Hardware Check/Recommendations

[CookiesLikeWhoa]

First off let me say thank you ahead of time! I've been reading the forum for the past month and think I have finally grasped enough to start planning something. I'm not the most gifted when it comes to hardware, and even less so with most software so bare with me!

The ultimate goal of the build:
Back up solution for 2 work stations, and my family's random computers.
File server
Plex (media) Server (transcoding will be required, 4 ipads, 3 rokus, etc.)
Possibly storing VM's, but that would be down the road.

I work a lot with Photoshop, Lightroom and Premier, while my better half works with Maya (extensively) and some Solidworks for reference.

CPU: Xeon 1650 V3 (alternatively the 1620 V3 was my first option but further reading suggested the transacoding might benefit from the 2 extra cores)
Ram: 4x 16GB ECC Reg Hynix: HMA42GR7MFR4N-TF (expanding to 8 later for 128 gigs)
Mobo: Supermicro X10SRL-F or X10SRH-CF (recommendation requested)
Case: Case Labs M8A
PSU: EVGA 750 G2

HDD: 8x WD Red 4TB (Expanding later)
SSD: 8x Samsung 250 Evo's (for current projects only, backed up to the main pool often)
Boot Drive: Samsung 32gb Flash Drive or other recommendations.

HBA Card: Recommendations welcome. I have an IBM m1015/LSI 9240-8i, which seems to be the go to card and flash it to IT mode. Though I see that the X10SRH-CF has the 8 SAS ports on the LSI 3008 chip. Reading was sparse about this and mostly from late 2014 to mid 2015, and there wasn't much support for it. Has anything changed since then?

The main pool will be set up in a "raid 10" style with mirrored vdevs (4x), if I read the presentation correctly.

Hopefully all looks good, but any advice would be greatly appreciated! I want to do this right.

 

[m0nkey_]

Everything appears to check out. You have a decent motherboard, ECC RAM, HBA (m1015), etc. Sounds like you're ready! Mirrored vdevs will give you the best performance, but as always, make sure you have a backup.

 

[religiouslyconfused]

Good news is that Freenas 9.10 is out and I am sure that the LSI 12gb chips are working better. Looks pretty good.

 

[CookiesLikeWhoa]

Thanks for the responses guys!

I'm just unsure if the 1650 is needed or the 1620 will work out for what I want to do.

 

[jgreco]

The 1650 is an extremely pleasant processor with lots of oomph at a relatively reasonable price for a Xeon E5. The 1620 is probably sufficient for your needs *today*, but the 1650 would future-proof things for you a little more.

 

[BigDave]

I'm just unsure if the 1650 is needed or the 1620 will work out for what I want to do.

Speed is king (for Samba) and the 1620 is faster, with four cores, you have eight threads possible and that
would seem to fit your use case. Plus the $200 savings can go towards a spare hard drive.
Having a spare (or two) standing by is good. That being said, the 1650 would be sweet for working large files.

That probably didn't help sway you much, did it!

 

[jgreco]

Speed is king (for Samba) and the 1620 is faster, with four cores, you have eight threads possible and that
would seem to fit your use case.

The 1620 is a quad core part with a base clock of 3.5GHz that can turbo to 3.6GHz.

The 1650 is a six core part with a base clock of 3.5GHz that can turbo to 3.8GHz.

There is no case where the 1620 is going to be faster than the 1650.

Perhaps you meant the 1630, but there the max turbo is still only 3.8GHz.

 

[BigDave]

Oops! My bad. I was comparing the two V2 CPUs by mistake...

As punishment, I will go without ice cream tonight...

with my brownie!

 

[jgreco]

Oops! My bad. I was comparing the two V2 CPUs by mistake...

The E5-1650 v2 is a hexacore part that has a base clock of 3.5GHz that turbos to 3.9GHz.

The E5-1620 v2 is a quad fore part that has a base clock of 3.7GHz that turbos to 3.9GHz.

For an equivalent workload, there are probably no cases where the 1620 would be able to sustain 3.7GHz (100% busy) where the same load on the 1650 wasn't also going at least as fast; with only two thirds of the cores busy on the 1650, it is actually likely to be turbo'ing up when the 1620 is stuck at 100% busy at 3.7.

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...cification-updates/xeon-e5-v2-spec-update.pdf

As punishment, I will go without ice cream tonight...

with my brownie!

I'll take that brownie, too, thanks.

 

[BigDave]

I was reading a cpu comparision from 2014 and you throw some spec update from sept. 15 in my face :p
No ice cream, ok I can live with that, but I think you're being a bit defensive regarding
your favorite CPU there Bud. ;)


Get yer hands off my brownie dude!

 

[jgreco]

Yeah, I'm *pretty* sure that Intel didn't actually magically increase all the speeds in September 2015.

The 1650's simply a better processor by about 50%, but it is also ~100% more expensive. Obviously the expense is only worth it if you actually end up using some of that extra speed for something useful.

 

[BigDave]

I now realize that I was reading a comparison for an E5 1650 (32 nm) vs. E5 1620 V2 (22 nm) lol
The brownie is yours.
I hope it goes straight to your love handles:p

 

[CookiesLikeWhoa]

Thank you for the recommendations everyone! Looks like I'll stick with my original idea of going with the 1650.

One other question, would the HGST Deskstar NAS drives work out better than the reds? They're 10 bucks more and run at 7.2k RPMs. Seems like the added performance would be worthwhile.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Looking through your hardware choices and workflows it seems like you might benefit from better networking. Have you thought about 10gbit networking? You are looking those ssds and are looking at 7200rpm drives which are great for random reads and writes but you will always be bottled necked by your network of 1gbit. There are some more complexities that come with 10gbit but doing a simple direct attach to your workstations for your work might help.

 

[jgreco]

I hope it goes straight to your love handles:p

That's what the armrests are for, they hold all that in place.

 

[CookiesLikeWhoa]

Looking through your hardware choices and workflows it seems like you might benefit from better networking. Have you thought about 10gbit networking? You are looking those ssds and are looking at 7200rpm drives which are great for random reads and writes but you will always be bottled necked by your network of 1gbit. There are some more complexities that come with 10gbit but doing a simple direct attach to your workstations for your work might help.

Well right now I have a 16 port gigabit switch, and Intel dual port gigabit NIC in my desktop, and my workstation has dual gigabit ports. I could theoretically team up the ports to help with it? My only concern is getting a 10gbit switch to handle all the devices.

 

[jgreco]

No, link aggregation doesn't work like that.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/lacp-friend-or-foe.30541/

10 gig isn't that rough. There's several ways to get there, though the 5524 is still probably the easiest.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/10-gig-networking-primer.25749/

 

[CookiesLikeWhoa]

Thank you for the information, the cost for my small solution is what always got me. Seemed way out of wack for my small scale.. I don't plan to have a lot of people on this network and even less that need the 10gig connection. The Dell 5524 is super affordable on Ebay along with a couple of intel X520's seem like the most practical solution.

Those SFP+ cables though are another story.

 

[jgreco]

The SFP+ cables, be sure to read up on the 10G networking primer.

The SFP+ twinax stuff can be anywhere from dirt cheap to super expensive.

Going fiber is sometimes smarter and can be cheaper if you get the optics at a good price. The X520's that come with optics are usually cheaper than trying to get the X520-DA and then source Intel compatible optics separately. The Dell optics are usually ~$20-$30. The fiber can be anywhere from cheap to expensive, depending on the quality and whether or not you mind waiting three weeks for it to swim in from China.

 

[CookiesLikeWhoa]

Since I'll want 3 units running at 10g would the Dell X1052 work just as well? It has 4 10g SFP+ ports and a gagle of gigabit ports, priced not too much higher than the 5524.

I'm going to start looking at the optics side of things. Seems that's the only way to go for longer runs.