Kaby Lake & M.2 & 8 HDDs w/Supermicro X11SAE-M vs X11SSH-F vs X11SSH-LN4F

[gregerg]

I'm looking at building an 8 drive FreeNAS box w/2280 M.2 support, and Kaby Lake support. My most taxing use case would be having a separate desktop machine accessing my media for editing in programs like Adobe Premiere.

I've noticed there are some posts with specific combinations of kaby lake and supermicro motherboards. Some have listed issues. For example someone posted an issue with the LNF4 w/1245v6. I would like to hear the community's successes or struggles with these specific motherboards and Kaby Lake.

I feel like the SSH-F is probably the best bang for my buck, as I have no need for 4 eth ports.

Also, I've seen some complain about 2280 M.2 cards not working in certain supermicro boards, but my understanding is that they will work in these boards.

Edit: Forget I ever said X11SAE-M :D

 

[Chris Moore]

w/2280 M.2 support, and Kaby Lake support.

Why?

 

[Chris Moore]

Edit: I should probably mention also that I am interested in the 1245v6 processor.

You don't need the Intel graphics in that chip because the Supermicro board has integrated graphics.

 

[gregerg]

You don't need the Intel graphics in that chip because the Supermicro board has integrated graphics.

Unless I go with the X11SAE-M board, correct?

 

[gregerg]

Why?

Price difference between v5 and v6 seems negligible, I like the minimalism of M.2 drives. I'd like to store video / audio files on my FreeNAS, and be able to edit / create projects with them in an application on a separate computer, using the M.2 drive as a cache.

 

[Chris Moore]

Price difference between v5 and v6 seems negligible, I like the minimalism of M.2 drives. I'd like to store video / audio files on my FreeNAS, and be able to edit / create projects with them in an application on a separate computer, using the M.2 drive as a cache.

Having a cache drive on ZFS is only beneficial in certain very special situations, usually involving iSCSI and sync IO to a virtual machine on another host. Storing media is probably not going to ever utilize cache in any way. That is why I am trying to figure out exactly how you think you will use an M.2 drive in FreeNAS because it will probably be wasted money that you could have spent on something that would help performance.

 

[Chris Moore]

Unless I go with the X11SAE-M board, correct?

That is not a server board, you can tell because it includes the totally useless audio outputs that FreeNAS can't use.
You should review the hardware guides to get a handle on the kind of hardware that is more appropriate for FreeNAS. The console output of FreeNAS is text only and you do not need any advanced video capability for it. Having a video processor in the CPU that is taking RAM away from the OS is a waste of resources.
FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev 1e) 2017-05-06
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

 

[gregerg]

Having a cache drive on ZFS is only beneficial in certain very special situations, usually involving iSCSI and sync IO to a virtual machine on another host. Storing media is probably not going to ever utilize cache in any way. That is why I am trying to figure out exactly how you think you will use an M.2 drive in FreeNAS because it will probably be wasted money that you could have spent on something that would help performance.

My goal is to be able to edit media stored on my FreeNAS using programs like Adobe Premiere on another computer. Not just store media.

 

[gregerg]

Also, regarding M.2 vs SSD, it seems more convenient, given I am looking to have an 8 drive setup. Alternatively I may need an drive controller and an SSD if I wanted a SLOG, on top of the 8 ports being used on the mobo.

 

[Chris Moore]

Also, regarding M.2 vs SSD, it seems more convenient, given I am looking to have an 8 drive setup. Alternatively I may need an drive controller and an SSD if I wanted a SLOG, on top of the 8 ports being used on the mobo.

I understand that, it isn't the first time that question has happened.
I don't think that SLOG is going to be a benefit to the things you want to do. It only makes latency less impact if you have a usage that is doing synch write. Usually this is many small files or iSCSI for virtual machine hosting.
The thing that will be more useful is a larger number of drives and a 10Gb network between the two systems.


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Chris Moore]

The number of drives impacts the bandwidth to disk. For large files, bandwidth is more important.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[gregerg]

The number of drives impacts the bandwidth to disk. For large files, bandwidth is more important.

Ok, thanks for the feedback. I've posted a build thread for what I'm tentatively thinking about now: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/11x8tb-1240v6-define-r4.62239/