BUILD Hardware selection - 1st FreeNAS build

[Darren Myers]

I compared your hardware choices and mine. Why are you using the WD Red series drives? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Re series also is 24/7 and has more warranty. So why don't you go with them? (I use the Red drives only in smaller build up to 4 disks)

Youre correct the WD RE4 drives has a 5 year warranty as compared to the WD Reds 3 year, but the RE4's are 7200 RPM and therefor (depending on chassis/airflow) would run hotter and generate more heat then the Reds. I am using x7 WD Reds + 14 RE4's but have no had any issues with heat due to AC :P

 

[DataKeeper]

Main reason is they are $90 bucks more expensive to start with and at 24 that's a LOT of extra $$$s! Pretty much the same reason why I don't use the PRO drives. As Darren also pointed out they generate more heat, will consume more power, have a higher pitch (of the ones I've heard) over the REDs, etc. If I were to go with 7200 drives I'd likely go with the HGSTs.

I had considered going with modded greens but decided on the REDs for this system. I have greens that have been running 24/7 in smaller systems for 4-5 years now without issues.

 

[DataKeeper]

Just received the SC813MTQ-350CB chassis System, the replacement 48-port switch and the 64GB DDR4 RAM from Newegg... And cringed! Why would you ship RAM modules in an envelope?!? This isn't the first time and thankfully it's always worked. Still.. I cringe every time!

 

[Darren Myers]

Just received the SC813MTQ-350CB chassis System, the replacement 48-port switch and the 64GB DDR4 RAM from Newegg... And cringed! Why would you ship RAM modules in an envelope?!? This isn't the first time and thankfully it's always worked. Still.. I cringe every time!

Why the adorable 1U chassis? unless i missed something.

 

[DataKeeper]

I bought the 1U chassis for an ESXi server I'm considering. I'm entirely new to virtualization and have just started reading up a bit on it. The X8 board, CPU and memory will go into another smaller chassis for a pfSense system.

Btw.. After opening the 24-bay chassis then pulling this one out of the box today.. Adorable does work lol! It's so incredibly small and light compared to the other. I'll so be ordering another even smaller one for the pfSense system.

 

[diedrichg]

Those DOMs will not sit side by side, as you can kinda see from Jailer's post #2 photo they hang over onto the next port rendering one port useless. Unless you did a SATA extension cable.

 

[DataKeeper]

@diedrichg .. The DOM ports on the X10SRL-F are spaced apart from each other and the other regular sata ports. Supermicro confirmed they should fit fine. Check the link and notice the DOM port spacing.

 

[DataKeeper]

@Hobbel here is a photo of the board in the 24-bay chassis..

After taping wires out of the way I had to reposition 4 of the chassis screw pins to align properly with the motherboard holes. Swapped out the rear faceplate with the one provided with the new board. Remember to make sure you pop out all the required openings! :D I am ashamed to admit this but.. I forgot! (Insert DOH! moment here) YES.. I had to pull the motherboard out again after screwing it down to remove the 2 USB3, LAN2 & IPMI slots since they hadn't been knocked out at the factory.

Again.. first build in 10 years from scratch so :p

 

[Hobbel]

@DataKeeper nice! thx for the pics. There is plenty of room :)

I'm gonna place my order this weekend.:D

 

[DataKeeper]

Everything fits on great with a ton of room. Even the massive Noctua NH-U9DX i4 cooler fits in nicely.

 

[Darren Myers]

Everything fits on great with a ton of room. Even the massive Noctua NH-U9DX i4 cooler fits in nicely.

Gonna need pics of the Noctua :P How did the SAS cables fit?

 

[DataKeeper]

Gonna need pics of the Noctua :p How did the SAS cables fit?

They fit perfectly. I added two hangers on the side of the chassis to hold them up and out of the way. They run down the side and should fit into the M1015 just fine.

Grumbles.... ok so the M1015 card that was given to me is you know.. dead! So as I stated, free is great, when it works. I found this out earlier in the week and purchased another off eBay. Should have been delivered today however USPS says they have yet to receive it from the seller! so.. Double Grumbles! ** Just (as in while typing this) got a reply from the seller stating he was away for the week and will ship it out in the morning. Still grumbling..... ;)

 

[Darren Myers]

Ah that cheeky bastard, well im glad the cables fit :D

 

[DataKeeper]

OK so the system is together minus drives and M1015. On a quick power up I was seeing the front panel OverHeat LED come on and of course the fans were power cycling so I shutdown. Got into IPMI via IP and found the CPU is running at a cool 36C degrees however the FAN1 was causing the issue. Quick fix on that got it up and running. Changed the fan mode to "HeavyIO Speed" which stopped the fans from cycling to a nice continuous medium speed (~4000RPM). Changed the boot order for USB Flash Drive, popped in a flash drive with Memtest86, booted up and test has been running for 1 hour 55 minutes. Currently on Test 9 of 64GB ram.

IPMI, once figured out, ROCKS! :D

A note on the Noctua NH-U9DX cooler and this board, the X10SRL-F, you need to remove the mounting bars from the bottom of the cooler and then remove the plastic lock-rings (4), springs (4) and screws (4). Transfer these over to the included NM-XFB5 90° mounting bar and install that to the cooler replacing the stock ones. This is because of the LGA2011 Narrow ILM and the orientation of the cooler to this board. Takes about 3 minutes is all. The fans run at about 900RPM. *There is an included syringe of NT-H1 thermal Paste included with the CPU. It says a "drop" but its paste which doesn't drop out. I squeezed out about a 5mm circle in the center of the CPU which seems to have worked fine. CPU temp has remained between 38-40 during the memtest86.

Question: Does the IPMI port share MAC addresses/IPs, etc with the two onboard LAN ports? I think the older boards did but wanted to ask if the new ones did or not.

Quick photo of the CPU Cooler, RAM, Sata Cables, Intel X540-T1 10GbE card and wiring. Yes its automotive wire tubing :p left over from my profile pic build. Didn't have anything else and the bare wires were a disaster!


edit.. The APC SUA2200RM2U SMART-UPS 2200VA works perfectly... once I picked up a NEMA 5-15P to 5-15/20R adapter for it. Full charge and powering the the freenas chassis and the small 1U chassis which also has a memtest running.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Do you just have 4 dimms of memory? Does the motherboard manual say to fill the slots in that order? Usually it would be 2 on each side.

 

[DataKeeper]

You know I was reading the quick install page and it simply said to start at DIMMA1 (Channel A, Slot 1). So that's what I did without thinking. Thanks for catching that.. I'll pull the ones from DIMMA2 and DIMMB2 and move them over to DIMMC1 and DIMMD1 (all being in Blue) in the morning.

 

[Ericloewe]

The IPMI LAN port is totally independent from the host system.

However, IPMI can access one of the host ports if the dedicated interface isn't working, for whatever reason.

 

[DataKeeper]

Thanks, that's what I thought. It's a pretty neat feature really.. Aside from the java anyways. Had to actually install it!

Ok so I just purchased 2 x Supermicro 64GB Sata Doms and 10 more 4TB WD REDs... Say ouch! Should be here Monday or Tuesday.

Also a set of plastic Sai for my little guy to start training with :D

 

[pclausen]

Nice build and very timely as I too am looking at this exact motherboard. While I just registered here today and this is my first post, I'm by no means new to this hobby. I currently have a X7DWN+ with a pair of Xeon X5492s and 3 IBM 1015 HBAs, each dual-linked to a SAS2 Supermicro backplane in 3 x 846 chassis (one with the motherboard). So a total of 72 disks, a mix of 1, 2 and 4TB. Some are now over 8 years old!

I'm not running FreeNAS at the moment, but after dealing with various bit rot and other data issues, I'm ready to make the switch!

One question, does the CPU heat sink mounting rely on bosses built into the chassis floor or is everything mounted directly to the PCB itself, presumably with some sort of support bracket on the back side?

I ask because my X7DWN+ CPU sockets have bosses on the floor of the chassis that the heat sink screws bolt into. So my chassis is custom engineered for the X7 series dual socket motherboard. I'm hoping by just removing the bosses, the X10SRL-F will mount just fine into the chassis.

Thanks and sorry for getting slightly off topic. Very much looking forward to following your progress!

 

[DataKeeper]

Welcome and no problem at all. The chassis is a straightforward setup which holds the main board only. There is a support on the backside on the board for the CPU cooler. I'm guessing that once you remove the X7 board you'll have to remove the extra bosses, install the X10SRL, CPU, ram and then attach the cooler to the main board.

Btw.. Look at post 48 above and the 2nd photo shows the 4 mounting holes around the CPU mount. In post 1 the Newegg link I believe shows a backside photo of the board as well.