Good evening good people!
First of all I would like to say thanks to the contributors of this forum, the knowledge base here is immense, really.
English is not my first language so I apologize for any spelling/grammar mistakes.
Having searched and read the TrueNAS forums and reddit, every evening recently, and having read the "Hardware Recommendations Guide" from back to back, I am still uncertain about what mainboard and CPU to choose in the end. I am thankful for any input you might have.
I started out thinking (like many others) that I was going to use my old i7 4770k and z87 motherboard and 32GB DDR3 RAM for this build. That was until I took a deep dive into these forums and got lectured in ECC, ZFS and the quality of server/enterprise components vs. consumer parts etc. I have built desktop computers for 20 years, but never something like this.
I will try to make this as small a wall of text I can!
My usage:
- Plex, with mainly direct play/DLNA use for streaming to home theater room, very little transcoding, if any. About 600, 4K, 40-80GB each, movie files.
- Main storage for my desktop (connected with 10gigabit NIC), including a full steam library folder. Running steam client on 1 PC, with SMB share to library folder.
- Backup "cloud like" file server for me and 2-3 family members.
- Want to run it for atleast 5 years.
Allready bought/story so far:
HDD: 8x 14TB enterprise drives, Toshiba MG07ACA14TE. (Thinking Raidz2) I understand now that this might have been very a bad idea, having read about resilver times for large drives etc. 112TB Total.
NIC: 2x Genuine Intel X520 10gbe NICs, one for NAS and one for main desktop. Putting 40mm fans on these.
CHASSIS/COOLING: Fractal Define R6, with 8 hdd sleds, and 5 monster 120mm chassis fans. Noctua LGA 115x/2011 CPU cooler.
PSU: Seasonic 750W PSU.
Boot drives: 120GB Kingston SATA SSD, mirrored.
What now?
I see users adding HBA cards, even though they have more than enough SATA ports on their motherboard, like the LS cards. Is there a practical reason for this?
I was almost set on a X11SSM-F + HBA build. But then I read iXsystems and these forums often recommend 1GB of ECC RAM for each 1TB of storage, but the most recommended mainboards here on the forums are 64GB max, like the Supermicro X11-F cards. The LGA115x i3-9100 is often recommended instead of a Xeon CPU because of the ECC support, this only support 64GB of RAM. This is half the amount recommended compared to the the 112TB pool I am building. How would this affect the performance of the NAS if I go this route, would it be a viable option?
The second hand enterprise server market here in Norway is awful. So if I am going that route, my options are ebay/amazon etc.
That considered, I really like the thought of going with the X9 series and the LG2011 socket, and DD3 RAM. Something like a used X9SRi-F that the user ChrisRJ has suggested in lots of threads like this one on this very forum. And just going 128GB+ RAM as it is dirt cheap compared to DDR4. This board also have enough SATA ports onboard, so HBA is not needed. How would this route compare to a newer x11/x12 build, what do you lose? And If I were to go the X9 route, what particular Xeon CPU would be the best match, performance wise, with my usage goals?
I have no particular budget, but trying to be sensible.
Thanks again, have a great day! :)
First of all I would like to say thanks to the contributors of this forum, the knowledge base here is immense, really.
English is not my first language so I apologize for any spelling/grammar mistakes.
Having searched and read the TrueNAS forums and reddit, every evening recently, and having read the "Hardware Recommendations Guide" from back to back, I am still uncertain about what mainboard and CPU to choose in the end. I am thankful for any input you might have.
I started out thinking (like many others) that I was going to use my old i7 4770k and z87 motherboard and 32GB DDR3 RAM for this build. That was until I took a deep dive into these forums and got lectured in ECC, ZFS and the quality of server/enterprise components vs. consumer parts etc. I have built desktop computers for 20 years, but never something like this.
I will try to make this as small a wall of text I can!
My usage:
- Plex, with mainly direct play/DLNA use for streaming to home theater room, very little transcoding, if any. About 600, 4K, 40-80GB each, movie files.
- Main storage for my desktop (connected with 10gigabit NIC), including a full steam library folder. Running steam client on 1 PC, with SMB share to library folder.
- Backup "cloud like" file server for me and 2-3 family members.
- Want to run it for atleast 5 years.
Allready bought/story so far:
HDD: 8x 14TB enterprise drives, Toshiba MG07ACA14TE. (Thinking Raidz2) I understand now that this might have been very a bad idea, having read about resilver times for large drives etc. 112TB Total.
NIC: 2x Genuine Intel X520 10gbe NICs, one for NAS and one for main desktop. Putting 40mm fans on these.
CHASSIS/COOLING: Fractal Define R6, with 8 hdd sleds, and 5 monster 120mm chassis fans. Noctua LGA 115x/2011 CPU cooler.
PSU: Seasonic 750W PSU.
Boot drives: 120GB Kingston SATA SSD, mirrored.
What now?
I see users adding HBA cards, even though they have more than enough SATA ports on their motherboard, like the LS cards. Is there a practical reason for this?
I was almost set on a X11SSM-F + HBA build. But then I read iXsystems and these forums often recommend 1GB of ECC RAM for each 1TB of storage, but the most recommended mainboards here on the forums are 64GB max, like the Supermicro X11-F cards. The LGA115x i3-9100 is often recommended instead of a Xeon CPU because of the ECC support, this only support 64GB of RAM. This is half the amount recommended compared to the the 112TB pool I am building. How would this affect the performance of the NAS if I go this route, would it be a viable option?
The second hand enterprise server market here in Norway is awful. So if I am going that route, my options are ebay/amazon etc.
That considered, I really like the thought of going with the X9 series and the LG2011 socket, and DD3 RAM. Something like a used X9SRi-F that the user ChrisRJ has suggested in lots of threads like this one on this very forum. And just going 128GB+ RAM as it is dirt cheap compared to DDR4. This board also have enough SATA ports onboard, so HBA is not needed. How would this route compare to a newer x11/x12 build, what do you lose? And If I were to go the X9 route, what particular Xeon CPU would be the best match, performance wise, with my usage goals?
I have no particular budget, but trying to be sensible.
Thanks again, have a great day! :)