Failing ASRock Rack C2750D4I in Mini 2.0 - replace with ASRock Rack C3758D4U-2TP ?

[MacToFreeNAS]

I have a failing ASRock Rack C2750D4I motherboard in my FreeNas Mini 2.0 (specs in signature) which even with updated BIOS/BMC is throwing same errors and starting to reboot same as ones before the "fix".

I am wondering if replacing it with the current Mini X+ board (which looks to be the ASRock Rack C3758D4U-2TP) would be a good move. I will have to get new memory, but looks to be cheaper than buying a new system. Comments? Downsides?

Thanks!

 

[artlessknave]

isnt the mini an mITX chassis? looking up that board gets a MATX board. that would not be compatible.
the idea is sound, but that cannot be the board. to my knowledge, they use supermicro, but I dont have one.
have you tried asking iX about it? you did buy it.

 

[MacToFreeNAS]

Good catch, the ASRock Rack C3758D4I-4L is the Mini ITX format. Thanks.

 

[sirjorj]

I've been looking at the C3758D4U-2TP as well. I have 2 concerns:
1) The 8 SATA ports are spread across 2 controllers.
If I make a pool with drives that are connected to different controllers, can that cause problems?

2) No USB 3.0.
I can't believe systems are made these days that top out at USB2. I often connect a USB drive and run some rsync scripts to backup the essential data and this would really slow this process down. I also use USB for the boot drives. I could add a card to the PCIe slot but thats just more cost and more power - I try to build low power systems.

 

[artlessknave]

The 8 SATA ports are spread across 2 controllers.

as long as the controllers aren't crap or RAID or something, this is irelevant. TrueNAS just needs direct access to the disks, how that happens it doesn't care, as long as it's reliable.

2) No USB 3.0.

USB 3.0 sticks tend to just overheat and die anyway, and "speed" is irrelevant for the boot drive, not having it die is more important.
why rsync when you can replicate? unless the data changes really often, replication will be faster than rysnc. actually it will still probably be faster than rsync...

I try to build low power systems.

USB tends to be low power AND low reliability, all in one.... :\

 

[sirjorj]

as long as the controllers aren't crap or RAID or something, this is irelevant. TrueNAS just needs direct access to the disks, how that happens it doesn't care, as long as it's reliable.

That's what I expected. The other 4 SATA ports are from a Marvell controller. I had a system with a Marvell Yukon network controller and it made me not want to get anything Marvell ever again! Seriously, that NIC would lock up so bad that power cycling wouldn't fix it. I had to make a DOS boot disk to run their diagnostics and that would fix it.

USB 3.0 sticks tend to just overheat and die anyway, and "speed" is irrelevant for the boot drive, not having it die is more important.
why rsync when you can replicate? unless the data changes really often, replication will be faster than rysnc. actually it will still probably be faster than rsync...

I am unfamiliar with this replicate feature. I will look into it. I have 2 basic external WD portable drives and I keep one home and one at a remote location. A few times a year I swap them. Regardless of how I sync the data, no USB3 connectors will significantly slow down the transfer. Yeah, it is not something I do often, but it is still annoying! :)

USB tends to be low power AND low reliability, all in one.... :\

My current NAS is a C2750-based Supermicro board booting off of 2 striped USB flash drives. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if they are USB 2 or 3, but they have been working for about 6 years now.

I've also looked into the C3758D4I-4L and I like it better but you cannot find them anywhere. The 4-core version is on amazon but I would really prefer 8 cores.

 

[artlessknave]

what about something like

X11SDV-4C-TP8F | Motherboards | Products | Supermicro

www.supermicro.com

I was interested in this, but it looks like they have stopped shipping to my area, and raised the price by 200$, but it's one of the cheapest modern itx boards I have seen. it would be a fair bit more single core performance but also more power. 12 ports though.

New Supermicro 1U Half depth 10 Gb SFP+ DDR4 4c 3Ghz Turbo Low power XEON CPU | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for New Supermicro 1U Half depth 10 Gb SFP+ DDR4 4c 3Ghz Turbo Low power XEON CPU at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.ca

 

[sirjorj]

what about something like

X11SDV-4C-TP8F | Motherboards | Products | Supermicro

www.supermicro.com

I was interested in this, but it looks like they have stopped shipping to my area, and raised the price by 200$, but it's one of the cheapest modern itx boards I have seen. it would be a fair bit more single core performance but also more power. 12 ports though.

New Supermicro 1U Half depth 10 Gb SFP+ DDR4 4c 3Ghz Turbo Low power XEON CPU | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for New Supermicro 1U Half depth 10 Gb SFP+ DDR4 4c 3Ghz Turbo Low power XEON CPU at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.ca

That looks pretty good. I do want to do a bit more with this NAS than I did with the previous so the extra performance could be useful. But the processor is definitely more power hungry. I'll need to think about it to see if it is worth it. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[artlessknave]

note that the majoiry of the power usage is while loaded, so if its relavetiely idle, while it will still be more than the C's, it will still be like......12$ a year in power (depending on where you live anyway)

 

[MacToFreeNAS]

to close the loop on this for my setup, I ended up going with a SuperMicro board A2SDi-8C+-HLN4F and upgraded DDR4 RAM to 32GB.
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/a2sdi-8c+-hln4f

Install went smoothly, had to mess with boot setup to get it to recognize the SATA-DOM but other than that easy swap, and nice performance boost. Need to update my signature now...