Recommendation: AMD Fusion E-350 vs. Intel Pentium G620

[Pktua]

Hi,

I'm going to build my first FreeNAS-system. I'm not sure if I should go for an AMD Fusion E350 or an Intel Pentium Processor G620 system (price is roughly the same).


Components Price Description
Mainboard 147,90 ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe incl. AMD Fusion E-350
CPU 0,00 included
CPU-Cooler 0,00 included
RAM 34,99 Team Group DIMM 8 GB DDR3-1333 Kit
Case 154,90 Fractal Design Array R2 (incl. 300-Watt-PSU)
PSU 0,00 included

Sum 337,79 €



Components Price Description
Mainboard 76,90 ASUS P8H61-I Rev.3.0
CPU 57,90 Intel® Pentium® Processor G620
CPU-Cooler 24,99 Scythe Shuriken Rev. B
RAM 34,99 Team Group DIMM 8 GB DDR3-1333 Kit
Case 154,90 Fractal Design Array R2 (incl. 300-Watt-PSU)
PSU 0,00 included

Sum 349,68 €

1) What would you recommend?
The Intel system would be a lot faster, but I'm not sure if there's a way to get the same power consumption as the AMD system (maybe via undervolting?).
2) Will I notice the difference in power consumption, when using 3-4 HDDs?
3) I assume that the Intel configuration will be louder than the AMD one: Is there a way to get to the same noise level?
4) Would the AMD system be sufficient to max out an 1 Gb-Ethernet-connection? All shares will be accessed through CIFS/SAMBA.
5) I'll probably use older HDDs with different capacities: The first buildup could be 160 + 500 +1000 GB (3 HDDs). Is it possible to create a ZFS1-setup with these HDDs (what will be the available space of this setup?)? Or is it necessary to have HDDs with the same capacity?

THX for any help!

 

[survive]

Hi Pktua,

1) Personally I would be really tempted to go the AMD route. Indeed the Intel would be faster but I think both platforms are limited by their network interfaces. Note the Intel board only has 4 SATA ports. Check the forums for the E-350 thread, lots of people having good luck with them.

2) I doubt it, you might notice it with a Kill-A-Watt meter, but I don't think the difference is enough to matter more than a few bucks on the bill.

3) There always is....the only difference between them would be the CPU cooler, so if quiet matters get one that reviews as such. Personally, if you go Intel I would try it with stock before I decided I needed to go aftermarket. Check here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/

4) Yes, the AMD has enough grunt to saturate Gig-E.

5) I don't want to say straight up no, but unless you want to do a ton of thinking and configuring....no there isn't. Remember you can't add single drives to and existing ZFS filesystem, just new virtual devices, so you kind of need to plan what you really want to do.

One other thing to look at is the HP Microserver, check the forums...there are a couple of threads on them there as well.

-Will

 

[Pktua]

Hi Will,

big THX for your answer!

1) As you say, the Intel board has only 4 SATA ports: On the other hand you can only install 6*3.5 HDDs (+ 1*2.5 HDD) in the selected case. Buying a SATA controller card would be sufficient to have enough SATA ports (although I'm unsure, if I will ever install more than 4 HDDs in the case - this could lead to thermal problems?). Having the bigger perfomance the Intel processor would be more flexible to use (for example for virtual machines and that stuff). But, according to the forums, the E-350 seems to work relatively good with FreeNAS 8.0: Do you know if the Intel processor and the mainboard also work flawlessly with FreeNAS?

2) + 3) Thanks for your suggestions: The main reason, I was asking, is that I'm a bit concerned about possible thermal problems when getting the Intel processor. This would lead to a noisy NAS. Quietness is rather important to me: Would it then be better going for the AMD system? The case doesn't allow me to install coolers with a height above 90 mm. So I would be a bit limited in my cooling attempts for the Intel processor.

4) Are you sure? I checked the forums: Some say, they get more than 200 MB/s (1 Gb-E would be 125 MB/s, so that would be enough), others say they "only" get 70 MB/s with an AMD E-350. If it's really possible to saturate Gig-E with an AMD E-350 (using CIFS/SAMBA!!!), I would probably go for the AMD system. The main reason why I'm a bit suspicious of the E-350 is, that it has a great graphics performance for an APU (thus being perfectly suitable for an HTPC) - BUT I won't need the graphics performance for the NAS! The CPU power is far more important, which points more in the Intel direction.
Damned, it's so hard to decide...;)

5) It's the first time I'm using ZFS (and FreeNAS) so please forgive me if what I am asking is obvious. Would it be possible to add single drives to an existing ZFS filesystem, when they aren't configured as a "RAID" (i. e. ZFS1 or ZFS2) but as "JBOD"? Is the only problem when adding a new drive to the filesystem as a new virtual device that I will loose the advantage of ZFS (parity bit and that stuff)? Or are there other things I could loose with such a setup?

Hmmm, HP Microserver doesn't look bad, but this time I wanted to build the NAS by myself (I was really disappointed by the performance of my last two NASes, which were complete solutions).

Thx for your help,
Pktua

 

[jim82]

I know this is a bit of topic, but to achive maximum Gigabit speeds, you should really make sure all your ethernet cables are CAT6 and not only CAT5e. In theory CAT5e supports 1Gb/s transfers, but we all know theory and realworld doesn't mix all that well.

 

[matthewowen01]

I know this is a bit of topic, but to achive maximum Gigabit speeds, you should really make sure all your ethernet cables are CAT6 and not only CAT5e. In theory CAT5e supports 1Gb/s transfers, but we all know theory and realworld doesn't mix all that well.

Theory: A theory is what one or more hypotheses become once they have been verified and accepted to be true. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers.

I have a 100 foot cat5e cable I can push and pull gigabit on.

 

[jim82]

I have a 100 foot cat5e cable I can push and pull gigabit on.

I have 3 different gigabit switches, ranging from cheap to Cisco enterprise units, 10+ different CAT5e cables, none of which are able to achieve the speeds I'm seeing with the CAT6 cables.

Theory in real life and theory in the computer world, is more or less like comparing apples to bananas.

My 2 cents, just giving a heads up to the OP.

EDIT: Speeds are also relative and most people would say gigabit is from 75MB/s up to 125MB/s. Just to point out, above is just my own experience. In "theory" CAT5e should be more than fine.

 

[survive]

Hi Pktua,

1) The case shouldn't have any problems with 6 drives, after all it seems to be designed specifically to be used as a NAS\storage case. I don't know if it comes from the factory with all the fans installed, but it shouldn't be a problem...just be sure to get quality low-noise fans if you need to. Personally, I wouldn't really plan on using the box for anything other than storage...I wouldn't even run a torrent or usenet client on it, but that's really just my opinion...the thing with running some sort of visualization software on it gets down to how much RAM you want to put in the box, remember that ZFS is a ram pig. The E-350 boards are nice, there;'s nothing wrong with them but you might want to consider a low power AMD rig as well. I personally like the 790GX & 890GX boards with the on-board "sideport" memory so I don't have to share system memory with the display. I have no experience with the Intel proc or board, that said Intel gear is a pretty safe choice. If you decide to add more ports to the Intel I would stay away from any PCI controller cards, get PCI-e instead.

2+3) The Intel proc you are looking at is the lowest of the "I" serires, so I would expect it to be extremely frugal when it comes to power, that said it should also come with a simple cooler> I think cooling will be a non-issue for you.

4) A lot of that gets down to the individual systems....4GB vs. 8GB of ram, raidz vs. raidz2 that sort of thing. Samba itself is single-threaded and like some clock speed to really push data. Take a look at this thread to start:

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?27-AMD-E-350-Thread-(now-in-new-forum-)

I don't have a E-350...personally I'm torn on what I would get between one of those or a proper PhenomII dual core. I'm running a quad core PhenomII that is total overkill, but then I also get ~550MB/s worth of transfer internally

5) ZFS is a weird one to wrap your head around...I would read as much as you can about it. The thing to keep in mind is that it came from Sun for use in their "big iron" boxes, the sort of environment that doesn't really think in terms of adding single drives. When you make a ZFS volume you create a "virtual device" that the volume goes on. later you can create another virtual device and add it to your volume. You will want this new device to be redundant like your first device...so you make a raidz (RAID-5-like) device first, later you could add a mirror or another raidz to your volume to grow it. You can make a ZFS volume on a single drive that will have the checksumming, but it won't have the parity information you would get on a proper array.

Building the system for the experience is certainly a good idea, but the Microservers are making a lot of people really happy.

-Will

 

[Pktua]

I know this is a bit of topic, but to achive maximum Gigabit speeds, you should really make sure all your ethernet cables are CAT6 and not only CAT5e. In theory CAT5e supports 1Gb/s transfers, but we all know theory and realworld doesn't mix all that well.

Never thought of that - thanks for your advice!

Hi Pktua,

1) The case shouldn't have any problems with 6 drives, after all it seems to be designed specifically to be used as a NAS\storage case. I don't know if it comes from the factory with all the fans installed, but it shouldn't be a problem...just be sure to get quality low-noise fans if you need to. Personally, I wouldn't really plan on using the box for anything other than storage...I wouldn't even run a torrent or usenet client on it, but that's really just my opinion...the thing with running some sort of visualization software on it gets down to how much RAM you want to put in the box, remember that ZFS is a ram pig. The E-350 boards are nice, there;'s nothing wrong with them but you might want to consider a low power AMD rig as well. I personally like the 790GX & 890GX boards with the on-board "sideport" memory so I don't have to share system memory with the display. I have no experience with the Intel proc or board, that said Intel gear is a pretty safe choice. If you decide to add more ports to the Intel I would stay away from any PCI controller cards, get PCI-e instead.

2+3) The Intel proc you are looking at is the lowest of the "I" serires, so I would expect it to be extremely frugal when it comes to power, that said it should also come with a simple cooler> I think cooling will be a non-issue for you.

4) A lot of that gets down to the individual systems....4GB vs. 8GB of ram, raidz vs. raidz2 that sort of thing. Samba itself is single-threaded and like some clock speed to really push data. Take a look at this thread to start:

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?27-AMD-E-350-Thread-(now-in-new-forum-)

I don't have a E-350...personally I'm torn on what I would get between one of those or a proper PhenomII dual core. I'm running a quad core PhenomII that is total overkill, but then I also get ~550MB/s worth of transfer internally

5) ZFS is a weird one to wrap your head around...I would read as much as you can about it. The thing to keep in mind is that it came from Sun for use in their "big iron" boxes, the sort of environment that doesn't really think in terms of adding single drives. When you make a ZFS volume you create a "virtual device" that the volume goes on. later you can create another virtual device and add it to your volume. You will want this new device to be redundant like your first device...so you make a raidz (RAID-5-like) device first, later you could add a mirror or another raidz to your volume to grow it. You can make a ZFS volume on a single drive that will have the checksumming, but it won't have the parity information you would get on a proper array.

Building the system for the experience is certainly a good idea, but the Microservers are making a lot of people really happy.

-Will

Hmmmm, I think I'll take the E-350. As far as I can see I can expect at least 60 MB/s: Could be better, but the AMD system will have the lower power consumption and less thermal problems (i. e. no noisy coolers needed): My problem is that reviews in many magazines often say that you won't have thermal problems with a product: But the products are usually tested in air-conditioned rooms. As I don't have an air conditioner and live in Italy, the summers can get very hot ;) --> suddenly you have plenty of heat problems with the IT-stuff.
Theoretically the E-350 can be cooled passively as opposed to the G620. That leads me to the assumption that a fan running at the lowest level possible will be enough to cool the E-350 even during the hot Italian summers. I'm not sure if that is possible for the Intel system (or a low power "desktop" AMD system, like you mentioned).
And the next thing about the Intel system is, that there seem to be many people in the FreeNAS community to have an E-350 system, but no one with an G620. Someone is even reporting big problems with a Sandybridge system + FreeNas (http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?530-H67-P67-amp-intel-sandy-bridge). So, if I need some help (and I know I will ;)), the AMD system will be the easier way to handle the problems.

Let's see if I can manage the ZFS system properly :D

Thanks for your help Will!

Pktua