Hardware recommendations for my virtualized mini-ITX FREE-NAS System

[SebbaG]

I was asking Asrock now, whether they support 16GB Dimms (my plan was to put in 2x 16GB ECC Dimms but somehow I don't fully anderstand their answer:

Answer:
"E3C226 is Denlow platform so it’s max DIMM capacity is 32GB (4x 8GB). But there is a space limitation on the board that constrains to a dual rank configuration, thus 2x 8GB"

Dual rank constraints? What if I buy 2 Single Rank 16GB Dimms?
(2x - 16GB Kingston ValueRAM DDR3-1600 regECC DIMM CL11 Single (no dual rank))

maybe someone here with deeper knowledge can tell me...

Thx a lot so far, really appreciate all the help!

 

[cyberjock]

Nope, you are limited to 16GB just like they say.

 

[Ericloewe]

I was asking Asrock now, whether they support 16GB Dimms (my plan was to put in 2x 16GB ECC Dimms but somehow I don't fully anderstand their answer:

Answer:
"E3C226 is Denlow platform so it’s max DIMM capacity is 32GB (4x 8GB). But there is a space limitation on the board that constrains to a dual rank configuration, thus 2x 8GB"

Dual rank constraints? What if I buy 2 Single Rank 16GB Dimms?
(2x - 16GB Kingston ValueRAM DDR3-1600 regECC DIMM CL11 Single (no dual rank))

maybe someone here with deeper knowledge can tell me...

Thx a lot so far, really appreciate all the help!

No Intel socketed CPU supports 16GB DDR3 UDIMMs.
Not that I've actually seen any such mythical creatures from any company close to reputable, nor have I seen them on any QVL for a motherboard that does support them.

 

[rogerh]

No Intel socketed CPU supports 16GB DDR3 UDIMMs.
Not that I've actually seen any such mythical creatures from any company close to reputable, nor have I seen them on any QVL for a motherboard that does support them.

Supermicro Avoton board A1SAM-2550F:

http://www.supermicro.nl/support/re...&prid=83769&type=DDR3 1.35V&ecc=1&reg=0&fbd=0

Meets the second condition.

 

[Ericloewe]

Supermicro Avoton board A1SAM-2550F:

http://www.supermicro.nl/support/resources/memory/display.cfm?sz=16.0&mspd=1.333&mtyp=41&id=C5EDB4D47FD2A2267B5A146FF252156C&prid=83769&type=DDR3 1.35V&ecc=1&reg=0&fbd=0

Meets the second condition.

Ah, that's a fortunate development. It's from the brand that came out with the first ones.

 

[SebbaG]

hey folks,

Just a little update. I've ordered the Xeon CPU in combination with the Asrock E3C224D4I-14S meanwhile. The case will be the Node 804.
But now I struggle a bit while choosing the RAM for the build. On asrock's website there are only two 8GB Dimms/Manufacturers listed as suggested/compatible and both are not available in my country.
Nevertheless I found some different Dimms:
http://www.memoryxxl.net/product_in...gb-kit--2x-8gb--ecc-asrock-e3c224d4i-14s.html

What would you suggest? Buy some noname Dimms or go and try some Kingston/Crucial ones and cross fingers?
Any direct suggestions are very much welcome... ;)

 

[cyberjock]

I would *never* try no-name dimms. If they cause problems do you have the experience to rule them out from CLI commands? ;)

 

[Ericloewe]

Between no-name and Crucial, Crucial any day.

Crucial (well, Micron) is a RAM big-shot and they make their own DRAM, much like Samsung and Hynix.

 

[bestboy]

I want to build a box that is able to host...
[...]
- Ubuntu or CentOS VM (with DNS, DHCP, OpenLDAP, and eventually serve as a VPN-Gateway)
- Ubuntu VM with (Apache + XBMC)

I really wonder why people willy-nilly accept the overhead introduced by 2 full-fledged operating systems to host a hand full of standard services.
It can't be for compatibility reasons since all those services run fine in a FreeBSD jail.
It can't be for flexibility reasons since jails are started, stopped, cloned and snapshotted just like VMs.
It can't be for separation-of-concern reasons either since jails can be used to sandbox services, too.

I don't want to be all negative, but I fail to see the benefits of virtualization in this particular case.

 

[Ericloewe]

I really wonder why people willy-nilly accept the overhead introduced by 2 full-fledged operating systems to host a hand full of standard services.
It can't be for compatibility reasons since all those services run fine in a FreeBSD jail.
It can't be for flexibility reasons since jails are started, stopped, cloned and snapshotted just like VMs.
It can't be for separation-of-concern reasons either since jails can be used to sandbox services, too.

I don't want to be all negative, but I fail to see the benefits of virtualization in this particular case.

Familiarity (a.k.a. don't mess with what works), I guess.
Technically, you're right, though.

 

[SebbaG]

I really wonder why people willy-nilly accept the overhead introduced by 2 full-fledged operating systems to host a hand full of standard services.
It can't be for compatibility reasons since all those services run fine in a FreeBSD jail.
It can't be for flexibility reasons since jails are started, stopped, cloned and snapshotted just like VMs.
It can't be for separation-of-concern reasons either since jails can be used to sandbox services, too.

I don't want to be all negative, but I fail to see the benefits of virtualization in this particular case.

@bestboy
You are right with all you mentioned. For the services I initially planned, I could run them all in jails, since they are not very exotic.
Anyway I will list you some reasons why I still like doing it differently: :)
- flexibility at a different layer (OS-level) -> gives me the power to choose special OS'es which might be optimized for some tasks/services (one could argue additional security but since this is questionable and I use it in an home environment I don't see it as a benefit)
- having the opportunity to maybe run different services, which might be not supported/available on FreeNAS/FreeBSD
- having the ability to maybe support Infrastructure as a Service to some of my friends
- as I have already mentioned, not tooooooo much additional costs.
- and last but not least, I like trying out new things ;)

As for the costs argument, which was often mentioned before. I personally don't think that I have spent to much of additional hardware costs. Lets see:
- HDD's, ECC-RAM, Case, PSU would have been the same in either config.
-> I could have saved money with the motherboard (well actually not, since I wanted a MB with ECC support in a miniITX form factor), the cpu (this is out of question, but savings would be in the range of maybe 100-150$) and the additional cooler (another 20$ savings).

Well, as I've said often before, I don't see a real benefit in not buying the hardware in the first place. If the strategy of virtualizing FreeNAS is usefull or not, is a different topic and has been discussed already elsewhere.
So by next week, I start building everything and hopefully give some insights and reports back.
First challenge will be to flash the LSI 2308 to IT-Mode :) By the way, I've choosen "8GB Crucial DDR3-1600 ECC DIMM CL11 Single" RAM-DIMMS. I hope the play nice with the Asrock E3C224D4I-14S. :)

so long...