Need help for hardware upgrade

[ecarat]

Hi all,

I already posted a thread in the French sub-forum but I am affraid that it is not very active so I am asking here for your hints.

I currently have a Truenas setup at home for personal and professionnal use (video and audio editing over network, personal files backup, smartphone sync via nextcloud).
The current setup is mostly from used pieces purchased on a french classifieds website, and it is starting to become slow. The network adapter is a realtek chip and I am facing a lot of outages due to this even with a re-compiled driver. The processor is a little weak for the actual use (2 jails, 2 vms, heavy network read write when editing videos / audio).

This is the current setup :

• Case : Lian Li PC-Q25
• Motherboard : ASRock N3150-ITX
• RAM : Corsair SO-DIMM 2x8Go DDR3 1600 CMSO8GX3M1C1600C11
• System disk : Crucial BX500 120Go
• Data disks : 4xWD Red Nas 2TB
• PCI extension card : SATA Ziyituod 4 ports
• 1 jail for nextcloud
• 1 jail for transmission
• 1 vm for a Debian 10 reverse proxy
• 1 vm for a Debian 10 web server

I pretty like the case I have, that means I am unfortunately stuck with the mini-ITX form factor regarding the motherboard. After looking around in the forums and over the internet I found these references for upgrading my setup :

• Motherboard : ASRock Rack E3C232D2I
• CPU : Intel Xeon E3-1220V6
• CPU fan : Noctua NH-D9L
• RAM : Kingston KSM24ED8/16ME (ECC)

Can someone advise me regarding those components, give me a feedback with them or tell me if there are better options within the same overall price range? Maybe I forgot something?

Thanks in advance!

 

[sretalla]

Be very careful with that case and 4 disks getting enough airflow from that tiny front vent across them.

Those are decent components for the price.

There's really no reason you should need to run a VM for each of reverse proxy and web server (those functions can run perfectly well and with less resources in jails), but it's your choice.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

These testers were specifically pleased with the cooling it seems:

Lian Li PC-Q25

Im heutigen Test befassen wir uns mit dem PC-Q25 der taiwanesischen Edel-Schmiede Lian Li. Lian Li ist bekannt für hochwertige Gehäuse aus Aluminium, die größtenteils über eine edle und schlichte Gestaltung des Exterieurs verfügen. Neben mächtigen Big- und Midi-Tower-Gehäusen bietet Lian Li seit...

www.technic3d.com

Use google translate, if you cannot read German.

 

[ecarat]

Be very careful with that case and 4 disks getting enough airflow from that tiny front vent across them.

Those are decent components for the price.

There's really no reason you should need to run a VM for each of reverse proxy and web server (those functions can run perfectly well and with less resources in jails), but it's your choice.

Hi sretalla, and thank you for you quick reply.

The case is on the todo list for future improvements but for now I have to say it is wroking linke a charm. It is provided with a 140mm front fan and a 120mm cover fan. Truenas metrics are showing a flat 40°C disks temperature graph (room temperature is between 18°C and 20°C).

The reason I was using VMs for the reverse proxy and the web server is that I wanted to rely on Debian for this as I am more familiar with it, and also to test the virtualization under Truenas. Also I found it easier for me to understand and control the location where the files are actually stored when running under a VM versus a jail.

 

[sretalla]

These testers were specifically pleased with the cooling it seems

I guess the bottom-to-top airflow is moving more air over the disks than I expected... good then.

I would still keep an eye on the disk temperatures as you run it.

 

[sretalla]

I wanted to rely on Debian for this as I am more familiar with it

Fair point... there is some value to learning other OS methods of doing things though.

to test the virtualization under Truenas

Also fair, but it is as a general rule, bad. Don't expect a lot from it. That's the fault of bhyve and its relative immaturity as a hypervisor (and being type 2 just to make it worse), so you'll never see the performance or features you'll get with a mature type 1 like ESX.

I found it easier for me to understand and control the location where the files are actually stored when running under a VM versus a jail

I'm not sure that I would agree with you on that as the location of the files is in a ZVOL (VM disk) which can't be accessed from the host, whereas with a jail using mounts you can have the files in the jail and the host and be able to manage that exactly as you like.

Learning where packages like nginx put the default wwwroot directory (/usr/local/www/nginx) or config files (/usr/local/etc/ and /usr/local/etc/rc.d) and the binaries (/usr/local/share/app or /usr/local/app) isn't more difficult than a little google.

And installing packages is even a few characters shorter than debian... pkg install instead of apt-get install

 

[ecarat]

I'm not sure that I would agree with you on that as the location of the files is in a ZVOL (VM disk) which can't be accessed from the host, whereas with a jail using mounts you can have the files in the jail and the host and be able to manage that exactly as you like.

That is the way things are stored in my head: partitionned When I create a VM I like to know that it has its own disk, where it is. Not sure why... Anyway it is only a reverse-proxy and a web server, easy to export / import if I am not happy with bhyve. Those are not (yet) critical production services, I only use them for a personal project.

And installing packages is even a few characters shorter than debian... pkg install instead of apt-get install

hahaha fore some reason for the reverse-proxy I found it easier to get tutorials under Debian than FreeBSD and as I was familiar with it it suited me. It is what it is!

To get back to my main question, the memory I mentionned for the new setup is not in the official supported RAM from ASRock. Is it a problem? The only ECC RAM brands listed for 16G are more expensive and more difficult to find so that's why I went with kingston. Maybe I am making a mistake here?

 

[sretalla]

the memory I mentionned for the new setup is not in the official supported RAM from ASRock. Is it a problem? The only ECC RAM brands listed for 16G are more expensive and more difficult to find so that's why I went with kingston. Maybe I am making a mistake here?

Since I don't have that combination of board and memory to prove it, there can't be a guarantee from me that it will work, but as a general rule, if you follow the requirements for the CPU and motherboard supported memory, it will be OK.

If you want to really satisfy yourself, you can probably find documentation that gives the specific CL timings of that specific memory (I see it was on an Amazon posting, CL17 DDR4-2400 timing of 17-17-17 at 1.2V ) and documentation covering memory that will work with the board and CPU, so you would then check that they support those settings, but that's a lot of detailed searching to get to that and match it, for something that will probably just be OK.

Kingston has a good reputation for RAM and I have used them for servers and lower cost memory upgrades for Macs.