Does it Ryzen (motherboard 128Gb SFP+ ECC many SATA)

[Mike77]

Hi guys!

Does Ryzen (2600, 3600, 5800x) work as a NAS?
I'm trying to find out if I could use one of the above Ryzen CPU's for a new server.
And I'm having even more trouble finding a server grade board that meets my requirements (something like 128 Gb ECC UDIMM, 8-12 SATA ports, SFP+ if possible, 2 PCIe 3.0 16x)
What are the names, prefixes, numbers or whatever to find the MSI, Asus/ AsRock, Gigabyte etc server grade motherboards? (I've found the ASRock Rack X570D4U-2L2T and SuperMicro doesn't seem to have any)

I think all the above motherboard makers made like 500 motherboard per chipset, how do you navigate this? (I did find the Supermicro matrix which was refreshing after searching the MSI and ASRock Rack sites...)

So the question is Does it Ryzen? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Samuel Tai]

Several folks here have working Ryzen builds. Be advised many of them need to disable Cool-n-Quiet and C6 states to achieve stability.

Check out https://www.asrockrack.com/general/products.asp#Server for AsRock server/workstation boards; https://eps.msi.com/product/99/56148 for MSI server boards; https://www.gigabyte.com/Enterprise/Server-Motherboard for Gigabyte; and https://www.asus.com/us/Commercial-Servers-Workstations/Commercial-Server-Motherboards-Products/ for ASUS boards.

 

[Mike77]

Thank you for the extremely fast reaction. your links are excellent. It appears only ASRock Rack and Asus have server grade Ryzen boards. the X570D4U-2L2T is closest to my requirements. but it´s nice to add some cheaper options to the list (Asus Pro WS X570-ACE, B550D4U).
it surprises me this is all there is...

 

[kherr]

I've been running a Ryzen 3600, then upgraded to 3700X ...... everything is at default settings ... no issues.

 

[Mike77]

Guys thanks,

It's kinda startling that there are only a few server grade boards for ryzens, compared to the sheer amount of consumer grade boards.

I was hoping that ryzen's would be a good replacement, seeing that i3's don't support enough memory (and now ECC), all old intels got hit by a lot of security problems.

But they didn't really get there, allas.

Van anyone tell me if a ryzen 3600 (asrock rack am4 x470d4u) measures up to a new xeon e-2334 (supermicro x12stl-f)? I can't find any benchmarks for the new xeon range.

 

[Yorick]

It might make more sense to go for an x570d4u and an 5600x, if you are considering latest gen Intel Xeon.

Price wise the 5600x is 320 or so and the lowest price xeon with 6 cores is 500. For benchmarks, that xeon tracks with the i5, same cores threads and frequency, just ECC supported. “Slower than comparatively priced Ryzen” - for the i5, for xeon that price/performance ratio opens up further. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/intel-core-i5-10400

I can’t think of many things that would actually need a lot of CPU that one might run on a NAS, though.

 

[Arwen]

Many "desktop" CPUs, (or their system boards), have limited PCIe lanes and memory sizes. Or not support ECC memory.

That is one reason I went with AMD Epyc. Epyc builds are generally NOT budget builds, but they can and do solve a lot of problems. Like "Does Epyc have ECC memory?", of course. And the total amount of memory can be insane, (upto 16 DIMMs per socket!). Then we can talk about 128 PCIe lanes.

In my case, it was a much more modest build, though I had some hard requirements:

• ECC memory
• At least 4 DIMMs
• 10Gbps over copper on system board, (or >=10 SATA / SAS ports)
• At least 10 SATA / SAS, (or builtin 10Gbps over copper)
• At least 4 core, 8 thread, (though 6/12 would be better)
• IPMI
• One free PCIe slot, preferably at least 8 lanes

What I ended up with was a bit more that my minimums, though still a modest build by Epyc standards. But I had the money from not taking any vacation this last year :-(.

 

[Mike77]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the info. I have to look at this.

@Yorick : I Just used the ryzen that kherr mentioned. And I actually would never use an x cpu in a server. And a 3600 build (cpu, board, men) is just cheaper then a new 5000 series. And the xeon was the cheapest new xeon I could find in the webshops that I looked. So the question is how does the "new" x12 supermicro/xeon set compare to AMD?

@Arwen : thanks for the info. Sorry about your vacation. But then I'd like to know what your build is. Do you mean the ASRock Rack ROMED6U-2L2T with an 8 core / 16 thread Epyc 7262? You mentioned this in one of your older posts. You also mention epyc socs? I'm looking for a 15 SATA, 128gb build, and it doesn't need growth potential...

 

[Arwen]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the info. I have to look at this.
...

@Arwen : thanks for the info. Sorry about your vacation. But then I'd like to know what your build is. Do you mean the ASRock Rack ROMED6U-2L2T with an 8 core / 16 thread Epyc 7262? You mentioned this in one of your older posts. You also mention epyc socs? I'm looking for a 15 SATA, 128gb build, and it doesn't need growth potential...

Yes, the ASRock Rack ROMED6U-2L2T with an AMD Epyc 7262.

There are a few Epyc 3000 series SoC / Embedded boards out their, but the board I had looked at from ASRock Rack EPYC3451D4I2-2T is no longer available. When I had been ready to buy early this year, that board was out of stock every where. So, a change in design was called for. (Which in someways worked out better. While a Mini-ITX is small, it can be harder to work with, compared to a Micro-ATX)

Getting 15 SATA / SAS might be on the harder side. You might need to use a PCIe slot to get the last few SATA / SAS ports. For example, the EPYC3451D4I2-2T only had 14 SATA ports, (1 more if you include the M.2 and use a SATA device). The ROMED6U-2L2T has 30 SATA ports, (2 more if you include the M.2 slots, and use SATA devices).

 

[Mike77]

@Arwen : Thanks for the tip. That board is amazing. I have a long list of cpu board combinations that I looked at, but for some reason most are sold out. So I just decided the to get an Epyc 7232p and the Romed6u-2l2t with 128GB of ram. I guess that I can always add extra drives, memory and even a more powerfull cpu, so the board is perfect. Hope it arrives soon.

 

[Arwen]

@Mike77 - One nice thing with Epyc 7xxx series is the numerous PCIe lanes. So, if in the future you want to add some NVMe drives, for VMs or ZFS special, (Cache, SLOG, Meta-cache only, etc...), you can. And still have more PCIe lanes for growth.

Take a look at this article, it mentions the Epyc 7232p;
Serve the Home - AMD EPYC 7002 Rome CPUs with Half Memory Bandwidth

 

[Mike77]

Thanks for the warning. I'm just using two slots each with a Micron 64GB ECC 3200 mhz, for a total of 128GB. 3200 was actually cheaper then the 2666 mhz etc. It's Just a backupserver. No vm's etc.

 

[Mariska]

Hi! Possibly a stupid question, but am I correct that there is nothing on this motherboard in raid, so I don't have to flash anything to IT mode? And are there other specifics I should be aware of while installing this cpu/motherboard combination? Thank you!

 

[QonoS]

I've been running a Ryzen 3600, then upgraded to 3700X ...... everything is at default settings ... no issues.

I second that.

Following combinations I had running (always recent BIOS versions) and never encountered any problems on default settings.

Biostar A320MD Pro : Ryzen 3600
ASRock AB350M Pro4 : Ryzen 2600, 2700, 2700X, 3600, 3800X, 3900X
ASUS Prime B450M-A : Ryzen 3600, 3800X, 3900X
ASRock A520M-ITX/ac : Ryzen 3600, 4750G

Afaik and as it is reported the "need to disable Cool-n-Quiet and C6 states to achieve stability" is only true for first Zen CPUs (Ryzen 1xxx) and early times of Zen+ (2xxx).

 

[Mike77]

Just got mine (the Romed6u-2l2t) and it works.

Question: Can I get power for additional SATA drives from the motherboard itself? I found a four pin power connector near the two SATA ports. IT would be great, because I need two more SATA power connectors and my Psu is maxed out.

 

[Arwen]

From my reading of the ASRock Rack ROMED6U-2L2T manual, the "extra" 4 pin power near the SATA ports is for SATA hard drives. Plus, my kit included a 4 pin power to 2 Y strands of 3 SATA power cables each, (total 6 x SATA power connectors).

But, it mentions DC IN mode. Not sure what that means in relationship to this extra 4 pin power connection.

Guess I will need to find out eventually, as right now I only need a few power cables. But, to fully load my NAS will take more connections.

 

[Mike77]

@Arwen Exactly. At the moment I need power for 12 HDD and I want to use two small ssd's as boot drives. At the moment I'm two power connectors short. Ik found the following article, that mentions the power connector.

ASRock Rack ROMED6U-2L2T Review AMD EPYC in mATX

In our ASRock Rack ROMED6U-2L2T review, we find a mATX AMD EPYC platform absolutely packed with I/O connectivity

www.servethehome.com

I was just hoping that someone on the forum could confirm that it works, before blowing up my new drives and/or build.

B.t.w. I'm using the ATX24 converter and the separate pcu power cord. But I have no Idea if that matters .