System Review - ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe

[Bohs Hansen]

Thought I'll post a bit about how my FreeNAS build was going. Didn't know where to post so though I just put it here.

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Name: JCube
FreeNAS Version: 8.0.1 BETA 2
Case: Fractal Design Array R2
PSU: 300W SFX 80 Plus (see case)
Motherboard: ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe
Memory: Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333MHz 8GB (2x4GB) CL9 (CMX8GX3M2A1333C9)
Boot Device: Kingston SSDNow S100 16GB SATA
Network Card(s): Builtin Realtek 8111E
Expansion Card(s): ASROCK SATA3 Card (2p PCIe x1 Marvell 88SE9123 / 88SE9120) - INCOMPATIBLE
Disk(s): 4x 2TB 5900RPM Seagate ST2000VX002
Configuration: RAID-Z1

Performance: About 65-70mb/s on CIFS and FTP

Issues:
RAM incompatible with this mainboard and current bios. Needs a beta bios or something newer than the official 1202 bios.
SATA card found to be incomatiple with BSD 8.2. Check [post]2911[/post] for more info, and potential hope.
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This was my FreeNAS 8.0release -> 8.0.1beta4 box. However since I had to get something up and running that could serve the needs i have now, I had to switch away from FreeNAS for now.
I'm hoping to come back as soon as the functions grow to the point where it has what I need.

So for now I used some of the spare windows based licenses I had around (together with some family's spare). The above box runs win2k8r2 now. Using utorrent as download manager with autostart directory and servu as ftp server.

Now you'd think, you can those things working on FreeNAS as well, and yes, semi.
The download station wasn't that important, but its nice to download directly to the place where you also want to keep it. What is important is the user and domain setup, and unfortunately FreeNAS isn't there yet.

I need a list of user for CIFS/Windows based machines. Most of these have access to the same things, but all with different access rights. This was one thing i couldn't archive under FreeNAS (without lots of manual tuning).
On the FTP side it gets a bit more complicated. I got several domains with different user base and some overlapping (global). They basically all have individual rights, folder access, virtual directories and setups in general.
Also i need it to listen on multiple ports at the same time.

How does this perform compared to the FreeNAS setup. Almost as good, but not quite. on CIFS transfers i get around 55mb/s now compared to the 65-70 i got via FreeNAS. Amazing that a *nix does it better then windows itself. But that could of course be due to the OS taking up to much CPU usage.
FTP on the other hand i get around 90mb/s that is quite an improvement and the main way files are transferred on my network.

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Right now the mainboard is RMA'd though, but that's not the OS's fault, just was unlucky to get a "mondays model"

 

[Bohs Hansen]

My box has been upgraded, here are the new specs. Once i test FreeNAS on it again, I'll make a new thread about it. This is more as a for kicks info.

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Name: JCube Two
Case: Fractal Design Array R2
PSU: 300W SFX 80 Plus (see case)
Motherboard: ASUS F1A75-I Deluxe
CPU: AMD A6-3500 APU 3core, 3MB cache
Memory: Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333MHz 8GB (2x4GB) CL9 (CMX8GX3M2A1333C9)
Network Card(s): Builtin Realtek 8111E
Expansion Card(s): HP LSI SAS3041E-HP SATA2 4port PCIe x4 controller (on route)
Disk(s): 4x(8x) 2TB 5900RPM Seagate ST2000VX002
Configuration: Single drives atm

Performance: About 110-115mb/s via CIFS and 80-90 mb/s via FTP (And if windows can do this, FreeNAS can do better)
Power consumption without HDDs: ~28W idle file serving, 68W when used as HTPC at the same time.

Current OS: Windows 7 64bit (only payed license needed).
Advantages / Reasons:
- Per user rights instead of per folder. (Main reason, rest I could live without)
- Runs as HTPC at the same time as NAS.
- Remote control+querty device (from mainboard)
- Wireless skype via bluetooth headset w. accept call button.
- Remote access control via buildin win7 feature or teamviewer
- Hardware monitoring via bluetooth cellphone w. android, symbian or ios. (ASUS feature)
- Could even do gaming if needed on the TV or where its attached.

Issues: Not running FreeNAS atm ^^
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