Buying a used Supermicro

[jorenko]

Hi,

I'm putting together my first FreeNAS server after 10+ years of running homebrew linux servers with various levels of storage sophistication. After spending a few hours looking at options, I've seen a lot of suggestions to buy used servers on eBay, and so I'm looking at a Supermicro X10SAE 2U Server 8-Bay 3.5" E3-1270V3 4Core 16GB 1TB SC825TQ-563LPB (link)

Planned workload is pretty light: mostly to provide a network share for Kodi on the TV, and to run a local Minecraft server.

I'm planning on putting a Kingston A400 SSD 120GB in it for the boot disk, and for storage a few Seagate IronWolf NAS 5900RPM to start with.

Anyone see anything obviously wrong with that plan? I saw some notes in other threads about some backplanes/motherboards not supporting drives over 2TB... how do I tell if this one has that restriction?

 

[Chris Moore]

I am wondering how much you looked into FreeNAS before you started down this path, because I see this:

homebrew linux servers

You understand that FreeNAS is an appliance that is based on FreeBSD, not Linux, right? It also uses ZFS for all storage pools, both the boot pool and the mass storage.

Do you really need a rack chassis?

so I'm looking at a Supermicro X10SAE 2U Server 8-Bay 3.5" E3-1270V3 4Core 16GB 1TB SC825TQ-563LPB (link)

That is not a good selection due to the system board that is in it.

Anyone see anything obviously wrong with that plan?

Not a bad plan, but you can certainly have a better system for it.

This image is from the eBay listing. Single power supply isn't too much of a tragedy, but that is not a server board, even though it is in a 2U server. You can tell because it does not have IPMI and it does have audio outputs that FreeNAS can NOT use at all, not for anything.

Still, for what you get, I guess it isn't a bad price. You would need to spend more to get a real server board in a chassis like that.

Please take some time to learn about FreeNAS because it isn't like running a Linux system where it is fully configurable. Certain things are locked down on purpose and almost everything needs to be configured through the GUI.

 

[jorenko]

Yes, I'm aware of the differences between Linux and FreeBSD, and the features and limitations of FreeNAS in particular. I don't NEED a rackmount, but most of the appropriate servers available seem to be rackmounts.

Any idea whether I need to worry about the 2TB limitation? I'd hate to get this thing and not be able use the drives I'm buying for it.

 

[Chris Moore]

Any idea whether I need to worry about the 2TB limitation?

No, that chassis has a TQ backplane, so it is a direct pass-through from the SATA ports on the system board. You can't use SAS drives, but there should be no size limitation on the drives you use.

I don't NEED a rackmount, but most of the appropriate servers available seem to be rackmounts.

You probably wouldn't be able to beat that price with a system assembled from parts. You miss out on having IPMI for remote management, but it is mostly good other than that. If you like the idea of having hot-swap drive bays, this is probably your least expensive way to get there.

 

[jorenko]

Yeah, I don't mind lugging a spare monitor and keyboard over for installation and the rare occasions I need to get on the command line if the web GUI's down. So I guess I'll be going with this one.

Thanks for the advice!