Please advise on a AMD E350 replacement

[djidji perroto]

Dears,
My 5 year old FreeNAS box died recently.
It was a 4xHDD, ASRock E350M1 (AMD E350/350D) which served its purpose great... and which cost me something like 100 Euro back in 2012.
I've been using it for... well filesharing, net backup and thats about it.
I went through the Hardware Guide, considered an Avoton C2550 platform briefly but they cost like 3x what I paid 5 years ago, which is nonsense.
Can somebody please recommend a bare minimum hardware platform?
Obviously, I would like to re-use the maximum of my components (case, PSU, Memory, and the HDDs are fine).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Dice]

Can somebody please recommend a bare minimum hardware platform?

answer:

the Hardware Guide

Else:
search for components on ebay
or
look for older recycled server gear (easy to get right: supermicro + HBA). will be more power intensive and heat generating / noisy than modern hardware.

 

[djidji perroto]

Thank you for your response.
I did read the HW guide. Over and over and over again...
It is dated 2016 though, and for the 'light' category of usage recommendations are a little out of date.
With my Mini-ITX limitation, and the current gen7 Intel Kaby Lake (i.e. Pentium G4560) I can't find *any* board that supports ECC memory. In the best case they support ECC in a 'non-ECC' mode, whatever this means.
So what compromise should I go for?
- forget about ECC and go for a B250 or Z270 board
- go with a C236 board and a gen6 processor

Thanks in advance!

 

[Dice]

It is dated 2016

true.

are a little out of date.

Not really. There are notes on Kaby lake in the document, clearly providing the point of view of the forum.

So what compromise should I go for?
- forget about ECC and go for a B250 or Z270 board
- go with a C236 board and a gen6 processor

Once you rethink this question, you hopefully realize it is obvious what the forum recommends.

 

[Stux]

Thank you for your response.
I did read the HW guide. Over and over and over again...
It is dated 2016 though,

This one?

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

That's dated May 2017?

...

Edit: I see. @Ericloewe say Eric, do ya think you should perhaps update the date when you edit the HW guide :)

 

[Stux]

Thank you for your response.
I did read the HW guide. Over and over and over again...
It is dated 2016 though, and for the 'light' category of usage recommendations are a little out of date.
With my Mini-ITX limitation, and the current gen7 Intel Kaby Lake (i.e. Pentium G4560) I can't find *any* board that supports ECC memory. In the best case they support ECC in a 'non-ECC' mode, whatever this means.
So what compromise should I go for?
- forget about ECC and go for a B250 or Z270 board
- go with a C236 board and a gen6 processor

Thanks in advance!

Its generally cheaper to go for a MicroATX build rather than a Mini-ITX build. If you must have a Mini-ITX build, I would recommend a SuperMicro Xeon-D family system https://www.supermicro.com.tw/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/#1667

There are Pentium versions (ie a Dual Core XeonD)

ASRockRack also make server grade Mini-ITX boards. They are all older gen.

The other alternative, if cost is a factor, is to consider a used server grade system. That is perhaps a separate topic.

 

[Ericloewe]

Edit: I see. @Ericloewe say Eric, do ya think you should perhaps update the date when you edit the HW guide :)

I'm not sure I can make it clearer. The version string includes the update date and the Resource body says that the major revision is from October 2016.

for the 'light' category of usage recommendations are a little out of date.

I disagree. It is up to date.

 

[djidji perroto]

Thanks for all suggestions.
I realize the combination of requirements is a bit awkward, which is exactly why I'm looking for help from the experts...
Just out of curiosity, does anybody know why would Intel release processors with ECC while the matching motherboards do not support it?

 

[Ericloewe]

Just out of curiosity, does anybody know why would Intel release processors with ECC while the matching motherboards do not support it?

What are you talking about? The motherboards have been out for a year and a half now.

 

[Dice]

Just out of curiosity, does anybody know why would Intel release processors with ECC while the matching motherboards do not support it?

Same CPU's are aimed at low buck desktop environments without ECC requirements.

 

[djidji perroto]

which is good, but why claim you support ECC in the first place? anyway, excuse the rant, I should take it with chipzilla...

 

[gpsguy]

At the end of the day, there are very few server based Mini-ITX motherboards. iXsystems uses an Asrock board in their FreeNAS Mini. Some of our users have opted for the Supermicro, which is more expensive.

If you look at Gigabyte's Enterprise offering - http://b2b.gigabyte.com/Server-Motherboard they have some promising options. I've never used a Gigabyte board, nor do I recall any of the forum users, using these boards. And, doing some web searches on some of the product numbers, I don't see many hits with the resellers. Or, they are out of stock / backordered. But, if you want to roll the dice, ;) it might be an option to consider.

 

[djidji perroto]

I would like to thank everybody for the insights.
I did some more reading, consulted the inventory of a couple of local retailers and ended up buying an ASRock C236 WSI + Pentium G4400 + ECC RAM combo. Some compromises, but I guess this is an upgrade from my old AMD E350.
I'm now facing configuration issues (it seems my 9.10 installation has no kernel module support for the intel i210/i219 adapter) but I'll address them in another thread.