What is the effects of multiple cores on routine things such as scrubs?

[Ceetan]

I am at the final stages of my build, namely picking CPU. My original plan was to use a Skylake I3 6100, but I have recently been tempted by skylake xeons. My use case is mostly fila and media server, but I might want to experiment with encryption.


I live in a single household so I would imagine the user count to top at three. (mostly it would just be me unless something radical happens)


Scavenging forum threads has led me to the idea that the above mentioned I3

Would probably be enough for my needs (maybe even more than enough) but I'm curious about the effects and potential advantages of xeon-class processors on the things I might want to use them for (see above).


(If anyone feels like getting technical about them “why’s”, “do’s” and ” don’t’s”, I’m all ears)


Thus my question is , what is the effect of multiple course on things such as resliver speed , scrubbing and compression management.


I humbly admit that I’m a little bit ignorant when it comes to these things, so the question may be a lot easier then I currently understand, but I’d rather making phone choices for my first build then rash decisions which I may come to regret, either by being too extravagant or too frugal with my resources.

Any input would be appreciated.

 

[Nick2253]

If you have the money, and are interested in encryption, then getting the Xeon is (IMO) a no brainer: you can't reasonable do encryption without AES.

As far as things like scrubbing and resilvering, you're going to be much more constricted by disk speed than CPU speed. Obviously, a faster CPU/more cores will be faster, all else being equal, but in the real world you're probably past the point of remotely reasonable returns even with the i3.

Compression will benefit most, as a faster CPU will allow you to more aggressively compress your data.

Another possible benefit is your single-core speed. Samba is single-threaded per user, so a faster processor will give you faster Samba speed. If you're only doing 1Gb ethernet, then, again, your bottleneck will not be the CPU (the Avoton's are capable of saturating 1Gb ethernet). If you want to go 10Gb, then you'd probably want a mid- to high-end Xeon.

 

[ChriZ]

Well, at least for encryption, the i3 will do just fine, since it supports AES-NI.
The Xeon is an always nice to have, however, if cost is not an issue.
But again, in my twisted mind, a server without a Xeon is not a proper server....:p

 

[Nick2253]

Well, at least for encryption, the i3 will do just fine, since it supports AES-NI.

Well, I'll be damned. I didn't realize the new i3s had AES-NI. That's actually amazing!

 

[ChriZ]

Yeap...
And it's not started from the Skylakes.
My Sophos UTM has a Haswell i3-4130 that also supports AES-NI. :)

 

[Stux]

Another good reason for a Xeon is for plex.

Might be overkill for just one or two streams at middling resolutions. Not sure.

 

[DrKK]

Well, I'll be danged. I didn't realize the new i3s had AES-NI. That's actually amazing!

The i3's have had AES-NI for as long as I've been using FreeNAS.

 

[Ceetan]

Another aspect off it.

AFAIU, Xeons are made for 24/7 WHILE I3S

 

[Ceetan]

Another thing I'm wondering about: from what I can understand, i3 processors are made mostly for desktop environments, while xeons are made for server/workstation environments and 24/7 uptime. She's NAS systems are always on devices, would it be reasonable to expect an E3-1220v5 to be more durable than the i3-6100.

Lost sleep when it comes to power consumption:. Low Power is always nice to have, but I have been given to understand that the actual idle difference between a Xeon an i3 is virtually nonexistent regardless of thermal design power. Would anyone care to explain why seems I am relatively new at this kind.

 

[Nick2253]

would it be reasonable to expect an E3-1220v5 to be more durable than the i3-6100.

CPUs are one of the most reliable components in a modern computer. I would assume that a modern CPU would work for at least 30 years, if not longer (assuming everything else in the system would last long enough). There may be a difference in reliability for an i3 vs a Xeon running 24/7, but I can't imagine that you would actually be using the CPU long enough to see that difference.

Lost sleep when it comes to power consumption:. Low Power is always nice to have, but I have been given to understand that the actual idle difference between a Xeon an i3 is virtually nonexistent regardless of thermal design power. Would anyone care to explain why seems I am relatively new at this kind.

It is because of the way the CPU is designed. When idling, many advanced features are shut down and the clock speed/voltage are severely cut to save power, which makes the Xeons and the i3s almost identical in that idle state. That's why the idle difference is almost nil.

 

[Stux]

CPUs are one of the most reliable components in a modern computer. I would assume that a modern CPU would work for at least 30 years, if not longer (assuming everything else in the system would last long enough). There may be a difference in reliability for an i3 vs a Xeon running 24/7, but I can't imagine that you would actually be using the CPU long enough to see that difference.


It is because of the way the CPU is designed. When idling, many advanced features are shut down and the clock speed/voltage are severely cut to save power, which makes the Xeons and the i3s almost identical in that idle state. That's why the idle difference is almost nil.

Modern CPUs from Intel are all pretty much the same. They just put more or less of them on the package, or enable or disable features. They possibly do bin them by frequency capability.

The point is i3 vs Xeon is a valid comparison but not when it comes to 24/7 operation. The i3 and the Xeon are physically made the same way, on the same substrate in the same factories with the same designs.

 

[Ericloewe]

The i3 and the Xeon are physically made the same way, on the same substrate in the same factories with the same designs.

Not quite, they're a different die, since they only have two cores.

The Xeon E3s are, however, identical to the i5s and i7s.

 

[Stux]

Are you sure an i3 doesn't just have two cores disabled and is in fact the same die as all the other e3 class chips ;)

 

[Ericloewe]

Are you sure an i3 doesn't just have two cores disabled and is in fact the same die as all the other e3 class chips ;)

No, it's physically different. They only do that on the big-ass Xeons, these days, where they have a handful of die sizes for a crapton of different core counts.

AMD had a few tri-core parts, before the disaster that was bulldozer, which were really quad-cores with one disabled.