Please assess this build (SuperMicro X11SSM-F + Intel Pentium G4560)

[glauco]

Hello there, this is my first post.
Can you please tell me what you think of this config I've been planning for the past few weeks?

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X11SSM-F Micro-ATX LGA1151 ECC=yes Chipset=C236 8 SATA3 ports
CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 (Kaby Lake) 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ECC=yes TDP=54W AES-NI=yes
Memory: 1 x Samsung M391A2K43BB1 16GB DDR4 288-pin 2400Mhz Unbuffered ECC RAM (tested by SuperMicro)
Case: Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX
Power Supply: Sea Sonic G-550 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX
Storage: 6 x Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive WD30EFRX

If stock Intel CPU cooler turns out to be too noisy:
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S 82.5 CFM - 160 mm tall (just right to fit the Node 804)

I've read here and on reddit that if that mobo gets to me with a BIOS revision older than 2.0, Kaby Lake CPUs like G4560 won't let the mobo boot up, thus preventing me from updating it (catch-22). As far as I understand this can be solved by contacting support@supermicro.com and asking for an OOB license or something.

I'm open to whatever suggestion you'll be kind enough to give me!

Thank you so much!:)

 

[Ericloewe]

Looks good, but...

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S 82.5 CFM - 160 mm tall (just right to fit the Node 804)

Something smaller makes more sense. The 90mm Noctuas are still plenty for an LGA115x system and they put a lot less stress on the motherboard.

 

[glauco]

Looks good, but...
Something smaller makes more sense. The 90mm Noctuas are still plenty for an LGA115x system and they put a lot less stress on the motherboard.

Thank you, that totally makes sense.
I'm going to stick with the stock Intel CPU cooler first and see if it's good/quiet enough. If not, I'm going to buy a 90mm Noctua cooler as you suggested!

 

[ccssid]

This:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16835103099

http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/cpu-air-cooler/hyper-212-evo/

or this:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...56005&cm_re=cpu_cooler-_-35-856-005-_-Product

http://www.deepcool.com/product/cpucooler/2013-12/7_487.shtml

will work very well and a good bang for your buck.

 

[BigDave]

I've read here and on reddit that if that mobo gets to me with a BIOS revision older than 2.0, Kaby Lake CPUs like G4560 won't let the mobo boot up, thus preventing me from updating it (catch-22). As far as I understand this can be solved by contacting support@supermicro.com and asking for an OOB license or something.

Why not just buy a G4400, it's the same specs, although I've not looked to
see if there's a price difference. *shrugs*
EDIT:
So I looked and can now see the Skylake G4400 does not have hyperthreading

 

[Ericloewe]

Kaby Lake Pentiums are actually closer to the i3-61xx line than they are to the Skylake Pentiums, since they support hyper-threading.

 

[Spearfoot]

Welcome to the forums!

Your proposed system will work very well as a basic file server. If you plan to use it for transcoding you will need a more powerful CPU.

 

[joeschmuck]

If stock Intel CPU cooler turns out to be too noisy:
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S 82.5 CFM - 160 mm tall (just right to fit the Node 804)

I don't think you will have an issue with that, if you do then I'll bet your airflow throught the case is not good.

While this build looks sound, you neglected one major thing in your posting, what you will be using the system for. This is very important becasue you could wind up with a nice system that doesn't do all that you want, or an over powered system where you could have saved a few bucks and had a cooler machine (less fan noise).

 

[glauco]

Welcome to the forums!
Your proposed system will work very well as a basic file server. If you plan to use it for transcoding you will need a more powerful CPU.

Thank you. I don't even know exactly what transcoding means so I guess I can live without it

 

[glauco]

I don't think you will have an issue with that, if you do then I'll bet your airflow throught the case is not good.

While this build looks sound, you neglected one major thing in your posting, what you will be using the system for. This is very important becasue you could wind up with a nice system that doesn't do all that you want, or an over powered system where you could have saved a few bucks and had a cooler machine (less fan noise).

You're absolutely right.
Just to let you know where I'm coming from, I've been using a Synology DS211j (two-bay home NAS) for the past 6+ years and now it's time for a substantial upgrade, from both a hardware and a software standpoint.
Because it's been taking me a good while to figure out what parts I need for this build, I still haven't really dug deep in the software capabilities of FreeNAS, but the main usage for me will be file sharing and backup.
Later on, little by little, I'm going to explore the OS and see what's interesting!

 

[chrisada]

FreeNAS has plug-in system that allows you to run many services on it which provide additional, but totally optional, functions. One of the most popular plug-in is Plex Media Server. And Plex (or other media server) is where transcoding is needed.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

[joeschmuck]

It would be good for you to take some time and see what other features you might want out of this system besides a very fast NAS. While there are some "simple" plugins (almost fully preconfigured programs mostly tailored to networking apps), there is still the ability to install an entire OS as a Virtual Machine (VM), for example Ubuntu, Arch, Redhat, Windoze, etc... Having this feature allows you to install basically any software package you desire.

As mentioned above, Plex is one of the commonly used applications to stream media content like video for a home theater experience. How it works is you run Plex on say a smart TV or some streaming viideo box connected to your TV, the Plex Server will transcode (convert) the video content into the proper format with which the layer can handle. This allows you to create only one version of the media that could now be viewed by different clients liek a smart phone, PC, Tablet, etc... To do this transcoding in realtime you need a certain amount of CPU horespower. If you want to watch 2 or more streas at the same time then of course you will need even more CPU horsepower. Of course if you have been using a DLNA then you don't have transcoding and even a slow CPU would be fine.

You should take a look at Plex just to see what it's about. It can run from basically any PC, even Windows and take it for a test drive if you want.

So before you settle on buying components, ensure you don't short change yourself.

If all you really do want is a simple NAS then just about any CPU will be fine. If you need to encrypt your hard drive, get a CPU with AES, however I highly recommend against encryption at the hard drive level, use something like TrueCrypt.

What we are trying to do is keep you from buying too slow of a CPU and it works fine for a few weeks but then you decide to do something which needs more CPU horsepower and you need to buy a faster CPU. That is a waste of money.

 

[hugovsky]

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X11SSM-F Micro-ATX LGA1151 ECC=yes Chipset=C236 8 SATA3 ports

Memory: 1 x Samsung M391A2K43BB1 16GB DDR4 288-pin 2400Mhz Unbuffered ECC RAM (tested by SuperMicro)

I don't think you can use only 1 dimm on this board. You have to use pairs.

EDIT: as per X11SSM-F manual:

"The motherboard will support odd-numbered modules (1 or 3 modules installed). However,
for best memory performance, install DIMM modules in pairs to activate memory interleaving"

I stand corrected.

 

[joeschmuck]

I stand corrected.

Hey, that allways happens after posting that you find information contrary. It happens.

 

[hugovsky]

Yep. Always learning. ;)

 

[glauco]

It would be good for you to take some time and see what other features you might want out of this system besides a very fast NAS. While there are some "simple" plugins (almost fully preconfigured programs mostly tailored to networking apps), there is still the ability to install an entire OS as a Virtual Machine (VM), for example Ubuntu, Arch, Redhat, Windoze, etc... Having this feature allows you to install basically any software package you desire.

As mentioned above, Plex is one of the commonly used applications to stream media content like video for a home theater experience. How it works is you run Plex on say a smart TV or some streaming viideo box connected to your TV, the Plex Server will transcode (convert) the video content into the proper format with which the layer can handle. This allows you to create only one version of the media that could now be viewed by different clients liek a smart phone, PC, Tablet, etc... To do this transcoding in realtime you need a certain amount of CPU horespower. If you want to watch 2 or more streas at the same time then of course you will need even more CPU horsepower. Of course if you have been using a DLNA then you don't have transcoding and even a slow CPU would be fine.

You should take a look at Plex just to see what it's about. It can run from basically any PC, even Windows and take it for a test drive if you want.

So before you settle on buying components, ensure you don't short change yourself.

If all you really do want is a simple NAS then just about any CPU will be fine. If you need to encrypt your hard drive, get a CPU with AES, however I highly recommend against encryption at the hard drive level, use something like TrueCrypt.

What we are trying to do is keep you from buying too slow of a CPU and it works fine for a few weeks but then you decide to do something which needs more CPU horsepower and you need to buy a faster CPU. That is a waste of money.

Thank you, those are all very good points.

VMs. I don't use them often. When I need them, I just use VirtualBox on my desk PC.

As far as watching movies on TV is concerned, for the past 6 years or so I've been content with simply sharing the media folder on my Synology box for my TV box to read and play movies back to my non-smart TV.
If I understand correctly, the advantage of using a Plex over my simple setup is to let it do all the hard work and ensure playback on all viewing platform, right? If so, I don't think I need it right now. And even if I need it at some point, I guess I'm only going to need to stream one video at a time.

Hard drive encryption... that I like! I'm going to read more about it. The CPU I've chosen (Intel Pentium G4560) has AES-NI, so if it's perfectly safe I'm going to encrypt the whole disk/volume/pool/whatever. If I realize that, as you say, it's a bad idea, a TrueCrypt file/partition will do just fine.

 

[glauco]

I don't think you can use only 1 dimm on this board. You have to use pairs.

EDIT: as per X11SSM-F manual:

"The motherboard will support odd-numbered modules (1 or 3 modules installed). However,
for best memory performance, install DIMM modules in pairs to activate memory interleaving"

I stand corrected.

Thank you for taking the time to read the mobo user's manual!
I won't buy a second DIMM just to activate memory interleaving because it's so damn expensive, but I have 3 spare DIMM slots just in case.

 

[religiouslyconfused]

Thank you, that totally makes sense.
I'm going to stick with the stock Intel CPU cooler first and see if it's good/quiet enough. If not, I'm going to buy a 90mm Noctua cooler as you suggested!

Stock Intel cooler is just fine for my FreeNAS system and with a Fractal R5 case you can hardly hear it.

 

[glauco]

Stock Intel cooler is just fine for my FreeNAS system and with a Fractal R5 case you can hardly hear it.

Thank you for your opinion!
Your case is focused on silence (strategically placed dense sound-absorbing material, ModuVent™ fan vent covers and finely tuned Dynamic Series fans) whereas mine isn't.
I would gladly have picked Fractal Design R5 if I didn't have space constraints!

 

[Jailer]

This looks like a great build and an excellent selection of components. Even if you choose to run Plex in the future if you set it up with your local clients so that they all are direct play CPU horsepower doesn't come into play.

This build should be a blueprint for a solid DIY home NAS. Good on you @glauco for doing your homework in component selection.