Recommendation

[Redemption]

I am going back and forth on a build. I currently run two Cisco C220-M5 in my home; I virtualize VMs with ESXI. I was considering adding a Truenas VM in one of them. I ordered a UCSC-MRAID12G raid controller and also picked up four 16TB drives. The problem is that I keep my servers in the garage all year round. I recently read that heat shortens the life span of hard drives. I cannot move the server in the house because C220 servers tend t be loud. So I am considering building a NAS.

I already read the hardware recommendations post, but that did not help me much. If I build a NAS, I would like to build something that allows me to run some VMs. At a bare minimum, I would like to run a domain Controller. I would like to build a NAS that is not super loud so that I can keep it in my office. Any recommendations on CPU. I do have a couple of silver XEON CPUs laying around, I also have some Xeon E7-8880 V3. The only issue is that motherboards are expensive for those processors. I can spend up to 1500 on a build. I did consider a Truenas Mini XL but I do not want to limit myself on CPU power. I have memory, so I guess the suggestions I am looking for are on potential CPU and motherboard.

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[Redemption]

The raid card I ordered was the UCSC-SAS12GHBA

 

[DigitalMinimalist]

You have HDDs, Controller and probably RAM.

What type of RAM do you have? I would get a used combo of Mainboard + CPU, which fits.

 

[ChrisRJ]

The raid card I ordered was the UCSC-SAS12GHBA

You need an HBA in IT mode for ZFS. Such a RAID card will appear to be working, but cause problems, if drive problems arise.

 

[Davvo]

Might be worth reading this despite being old:

"Absolutely must virtualize FreeNAS!" ... a guide to not completely losing your data.

[---- 2018/02/27: This is still as relevant as ever. As PCIe-Passthru has matured, fewer problems are reported. I've updated some specific things known to be problematic ----] [---- 2014/12/24: Note, there is another post discussing how to deploy a small FreeNAS VM instance for basic file...

www.truenas.com

To expand what @ChrisRJ said:

What's all the noise about HBAs, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with, a server. RAID controllers typically aggregate several disks into a Virtual Disk abstraction of some sort...

www.truenas.com

 

[Redemption]

Digitalminimalist, I have registered DIMMs.

Thanks for the other suggestions. As previously mentioned I read the startup guides. I understand why the raid controller must be on IT mode. I have an LSI raid controller laying around that I used to format some NETAPP drives to 512 bytes to use on my servers. With yhat said does anyone has recomendation on a good motherboard and CPU combo that will allow me to run ESXI a few vms and TrueNas?

I am thinking cpu with higher clock rates and enough cores for three or four VMs. Or should I consider using one of the older Xeon CPUs? and just concentrate on getting a nice motherboard?

 

[DigitalMinimalist]

Can you list:
- which CPUs you have available?
- which RAM?
- Network speed? 1GbE, or more?

The usecasse seems to be mainly a NAS with 4x16TB - I would focus on low power consumption, slient but good cooling and data integrity

 

[ChrisRJ]

I am thinking cpu with higher clock rates and enough cores for three or four VMs. Or should I consider using one of the older Xeon CPUs? and just concentrate on getting a nice motherboard?

It all depends on the VMs. Are you running something that needs a lot of CPU power or not? Example: I am running 4 VMs on a 2-core Celeron incl. pfSense with local VLANs and quite some routing between them. The rest of the VMs are largely idle, so that is ok. But it is that level of detail which we need to make good recommendations.

 

[Redemption]

Thanks for the responses. I have on hand two Xeon Silver 4114 CPUs at 2.2mhz. I also have 4 Xeon E7-8880 V3. For memory, I have about 400 gigs of ucs-mr-x32g2rt. Use case mostly data storage. But I do run some proxies in an Ubuntu box, I run Active directory. I will run Plex, Sonarr, Radarr. I need to run a VM for my wireless controller. Would be great to run 3 or four windows machines for lab testing. But those can be run on another server if need be. I have 1 gig, fiber. I do not think the workloads are demanding. For the VMS, I would like to run them on SSD, I think I have about 6 1 TB drives. So the mechanical drives will be for data storage primarily.

 

[Redemption]

After some more research, I am leaning toward getting a motherboard. I am considering purchasing a Supermicro X11SPI-TF-O to pair with one of my Intel Xeon Silver CPUs. Are there any other similar motherboards I should consider?