Planned build help with mobo and CPU please.

[VladTepes]

Hello all,

Firstly let me say that I have most certainly read the thread "Hardware recommendations (read this first)" first!

I have done a lot of reading and research, and thought I'd gotten there until I found out the board I was looking at was ATX size....

Purpose: Media storage and Server, Plex streaming.

My requirements
Inexpensive (ideally). Bang for buck!
uATX or mITX form factor mobo (it will be the second system into an Enthoo MiniXL case)
not fussed re CPU as long as it is sufficient for the job, and suits the mobo.
I have 3 x 3tb WD Red NAS drives currently (were in a Synology) and will likely buy another one.
(This will give 4 disks and I can't see it expanding beyond 5 any time in the medium term)
Boot device: Prefer SSD.
16gb ECC RAM, Samsung preferably if I can be sure it's real (lots of fakes on ebay)

I want to avoid
Realtek
and the rest of the don't do in the Hardware recommendations thread.

Would like (not mush haves)
mobo featuring IPMI
capability (between mobo and CPU) to expand to up to 32Gb RAM.

I already have
as mentioned:
Phantek Enthoo Mini XL case
3 x WD Red NAS drives.


I thank you greatly, in advance, for any help and assistance you may be generous enough to provide :)

 

[Dice]

Hello,

Purpose: Media storage and Server, Plex streaming.

How many simultaneous users? This decides 'broadly' what CPU that might be worth looking into.
1-2: G4400
2-3: i3-6100
4+: E3-1230v5

I'd look into a X11SSL-F. The -F is the IPMI. 6Ports sata on board would have you covered. 64GB RAM MAX.

 

[VladTepes]

Hello,

How many simultaneous users? This decides 'broadly' what CPU that might be worth looking into.
1-2: G4400
2-3: i3-6100
4+: E3-1230v5

I'd look into a X11SSL-F. The -F is the IPMI. 6Ports sata on board would have you covered. 64GB RAM MAX.

Ah yes, I should have mentioned that. 1-2 users would be typical. Perhaps 3 once in a blue moon, usually 1. So let's say 2.

mobo - that's a tad more than I'd hoped to spend (around $270 on newegg) but I suppose it would make a good investment. Certainly seems like a decent product!

So with 6 sata ports, assuming one SSD for the OS, that would allow up to 5 HDD's for storage yes?

I note the specs for that card include "2x SuperDOM (ports) with built-in power". Perhaps that would be a better way to go for the OS rather than take up a SATA port for an SSD? I'm open to education here..... I have an idea though that a small SSD may be cheaper?

 

[Dice]

Certainly seems like a decent product!

it is a good fit to your overall build.
Supermicro boards maybe appear expensive if your eyes are set on the low buck consumer grade stuff, but in comparison to the quality and 'hours of testing time from other users on BSD' you'll quickly find that SuperMicro is <the preferred option>. Plus, there are numerous models that fit most sorts of rigs.

So with 6 sata ports, assuming one SSD for the OS, that would allow up to 5 HDD's for storage yes?

yes.

I note the specs for that card include "2x SuperDOM (ports) with built-in power". Perhaps that would be a better way to go for the OS rather than take up a SATA port for an SSD? I'm open to education here..... I have an idea though that a small SSD may be cheaper?

This only means two of the ports are capable of powering a SATA DOM.
Small SSD's are generally cheaper, and often considered the preferred choice due to this reason.
The advantages of SATA DOM's are: small size, no need for external power supply/SATA power cable. The downside is a rather high price premium. I'd suggest you get a SSD.

 

[VladTepes]

Thank you :)

 

[VladTepes]

So perhaps not DIRECTLY related to FreeNAS, but certainly to a NAS build is the question of brands and quality.

So what to buy and what to avoid?

Supermicro board and Intel chip are a given.

unbuffered ECC RAM: Samsung are good it seems. Any others? (Avoid Kingston from what I can see)

SSD: Cheking umart, for example, there are the following bewildering arrayof options: Intel; SSD 540 series 120G SATA $69, Kingston 120Gb $49, Mach Extreme 32Gb $69. Samsung 120Gb SATA $69 or Samsung mSATA $94, Sandisk 120Gb Plus SSD $55, Transcend 32Gb SATA $45, Corsair 120GbSSD $79, Crucial BX200 240G $95

Which of these brands are good and which to avoid? I know I only need a small drive but sometimes a larger drive of one brand is cheaper than a smaller drive for another.

HDD:
I'll be using WD RED NAS drives for the NAS, but will be looking for some drives for external storage as well. These will not be spun up much so don't need to be as expensive as RED NAS drives. Any recommendations re buy / avoid?


If anyone (esp Australians among us) can point out the best places they know of to buy the various components affordably that would be great. :)

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

SSD

For boot device, where performance and endurance are not high priority, just go for something inexpensive, and consider used.

looking for some drives for external storage

USB or eSATA? USB is simplest and probably lowest cost, but there are benefits to having at least one eSATA port on your FreeNAS that go beyond the potential for external backup. In this case you can use a drive dock (with suitable cooling) and pick low cost, high capacity desktop drives.

 

[VladTepes]

Not sure where there is any benefit of eSATA over USB3.
Can't a system just as you describe be set up connected by USB as easily as eSATA?

As you can see I don't know much on this front....

Edit: Just found out my PC mobo GRYPHON Z97 doesn't have eSATA port anyway, so I suppose USB it is.

 

[Bidule0hm]

Just one thing: USB = Universally Sucky Bus © @jgreco

So you may want to use eSATA ;)

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

benefit of eSATA over USB3

With eSATA you get a more reliable link, but more important, you get SMART data.

GRYPHON Z97 doesn't have eSATA port anyway

There are plenty of add-on cards available, or you can just use a SATA to eSATA bracket if you have a spare SATA port.

 

[jgreco]

With eSATA you get a more reliable link, but more important, you get SMART data.

There are plenty of add-on cards available, or you can just use a SATA to eSATA bracket if you have a spare SATA port.

Or put this all a different way. I recently bought five of the HGST He8 8TB drives for use here in one of our fileservers, four and a spare. Because they were sold as WD MyBook's, and I intended to shuck them, I have been running them for several months "in shell" as USB drives, attached to FreeNAS.

It stores data but it isn't truly stable. There's a constant low level of checksum errors, which seem to correspond with when the thing's been idle for awhile and then I start doing activity. Don't care enough to characterize it more than that, just wanted to get the drives inside the USB shells burned in.

 

[CookiesLikeWhoa]

Scrub took 107 hours eh?

 

[jgreco]

Scrub took 107 hours eh?

USB2, 8TB drives, you do the math.

 

[Spearfoot]

This Icy Dock MB559U3S-1SB external enclosure supports both USB 3.0 and eSATA. I use one (connected via eSATA) to backup everything I have to a single 6TB disk.

It runs warm, as most external enclosures do, so I keep a desk fan pointed at it... :)

 

[jgreco]

This Icy Dock MB559U3S-1SB external enclosure supports both USB 3.0 and eSATA. I use one (connected via eSATA) to backup everything I have to a single 6TB disk.

It runs warm, as most external enclosures do, so I keep a desk fan pointed at it... :)

Does the brand name imply you're supposed to cool it with ice?

Anyways, eSATA isn't particularly desirable in that it's still much more likely to be involved in a cable-knocking incident, and of course once I say "eSATA is kinda okay" someone will come in with the five drive SATA multiplier based eSATA expander that is absolutely NOT fine.

But if you had to do eSATA or USB, eSATA is the way to go.

 

[Spearfoot]

Does the brand name imply you're supposed to cool it with ice? :)

Heh. It doesn't run that hot! But it could be a clever marketing ploy: Hey! Let's use subliminal suggestion to fool the geeks into buying our stuff!

Anyways, eSATA isn't particularly desirable in that it's still much more likely to be involved in a cable-knocking incident, and of course once I say "eSATA is kinda okay" someone will come in with the five drive SATA multiplier based eSATA expander that is absolutely NOT fine.

But if you had to do eSATA or USB, eSATA is the way to go.

Agreed. USB 3.0 support just doesn't measure up to eSATA on the various UNIX platforms.

 

[jgreco]

Heh. It doesn't run that hot! But it could be a clever marketing ploy: Hey! Let's use subliminal suggestion to fool the geeks into buying our stuff!

Agreed. USB 3.0 support just doesn't measure up to eSATA on the various UNIX platforms.

It's not even "on the various UNIX platforms." It's just that it's not in the same league if you care about your data and not having it mishandled and obscured behind some crappy USB bridge chipset.

 

[Spearfoot]

It's not even "on the various UNIX platforms." It's just that it's not in the same league if you care about your data and not having it mishandled and obscured behind some crappy USB bridge chipset.

So it's the chipsets, huh? All this time I thought it was lousy driver support that made USB 3.0 stink. Good to know.

 

[jgreco]

So it's the chipsets, huh? All this time I thought it was lousy driver support that made USB 3.0 stink. Good to know.

No. Lousy driver support can absolutely make USB 3.0 stink, but that's kind of like how lousy driver support can make Ethernet stink (think: Realtek, which is actually a combo of driver and chipset badness).

However, what happens if you put an HDD behind an ethernet bridge chipset that only implements minimal block storage and recall functionality, and doesn't implement higher level protocols like SMB?

You can have suckage on multiple levels.

 

[VladTepes]

So if someone could steer me to the cheapest place to buy:

Mobo: Supermicro X11SSL-F

RAM: Samsung (as follows according to the Supermicro website)

SMC Module Part # MEM-DR416L-SL01-EU21
Module Manufacturer: Samsung
Module Manufacturer Part # M391A2K43BB1-CPB
DRAM Component Vendor: Samsung
DRAM Component Part # K4A4G085WB-BCPB
# of Ranks: 2
RoHS Compliance: RoHS
Profile: Low Profile

(The site also mentions specific Hynix or Micron RAM but I've never seen either here in Aussie).

Thanks for your help !