Does FreeNAS support AMD FX cpu's?

[memel.parduin]

Hi there,

I'm considering a hardware upgrade. Does anyone know if FreeNAS 8.0.3 will run on an AMD FX (bulldozer) cpu?
I've been searching but haven't found anything else than: amd family 15h topology detection , which doesn't sound very hopeful.

Memel

 

[survive]

Hi memel,

In general I think it's a bad idea to try to use new hardware that came out after the underlying FreeBSD version shipped. Usually it just gets down to where the OS can't identify some or all of the chipset due to new PCI ID's so the OS can't identify a component, so it doesn't load the proper driver. Supporting the new Bulldozer chip is actually a little more complicated than just a chip ID issue. As I understand it there is an issue that involves how threads get scheduled on this chip where if the scheduling isn't done properly performance is hobbled.

Take a look at this: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5448/the-bulldozer-scheduling-patch-tested

The article actually has to do with an upcoming patch for Windows, but it does give some details on what the underlying issue is.

-Will

 

[memel.parduin]

Thanks for your quick reply!

I haven't thought about it that way. So I'd better stick to an Athlon II (either a X2 270 or X3 460).

Memel

 

[McFly]

I'm using FreeNAS successfully on a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 Rev 1.1 mainboard with a FX-8120 successfully.

powerd cites errors with clock freq, so I haven't nailed that down, but without the powered discussion - I love it.

8-cores, up to 32GB RAM, 6 on-board 6Gb SATA? I'm very happy - this way I'm ready for dedup when it comes someday in a release version.