My 2nd FreeNAS build

[eccevery]

So the time has come for my 2nd FreeNAS build. This will be a small, but serious, NAS build for backup at home. Priority is quality, performance and low noise. No jails. I will also give FreeNAS 10 a try. It will have VERY low usage, but if you going to do something, do it properly! What do you guys think about this setup?

Supermicro X10SDV-2C-TLN2
Kingston Kingston ValueRAM DDR4 PC17000/2133MHz ECC Reg CL15 16GB (KVR21R15S4/16)
4x WD Red WD30EFRX 64MB 3TB
Noctua NF-A6x25
Fractal Design Node 304
Be Quiet! System Power 8 400W
Kingston SSDNow M.2 G2 SM2280S3G2 120GB

I can think of three questions you might have right away:
- Why not boot from a USB stick? Well... mainly because I cannot find a USB port directly on the motherboard. ;)
- The Noctua 60mm fan goes directly on the CPU heatsink. I know mount points aren't there, but I'll figure something out.
- The case: I like it. It lets me choose the PSU (noise is a priority, remember?). No hot swap disk bays, but it's not needed.

I'm not terribly found of 10Gbps RJ45, an SFP+ slot would be a lot better, but the cheap devil won that round.

Any comments or thoughts before I order a bunch of stuff and then can't sleep before it all arrive?

 

[gpsguy]

FreeNAS 10 aka Corral is dead. Take a look at the forums and announcements on the subject.

Go with 9.10.2 instead.

 

[melloa]

- Why not boot from a USB stick? Well... mainly because I cannot find a USB port directly on the motherboard.

I do have USB on the MB internally and externally and use ssd. They are more reliable, although I've only had two sticks with problem in the last two years and all my boot are mirrored, so was fine.

No hot swap disk bays, but it's not needed.

Me neither for my home systems, but they are nice to have.

No jails. I will also give FreeNAS 10 a try.

Although I'm still running 10, the cow is dead and the Coral was demolished. You might want to reconsider.

 

[eccevery]

FreeNAS 10 aka Corral is dead. Take a look at the forums and announcements on the subject.

Go with 9.10.2 instead.

OK, sorry to hear that, but 9.10.2 it is then.

 

[Dice]

HW looks fine to me.
A little bit unusual to get the SOC SM motherboard.

 

[eccevery]

I have a question: M.2 sticks, any thoughts on NVMe vs SATA? I'm thinking about the Intel 600p vs 540s. One is NVMe and the other SATA, one has more IOPS at 4K reads and the other more thoughput.

What is most suitable for FreeNAS installation?

 

[Dice]

I have a question: M.2 sticks, any thoughts on NVMe vs SATA? I'm thinking about the Intel 600p vs 540s. One is NVMe and the other SATA, one has more IOPS at 4K reads and the other more thoughput.

What is most suitable for FreeNAS installation?

For boot device I *THINK* it shouldn't matter.

 

[Ericloewe]

SATA will eat a SATA port. PCIe is expensive and faster, but the lanes are often dedicated.

Of course, many boards support only one or the other, with various degrees of limitations.

 

[eccevery]

SATA will eat a SATA port. PCIe is expensive and faster, but the lanes are often dedicated.

Of course, many boards support only one or the other, with various degrees of limitations.

I 'm confused. Will it consume a SATA port although it's a M.2 connector?

 

[Ericloewe]

I 'm confused. Will it consume a SATA port although it's a M.2 connector?

It will if it's SATA. M.2 is just a form factor and can use a lot of different things, including PCIe x4, USB 2.0 and SATA.

 

[pschatz100]

I have a question: M.2 sticks, any thoughts on NVMe vs SATA? I'm thinking about the Intel 600p vs 540s. One is NVMe and the other SATA, one has more IOPS at 4K reads and the other more thoughput.

What is most suitable for FreeNAS installation?

You need to confirm whether or not that motherboard can boot from an NVMe or SATA device plugged into the M.2 slot. Some boards will not boot from an NVMe device. I am not familiar with that board, so I cannot comment directly.

The speed of your boot device will not affect the performance of FreeNAS in any perceptible way, other than booting and updates will run a little quicker.

 

[Ericloewe]

SATA device

No different from any other SATA device.

boot from an NVMe

I think that any board that includes PCIe M.2 can boot from NVMe.

 

[pschatz100]

I think that any board that includes PCIe M.2 can boot from NVMe.

Not necessarily so. I have Asus motherboards with M.2 slots that will boot from M.2 SATA SSD's but not from NVMe. The hardware spec's say it should work, but the bios does not recognize the device. The NVMe devices work just fine as data devices after the operating system loads drivers.

I don't have experience with the X10SDV-2C-TLN2, so I cannot comment. However, X10 is the first generation board in which SuperMicro offered M.2 support - so it pays to check into this before making an assumption that an NVMe device will boot. I don't see any issue with using an NVMe device for data.

 

[Ericloewe]

Not necessarily so. I have Asus motherboards with M.2 slots that will boot from M.2 SATA SSD's but not from NVMe.

What models?

 

[pschatz100]

What models?

In my case, they are H97M/E motherboards running Windows 10. ASUS technical support offered me some bios settings to try, but at the end of the day the new settings did not help. The SSD is a Toshiba THNSN5128GPU7. As a data disk, the SSD worked OK but the interface was running at PCIe 2.0 x2. Turns out, the M.2 is wired this way on a number of H97 chipset motherboards. Newer chipsets apparently handle NVM better. There are several threads in various gaming forums about this.

For what its worth, I put the SSD in my FreeNAS system (on an X9-SCM motherboard) and it works great for data. It's installed via a PCIe add-on card and I'm using it for jails.

 

[Ericloewe]

H97 boards should definitely support it, so it's a BIOS bug. Unfortunately, they're dime a dozen on all boards...

Turns out, the M.2 is wired this way on a number of H97 chipset motherboards

Yeah, limited connectivity and all.

 

[eccevery]

Thanks for all your input guys! I bought the 120 GB Intel P600 NVMe, no one remebers a coward ;)

I've just booted up my new NAS for the first time, so I can confirm that FreeNAS will boot just fine on this particular motherboard. But only in UEFI mode. In LEGACY, I could install FreeNAS without problems, but BIOS cant find a boot disk. Should it? I'll go with UEFI for now, but I'm curious anyway.

 

[Ericloewe]

I guess they just didn't bother. If it's new enough to have NVMe drivers, it's new enough to boot from UEFI.

 

[pschatz100]

Thanks for all your input guys! I bought the 120 GB Intel P600 NVMe, no one remebers a coward ;)

I've just booted up my new NAS for the first time, so I can confirm that FreeNAS will boot just fine on this particular motherboard. But only in UEFI mode. In LEGACY, I could install FreeNAS without problems, but BIOS cant find a boot disk. Should it? I'll go with UEFI for now, but I'm curious anyway.

The behavior you describe is what I would expect. The FreeNAS installer will see the device, and let you install the software. But UEFI mode is required in order to actually boot from a NVMe device. Legacy or BIOS mode will not work.

We can summarize as follows: Booting from NVMe requires UEFI, but some early motherboards that support UEFI will not boot from NVMe.