BUILD Mini-ITX C226 Haswell build

[underpickled]

I've ordered the following parts for my first FreeNAS build...

CPU: Intel i3-4130
PSU: SeaSonic SSR-360GP
HDD: 6x 3TB Western Digital Red (configured in RAIDZ2)
RAM: Kingston 16GB ValueRAM 1333 MHz ECC CL9
Case: Fractal Design Node 304
Mobo: ASRock E3C226D2I LGA 1150 Mini-ITX

So this ASRock mobo... there is also a C224 variant (supposedly) but I couldn't find it for sale anywhere. Even this variant is only at a couple of non-mainstream sites (www.superbiiz.com is where I found it). Basically, it's the only mITX Haswell board with ECC that I could find, period. On paper, it's almost an exact clone of the Supermicro X10SLM+-F, just shrunk down. Only 2 RAM slots, but I won't need more than 16 GB of RAM for my system... since I'm filling up the case and board SATA slots (yes, there are actually 6 SATAIII ports on this board) I won't need any expansion card either.

So the obvious risk is that I haven't found a single case of this board being used for FreeNAS... but it does list FreeBSD 9.1 on the list of compatible OS's, and the Intel GigE chipsets have worked for other builds. So I'll be the guinea pig! But I figured there might be some interest out there with regard to a Haswell mITX board. It's a little pricier, but I decided it was worth it to have a smaller system instead of just another mid tower (let's be honest... uATX cases aren't really all that small).

 

[survive]

Hi the_tox,

Glad to see these are finally out in the wild & props to you for being the guinea pig!

Please keep us posted how it goes. Having a mITX board that has ECC support & Intel NICs will be the solution to many who want a tiny zfs box.

-Will

 

[Sir.Robin]

Schweet! :-D

 

[JimPhreak]

So I'm just wondering what your plans are in terms of use of this NAS? I'm mainly asking because I'm debating between an i3 or a xeon processor but I'm starting to think an i3 might be enough for my needs.

 

[underpickled]

So for me an i3 might be overkill... I was going between that and a Pentium G3220, but I decided to just spend the extra money to be safe. I'm mainly using it for, well, file serving and (sort of) media streaming. I have an IB i7 machine with subsonic running... basically this NAS will just replace the HDD that stores my media.

I would like the NAS to support DLNA streaming for down the line... I'll probably get an Intel NUC as an HTPC at some point and just run XBMC on it and use the NAS as a DLNA server.... maaaybe I'll keep using the i7 for subsonic if the NUC or even the NAS can't handle it. Music streaming is really more important, which an i3 will crush. HD video might be more challenging, but at that point I'd just as soon download the video via FTP and watch it locally.

Like I said, a Pentium may well be able to do this, but between Samba single threadiness, possible DLNA/subsonic, and RAIDZ2 parity calcs I decided the extra 2 threads were worth it. I would only go for a Xeon if I was expecting like, 6+ simultaneous users on a regular basis on a local network or if you HAD to have crazy encryption speeds. Just think about where your bottleneck will be.

 

[JimPhreak]

Yea I think an i3 would be plenty then. I'm going to be mainly using FreeNAS as a file server and for some iSCSI connections for VM's storage/backups. I will have VM on a different machine with a Xeon running my media servers (Plex, Subsonic, etc.) so my NAS won't have to do that work at all. I guess I just answered my own question haha.

 

[underpickled]

There you go! Storage doesn't need to be that smart. Just needs to queue buffers real fast.

 

[JimPhreak]

There you go! Storage doesn't need to be that smart. Just needs to queue buffers real fast.

You're not planning to use any SSD's for caching at all?

 

[underpickled]

Ehhh, I thought about it, but honestly it's mostly media so unless you're accessing the same files super frequently and absolutely cannot tolerate the extra few seconds it might take to serve up the file then I don't see much use for a larger cache.

 

[JimPhreak]

Ehhh, I thought about it, but honestly it's mostly media so unless you're accessing the same files super frequently and absolutely cannot tolerate the extra few seconds it might take to serve up the file then I don't see much use for a larger cache.

True true. Good stuff thanks for the insight I think I'm pretty set on my build now :D.

 

[Sir.Robin]

Hmm... that Pentium i 1/3 the price of a Xeon e3-1220. And support ECC.

 

[underpickled]

Yeah... it was definitely tempting to go the G3220 route, but I was concerned about one Samba transfer leaving only one core to handle parity calcs for I/O, DLNA, other users etc.

 

[Sir.Robin]

Agreed... but then again i3 price is too close to Xeon.

 

[underpickled]

Well you can always play the "just another $50 to $100" game for every component, but at a certain point you need to let your application drive your decisions. I go through that often when building a new system, but especially since the i3 supports AES-NI and ECC, unless you've got a lot of simultaneous users or need to saturate your 2 GigE aggregated link with encrypted writes I don't see why to spend the extra $70 on THAT :)

 

[Sir.Robin]

Yah i know :D

 

[JimPhreak]

The i3 is $120 a MicroCenter. I think that's a darn good deal.

 

[underpickled]

The i3 is $120 a MicroCenter. I think that's a darn good deal.

It is a good deal... but after sales tax it'll only be a couple bucks cheaper than Newegg's $130... though if you live in a state with no sales tax then go to town!

 

[JimPhreak]

It is a good deal... but after sales tax it'll only be a couple bucks cheaper than Newegg's $130... though if you live in a state with no sales tax then go to town!

Yea I guess you're right about that, I forgot Newegg doesn't charge tax (yet).

 

[underpickled]

I actually bought everything through Amazon (except the mobo).

 

[paleoN]

I would like the NAS to support DLNA streaming for down the line... I'll probably get an Intel NUC as an HTPC at some point and just run XBMC on it and use the NAS as a DLNA server....

If you are using XBMC why would you ever use DLNA? Simply, map a share, NFS or CIFS, and save yourself the joy of the DLNA protocol.