New Attempt at TrueNAS Hardware

[Dismayed]

After more consideration and a lot of valuable input from this forum I have landed on the following which I believe will result in a solid server to be run for many years:

• Intel Xeon E-2246G
• Supermicro X11SCH-F
• Micron DDR4 2666MHz ECC 32GBG
• Seagate Exos 7E8 8TB (x4)
• Samsung 970 Pro Series 512GB (x2)

All this will be put in a full-tower cabinet and used with a power supply I already have from before. I could use some input on cooling and airflow (+ monitoring?). Any tips or recommendations? The CPU does not come with an included cooler. Is there anything in particular I should look for or consider?

I went the Xeon route myself. My server has only been running for a bit over a month now, but so far so good. You can see from my configuration below that I'm using many of the same components that you are considering.

 

[pschatz100]

Any good quality CPU cooler should be sufficient - you do not need top-of-the-line cooling for your tasks. File serving and media streaming does not stress the CPU very much. The biggest stress on your CPU would be when transcoding video - which will probably not be very often since most modern TV's can consume video content in its native format.

I have been running the system in my signature for many years, without problems. I using a stock Intel CPU cooler. That said, I would not go out and buy a stock Intel cooler - something like a Hyper 212 (or one of its competitors) will be quite sufficient. A full tower case should have enough room.

Be certain you have good air flow for your disk drives. Many people worry too much about their CPU and ignore their disks. You want to keep your disks at reasonable temperatures.

 

[SeaWolfX]

@SeaWolfX - Maybe this summary can make things clearer: The Supermicro (or other server-grade motherboards) are made for the data centre - 24x7 usage, minimal downtime for 4, 5, 6 or more years. Because server-grade motherboards (or full servers) need to meet these needs, they have built-in compensating controls like ECC memory, redundant power supplies, remote management (e.g., IPMI), etc. Of course, you have to pay for this and that is where buying a "previously loved" server comes into play. But, another caveat, they are made for the data centre and where noise (read: fans) are not all that important. (At my organization you need to wear ear protection in the data centre to comply with OH&S.) While AMD is moving up (seemingly quickly with some rather great hardware - EPYC) Intel Xeon's have been standard for years. They just work.

The other consideration is that TrueNAS (more so now with FreeNAS and TrueNAS converging) is the operating environment for Ixsystems' data centre-grade equipment. That means that the number of permutations of hardware are smaller; that is coupled with the relative base of FreeBSD v. Linux OSes deployed means there are less tested and/or support components.

So, where does that you (me/us)? It depends upon your risk tolerance. For me, while I only use TrueNAS for home use, my photos, documents, etc. are important enough to settle on "previously" loved server gear. I have my rack set up so that *most* of the fan noise is contained (e.g., I can live with it in my home office and replacing the stock Supermicro fans with quieter Nocturas isn't an option because server chassis depend on airflow - CFM - and air pressure - in Hg) and I make sure that I back everything up to different storage locations (e.g., a different NAS at home and an offsite storage pool).

If you want something that doesn't need constant care and attention (outside "normal" stuff like updates, backups, etc.) then chose components that are known to word; e.g., Supermicro motherboards, Xeon (or i3) CPUs, ECC RAM, LSI HBA (in IT mode!), etc. There are a lot of threads and resources on the forum that will help you make your choices. You will get the benefit as well of IPMI (and once you start using it you'll like it - NOTE: Try to get a motherboard that uses HTML and not Java for IMPI remote console).

If you want to experiment then, as we say here - fill your boots. But you may be alone in trying to figure out why component X won't work as you may be the only one trying it.

Good luck!
Mike

Thanks for the thorough summary Mike. It got me to reevaluate a bit. As you can see I have settled on some server hardware that I think will give me a server that is stable and reliable.

I still wonder though; much of the consumer grade desktop motherboards manufacturers boast about features like reinforced connectors, i/o shields, extensive heatsink designs, optimized cooling paths, PCB enhancements etc, which you don't find on the "not-so-sexy" server grade motherboards. Not knowing any better one would think these features helps with the motherboard robustness and longevity. Are these just gimmicks not really needed or perhaps compensation for otherwise less-good quality electrical components? Otherwise why don't we find more such features on say the popular Supermicro server motherboards? For people who do not much about server grade hardware design (like myself) it is easy to take a look at some newer popular consumer motherboards and think "thank shit looks rock solid, it must be able to last forever", while wondering what is so special about an X11SSL that should make it be able to run 24/7 for many years.

 

[SeaWolfX]

Any good quality CPU cooler should be sufficient - you do not need top-of-the-line cooling for your tasks. File serving and media streaming does not stress the CPU very much. The biggest stress on your CPU would be when transcoding video - which will probably not be very often since most modern TV's can consume video content in its native format.

I have been running the system in my signature for many years, without problems. I using a stock Intel CPU cooler. That said, I would not go out and buy a stock Intel cooler - something like a Hyper 212 (or one of its competitors) will be quite sufficient. A full tower case should have enough room.

Be certain you have good air flow for your disk drives. Many people worry too much about their CPU and ignore their disks. You want to keep your disks at reasonable temperatures.

Thanks for the input. The reason I'm asking is that there is just a ton of cooler to choose from and I'm not sure what to look for other than noise levels.

I believe the airflow of over the disk should be sufficient with the fans in my existing cabinet. However, do I need to think about any monitoring solutions other than the reporting from the disk themselves? And not just for the HDD disk, but the NVMe, motherboard, memory as well ... any cooling or monitoring / control considerations, or is it enough to ensure god flow through the cabinet and rely on "built in" reporting from the hardware itself?

 

[Dismayed]

One thing to note about Supermicro motherboards: admin passwords are unique for each MB shipped, and the password is written in a very tiny font on the cover of the CPU socket. Don’t ask how much time I wasted on that little detail!

 

[Etorix]

"Reinforced PCIe slots" only feel nice together with the huge double or triple-slot GPUs used by gamers. And much of the power delivery, extra heatsinks and extra PCB layers is to deal with overclocking. None of that applies to a server board, which is designed to work 24/7 at regular settings. What makes server boards rock solid is that have none of the silly bell-and-whistles (coloured PCB, stencils, fancy heatsinks, RGB LEDs, you name it) but a lot of tedious attention to unseen low-level details.

As for cooling design, it all depends on your case. Any decent CPU cooler should do, so noise is probably the most relevant feature. Beside CPU and HDDs, possible hot spots would be 10 GbE NICs and SAS controllers but you have none of those. A little bit of moving air should take care of the chipset, RAM and M.2 drives—as it does for NICs and HBAs by the way. There's no hidden magic in assembling a server.

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

@SeaWolfX - @Etorix hits the proverbial nail on the head. Generally, in the enterprise world you by systems rather than components. That means that everything is engineered to work together. That includes making sure that there are supports for the IO cards (which existed back in the dinosaur age of PCs - see ISA Bus / AT Bus - board lengths were standard, etc.), cooling is (generally) well thought out (e.g., front-to-back cooling, not having to care about noise, etc.), etc., etc. Overclocking a server is something that in 99% of time (100% in my experience) is not done - you are looking for stability and longevity over 24/7.

You can't forget the PC marketing folks (although they can be pretty bad at the enterprise level) - stuff like "milspec". Well now... Isn't that special.

Edit: Maybe this is a better Isn't that special...
Edit 2: Replace Pat with the sales person
Edit 3: Okay, ya gotta be old like me to remember this

 

[SeaWolfX]

One thing to note about Supermicro motherboards: admin passwords are unique for each MB shipped, and the password is written in a very tiny font on the cover of the CPU socket. Don’t ask how much time I wasted on that little detail!

Thanks for the heads up!