[Newbie] Ryzen 9 3900X Build for TrueNAS SCALE - Seeking Feedback

[StruppiTim]

Hello everyone,

I've recently been considering setting up a TrueNAS SCALE build and wanted to get some feedback and advice regarding my planned specs.

I plan to use an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core Processor. It's a powerful CPU and from what I've seen, should be more than capable for my needs. However, I would like to get your opinions on its suitability for a TrueNAS SCALE system. Right now it's running in my standard motherboard. I do think for a long term build a other motherboard would be a very good idea?

For RAM, I'm considering 64GB of ECC memory. I understand the benefits of ECC memory for a NAS system and I've heard that my Ryzen CPU might be able to utilize it. Could anyone confirm this or provide further insight? Right now it's no ECC 32GB. How much would you suggest?

In terms of storage, I plan on including 6-8 hard drives in my setup.

Finally, I'm considering the idea of running a Windows Server for a Windows Terminal on the same machine. I'm also considering adding a graphics card if necessary for Windows. This is something I'm not entirely sure about, so I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts. Is this a viable idea? Would it potentially conflict with TrueNAS SCALE or introduce any instability? Having a maximal of 3 instances running

Thank you in advance for your help and advice. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Tim

 

[jgreco]

Be aware that SCALE uses Linux which has poor memory management, and your ARC will be substantially limited (only half of RAM). You might want to add more RAM if you are going to do something like virtual machines that may want more memory.

In terms of storage, I plan on including 6-8 hard drives in my setup.

So for running VM's, you probably want these to be in a mirror based pool. This may increase the raw storage requirements for your project. You can try running as a RAIDZ2 pool, but once created, it cannot easily be transformed to a mirror based pool.

 

[LarsR]

I'm essentially running the same setup, but with a Ryzen 7 3700X for almost a year now without any problems.
When you want ECC with Ryzen keep in mind you need udimms not rdimms and your mainboard needs to support ECC as well.
Also the 3900X doesn't have an integrated graphics card so your mainboard needs to support headless booting.
Many mainboards have an option to enable headless booting.
If you want to pass through a gpu to a vm you'd need 2 gpu's. 1 for truenas and one for the vm.

 

[Davvo]

If you are able to find a server motherboard for that CPU, that would be great: IPMI is a really useful thing to have especially in headless systems; plus, you might get interesting features not found in gaming hardware (like OCUlink or SAS ports).

That being said, keep in mind that AMD officially supports ECC RAM on their G PRO CPUs only.

Regarding RAM, it depends on what you want to do... and where, as jgreco pointed out. I'd say that 32GB is a pretty solid number for most home users.

If you buy new sticks, make sure to buy the maximum supported (ie assuming a 4 slots motherboard, if your max is 64GB buy sticks of 16, even if you want to start with 16 GB).

A while ago there was a bug that locked out AMD CPUs from lower C states, but it should have been resolved by now.

Do not use realtek NICs, their drivers are trash.