Need advise on CPU, time to replace my 10 year old Athlon NAS!

[castle]

Hi,

I've been running a FreeNAS (from 0.7? ) box since 2010, been running rock stable til 9.10, the drives has been swapped over the years and ram has been added with the introduction of ZFS, but fundamentally it's been running 24/7 for 10 years, without any major issues, thanks to the consistent low temperatures in the basement and a UPS to tackle any power outages.

An upgrade is way overdue, after some research I've pretty much landed on:

• Supermicro X11SSM-F
• 2 sticks of Crucial DDR4 2666MHz ECC 16GB (CT16G4WFD8266)
• Corsair RM750X V2 750W (may be a little overpowered?)
• Fractal Design Node 804
• Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo (it should fit the case with some mm to spare)
• A 120GB SSD as boot device.

Now to the question, which CPU, of the following, should I opt for?

• Intel Pentium G4620 3,7GHz Socket 1151
• Intel Xeon E3-1220v6 3,0GHz Socket 1151
• Intel Xeon E3-1225v6 3,3GHz Socket 1151
• Intel Xeon E-2124G 3,4GHz Socket 1151

The bottom three are basically more or less priced identically, was initially thinking of the going for the G4560, but due to limited supplies I've put up the G4620 as the only budget contender. I searched the forum and there were no mention of the E-2124G, is there a reason why nobody seem to be using this cpu in a FreeNAS build? Most entry level Xeon builds seem to be built on the E3-1220vX which I guess is a good testament to that CPU, but why not the E-2124G?

My FreeNAS usage has historically been limited to file storage, rsync, smb paired with a couple of jails. With this build I plan on giving docker in 11.2 a go, with VM's for mqtt, influxdb and grafana to host and present local sensor data. VM's with OpenBSD and debian is likely, and I will most definitely go for iSCSI as my current box simply cant handle it.

No dedup!

As for storage I will rebuild my existing Z3 dev, postponing a $1000 cost of setting up a replacement six drive Z2 dev.

I think I've pretty much excluded the Pentium G, but which of the listed Xeon's would you recommend?

Any insights is greatly appreciated!


BR
Caste

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

Supermicro X11SSM-F

That'll work well. It has plenty of options for expansion to add HBAs, NICs, and PCIe SLOGs if you want.

2 sticks of Crucial DDR4 2666MHz ECC 16GB (CT16G4WFD8266)

Crucial lists it as compatible. Stick with 16GB DIMMs so you can max out the 64GB ram on the board in the future if you want to.

Corsair RM750X V2 750W (may be a little overpowered?)

Overpowered, yes. I've go ta 650 and it is probably over-powered. But also reliable so it won't hurt anything except your wallet. If budget keeps you from getting more RAM, a better CPU, or bigger case go with a 600W instead. Consider that you're not going to have a graphics card in this build so your power needs are significantly lower.

Fractal Design Node 804

I haven't used that case. Looks like you can get it up to 10 HDD pretty easily. It looks like it MIGHT have an issue getting air moving around all of the disks but if you load it full of fans you can probably solve that. If you don't need more than 10 drives and you can keep the air moving in it that'll work just fine I'm sure. Fractal Design also makes towers that will hold upward of 12 drives if you think you'll use the extra drive capacity.

A 120GB SSD as boot device

Seems reasonable to me.

• Intel Xeon E3-1225v6 3,3GHz Socket 1151

The 1225 has integrated graphics which FreeNAS doesn't need or want. You might get more bang for your buck with a CPU that doesn't have integrated graphics.

Intel Xeon E-2124G 3,4GHz Socket 1151

I'm not sure that CPU is compatible with your board. Your board lists E3 5th and 6th gen Xeon processors and makes no mention of E processors. I am certainly no CPU expert so perhaps I am wrong.

I think I've pretty much excluded the Pentium G, but which of the listed Xeon's would you recommend?

If you want to run several VMs, jails, etc you'll want a bit more out of your CPU. You might consider deciding on a budget and seeing where you can save buying used and get the best CPU you can afford. The memory you buy now can grow with you without having to be replaced as you add more DIMMS but the CPU would have to be replaced wholesale which might feel like a waste of money if you get one without enough power. If you're not doing a lot of transcoding etc you'll probably be fine with an E3-1230v6 or 1240v6.

As for storage I will rebuild my existing Z3 dev, postponing a $1000 cost of setting up a replacement six drive Z2 dev.

I assume by Z3 you mean a RAIDZ3 vdev? If you've got functional drives for now that makes a lot of sense so you can focus on the other parts of your build. Make sure you have a backup in case something goes wrong. :)

If budget is a concern you might consider going with a used X10 board. You can still get a healthy amount of RAM and a beefy CPU for an X10 board and if it opens up your budget a bit more you may get more performance for your dollar. Something to consider. Hope this helps! Looking forward to see the build you end up putting together.

 

[castle]

I think you are correct PhiloEpisteme, the Intel Xeon E-2124G 3,4GHz Socket 1151 isn't supported by the motherboard I've landed on. Thanks for the heads up!

but the worst thing is that I didn't catch that the Intel Xeon E3-122Xv6 doesn't support HT.

Cost is always a factor, but the suggested
Intel Xeon E3-1240v6 3,7GHz Socket 1151
Intel Xeon E3-1230v6 3,5GHz Socket 1151

are more or less in same price range, and well within my budget.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't go for a 12x5, with an apu, like;
Intel Xeon E3-1245v6 3,7GHz Socket

the price difference between the 1245 and 1240 is < $1!
is FreeNAS capable of utilizing the apu for something useful (except transcoding) ?

not considering used equipment, at least not for my primary NAS.

Really appreciate your inputs!

BR
Castle

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

Is there any reason why I shouldn't go for a 12x5, with an apu, like;
Intel Xeon E3-1245v6 3,7GHz Socket

ark.intel.com reports them as basically identical except that the 1245 uses 1W more power and has integrated graphics. To my knowledge FreeNAS doesn't care about integrated graphics. If it is useful for something hopefully someone will correct me.

 

[Yorick]

The only thing the integrated GpU might be used for is hw transcode with Plex. That support is in beta stage as far as I know.

 

[diedrichg]

The only thing the integrated GpU might be used for is hw transcode with Plex. That support is in beta stage as far as I know.

Keeps getting pushed back. It's currently on the docket for 11.2-U4

castle said:

Intel Xeon E3-1225v6 3,3GHz Socket 1151

The 1225 has integrated graphics which FreeNAS doesn't need or want. You might get more bang for your buck with a CPU that doesn't have integrated graphics.

IF GPU hardware acceleration DOES come to FreeNAS, this would be an advantage since the E3-1225v6 has Quick Sync

 

[Heracles]

Hi Castle,

In your design, you are talking about RaidZ3 and RaidZ2, but also about iSCSI at the same time. Know that iSCSI benefits from a max of IOPS and that Raid10 will give you way more IOPS than RaidZ. You may look at building yourself more than 1 pool, one as Raid10 for iSCSI and the rest as RaidZ2 / RaidZ3 for the file storage.

Also, 32 Gig of RAM looks reasonable for the FreeNAS part. But if your plan is to run Dockers and VMs, you will end up short in no time. When doing virtualization, you ALWAYS end up short in RAM. Also, because FreeNAS always benefit from more RAM, you can not give yourself too much RAM. I would start at 64G of RAM, about 32 for FreeNAS and about 32 for the VMs. Also, be sure your design can be upgraded, so at least half of your memory banks are free.

Your boot SSD is indeed overkill. Maybe go for 2 smaller in mirror or a single one and put the money somewhere else.

Have fun with your system,

 

[castle]

Thanks for all the excellent replies, the Quick Sync and the possible future support and no price difference settles the CPU for me, I'm going with the E3-1245v6.

I weren't aware of the the issues with ISCSI and RaidZX, thanks for the heads up!

Better to spend $1300 now and see if I really need to fork out another $400 for more RAM. But you are correct, I'll probably end up with 64GB of RAM eventually.