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Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
Intel Xeon E5-2650L V2 1.7GHz 10 Core 20 Threads 25M LGA2011 CPU Processor
$80
No! There is a MASSIVE difference between what you have picked and what I am using. A Intel Xeon E5-2650 V2 is not the same as a Intel Xeon E5-2650L V2 ... That L at the end of the model number makes such a difference...
The Xeon E5-2650L V2 is 1.7 GHz, but the Intel Xeon E5-2650 V2 is 2.6 GHz. There is also a lot of difference in the core count, but there is no reason to have those extra cores. FreeNAS doesn't need lots of cores, higher clock speed is better. Low clock speed will negatively impact performance much more than having many threads will improve anything.
You should consider getting this instead:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon...s-95W-20MB-Ivy-Bridge-EP-LGA2011/113278896936

I have 3 x 3TB WD reds. If I want to start with RAIDZ2, this would leave me at 3TB since 2 hdds will be used for parity, correct?
Yes.
can I just add hdds to increase the amount of storage I need? The fact that I'm asking these questions is a clear indicator that I need to go back and read the documentation and learn more about ZFS, but I figured I could ask here to see if I can get 1 or 2 hdds more for the initial build.
Yes, if you add all the drives at once, when you initially create the storage. You can't add more drives to an existing RAIDz2 vdev. The developers are working on a method to expand an existing vdev, but that is not ready yet.
Here is a link to the references so you can get up to speed on the limitations and terminology:

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

For 4-5 hdds (depending on the answer to the question above) and the hardware specified above, what would be a decent PSU?
I have run eight drives successfully on a 550 watt supply (80 Plus Silver rated) but here is a link to a guide that will help you figure it for yourself if you want:

Proper Power Supply Sizing Guidance
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/

This board has 2 SATA 3.0 and 4 SATA 2.0 ports; given the number of hdds I'm considering, should I buy a disk controller or can I just use these ports directly?
I prefer to have all the drives on the same controller, but you could use the ports that are built in on the system board. All mechanical drives are slow enough that which port they are connected to will not make much difference, if any at all. If you get a SAS HBA, it will allow up to eight drives directly connected to the same controller.
 

racielrod

Explorer
Joined
Mar 3, 2018
Messages
74
Yes, sorry. I totally messed the CPU part up.
Thanks for the links.
 
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