Supermicro SYS-5019A-FTN4 to replace Windows server

[johnswenson1]

I'm taking on the IT admin role at the church I'm attending, currently it has a VERY old windows server, which is extremely slow and takes a huge amount of power. I want to replace it with a FreeNAS server instead. All the network stuff on the server can be run on the SonicWall that is already there, which just leaves a need for a file server. This has to fit in a small network rack so I was looking through Supermicro (I've been using them for years) low end servers. The one which looks good is the SYS-5019A-FTN4.

Our needs are not huge maybe about 400GB in storage. I was thinking about 16GB of ECC RAM. The motherboard supports M.2 NVME, so that would be fine for boot. For the main storage I'm not quite sure what to do: add PCIe to M.2 adapter into the riser card, but that will only allow 1 M.2 card. (the PCIe on the motherboard is just X4), OR go with 2 SATA SSDs.

I really like M.2 NVME storage but that means no RAID. Is going to 2 SATA SSD drives better than going with 1 M.2? I've been using Unix/Linux for decades but haven't used FreeNAS yet so I'm not sure about how it deals with the subtleties of NVME flash VS SATA SSD flash. We don't really need super high speed but reliability is important.

Then there is backup, we have been using Crashplan, but that is another post.

Thanks for any help,
John S.

 

[Samuel Tai]

The SYS-5019A-FTN4 supports a total of 4 SATA drives. I would recommend you get 4x 2TB drives, and configure them as a RAIDZ2 pool. Your pool will have a total capacity of 4TB, but you can lose any 2 drives and still be able to recover.

For the boot media, the motherboard supports a SATA DOM. The Supermicro SSD-DM032-SMCMVN1 works well in this application, and would be plugged into the yellow SATA port on the motherboard.

 

[Samuel Tai]

Sorry, for 2.5" drives, the largest available is 1TB. So your pool would be 2TB. You'd need 2 of the MCP-220-00044-0N dual-2.5" drive brackets, and a CBL-SAST-0616 SFF-8643 to 4 SATA breakout cable.

 

[johnswenson1]

The SYS-5019A-FTN4 supports a total of 4 SATA drives. I would recommend you get 4x 2TB drives, and configure them as a RAIDZ2 pool. Your pool will have a total capacity of 4TB, but you can lose any 2 drives and still be able to recover.

For the boot media, the motherboard supports a SATA DOM. The Supermicro SSD-DM032-SMCMVN1 works well in this application, and would be plugged into the yellow SATA port on the motherboard.

Thanks for the reply. Is the DOM better than using an NVME for boot? I can get a high quality 256MB NVME for quite a bit less than the 32GB DOM.

I'm going to buy the server first and see what actually comes in the box before ordering accessories. There seems to be some variation in what you actually get when you buy one of these.

Thanks,

John S

 

[Samuel Tai]

With the 4x 2.5" drives, there won't be space available for a PCI-E NVMe. I'm optimizing for data safety.

 

[johnswenson1]

With the 4x 2.5" drives, there won't be space available for a PCI-E NVMe. I'm optimizing for data safety.

There is an M.2 NVME slot on the motherboard. I was originally thinking of using the riser board then and a 2 slot NVME adpter, then realized it was only a X4 PCIe and all the dual adapter boards are X8.

So yes going with the 4 SATA drives for storage looks good and use the on motherboard M.2 NVME slot for boot. The -C2 version of the motherboard doea not have the M.2 slot, but the server comes with the -c8 version which does have the M.2.

 

[blanchet]

For a small TrueNAS server, you may be interested by HPE Proliant MicroServer Gen10

HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus Review This is Super

In our HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus, we go in-depth into the hardware, software, management, and performance of this super edge server

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