Planning this X11 build

Status
Not open for further replies.

Stux

MVP
Joined
Jun 2, 2016
Messages
4,358

Rational

Cadet
Joined
Oct 29, 2016
Messages
8
"Can't see how that would free up a Sata :-/"

When I glanced at the satadom's on the supermicro site they seemed to plug into a special socket on the x10 boards. Didn't look to be sata to me. Thought they'd be the same on these x11 boards. But on further inspection and reading you are correct:
  • Plugs into SATA connector on motherboard
  • For X10 motherboards: yellow SATA connector, built-in power pins - no need for power cable
https://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/SATADOM.cfm

So now I need to read up on what size I'll need if I go with one of these.

Eric and Joe, thanks for the confirmation on the Seasonic Platinums. Good to know my choice of them years and years ago still bears out as the best. I'll just be sure to get one with a fan instead of the fanless.

Damn Chris, that case is a beast! Cheap too for all that storage space. But I'm worried about how loud it is. I'll bet they're loud, right? If I have to I could put it elsewhere in the house, but I got rid of my two 16 inch racks years ago because of all the noise. Looking to keep them as silent as possible. If this can be minimized to just the hard drive noise and noctua fans on the CPU and rear of the case, it might still be reasonable in the house. Thanks for this suggestion! I didn't realize this model was available. Looks like a backplane. Just need to check to make sure it'll connect directly to the SM board though is my only last concern.

And thanks for the info on the Dell Perc controller. Seems like a great deal. But I could have sworn when I was reading last year that LSI weren't recommended? Has this changed or am I mistaken? I'll probably add these as well if fully supported and super stable as they seem they might give even higher performance? They at least add two more SATA connectors each right? I need to study up on the pros/cons of this controller vs going direct to the onboard SATA connectors.

Eric, I'm leaning towards getting your basic build right now. Just the i3 and your board with 16gb of mem. Seems like a value build that might be good enough for most home use cases, no?

The debate over going with additional drives is beginning to look like a potential dealbreaker as it drives up costs and wattage. The redundancy % is very important to me, so more drives is what' I'll want for that. But costs go up while size goes down inversely. Not making it compelling because of this one aspect...
 

Stux

MVP
Joined
Jun 2, 2016
Messages
4,358
Damn Chris, that case is a beast! Cheap too for all that storage space. But I'm worried about how loud it is. I'll bet they're loud, right? If I have to I could put it elsewhere in the house, but I got rid of my two 16 inch racks years ago because of all the noise. Looking to keep them as silent as possible. If this can be minimized to just the hard drive noise and noctua fans on the CPU and rear of the case, it might still be reasonable in the house. Thanks for this suggestion! I didn't realize this model was available. Looks like a backplane. Just need to check to make sure it'll connect directly to the SM board though is my only last concern.

My Norco RPC-4224 build is super quiet. See signature for Build Report.

And thanks for the info on the Dell Perc controller. Seems like a great deal. But I could have sworn when I was reading last year that LSI weren't recommended?

Has this changed or am I mistaken? I'll probably add these as well if fully supported and super stable as they seem they might give even higher performance? They at least add two more SATA connectors each right? I need to study up on the pros/cons of this controller vs going direct to the onboard SATA connectors.

The LSI-2008 is the defacto recommeneded HBA (see the Hardware Recommendations Guide). It directly gets you 8 SAS2/SATA3 ports via 2 SFF-8087 connectors (break out cables are available). But you can also use SAS expanders to add additional drives to each of the 8087 24gbps channels. But since Dell/IBM etc versions are available cheapish on eBay it tends to work out cheaper to just add 3 HBAs, or 2 HBAs and use the motherboard ports for the rest.
 

Rational

Cadet
Joined
Oct 29, 2016
Messages
8
Man, that Norco is also a beast of a case. Bit expensive though new. But another great recommendation, thanks. That's a TON of drives up front. Impressive looking. So it has fans bringing air through all of those? It's not noisy? Not seeing any available for less than $400+ though so far.

And I just read the new hardware recommendations guide. I'll reread it again to be sure I got it. Thanks.
Seems smartly limiting on options. Really helps narrow things down and keep problems at bay. I'll follow it.

Any objections to the x11ssl-cf-o over the X11SSM-F? It gives me the sas3 controller right on board for about the same price increase ($70) it would be to buy a used one off of ebay, flash it and use a slot.

I'm still trying to understand the cables these dell controllers use. Got a part number so I can research costs for additional cables? It seems the cards on ebay usually come with one cable that has two? sata ends? So two drives per cable?

I checked the price of the full ATX version of this board (x10srh-cln4f-0)and it is $432. Not gonna pay that. Seems the micro ATX boards are around $200, which is doable. Wonder what the full ATX version of the x11-ssm-f is? Time to start getting into smartmicro's site and getting my mind wrapped around all their x11 offerings...

The more I look, the more I see Eric's build as the golden mean value wise. It seems the WD 3tb drives at $109 are doable if going to 6 drives. Total of $654. And if I buy on Black Friday perhaps less. Maybe stay with those for a year or two and add a second zgroup of 6 4tb or larger drives once prices come down eventually.
 

Stux

MVP
Joined
Jun 2, 2016
Messages
4,358
x11ssl-cf is a great board, especially if you want more than 8 drives
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
"Can't see how that would free up a Sata :-/"

When I glanced at the satadom's on the supermicro site they seemed to plug into a special socket on the x10 boards. Didn't look to be sata to me. Thought they'd be the same on these x11 boards. But on further inspection and reading you are correct:
  • Plugs into SATA connector on motherboard
  • For X10 motherboards: yellow SATA connector, built-in power pins - no need for power cable
https://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/SATADOM.cfm

So now I need to read up on what size I'll need if I go with one of these.

Eric and Joe, thanks for the confirmation on the Seasonic Platinums. Good to know my choice of them years and years ago still bears out as the best. I'll just be sure to get one with a fan instead of the fanless.

Damn Chris, that case is a beast! Cheap too for all that storage space. But I'm worried about how loud it is. I'll bet they're loud, right? If I have to I could put it elsewhere in the house, but I got rid of my two 16 inch racks years ago because of all the noise. Looking to keep them as silent as possible. If this can be minimized to just the hard drive noise and noctua fans on the CPU and rear of the case, it might still be reasonable in the house. Thanks for this suggestion! I didn't realize this model was available. Looks like a backplane. Just need to check to make sure it'll connect directly to the SM board though is my only last concern.

And thanks for the info on the Dell Perc controller. Seems like a great deal. But I could have sworn when I was reading last year that LSI weren't recommended? Has this changed or am I mistaken? I'll probably add these as well if fully supported and super stable as they seem they might give even higher performance? They at least add two more SATA connectors each right? I need to study up on the pros/cons of this controller vs going direct to the onboard SATA connectors.

Eric, I'm leaning towards getting your basic build right now. Just the i3 and your board with 16gb of mem. Seems like a value build that might be good enough for most home use cases, no?

The debate over going with additional drives is beginning to look like a potential dealbreaker as it drives up costs and wattage. The redundancy % is very important to me, so more drives is what' I'll want for that. But costs go up while size goes down inversely. Not making it compelling because of this one aspect...
SATA DOM - You don't need it this big, but 32GB gives you room to grow if the next version of FreeNAS needs more space. I use a pair of 40GB laptop drives and that works great. It is more room than I need, but I have had zero problems out of the solution.

The Dell H310 controller is functionally identical to the LSI card and once the firmware is flashed, FreeNAS thinks it is an LSI card. It works great. I actually have five of them and use them in more systems than just my FreeNAS servers.

The rack chassis fans run fast (5000 RPM) and are a little on the loud side. I used inline resisters to cut the speed in half. Look at this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-3-Pin-C...oller-for-PC-Computer-Black-3YE-/282197691521
This gives three speed settings that are manually adjustable, the ones I use are not adjustable but work in the same way. Half speed on my fans keeps the drives plenty cool and I changed the passive heat-sync on the CPU to an active (with fan) unit. I just use that on the mid chassis fan wall, on the rear chassis fans, I swapped them out for regular fans and have them direct connected to the system board which will ramp up the fan speed if it needs more cooling.

The backplane in the chassis may give you trouble if you try to use drives larger than 2TB. Your mileage may vary.
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
Man, that Norco is also a beast of a case. Bit expensive though new. But another great recommendation, thanks. That's a TON of drives up front. Impressive looking. So it has fans bringing air through all of those? It's not noisy? Not seeing any available for less than $400+ though so far.

And I just read the new hardware recommendations guide. I'll reread it again to be sure I got it. Thanks.
Seems smartly limiting on options. Really helps narrow things down and keep problems at bay. I'll follow it.

Any objections to the x11ssl-cf-o over the X11SSM-F? It gives me the sas3 controller right on board for about the same price increase ($70) it would be to buy a used one off of ebay, flash it and use a slot.

I'm still trying to understand the cables these dell controllers use. Got a part number so I can research costs for additional cables? It seems the cards on ebay usually come with one cable that has two? sata ends? So two drives per cable?

I checked the price of the full ATX version of this board (x10srh-cln4f-0)and it is $432. Not gonna pay that. Seems the micro ATX boards are around $200, which is doable. Wonder what the full ATX version of the x11-ssm-f is? Time to start getting into smartmicro's site and getting my mind wrapped around all their x11 offerings...

The more I look, the more I see Eric's build as the golden mean value wise. It seems the WD 3tb drives at $109 are doable if going to 6 drives. Total of $654. And if I buy on Black Friday perhaps less. Maybe stay with those for a year or two and add a second zgroup of 6 4tb or larger drives once prices come down eventually.
The SuperMicro case I posted a link to appears to include the cables you would need. For that case at least. The SAS cables are standard, not special for Dell.
 

Rational

Cadet
Joined
Oct 29, 2016
Messages
8
Thank you Chris. Love your detailed posts. Just what I need for answers. Thank you so much.

I can just skip the backplane completely, right?
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
Thank you Chris. Love your detailed posts. Just what I need for answers. Thank you so much.

I can just skip the backplane completely, right?
I was talking to another FreeNAS user (on the forum) and he said that he has put 6 x 2TB drives and 6 x 4TB drives in his and got it working.
So, you might not have a problem. Take a look at this thread on the forum:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/11-hdds-is-the-limit.47167/#post-324115

You would not want to skip the backplane because it has a device in it called a SAS expander which is what allows you to use a controller that has 8 lanes of connectivity to control 24 drives. It is kind of like a network switch in that it passes signals between the drives and the controller on an "as needed" basis. It is more complicated than that but that should get you started. Further reading: http://www.sasexpanders.com/

Now, this company is not just providing information, they are also marketing what they are selling, but there is some good information about the technology to be had here if you are interested.
 

Chris Moore

Hall of Famer
Joined
May 2, 2015
Messages
10,080
Any objections to the x11ssl-cf-o over the X11SSM-F? It gives me the sas3 controller right on board for about the same price increase ($70) it would be to buy a used one off of ebay, flash it and use a slot.
Sorry I overlooked this before. The X11SSL-CF board has a different type of SAS connector (12Gbps) that I am not familiar with. I have not had occasion to work with it yet and I do not know if there is a way to connect that to the backplane in the server chassis I suggested.

When I was saying that the cables appeared to be included, I was referring to cables to connect to the Dell H310 card that I had suggested.

Sorry for any confusion.
 

Ericloewe

Server Wrangler
Moderator
Joined
Feb 15, 2014
Messages
20,175
Sorry I overlooked this before. The X11SSL-CF board has a different type of SAS connector (12GB/s) that I am not familiar with. I have not had occasion to work with it yet and I do not know if there is a way to connect that to the backplane in the server chassis I suggested.
Yes, adapter cables are widely available. Haven't memorized the designation of the new ones, though.
 

Stux

MVP
Joined
Jun 2, 2016
Messages
4,358
Yes, adapter cables are widely available. Haven't memorized the designation of the new ones, though.

Mini SAS HD, SFF-8643 ;)
 

Ericloewe

Server Wrangler
Moderator
Joined
Feb 15, 2014
Messages
20,175
Mini SAS HD, SFF-8643 ;)
8-6-4 and then stupid three missed the memo that only even numbers were invited.
 

Stux

MVP
Joined
Jun 2, 2016
Messages
4,358
8-6-4 and then stupid three missed the memo that only even numbers were invited.

:)

Unfortunately SFF-8642 is a 100gbps infiniband connector.

86
/2
= 43.
 

Ericloewe

Server Wrangler
Moderator
Joined
Feb 15, 2014
Messages
20,175
The number of SFF connector standards approved over the past few years is best described by https://xkcd.com/927/
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top