Supermicro - SYS-6026TT-TF: any thoughts?

[DVitoD]

G'evening :D

I have FreeNAS, the latest and greatest, running on a single disk AMD box. Whilst hoping Dru will reply to a question of mine posted earlier today, and while trying to find out if FreeNAS could be a full-fledged mail server a la Synology's mail server (which I am looking to replace), I am secretly already looking at the cost of a new hardware for FreeNAS.

I stumbled on this SuperMicro SuperServer:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/2u/6026/sys-6026tt-tf.cfm

I am not much of a hardware man (), but I did read CyberJock's hardware thread, and know I need to look for good stuff.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any reviews about this server ().

Would anybody have any thoughts about this machine?

Thank you in advance very much :D

Bye,

 

[Ericloewe]

Oh, nah, that won't work. Only TrueNAS supports that kind of thing (unless you want to run four independent servers). In fact, some of the TrueNAS servers are Supermicro, I believe.

 

[marbus90]

TrueNAS is likely to be iX' own design with 2 "servers" aka controllers in 1 chassis, connecting to one SAS backplane with Dual Expanders for high availability. Also available as single node configuration, but still with the possibility to upgrade to HA.

And of course FreeNAS can be a full fledged mailserver, thats what jails are for. much manual labor tho.

The Dell C6100 system could also be of interest for you, if you're looking for quad servers. Available in 3x3.5" or 6x2.5" per node. Like most Supermicro servers only usable if you have your own server/network room, ideally with good acoustic dampening.

 

[jgreco]

The Supermicro Twin stuff is just a variation on blade servers. Each of the individual computers in that chassis gets access to three drives. Not generally useful for FreeNAS but possibly useful in other circumstances.

I think I'm going to have to come out with some more specific hardware suggestions one of these days.

 

[DVitoD]

Thank you all very much for your replies :)

I do believe you all immediately if you say this won't work.

My problem is this: I know I can't come in here to simply noob 'tell me what is good hardware', but at the same time, even taking into account the CyberJock's hardware guide, it is hard to arrive at a solid hardware setup. Especially given that the SuperMicro Corporation seems to have fired the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), looking at the less than customer friendly website :D

So, I am looking for a 12-16 bay case, with SuperMicro hardware in it and top quality cooling, power etc (that's why I was looking at the complete servers from SuperMicro): how would you all arrive at what works and what won't?

I mean: I don't want to bother you all with posting, in separate threads, the complete hardware offerings from the SM-website, asking you if that product would be any good :(

Thank you again for your help very much :D

 

[joeschmuck]

So you need a mail server? I'm not sure what Dru will say but if that answer is that there are no plans for it in the FreeNAS arena, you could try to build a plugin for that support but I'm sure it's going to be a lot of work creating it.

 

[DVitoD]

Thank you very much Marbus :)

TrueNAS is likely to be iX' own design with 2 "servers" aka controllers in 1 chassis, connecting to one SAS backplane with Dual Expanders for high availability. Also available as single node configuration, but still with the possibility to upgrade to HA.

If only I'd understand what all these bold words mean (I'm not a hardware guy ).

And of course FreeNAS can be a full fledged mailserver, thats what jails are for. much manual labor tho.

I just posted a feature request for this in the bugs database. Synology wins markets by adding useful packets; IX could conquer market share if they'd also do this (I also posted a feature request for a Nagios plugin).

The Dell C6100 system could also be of interest for you, if you're looking for quad servers. Available in 3x3.5" or 6x2.5" per node. Like most Supermicro servers only usable if you have your own server/network room, ideally with good acoustic dampening.

I can't believe my eyes about this C6100 :)eek:):

https://www.theserverstore.com/content/dell-poweredge-c6100-servers

Is all that CPU and RAM included for that price or am I misunderstanding things?

Could I furthermore ask:
1. What do you mean with 'per node'?
2. What do you mean with 'only usable if you have your own server/network room'? Noise?

Thank you again very much :D

 

[jgreco]

Yeah, well, the thing is that FreeNAS is a bit strange. The normal server box big enough to require twelve hard drives also requires dual CPU's and tons of RAM and a RAID controller. NAS is a bit different.

What you really want is to have a suitable board for your use model. You basically need to decide between socket 1150 (or 1155) and socket 2011; the 1150 stuff corresponds to i3 and Xeon E3 CPU's, while the 2011 takes an E5 CPU. You probably don't need the E5 unless you need to go beyond 32GB of RAM. Most of Supermicro's prebuilts are aimed at E5, usually dual E5. But E5 is more expensive by a fair bit as well.

So you can probably acquire a prebuilt like the SuperStorageServer 5028R, http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/2U/5028/SSG-5028R-E1CR12L.cfm which is nearly ideal for FreeNAS, but it probably needs the firmware flashed to IT mode and it's an E5 based system. At $1600 it ain't cheap, put an E5-1650v3 on it with 64GB of RAM and for about $3000 you have one hell of a NAS.

Or you can put an E3 together yourself. Take a CSE-826BE16-R920B ($900), an X10SL7 ($300), an E3-1230v3 ($250), 32GB RAM ($400) and you have a solid platform for about $1850.

 

[jgreco]

1. What do you mean with 'per node'?
2. What do you mean with 'only usable if you have your own server/network room'? Noise?

Thank you again very much :D

He means you don't want that unless you can explain why you do. You can't. ;-)

It's four servers crammed into a single canister. And it's a bit of a screamer, yeah.

 

[DVitoD]

So you need a mail server? I'm not sure what Dru will say but if that answer is that there are no plans for it in the FreeNAS arena, you could try to build a plugin for that support but I'm sure it's going to be a lot of work creating it.

Thank you Joe :)

Well I hope Dru will approve of it; Synology and Qnap sell because they make useful packages: FreeNAS could do the same and make it very nasty for Syno/Qnap, given FreeNAS = based on The Power To Serve. It could make it very nasty for Syno/Qnap :)

(I work in Marketing, hence this assessment:D).

Just yesterday, I proposed a 'bounty' section in this fine forum, just like we have over at pfSense; skilled programmers can then do work for custom requests, and members over here can join in to pay for it jointly. Such a plugin could then be made like that. CyberJock had some serious comments about it, but still: perhaps it could work nevertheless.

I am sure I can build a mail server myself in a jail (yes, I work in Marketing but yes: I also do custom code on pfSense :D). But going from there to an error-free pbi plugin is perhaps way out of my Marketeers-capacities ).

 

[DVitoD]

He means you don't want that unless you can explain why you do. You can't. ;-)

:D:D:D

Amen, Sir :p

 

[joeschmuck]

I think iXsystems would rather sell their TrueNAS system for cash vice give it away for free. Just a thought.

The jail, well all I can say is good luck. The FreeBSD jail is not a full featured FreeBSD distribution and has the limitations of the FreeNAS OS. I've been playing with the jails for the past 2 weeks trying to create a simple application to run but things are not going well. I can create this in a true FreeBSD OS but in FreeNAS, not the same. I'm not saying you couldn't do it, just good luck. Also, I'm learning FreeBSD, not an expert.

 

[DVitoD]

I think iXsystems would rather sell their TrueNAS system for cash vice give it away for free. Just a thought.

The jail, well all I can say is good luck. The FreeBSD jail is not a full featured FreeBSD distribution and has the limitations of the FreeNAS OS. I've been playing with the jails for the past 2 weeks trying to create a simple application to run but things are not going well. I can create this in a true FreeBSD OS but in FreeNAS, not the same. I'm not saying you couldn't do it, just good luck. Also, I'm learning FreeBSD, not an expert.

Thanks Joe :)

1. I'm, as an economist, not against companies making money out of Open Source projects. The key word of course is: 'Open Source'.
2. Meaning: take, and give back.
   
3. So I'm not against IX making money out of FreeNAS or PC-BSD, not at all; people got to eat too, developers want beer too, and have little daughters to buy presents for too :).
4. So I am by far not against companies making money out of Open Source Projects.
5. Of course, as is always in life, there's always a caveat.
   
6. I notice, from time to time, Open Source projects in the hands of companies that forget that they get for free what they could never pay for: a large user base that helps them solve bugs.
   
7. I mean: put all these bright users that help you fix bugs by means of which your product becomes better on your payroll... Impossible.
   
8. So it is take - and give back.
9. The jail: I know, I am still looking at the exact differences between FreeBSD and FreeNAS, when it comes to jails. I tried to install nano in a jail in FreeNAS: install process crashed. Did it on my BSD box: worked. On my pfSense box: worked. There are differences somewhere, but where? I don't know - yet.

 

[DylanT]

I have a 6026tt-tf with one node in use as a freenas server. The drives can be rewired to get more than 3 drives on a node (with special power considerations). I have 6 drives on my freenas node. Each column of 3 drives pulls power from a molex on each individual motherboard. I split the power off my freenas node so it could power all six drives. I use two other nodes for vm hosts with 3 drives each and have the 4th node as a cold spare.