Keep in mind that the C7 state requires you to press the power button or send a WOL packet to wake it up from what I understand about the state. Obviously 99% of us can instantly validate we don't operate in that state since our machines aren't requiring us to wake them up regularly.

Additionally, running in the C6 or C7 energy state requires the OS to be compatible and have that feature enabled. I don't think FreeNAS supports(or doesn't have enabled.. not sure which) the C6/C7 states because its designed for 24x7 always on. So I don't *think* you'd ever be capable of encountering this problem on FreeNAS. In short, if you wanted to shutdown the server to that extent, why not just power it off completely?

 

[Knowltey]

Okay cool, power usage isn't a concern for me, I just wanted to make sure that the C6/C7 wouldn't cause it to crash or something, but if FreeNAS doesn't even go there then nothign to worry about I suppose.