Inphi CS4227 10GBase-SFP+ Support for TrueNAS Scale?

[pixelwave]

I am currently looking to build a low power TrueNAS Scale system and stumbled over this board:

ASRock Rack C3558D4U-2OP​

https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C3558D4U-2OP#Specifications

It has pretty much all I require at a nice price point and low power envelope. Only question is does anybody have experience with the 10GBase-SFP+ ports using "Inphi CS4227"? Do they work out of the box with Scale?

I know as a general hardware guideline Intel is preferred and Realtek should be avoided but what about this controller ...?

 

[Etorix]

Pending confirmation by a networking expert expert, I think that the actual network controller (NIC) is in the Atom C3558 SoC and that this Inphi CS4227 is "just" the physical interface (PHY) to it. In which case it should work.

I'm less sure about the Marvell 9172 driving 4 of the SATA ports for use with TrueNAS unfortunately…

 

[pixelwave]

Yes the Marvell SATA Ports are not an issue as I do not plan to use them. That is the current IDEA:

And the Chipset has exactly 4 SATA ports coming from the Intel platform:

 

[Etorix]

That's severely restricting storage from the SATA ports!
The x1 M.2 slot would be perfect for boot for a cheap NVMe drive. There's hardly a need for mirroring the boot drive in home/lab use.

 

[jgreco]

I think that the actual network controller (NIC) is in the Atom C3558 SoC and that this Inphi CS4227 is "just" the physical interface (PHY) to it.

Nicely summarized.

The usual problem is driver support for the network controller chipset; the C3558 is well supported to the best of my knowledge, though I do not have firsthand experience. It *is* possible for there to be problems with PHY support, but that's relatively unusual.

I would expect this to work, but I wouldn't bet a hundred bucks on it.

 

[pixelwave]

Thanks for the support! I went back to the drawing board and will propably opt for the AMD route:

AMD Ryzen with ECC and 6x M.2 NVMe build

UPDATE - For the final BOM and build please skip to: https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/amd-ryzen-with-ecc-and-6x-m-2-nvme-build.104574/post-724734 Read below in order to follow my entire journey starting with the initial build: ----------- I am wrapping up my final hardware choice to...

www.truenas.com

 

[Etorix]

Ah! I just made the link between your two threads.

If the requirements are low power and 12-16 PCIe lanes (for the NVMe array) but with only moderate cores+speed, this AsRockRack was a good pick (C3000 boards typically only expose only PCIe x4, plus a single M.2 slot). An alternative would be a Xeon D-1500 board (Supermicro X10SDV, AsRockRack D1541D4U): A bit old, but makes nice little NAS with low power.
The typical X10SDV revision 2.0 comes in mini-ITX size with 6 SATA ports and a single PCIe x16 slot which can bifurcate to x4x4x4x4 (check revision!); many have 10 GbE onboard… but generally Base-T rather than optical, if that's acceptable. The only issue is that they are expensive new and hard to find second-hand for a fair price.

 

[pixelwave]

Ah! I just made the link between your two threads.

If the requirements are low power and 12-16 PCIe lanes (for the NVMe array) but with only moderate cores+speed, this AsRockRack was a good pick (C3000 boards typically only expose only PCIe x4, plus a single M.2 slot). An alternative would be a Xeon D-1500 board (Supermicro X10SDV, AsRockRack D1541D4U): A bit old, but makes nice little NAS with low power.
The typical X10SDV revision 2.0 comes in mini-ITX size with 6 SATA ports and a single PCIe x16 slot which can bifurcate to x4x4x4x4 (check revision!); many have 10 GbE onboard… but generally Base-T rather than optical, if that's acceptable. The only issue is that they are expensive new and hard to find second-hand for a fair price.

Yes!

Well I spent countless hours looking into a ton of different system combos. The C3000 ASRock looked solid at first .. but compared to the Ryzen Pro build it is not really cheaper and has some caviats like quite few pcie lanes, performance concerns and being stuck with the 10Gbit ports (although I believe they most likely would work).

The Supermicro boards are nice ... but super expensive (X10SDV currently at 700+Euro) especially for a quite old gen (14nm). The Ryzen Pro (7nm) combo easily comes in at nearly half the price. Ethernet > 2,5Gb should be optical (DAC) ideally since Base-T also increases power draw further and adds latency.

I was also considering Alder Lake (Intel Core i5-12600T) with a Supermicro X13SAZ. Future proof DDR5 / PCIe 5.0 ... but the board is currently hard to get as well and together with DDR5 ECC also quite pricey.

I wonder though when the new AM5 Rzyen Pro (6000/7000?) comes out ...

 

[Arwen]

Please note that as far as I know, the 2.5/5Gbps Ethernet standard does not include any optical varient. It's all copper:

2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T Ethernet

 

[jgreco]

Please note that as far as I know, the 2.5/5Gbps Ethernet standard does not include any optical varient. It's all copper:

2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T Ethernet

There is a limited amout of 2.5GBASE-SX and 5GBASE-SX gear. I do not believe that there is any particular standard governing it. That said, since 2.5 is 1/10th of 25GBASE-SR (SFP28) it is a natural derivative. I expect the main reason it's seen no adoption is because the primary motivation for 2.5/5GBASE-TX uptake is for WiFi6 backhaul, which benefits from PoE. No one is particularly interested in running both fiber (for IP) and copper (for power) to access points. There's also very little benefit to 2.5/5G except that it happens to be able to run over existing copper plant in certain circumstances.

 

[pixelwave]

Please note that as far as I know, the 2.5/5Gbps Ethernet standard does not include any optical varient. It's all copper:

2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T Ethernet

No I just tried to say that for connections greater than 2.5Gb (so 10/25/40…) I would prefer optical/dac. Because that should save some additional power (+better latency) and if I remember correct fiber has also an idle mode were much less power is used compared to ethernet.