Confused about the boot drive??

[Nightowl805]

I am in the process of building my first Freenas box. It is mostly for back-up and Plex. I am way overbuilding it with the hope that it last 8-10 years which I recognize may not be possible.

E5 2630 V3
64 GB Reg. ECC Crucial-I hope I read correctly and this works.
ZFS2
8 6gb WD red
Supermicro 10X10SRA-F-O

But I am very confused about the boot drive. Initially I thought just a 8 or 16 gb USB drive. But, I have seen people say they "Mirror" this drive????? How come? Also I read that the upgrade process can take quite awhile on USB. I have also seen some people use a SSD and even a dual SSD but if I am reading it right.....that is way overkill but it does make the upgrade much faster.

Saying that, I have a 120gb SSD that is in a laptop.....probably about 20 hours of use before the laptop screen died. Should I just use that since it is doing nothing else and if I do, do I need to "Mirror" that drive.

I feel stupid spending this much money but I am ready to cut the cord completely for the whole family and Roku it with Plex.

I am excited about doing this. Also looking for other good ways to use this box so send me your ideas. Just for home use though.

 

[SweetAndLow]

A much better CPU and motherboard would be the 1620v3 and X10SRL. The motherboard you have selected might not work and the cpu you selected is designed for dual processors which you don't have.

 

[Nightowl805]

I had thought about the 2620. I thought 8 cores would be more important in the long run for transcoding. I am hoping to stream it both in the house and to my parents and son. I can be persuaded though. Can you give me more reasons why. Is the MB a wrong choice regardless of the CPU?

I really am open to suggestions. I really want it to last as long as possible spending this much money.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[9C1 Newbee]

Booting and upgrading will be faster with the SSD. As you stated, the SSD is not really necessary but you can use it. Mirroring is optional. Mirroring is only there to offer a layer of protection against a failed boot drive.

 

[Nightowl805]

What happens if the boot drive fails?? I was under the impression that it doesn't affect the system overall but I really haven't looked into that scenario yet.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[SweetAndLow]

I had thought about the 2620. I thought 8 cores would be more important in the long run for transcoding. I am hoping to stream it both in the house and to my parents and son. I can be persuaded though. Can you give me more reasons why. Is the MB a wrong choice regardless of the CPU?

I really am open to suggestions. I really want it to last as long as possible spending this much money.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Again stop looking at the 26XX series processors they are for dual processor configurations. You are going to have only one processor so you should be looking at the 1620 or 1650. And yes that motherboard is incorrect no matter what CPU you get. It has on board audio and lots of other stuff you aren't going to need or use. Also the parts I just gave you will save you $450 and it will be faster and better.

 

[Nightowl805]

I was looking for a supermicro board with ipmi, dual Intel nic and without audio. I think the reason I selected that board was because it supported 64gb of memory. I know that number is crazy but what I read was a minimum of 8 gb plus 1gb per terabyte.

8 WD Red 6gb drives in ZFS2 = 42 gb. I wasn't sure if 32 gb of memory was enough.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[SweetAndLow]

All e5 based systems support up to 128 or 256GB of memory. If you are thinking of running a system with over 40TB and multiple jails then you should be looking at e5 systems.

 

[Nightowl805]

So do my choices make more sense now? I do admit looking at the supermicro site is confusing. They need to make comparisons easier.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[SweetAndLow]

No they are not correct

 

[marbus90]

You obviously can't describe the hardware you're going to buy precisely, so don't piece together a system by yourself. Also you didn't read up on the software side.

Call/Mail ixsystems and let them build you a FreeNAS system with support according to your needs. You need that.

 

[ser_rhaegar]

Again stop looking at the 26XX series processors they are for dual processor configurations. You are going to have only one processor so you should be looking at the 1620 or 1650.

The E5-2600 processors are for uni processor and dual processor boards. HP, IBM, Dell all sell servers with 2600s in both configs. I also run the 2600s in uni config without issue. When looking at a uni processor system the 2600s offer more cores with fewer clocks for the dollar while the 1600s offer fewer cores with higher clocks for the dollar.