BUILD Supermicro 847E16-R1K28LPB

[AaronvaB]

Hello everybody

I am new here and want to build my own NAS. Till now i have a Synology DS1512+ but it is too small anymore.

I want to use a Supermicro 847E16-R1K28LPB as a chassis. But i am not sure if i have all the hardware i need:
- Supermicro 847E16-R1K28LPB (my Store says that it isn't possible to put a mainboard in this thing. But the supermicro site lists a lot of compatible boards. Who is right?)
- Supermicro Mainboard X10SAE
- Intel Xeon E3-1225v3
- Kingston Memory DDR3 32GB (not exactly sure how many ram i need)
- 10Gbps Network Card

Do i have to buy some PCIe-SATA Cards? Or what is the connecton the HDD Backplane in the chassis needs?

I would like to have a Raid 60 with all 36 HDDs. Do i have to install all the HDD at the same time or can i just install some of them now and expand later?


Thanks in advance

 

[danb35]

- Supermicro 847E16-R1K28LPB (my Store says that it isn't possible to put a mainboard in this thing. But the supermicro site lists a lot of compatible boards. Who is right?)

In that chassis, it's most definitely possible to install a motherboard--I have that chassis, and it has a motherboard in it. However, there are a number of variants of the 847, and some of them function only as drive shelves, without room for a motherboard (this one, for example).

- Supermicro Mainboard X10SAE

I'd use a different motherboard. If you're using the X10 generation, and staying with Socket 1150, the X10SL7-F would be perfect. The SAE is more of a workstation board than a server board. Although I'd suggest you consider a Socket 2011 board instead for RAM capacity, because the X10 boards/CPUs max out at 32 GB, and you're going to want more if you're planning to fill that chassis. The X10SRH-CF looks like a good choice--it has a SAS HBA onboard, and supports up to 1 TB of RAM, which should be plenty. The X10SRA-F might be more readily available and less expensive, but you'd need to add a SAS HBA.

- Intel Xeon E3-1225v3

Without knowing anything about your use case, probably adequate, except for the 32 GB RAM limit. ZFS loves RAM, and if you're going to fill 36 bays with hard drives, you're going to want more than 32 GB. You can get up to 64 GB with the latest-generation E3s and X11 boards, but you should really plan on an E5. The E5-1620 is commonly recommended and fairly inexpensive, or the E5-1650 is considerably faster.

Or what is the connecton the HDD Backplane in the chassis needs?

The two backplanes in that chassis (one in the front, one in the rear) both expect Mini-SAS SFF-8087 cables, and will need a SAS HBA to run them. The X10SL7 has that onboard, as does the X10SRH. Otherwise, the go-to recommendation is an IBM M1015 or LSI 9211-8i, both flashed with the appropriate firmware version (P20 for current versions of FreeNAS).

I would like to have a Raid 60 with all 36 HDDs.

I assume by "RAID 60" you mean sets of RAIDZ2 striped together (see terminology primer, ZFS basics). Yes, you can safely add groups of drives at a time, but see the ZFS basics presentation I just linked for the detail--it's perfectly safe if you do it right, but potentially catastrophic to your data if you do it wrong.

 

[AaronvaB]

In that chassis, it's most definitely possible to install a motherboard--I have that chassis, and it has a motherboard in it. However, there are a number of variants of the 847, and some of them function only as drive shelves, without room for a motherboard (this one, for example).

Ok. Thanks for your Answer. I will have to ask my Store if they can make sure.

I'd use a different motherboard. If you're using the X10 generation, and staying with Socket 1150, the X10SL7-F would be perfect. The SAE is more of a workstation board than a server board. Although I'd suggest you consider a Socket 2011 board instead for RAM capacity, because the X10 boards/CPUs max out at 32 GB, and you're going to want more if you're planning to fill that chassis. The X10SRH-CF looks like a good choice--it has a SAS HBA onboard, and supports up to 1 TB of RAM, which should be plenty. The X10SRA-F might be more readily available and less expensive, but you'd need to add a SAS HBA.

Without knowing anything about your use case, probably adequate, except for the 32 GB RAM limit. ZFS loves RAM, and if you're going to fill 36 bays with hard drives, you're going to want more than 32 GB. You can get up to 64 GB with the latest-generation E3s and X11 boards, but you should really plan on an E5. The E5-1620 is commonly recommended and fairly inexpensive, or the E5-1650 is considerably faster.

The E5-1620 and E5-1650 aren't available here. Could i just buy the E5-2620V3? As the RAM is quite expensive would it be ok to just purchase 32GB? My use case would be to store videos and pictures on it and have plex to stream it to multiple devices.

The two backplanes in that chassis (one in the front, one in the rear) both expect Mini-SAS SFF-8087 cables, and will need a SAS HBA to run them. The X10SL7 has that onboard, as does the X10SRH. Otherwise, the go-to recommendation is an IBM M1015 or LSI 9211-8i, both flashed with the appropriate firmware version (P20 for current versions of FreeNAS).

I assume by "RAID 60" you mean sets of RAIDZ2 striped together (see terminology primer, ZFS basics). Yes, you can safely add groups of drives at a time, but see the ZFS basics presentation I just linked for the detail--it's perfectly safe if you do it right, but potentially catastrophic to your data if you do it wrong.

Two RAIDZ2 or RAIDZ3 and then striped together. It should be protected from hdd failures but also dont waste too much storage. Or is there any better idea? Of course i will make a backup of the really important files, but it's clear that i cant make a backup of 100+TB data.

 

[danb35]

The E5-1620 and E5-1650 aren't available here. Could i just buy the E5-2620V3?

I'd expect you could, but the E5-26xx chips generally carry a significant price premium, as they have the ability to be used in dual-socket systems.

Two RAIDZ2 or RAIDZ3 and then striped together.

36 disks in two vdevs of 18 disks each? Bad idea. Vdevs shouldn't usually exceed 10-12 disks each, and it's more common around here to see them smaller than that (usually 4-8 disks in RAIDZ2).

 

[AaronvaB]

36 disks in two vdevs of 18 disks each? Bad idea. Vdevs shouldn't usually exceed 10-12 disks each, and it's more common around here to see them smaller than that (usually 4-8 disks in RAIDZ2).

Would 9 disks in each vdev be ok? Or should a RAID Z2 always have an even number of disks?