First freenas build - Am I in the right direction?

[SillyPosition]

Hi everyone,
Im a long time synology user and its time to ramp up and swim with the big fish :)
I want ZFS. I want to have data integrity.
My current nas is powered by a celeron j1900, with 16gb ram. Running 8-10 services, including file sharing of course, media server (sort of, basically still file sharing as its just Kodi devices), web server for server self hosted applications, mail server, photo storage and sharing (about .4TB photos)

I have a few dilemmas for the new setup.
I know for a fact that I want IPMI, ECC ram and support for up to 8 drives. Currently my storage disks sums up to about 10-12TB.
I have been browsing Amazon and focused on two directions, which Im still not sure which is the better option:
1. The slightly more expensive A2SDi-4C-HLN4F, can be found on Amazon for around 320$.
2. The cheaper yet possibly more powerful X11SSM-F-O which is sold for 230$.

As for CPU, I have an Intel G4400 that can be pulled out of an old PC not used, but the downside of saving money on CPU here is that it is only dual core, and I think its less fitting my usage. But I would like to have your opinion about it of course. If not using it, I guess Im open to spend about 120$ for an i3 8100 quadcore

For Memory, According to my usage, storage size, and the will to be able to spin up a VM or two, I understand that 32GB will be the better choice, and I need a tip here and an advice what should I pick.

All hardware will be bought from Amazon.

PSU I have, case Ill work something out, OS will run from USB with redundency (same as all the other disks)

I hope I didnt forget any important detail. I would love to hear your thoughts.

 

[Antioch18]

JFYI, A2SDi-4C-HLN4F can be found for cheaper elsewhere, ($280 IIRC). I suppose the Atom D3558 is a minor spec bump over the Celeron J1900, and it gets you ECC support. If you keep the current workload it should be fine.

If you're going to change the workload and add in VMs then you may want to consider getting something stronger depending on the purposes of the VMs. Rather than spend $120 on an i3-8100, you can probably find a used Xeon on eBay which will get you more performance. I'm not sure what the recommendations are, but I've seen them around on this forum and servethehome forums. Just something to consider.

 

[SillyPosition]

Xeon opens up doors, as its powerful even for hardware encoding and allows me more heavier tasks like Plex, leaving a windows VM running for some Office tasks (Machines in the house are all Linux based and sometimes it can be a tiny bit of trouble) etc
But I never have considered used parts, and I guess it requires some research on finding good reputation sellers. I will try to dig a bit on that. Thanks for this tip.

 

[Chris Moore]

There are a lot more options in the US for used parts. It may be difficult to find what you need on the used market in other parts of the world. Are you willing to consider purchasing items from US sellers and having the material shipped to you using a service like this?

https://www.shipito.com/en/

 

[SillyPosition]

There are a lot more options in the US for used parts. It may be difficult to find what you need on the used market in other parts of the world. Are you willing to consider purchasing items from US sellers and having the material shipped to you using a service like this?

https://www.shipito.com/en/

Well, I guess it depends on the specific part and how good is its condition? Im familiar with shipito.
All Im worried about is customs as I ship it outside of the US, that's why Amazon is the favorite here (its all prepaid in advance)
Another thing to be worried about is the item condition, for example motherboard capacitors has wear. CPU/memory I guess are OK

 

[Chris Moore]

Most of the Supermicro systems I have dealt with over the years are built with very good quality capacitors and I have not seen any (personally) that failed due to bad capacitors. I wouldn't hesitate to purchase a Supermicro system board that had already been used for three years with the expectation to use it another three or even six years. Just last month, I decommissioned a server at work that had been running for eleven years and I have another that I hope to decommission later this year that has been running for eight years.

 

[SillyPosition]

Thanks. I wonder about the CPU, so please share your knowledge.
None of the supermicro boards list the 1151 socket as either the regulra 1151 or 1151v2.
Does it support both?
Because I see much more variety of CPUs with 1151v2 socket rather then just "1151".

So Im a bit confused here.

Will the Supermicro X11SSH-F support something like the Intel G4400? Can I put in there any LGA1151 or LGA1151v2 6th/7th gen intel CPU?

 

[demon]

Thanks. I wonder about the CPU, so please share your knowledge.
None of the supermicro boards list the 1151 socket as either the regulra 1151 or 1151v2.
Does it support both?
Because I see much more variety of CPUs with 1151v2 socket rather then just "1151".

So Im a bit confused here.

Will the Supermicro X11SSH-F support something like the Intel G4400? Can I put in there any LGA1151 or LGA1151v2 6th/7th gen intel CPU?

There's no "LGA1151v2" socket; the socket (LGA1151/Socket H4) is the same between the Skylake/Kaby Lake versus Coffee Lake chips, but the chipset is different (for the server boards, C23x for the former vs. C24x for the latter). Based on the SuperMicro product page you linked, it'll definitely work with the G4400 (a Skylake chip), but will not work with the new Pentium Gold CPUs (which are Coffee Lake chips).

If you look here, you'll see the Xeon E-2100 boards; those are for the new Coffee Lake chips. The Xeon E3-1200 v6/v5 boards (listed just below those) are for Skylake/Kaby Lake chips.

 

[SillyPosition]

Thanks!
The X11SSH-F is currently my favorite, as it supports all the features I want (ECC, IPMI) and has a large number of SATA ports, and it comes in a decent price and form factor as well (planning to put it in a Fractal 304 case)

Another day of thinking about it and Im wondering about the nature of the ECC support.
The X11SSH-F model supports Unbuffered registered ECC UDIMM modules.
There are two types - Unbuffered ECC and Registered ECC. What is the difference and how does it impact my NAS build in general?
Does it mean that I have to buy an unbuffered ECC memory? Will Registered ECC wont perform properly (with error correction of course)?

I would love to get an advise on which ram to pick from Amazon for my build, Im pretty much clueless here. Looking for 2x16GB sticks best deal of course, any suggestions?

 

[Chris Moore]

The X11SSH-F is currently my favorite, as it supports all the features I want (ECC, IPMI) and has a large number of SATA ports, and it comes in a decent price and form factor as well (planning to put it in a Fractal 304 case)

That system board does not fit in that case. The Fractal Design Node 304 only fits a Mini-ITX system board, but the Supermicro X11SSH-F is a Micro-ATX system board.

The X11SSH-F model supports Unbuffered registered ECC UDIMM modules.

No, not registered. Memory is either Unbuffered (UDIMM) or Registered (RDIMM), not both. This system board ONLY support UDIMM (Unbuffered DIMM) memory. Get this wrong and you will have parts that wont work together. The kind of processor and system board chipset work together to determine what kind of memory will work in a system board. This one Supermicro X11SSH-F only supports UDIMM memory.
Registered (RDIMM) memory is less expensive, but you need a different processor and system board to be able to use it.

 

[SillyPosition]

No, not registered. Memory is either Unbuffered (UDIMM) or Registered (RDIMM), not both. This system board ONLY support UDIMM (Unbuffered DIMM) memory. Get this wrong and you will have parts that won't work together. The kind of processor and system board chipset work together to determine what kind of memory will work in a system board. This one Supermicro X11SSH-F only supports UDIMM memory.
Registered (RDIMM) memory is less expensive, but you need a different processor and system board to be able to use it.

Seems that most Supermicro 6th/7th gen boards Im looking at are all UDIMM type.
But UDIMM is still a "good enough" ECC memory to use for a home build, together with ZFS, right?

I see another option for a similar board, the X11SSL-nF which is cheaper, has 2 less SATA ports but the main difference I see it uses a different chipset (C232 instead C236), and the C232 has no Intel Virtualization technology. Should that bother me in some way?

Re case, thank you, I will take another look, I totally overlooked that part.

 

[Antioch18]

UDIMM or RDIMM doesn't matter in that regards. Rather, Chris wants you to understand that the two are incompatible, so you need to get the correct kind that match your board.

RDIMMs are "better" in that they allow you to get a higher total RAM size in the system. Unbuffered will limit your total size.

For example, here are the specs for a board that supports both.

• Up to 256GB Registered ECC RDIMM and DDR4-2400MHz
• Up to 64GB Unbuffered ECC/non-ECC UDIMM, DDR4-2400MHz, in 4 DIMM slots

 

[SillyPosition]

Thank you. Everything is much clearer right now. Correct me if Im wrong but it looks like Unbuffered ECC ram is very hard to get. I can barely find those on Amazon/newegg.