SOLVED Itx Skylake E3C236D2I build. Looking for advices

[cyky]

I'm planning to build my first proper home NAS and I'm looking for some advises regarding my planned build.

So far I've come up with this:

• ASRock E3C236D2I Intel C236 248€
• Intel Pentium G4400 59.20 €
• Crucial DIMM 8GB, DDR4-2400, CL17, ECC (CT8G4WFS824A) (Might upgrade later to 16gb) € 61,45
• Seasonic G-450 PSU 76.74 €
• 3x 4000GB Seagate Desktop HDD ST4000DM000 (122.52 € each)
• 1x 4 TB WDC WD40EZRX (I got this lying around)
• Fractal Design Node 304 ~ 80 €

At first I was planing to go with HP Microserver Gen8 (G1610t), but it has kinda limited upgrade path and the price difference is around 150 - 180 euros with same kind of disk setup. So I'd rather do it properly right away.

Biggest question mark at the moment is the ASRock motherboard as it is quite new and I was unable to find any reviews or builds which were using it. Also the Crucial memory wasn't listed on the list of supported memory, but I couldn't find any of the listed memories from reasonable re-sellers.

The usage will be mainly daily/weekly backups of 3-4 computers, some media and storage of pictures and important data. I was planing to use Raidz2 but I'm open to suggestions on that part also.

So basically this is "build check", is there something I should do differently?

 

[religiouslyconfused]

Good news is that Skylake will support USB boot with 9.10, though SSD also works 9.3 on Skylake. Setup looks pretty good and the 2nd Lan port is now finally working in FreeNAS

 

[cyky]

Great! So I could get started with 9.10 nighties without having to buy m.2 ssd for the build (or I could just use regular ssd). The m.2 layout on this board seems bit weird as I was unable to find any ssd:s that are type 2230. Shortest ones that I found where type 2242 - I guess that would work but I couldn't screw down that ssd.

 

[religiouslyconfused]

You could also do a 2 way mirror for the HDD's, but there are many people successfully with Raid Z2 with only 4 drives.

Though Nightlies are good, but might not be the best for a production setup, but there is nothing to stop you from doing so.

Then again, jkh is running 9.10 on a production machine without any issues, so it should probably be ok to do so.

 

[Ericloewe]

9.10 is supposed to be released real soon (tm), so there's not much harm in starting with the nightlies.

 

[cyky]

I bit the bullet and ordered the parts. Changed the processor to I3-6100 however but everything else stayed the same. Can't wait for them to arrive :)

 

[budwah5565]

I bit the bullet and ordered the parts. Changed the processor to I3-6100 however but everything else stayed the same. Can't wait for them to arrive :)

Hi mate, how did your build go? I'm thinking of ordering exactly the same.

 

[cyky]

It has been running great, although I could have managed with less powerful build (cpu wise) as I'm only running couple small iohyve VMs and the NAS mainly works as media and backup server for 3-4 computers. But I haven't experienced any problems with the setup.

In my previous post I forgot to mention that I changed the ram to Samsung M391A1G43DB0-CPB when I made the order. I also upgraded to 16gb of ram after running about month with 8gb as I wanted play around more with virtualization. Asrock board seems very capable and I was amazed by the features it has. However I've never played around with similar quality server motherboards so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

 

[Stux]

I would recommend using 16GB sticks with a skylark board so that you can reach 64GB without replacing any ram.

 

[budwah5565]

It has been running great, although I could have managed with less powerful build (cpu wise) as I'm only running couple small iohyve VMs and the NAS mainly works as media and backup server for 3-4 computers. But I haven't experienced any problems with the setup.

In my previous post I forgot to mention that I changed the ram to Samsung M391A1G43DB0-CPB when I made the order. I also upgraded to 16gb of ram after running about month with 8gb as I wanted play around more with virtualization. Asrock board seems very capable and I was amazed by the features it has. However I've never played around with similar quality server motherboards so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Good to hear the system is running well!

Half the reason I ask is because I am having second thoughts about going with Asrock after reading about the "mass die off" of the C2550/C2750 mini-ITX boards. I am now considering the Supermicro X11SSM-F, however, I am really keen to stay with the mini-ITX form factor.

Have you found any use for that m.2? 2230 is such a stupid size, I haven't found an SSD that uses those dimensions!

 

[Stux]

If you're set on the itx formfactor, you could consider a Xeon d system

 

[budwah5565]

Yeah a Xeon D system was my first choice but they are expensive to get my hands on here in Aus (as I'm sure you understand the difficulty in buying server grade gear here :( ).