Upgrade x79 rig or run AMD 3950X

[marcus8699]

Hi all,

Before I get started I want to first let everyone know that I have read some of the concerns about using AMD as a FreeNAS system. If I am correct some of the Ryzen CPUs are not truly ECC supported. I believe the 3950x supports ECC just fine. This seemed to be the biggest flaw when it came to AMD.

Now, my question is, currently I have a x79 12C/24T CPU that runs at 2.4Ghz. My use of FreeNAS is mostly, if not all, SMB. Higher frequency is better for this which the 3750x provides. You might be asking why such the overkill processor? I use this server for more than just FreeNAS. I run ESXi and then have FreeNAS running in a VM. Currently I am sharing 10 cores to FreeNAS and 17GB of RAM. My Windows Server VM and Cisco CSR1KV Router utilize 4 CPUs a piece and the rest of my 32GB (MAXED) RAM. My issue here is that I am getting ready to rebuild my FreeNAS vDev with 4x 10TB drives in Raidz1. From what I read in the build guide, you want to make sure you have 1GB of RAM for each TB. That being said my current board is limited with the 32GB plus the fact that I have other VMs.

My first thoughts was to upgrade my x79 rig. Get a dual CPU motherboard that supports up to 256GB of RAM. This would potentially solve my issue with limited RAM and also give me more Cores/Threads for future VMs.

The issue with this route is the fact that most of the motherboards out there are Chinese motherboards with very little support and are very sketch. So this got me to think about Threadripper but after further research and my use case, I settled in on the 3950x 16C/32T.

There are many positives in going this route:

Better clock rate for SMB application
Multiple NVMe slots on the board
128GB of RAM DDR4 3200
More Cores and Threads to support future VMs
ECC Support seems to be present.

This all seems like a home run from a bird's eye view but like I stated in the beginning of the post I have read the concerns with AMD and FreeNAS. My question to the community is going with the 3950x knowing that it supports ECC memory going to present any problems? Will it change that answer if this was a physical dedicated machine vs running FreeNAS in a VM inside of ESXi?

I am open to options with the following being my biggest concerns to address:

Memory Capacity
CORES/THREADS

Thanks in advance and please let me know if you have any questions!

Sincerely,

Marcus

 

[Apollo]

I have been running Freenas on my AMD threadripper 1900X for 2 years or so.
I believe RAM capacity is dependant on motherboard and you might be able to use it with 32GB sticks which would double it to 256GB.
I wish IPMI was available, as it would allow reset or forced shutdown in the event of a system lock.
On my system, if I power it off, it doesn't actually power down.

Other than that I have no complaints.

 

[marcus8699]

Yea, I keep bouncing back and forth between Threadripper 3rd Gen and the 3950x. I really would.like the extra cores and threads but I am not sure it's worth the huge jump in price.