So you want some hardware suggestions.

[cyberjock]

Is there a guide on setting up the USB as you described? My searches were unsuccessful.

The manual.... doc.freenas.org

 

[jgreco]

You might be thinking this more complicated than it is: It is literally just maintaining multiple USB keys on hand as a Boy Scout "Be Prepared" style exercise. EXPECT to want to be able to upgrade at some point. If you only have one USB key, that is trickier and riskier than if you have two. EXPECT one to fail. Even if it never does. This third one means you can fix the failure without losing the possibility of rollback or maybe recovery of config files or whatever. For a $10 part, do not screw yourself by having less than three. That is all there is to it. Consider it a part of the system capex and never worry about it again.

 

[Lordadmiral Drake]

Why use this board?
It costs under 150€
It has all the ports and interfaces I need
I intend to use the onboard SATA ports and not an add on card
I'm not interested in IPMI, I don't understand how it would benefit me

 

[JohnK]

I'm currently thinking about tapping into my money reserves to make a hardware upgrade with the following components:

16GB Kingston ValueRAM DDR3-1333 ECC DIMM CL9
4x 4000GB WD Red WD40EFRX 64MB 3.5" (8.9cm) SATA
ICY BOX IB-544SS
Intel Pentium G3220 (boxed)
Asus P9D-X Intel C222 So.1150 Dual Channel DDR3

Whatya think?

You might want to check the Ram compatibility with your motherboard. You might have to settle for 2x8GB.

Lordadmiral Drake, Today at 9:34 AM
I'm not interested in IPMI, I don't understand how it would benefit me

I think few ppl understand the use of IPMI until they realize that running huge hard drives tends to be noisy and that they are better off running their NAS in the basement. With IPMI they never have to attach a screen/keyboard/mouse. You basically control the NAS server remotely, that includes monitoring health. Once you have used it you would never look back.

Pentium G3220 (3.0GHz, 2C, L3:3M, GT1, 53W, rev.C0) 1.03 0501 Not Support the Integrated Graphics Controller.

When I look at ASUS website at supported processors I get a little edgy. I'm not sure what I see means you need to attach a graphics card or flash the bios, but neither seems like things I would like to do if I could rather settle for a nice Supermicro board that works out of the box...

 

[Z300M]

I think few ppl understand the use of IPMI until they realize that running huge hard drives tends to be noisy and that they are better off running their NAS in the basement. With IPMI they never have to attach a screen/keyboard/mouse. You basically control the NAS server remotely, that includes monitoring health. Once you have used it you would never look back.

If I bought a mobo with IPMI, would I still have to have keyboard and monitor attached directly in order to set it up and even to enable IPMI in the first place? For many (all?) the SuperMicro boards that would mean installing a graphics card (at least temporarily) or getting a CPU with graphics capabilities.

 

[JohnK]

If I bought a mobo with IPMI, would I still have to have keyboard and monitor attached directly in order to set it up and even to enable IPMI in the first place? For many (all?) the SuperMicro boards that would mean installing a graphics card (at least temporarily) or getting a CPU with graphics capabilities.

No.
Using IPMIView you find your server on your network. You can power it on and update the bios, all remotely.
My two servers have never been attached to anything but power and network.

Also with IPMI you don't have to worry about getting a CPU with integrated graphics. This is specially relevant when buying some Xeons that comes without integrated graphics.

 

[Mr_B]

JohnK, brave. My first order for a new build is always a in-dept, and prolonged memtest in some flavor. Neither memtest86, or memtest86+ works as far as i know. Actually, pretty much nothing but userspace software works, meaning you cant do a proper test?

But yeah. IPMI has it's advantages, especially in a enterprise environment. The home user is likely to want to hook up a screen and a keyboard "just in case" anyway. Hell, i run my systems on a KVM switch so i end up using the same screen / keyboard, and getting the same experience as if i was using remote desktop to administrate them, i know this, and i still do it.

I think few ppl understand the use of IPMI until they realize that running huge hard drives tends to be noisy and that they are better off running their NAS in the basement.

As far as i can tell he's planing on using the 1TB drive ha has at this point, and i guess he knows what noise levels he's getting from it.
I have 2 "NAS" units here currently. Actually it's just one NAS, and one headless WHS, but both are inaudible, with, at the time, the largest drives available, 4x2TB drives. One is locked away in the cabinet with the computers, and one is located 5 feet from the telly.

If I bought a mobo with IPMI, would I still have to have keyboard and monitor attached directly in order to set it up and even to enable IPMI in the first place? For many (all?) the SuperMicro boards that would mean installing a graphics card (at least temporarily) or getting a CPU with graphics capabilities.

IPMI should be activated by default, so in the best of worlds it's not an issue. But i'd still have to admit to not setting up a system without including a local user testbed for pre-install testing.
B!

 

[jgreco]

You do not need anything more than a DCHP server, web browser, Java, and a way to identify the assigned DHCP lease. Going that route, there is no need for Supermicro's ipmiview ... don't think I've ever even used it.

 

[jgreco]

Oh and most of the SM boards have a "server grade" VGA built in so you do not need a built-in graphics capable CPU, so another point for SM.

 

[JohnK]

You do not need anything more than a DCHP server, web browser, Java, and a way to identify the assigned DHCP lease. Going that route, there is no need for Supermicro's ipmiview ... don't think I've ever even used it.

Yeah, I got a little caught up following their user manuals and downloaded IPMIView. It has a few extra features like updating the FRU, but now I only use my web browser + Java.

 

[Z300M]

Oh and most of the SM boards have a "server grade" VGA built in so you do not need a built-in graphics capable CPU, so another point for SM.

I based my assumption that I might need a CPU with the extra graphics capability on an earlier post (not necessarily in this thread) where somebody pointed out that a certain Xeon processor did not have that additional graphics capability -- but perhaps that was in connection with a motherboard that did not have any inbuilt graphics capability.

 

[jgreco]

Since servers don't really need gaming graphics, you can save the extra watts by picking a board designed for the server role.

Again, there is a REASON that we so heartily endorse server boards rather than random consumer or prosumer boards.

Interestingly it is the inclusion of the external server grade VGA that also makes the IPMI remote console functionality work ;-)

 

[jyavenard]

Yeah, I got a little caught up following their user manuals and downloaded IPMIView. It has a few extra features like updating the FRU, but now I only use my web browser + Java.

If I let the supermicro java app running overnight, you find that by the next day it uses gigabytes of RAM. That app leaks like crazy...

But yeah, it's hard to come back from IPMI once you try it...
Just the ability to reboot the machine remotely is much better than explaining to the wife how she should find that black box in that location, and press the button there and if the thing doesn't restart properly guiding her on how to run things like fsck and remount the disk !

 

[JohnK]

JohnK, brave. My first order for a new build is always a in-dept, and prolonged memtest in some flavor. Neither memtest86, or memtest86+ works as far as i know. Actually, pretty much nothing but userspace software works, meaning you cant do a proper test?
B!

I tend to test my hardware in my office, not in my basement. You had me curious about running memtest86 over IPMI and I'm currently running it on my backup server. No problem. I have mounted the memtest iso from my office server and booted with no problem. I will mention that doing this from the web browser is painful and it was much easier using IPMIView where I could browse the iso file and mount it.

 

[cyberjock]

Can we please get this back ontopic with hardware suggestions? We can make a new thread if we want to keep talking about this fan stuff. :)

Thanks.

 

[Lordadmiral Drake]

Actually I plan to put 4 WD Red 4TB drives into the server using a 3*5.25" slot mounted SATA drive bay. As for the RAM, it is a 2*8GB Kit and for the graphics: The Asus board has an XGI Volari onboard that drives its VGA port

The whole box is currently placed in my sleeping room between the closet and the wall. Putting it in the basement would require routing a network cable through several walls. Also our basement is made root-cellar style and I'm not sure about humidity levels

 

[Lordadmiral Drake]

So, I've been thinking about another possibility regarding storage too. Would it be possible to stuff a Fibre Channel card into the server and then connect a SATA/SAS storage subsystem to it, like this one: IBM 19 Zoll Disk Array EXP100 SATA Expansion 1710-10U
And then use this as FreeNAS's storage?

 

[Mr_B]

I think it's hardware RAID, with a dedicated I/O processor. I guess you could configure it as individual drives, if nothing else so by configuring each drive as a independent array. I can't find any info on it, but i suspect there is a 2TB limit on individual drive size, and there might be a max array size limit to. Also, it's "only" 2/4Gbps, which might start feeling a bit limiting when you fill the unit up as individual drives, and write / read confirm everything. Of course, thats just what Google tells me, and i can be way of.

Hell, if i could get one cheap locally, i probably would, just for the looks on peoples faces...
B!

 

[teradominion]

Dell PowerEdge 2950 II Server 2x 2.33GHz E5345 Quad Core 16GB RAM 2x1TB PERC 5i

USED EBAY SERVER - GOOD OPTION OR BAD OPTION?

I am still running the old version of freenas at home on a media server. We need a new file server at our office to store small files, mostly word, excel, PDFs and some small media files.

I think our storage needs are rather small and our budget is even smaller. would this server found on ebay work well for us or would there be a better option for the similar price? I would like to get 5 years out of it.

Here is the link

• CPU: Dual (2x) Intel Xeon Quad Core E5345, 2.33GHz
• Hard Drives: 2x 1TB SATA, 3.5"
• RAM: 16GB PC2-5300 DDR2 667Mhz
• RAID Controller: PERC 5i Installed
• Remote Access Controller: DRAC5
• Optical Drive: DVD-ROM
• Network Interface: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5708 Gigabit Ethernet / Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5708 Gigabit Ethernet
• Video Card: ATI Technologies Inc ES1000
• Power Supplies: 2
• OS: Windows Server 2008 R2 Evaluation Edition Only
• Power cord included

 

[jyavenard]

where do you plan in running this machine?
at home?

Personally, I would pass. It's going to be incredibly noisy, extremely power inefficient and not that appropriate for a NAS.
2x1TB only and dual-quad ...