BUILD First Build

[radian23]

04/13 Edit:
I have purchased the following:

Motherboard: $35 Supermicro MBD-X10SLH-F-O
Case: $98.29 Fractal Node 804
HDD: $750 5-5TB Red Drives (Removed from element enclosures) Will be Raid Z2
Power Supply: $59.99 Rosewill CAPSTONE 450W Modular
USB: SanDisk Cruzer 16GB (USB 2.0)
CPU: $110.00 Intel i3-4350
RAM: $86.99 Samsung 8GB DDR3-1600 M391B1G73QH0-YK0
UPC: $91.48 CyberPower CP850AVRLCD

Total Cost: $1231.75

I am currently in the process of running badblocks on all of my drives. Looking forward to moving data to the system starting this weekend. I placed an order for another 8GB stick of RAM. Is there any reason why I need to wait for the other 8GB stick to come before starting the data transfer? If freenas runs out of memory will it just run slower or will there be data corruption? I am planning to use this system as a plex server and would like to use it this weekend. If I get poor performance for a few days that is fine but I am more worried about data integrity.

Original Post:

Working to put together system to run freenas. Read through the stickies and just wanted to run this build by everyone. I will be using it as a plex server and to backup family photos and videos. Plex will be accessed by a rasplex and possibly 2 android devices. Planning to purchase the following:

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X10SLH-F-O
Ram: Samsung 8GB DDR3-1600 MHz PC3-12800 240-pin ECC Server Memory - M391B1G73QH0-YK0
HDD: 3x 4TB Western Digital Red Drives
Case: Fractal Node 804
Power Supply: Rosewill CAPSTONE 450W Modular
USB: SanDisk Ultra Fit 16GB (USB 3.0)
CPU: Intel i3-43XX

• Can I use USB 3.0 as the boot drive? I've read a few things that it can cause issues but I'm unsure if that is an old problem or still an issue. If so I'll get a USB 2.0 Drive.
• Power Supply: I believe 450 Watts is adequate.
• CPU: Not really deadset on anything at this time. Was thinking to purchase any i3. Is there any advantage in the i3-43xx vs i3 41XX? Should my motherboard support either CPU out of the box. Read something about firmware version 2.0 or something but can't find it anymore.
• UPS: Any recommendation on one that would work well? Would like to keep it less than $100. I would need one that would allow the NAS to properly shutdown.

 

[marbus90]

According to ixsystem's CTO the C2750 is the better choice for plex. The ASRock C2750D4I is the board used in the FreeNAS mini and ITX sized, so you could downsize to a Node 304 chassis.

The PSU doesn't seem trustworthy, rather pick the Seasonic G-360.

I assume you plan on raidz with those 4TB drives, but that's not recommended anymore since the rebuild times are quite high. Also if you encounter read errors during rebuild (which is likely), your whole pool may throw up. We've even had the case of a 6drive raidz2 with 3 disks erroring out just days ago, it's very unlikely, thankfully not much important data was lost. Therefore you may consider buying 4 disks to use them in a raidz2 setup.

UPS-wise I'm happy with the APC Back-UPS Pro series. A bugdet below $100 can be a bit tight, but the smallest model should still be within that.

 

[radian23]

Motherboard and RAM are already on the way here. I went with Supermicro as it seemed it is highly recommend on this board.
Thanks for the suggestion on the PSU. Will 360Watt be adaquete?
I was planning to do a raidz. Looks like a raidz2 might be the way to go. Hate to spend an extra $150 but it sure beats data loss.
APC Back-UPS Pro seems to be in the price range.

 

[marbus90]

You overspend on the SLH anyway. SLL or SLM series are better, even if you go with "some Supermicro X10 series". there are lots of models around, better ask before you order - just today we had someone in the IRC channel who couldn't get IPMI going - he simply bought "some Supermicro X10 series" cause they're recommended and picked one without IPMI. CPU-wise I'd rather pick a Xeon E3 for plex since it does work better with multiple cores, but the i3-4130 can be fine.

For 4disk systems even the 360W PSUs are over the top, but there's not much choice below that wattage.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Check my signature. Same mobo (& memory) and same USB3 boot drive(s) type. Works like a charm. (Just remember if you use an USB drive to install from, put THAT one in an USB2 port, even if it is a USB3 stick. The actual drive you are going to boot from can be in one of the USB2 or 3 ports.)

I would recommend ramping up the RAM to 16GB.

You overspend on the SLH anyway. SLL or SLM series are better, even if you go with "some Supermicro X10 series". there are lots of models around, better ask before you order - just today we had someone in the IRC channel who couldn't get IPMI going - he simply bought "some Supermicro X10 series" cause they're recommended and picked one without IPMI.

What are you talking about? There are other users on this forum that use this board and never had a problem with it. What makes sn SLL or SLM series better in your opinion - especially related to the OPs use case? Also, the IPMI stuff doesn't make sense in this regard, since the proposed board has IPMI. I've been using it very happily.

You are right about the CPU, though. That is one of the reasons I picked that series.

 

[marbus90]

SLH uses C226 chipset which is just a waste of money for FreeNAS. FreeNAS runs on a C222 or C224 chipset perfectly fine. The IPMI story is just a reminder to ask before you buy a specific model.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

So it's only about the money, not that one or the other would be better.

You are totally right on that one. You did got me wondering, so I've compared prices on newegg and the cheapest X10 SSL or SLM board would be the X10SLL-F board, which is 35 USD cheaper than the X10SLH-F board. For that 35 USD more, you only get a little bit better network (SSL uses 1x i217LM (which requires support from the chipset controller) and 1x i210AT; SLH uses 2x i210AT) and 2 more SATA3 ports (6x SATA3 vs 4x SATA2+2x SATA3). The latter you shouldn't even care about at all, unless you plan to use 6 quality SSD's and as far as i've seen, both the network controllers should work fine. I do begin to wonder now why i chose my SLH board... Probably got carried away by the 6x SATA3 thing, which doesn't make sense in my setup at all... Ah well...

 

[Fraoch]

For that 35 USD more, you only get a little bit better network (SSL uses 1x i217LM (which requires support from the chipset controller) and 1x i210AT; SLH uses 2x i210AT)

Actually the "+-" models use 2 X i210AT, the regular "-" models use one i210AT and one i217LV.

i.e. the X10SLL+-F board has 2 X i210AT, the X10SLL-F board has 1 X i210AT and 1 X i217LV.

Only found this out after I got my X10SLM-F , but no biggie for me anyway - I'm only using the i210AT, the i217V is an unused backup/spare at this point. I might care more if I used LACP, but LACP is of limited benefit, I only ran one line through the walls to the server and the i217LV isn't as horrible as Realtek anyway, it's just that it does not have all the capabilities the i210AT does.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Ah, missed that (network controllers) part. Probably because I didn't bother to check any further, because I couldn't find any price for those fast enough. Thanks for the info

 

[NannerMuffin]

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X10SLH-F-O
Ram: Samsung 8GB DDR3-1600 MHz PC3-12800 240-pin ECC Server Memory - M391B1G73QH0-YK0
HDD: 3x 4TB Western Digital Red Drives
Case: Fractal Node 804
Power Supply: Rosewill CAPSTONE 450W Modular
USB: SanDisk Ultra Fit 16GB (USB 3.0)
CPU: Intel i3-43XX

It looks like we are building a very similar platform. A MBD-X10SLH-F-O & an Intel i3-43XX. I've purchased all of the following parts. My board arrived on Wednesday 1/28/15. Just waiting on the drives and RAM to arrive.

MotherBoard: Supermicro X10SLH-F
CPU: Intel Core i3-4370
RAM: 2x 8GB Samsung 1600 MHz ECC M391B1G73QH0-YK0 (Supermicro X10SLH-F Certified)
HDD: 6x 3TB WD Reds WD30EFRX (RAIDZ2)
PSU: Seasonic SSR-360GP
UPS: CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD

I was also concerned about the BIOS version for Haswell refresh support, but my concerns were dismissed when IPMI reported BIOS version 2.0. (I love how IPMI just works without a CPU & RAM installed!) I've emailed and spoken with Supermicro support to confirm BIOS version 2.0 supports Haswell refresh processors.

Here is an except from my email correspondence.

-------
Good morning support team,

Is the Intel Core i3-4370 supported on the X10SLH-F motherboard? If so, could you tell me which bios version is required to support it?
-------
-------
Our lab did not test the i3-4370 with our X10SLH-F. However, they did qualified i3-4360 which should mean it is compatible. You should be on the latest R2.0 BIOS (4/24/14).
-------

Regarding your UPS query, the CyberPower CP850PFCLCD is not quite under $100, but I have a colleague that confirmed it is supported by FreeNAS.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

That 1500 UPS seems a bit overkill to me. I don't know the 850, but u use the 900 and that works fine for my similar setup.

 

[NannerMuffin]

That 1500 UPS seems a bit overkill to me. I don't know the 850, but u use the 900 and that works fine for my similar setup.

Agreed that the 1500 UPS is overkill for FreeNAS is alone, but I'll be doing a bit of repurposing because my existing UPS (CyberPower PP1500T) is not supported.

 

[radian23]

Thank you everyone for the input. Regarding the price of my motherboard I picked it up for $30 because it has a few bent pins on the 1150 socket. I'll try to straighten them out but if I don't have luck I can get a new socket installed for $50.

Decided in a i3-4350 as I was able to get one new in the box for $110. Xeon may have been nicer but wasn't will to spend the extra $$.

I plan to upgrade the memory in the near future. Was able to get this 8 GB stick for $60. Any issues with adding a stick later? I assume I just plug it in?

I'm going to wait for a deal on 4gb WD red drives. Seen some recent deals to be had for $120. I'll pick up 4 of them.

 

[radian23]

Thanks for the info on the bios. Had no idea you could start it without the CPU. I'll give that a shot when I get my mobo this weekend. Crossing my fingers.

 

[NannerMuffin]

Thanks for the info on the bios. Had no idea you could start it without the CPU. I'll give that a shot when I get my mobo this weekend. Crossing my fingers.

Yeah, I was amazed! Simply connect your PSU to the mobo and make sure the PSU switch is on. You don't even need a front panel power switch to turn the board on.

Good luck!

 

[radian23]

Just purchased the rosewill PSU. It is manufactured by super flower which has excellent build quality.

 

[radian23]

Plugged in the motherboard and booted into IPMI. Learned that I have BIOS Version :1.1

I have an i3-4350 hopefully coming in the mail soon. I believe I need to update my BIOS to Version: 2.0 to post with this processor. Is that correct? If so is there anyway to update the bios without buying another processor? Looks like I can buy a product key to update the bios in IPMI but I'd rather not pay for a bios update if I don't have to.

 

[cyberjock]

Someone here said that if you call Supermicro and explain the situation they will sometimes give you a trial key that lets you do a BIOS update to get you to 2.0.

 

[radian23]

Tried to get a temporary key and they won't give them out. You have to purchase Mfg. Part: SFT-OOB-LIC. The other option is to send the board in on an RMA and they will flash it for you. I think I might send it in to have the board looked through. What a pain though.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

You can send the board so they will flash it for you, but they won't just simply give you a temporary key?? Logic.......