New FreeNAS build

[Mikey J]

Morning fellas,

Im looking to get input on a build that I would like to start.

I am trying to build a desktop style system that supports 128gb of memory inside of a define R6. The plan is to go with 11x10tb HGSTs in z3 (also taking recomendations). My question is, what ATX board would you gentlemen recommend for this scenario? I understand that a server grade board in this form factor, supporting this much memory, narrows down my options quite alot. Unfortunatly, an ATX system is a requirement given the space I have to work with.

Thanks Gents

 

[IQless]

The Fractal Define R6 supports eATX (up to 285mm wide), so you might find some eATX boards that fit :)
Also, remember that you won't get 11 drive trays with the R6 (out of the box). You will need to get them from another case. Fractal has yet to start selling these separately.

 

[Chris Moore]

Are you willing to consider used parts, or do you want to spend a lot more money for new?

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[Mikey J]

IQ, I am aware or the current drive tray limitation, this will be happening in the coming months, so I am working on that issue.
Chris, I am absolutly willing to go with used parts. The hard drives will definitely be new though. Got some ideas?

 

[Chris Moore]

I will look at the hardware store and share some possible solutions when I get to my office.
What budget do you have?

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[Chris Moore]

Updated Links on: 4 Aug 2018.

These are older components, but still very powerful.
I use similar components in both my 48 bay primary NAS and in my 24 bay backup NAS that runs ESXi with FreeNAS in a VM.

This one comes with a CPU and fan, but it is really slow, so probably want to replace it:

Supermicro X9SRL-F Motherboard LGA2011 System Board w/Intel E5-2650L 0 @ 1.80GHz
https://www.ebay.com/itm/132762499937
Price: US $174.99

Nothing special about this, and the price is higher, but an option:

Supermicro X9SRL-F Motherboard Socket LGA2011 System Board w/ I/O Shield
https://www.ebay.com/itm/401593992194
Price: US $199.99


SAMSUNG 16GB PC3L-12800R DDR3-1600 ECC Registered 1.35V RDIMM...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/302606459277
Price: US $44.95 x 8 = $359.60 for 128GB of RAM !!

note: You could go for the 32GB memory modules, but they are more than twice the price.

If the board above doesn't come with a cooler, or you want a better one, I use this model on two of my systems.
It is only slightly louder than the Noctua cooler I have on my wife's desktop PC.

Dynatron R27 Side Fan CPU Cooler 3U for Intel Socket LGA2011 (Narrow ILM)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/401284811045
Price: US $39.59

You have a lot of options for CPUs to go in this board, but I recently bought one of these for my system:

PassMark score of 13073... If you are wondering... This is the model I use for the NAS I run Plex in.

Intel Xeon E5-2650 V2 2.6GHz 8 Core 20MB 8GT/s SR1A8 LGA2011 ( Ivy Bridge ) Processor
https://www.ebay.com/itm/113166298794
Price: US $91.99

Only it was $30 more when I bought it... It works great. Plenty of resources for all the things I am doing.

If you want more, you can get a 10 core model like this:

Intel Xeon E5-2680 v2 Ten Core 2.8GHz 25MB CPU PROCESSOR LGA2011 SR1A6
PassMark score of 15796... If you are wondering...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/192637399687
Price: US $189.99

For the drive controller, I would suggest a SAS controller, there are 4 SCA ports on the system board in addition to the SATA ports, but only two of the SATA ports are SATA III, so you will still be a little short.

SAS PCI-E 3.0 HBA LSI 9207-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID
https://www.ebay.com/itm/162862201664
Price: US $69.55

I would suggest one of these SSDs for the boot drive.
These are used data-center drives, but as a boot drive in FreeNAS, it should last as long as the server, if not longer:

Intel SSD DC S3500 Series 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s, 20nm, MLC 80GB
https://www.ebay.com/itm/183416267073
Price: US $29.99

Just rough math in my head, I think that is all under $1000.... Still, you will need some odd bits like the case and power supply, but it should be simple to get there from here and this should save you a buck or two vs buying new and still do the job.

 

[Chris Moore]

PS. Have you used a SAS controller for your drives before?

You might need to read this:

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/don't-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy.48/

Also, you will need forward breakout cables from the controller to the drives. I like these because they are a bit more durable than some of the slim ones that I have accidentally broken before:

Lot of 2 Mini SAS to 4-SATA SFF-8087 Multi-Lane Forward Breakout Internal Cable
https://www.ebay.com/itm/371681252206
Price: US $12.99

 

[Chris Moore]

Chris, I am absolutly willing to go with used parts. The hard drives will definitely be new though. Got some ideas?

Did you need any more ideas?

 

[Mikey J]

Chris, You are awesome. I am going to look into these parts. My desktop currently uses a E5-2690 v1, and I love it. Ill deff be in touch. Have never used breakout cables before. Ill check out all the items you linked.

 

[Chris Moore]

Chris, You are awesome. I am going to look into these parts. My desktop currently uses a E5-2690 v1, and I love it.

Did you ever get a chance to start on your build?

 

[Mikey J]

Not Yet, I am away from home, and will be for a few months, but you gave me some great ideas. Current build is chugging along at home for the time being.

 

[Chris Moore]

Not Yet, I am away from home, and will be for a few months, but you gave me some great ideas. Current build is chugging along at home for the time being.

I understand. I'll be happy to help.


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[pro lamer]

The Fractal Define R6 supports eATX (up to 285mm wide), so you might find some eATX boards that fit :)
Also, remember that you won't get 11 drive trays with the R6 (out of the box). You will need to get them from another case. Fractal has yet to start selling these separately.

I'm not sure if it's still valid (since the mobo recommended by @Chris Moore is an ATX one) but will the extra disk cage limit the motherboard size to ATX? (Just a wild guess)

 

[IQless]

I'm not sure if it's still valid (since the mobo recommended by @Chris Moore is an ATX one) but will the extra disk cage limit the motherboard size to ATX? (Just a wild guess)

I don't have a eATX board to test with, so I can't be 100% sure, but as far as I know, the eATX board(max 285mm) won't interfere with the drive cage part of the chassis. What will happen is that it will block the rubber grommets you use to route cables, but you can route the cables behind the drive trays.

 

[Jason Evans]

SuperMicro X9SRL-F Motherboard - listed as new - photos show a CPU cooler, but they don't say in the description
https://www.ebay.com/itm/202340882106
Price: US $279.99

I can confirm it does indeed come with the cpu cooler shown in the pics. I will double check and see if there is a specific model to it when I do a mock up later on today or tomorrow.




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[Valdhor]

These are older components, but still very powerful.

I like the look of these but want to make sure they are appropriate for my needs.

I am looking to build a very quiet server (As much as I can) for use with Plex (4 simultaneous clients max) as well as a backup device for multiple computers (one PC, three Mac's). It also houses all of our personal photo's/video's.

My first build was enterprise grade rack mount with 4u Supermicro chassis, dual Xeon's and redundant power supplies. Whilst this runs great it sounds like Concorde taking off. It used to be in a third bedroom so noise didn't really matter. Now that I've moved to a MUCH smaller house noise has become a factor.

I was going to build something like https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...as-build-with-photos-kaby-lake-edition.62748/ (I already have the R5 case, power supply and extra fan as well as an M1015 card from the original box) but wonder if I need that much power. I don't have a 4K TV as yet but may get one in the future. I have no problem using used parts (Except for hard drives) so any recommendations would be most welcome.

 

[anmnz]

I like the look of these but want to make sure they are appropriate for my needs.

I am looking to build a very quiet server

FWIW the build in my signature uses similar parts to those described in this thread and is very quiet. X9SRL-F, E5-2680 v2, Define R5, good quality quiet fans. Basically inaudible from 3 feet away at idle, and can do a lot of work without needing to speed up the fans (which are just plugged into the motherboard, and I've not implemented any fancy fan control scripts).

 

[Chris Moore]

I use very similar Hardware as well except for the case I use a 48 Bay rackmount chassis and that's a little bit louder but still it's quiet enough that I have it in my office about 6 feet away from my desk.

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[pro lamer]

I don't have a 4K TV as yet but may get one in the future

4K -> 4K transcoding is a bit hardware demanding. Especially that in a few years the H.265 may be widely in use. Live transcoding needs a decent GPU. FreeNAS doesn't support GPU transcoding in a simple way IIRC.

I can imagine following solutions:

1. Your TV will be able to play all your movies directly. Direct play means no transcoding needed.
2. Someone was considering a bhyve based transcoder with the PCIe/GPU passthrough, but I can't remember if it's possible
3. Convert all your files before (off-line) so the TV can play them directly
4. What I am considering for myself: for now buying hardware able to transcode just Full HD and in future: buying a 4K-dedicated piece of hardware hopefully it's cheaper than now (or at least I now exactly what I need)
5. for now buying hardware able to transcode just Full HD and in future: buying a dedicated PC/HTPC with a consumer CPU with hardware accelerated transcoding built-in (some future version of Intel Quick sync or whatever)

Others refer to plex forums for details.

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[Valdhor]

4K -> 4K transcoding is a bit hardware demanding. Especially that in a few years the H.265 may be widely in use. Live transcoding needs a decent GPU. FreeNAS doesn't support GPU transcoding in a simple way IIRC.
I can imagine following solutions:

1. Your TV will be able to play all your movies directly. Direct play means no transcoding needed.
2. Someone was considering a bhyve based transcoder with the PCIe/GPU passthrough, but I can't remember if it's possible
3. Convert all your files before (off-line) so the TV can play them directly
4. What I am considering for myself: for now buying hardware able to transcode just Full HD and in future: buying a 4K-dedicated piece of hardware hopefully it's cheaper than now (or at least I now exactly what I need)
5. for now buying hardware able to transcode just Full HD and in future: buying a dedicated PC/HTPC with a consumer CPU with hardware accelerated transcoding built-in (some future version of Intel Quick sync or whatever)

Others refer to plex forums for details.

My situation I will probably go with 4K videos and let the players (4K TV itself or something like an Apple TV 4K) play them direct.

Now there is the other situations where I have maybe a 1080p TV and/or a 720p TV and an iPad that would need transcoding. Will the Intel Xeon E5-2680V2 be able to handle that? Simultaneously? Or better off pre-transcode?