Motherboard for freenas and virtual machines

[kaibsora]

Hey guys, figured it was time to turn this into it's own thread rather than cluttering up other threads. 

 

Preface. 

I was initially planning on using x58 for this build, as there's a good combo for 60 bucks on Ebay. But this doesnt really fit my needs currently. My main question is, should I do x79 which has a max ram support of 64gb while using xeon, or should I buy  SuperMicro X10SLM-F and a cheap xeon to start out?

[Electronics Wizardy]

What vms? How much storage? Budget?

 

Id go proxmox over freenas as its much better with vms than freenas and still have zfs support.

 

Id be tempted to go ryzen here, its faster than those old xeons, much lower power.

[kaibsora]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What vms? How much storage? Budget?

 

Id go proxmox over freenas as its much better with vms than freenas and still have zfs support.

 

Id be tempted to go ryzen here, its faster than those old xeons, much lower power.

Funny. Totally forgot about proxmox. I've used it before and loved it. (Virtualization is my hobby)

2 to 3 vms as well as this is going to be a plex host. and I'm starting out with 8 1tb drives and 1 cache ssd and 1 vm ssd. As much as I'd like to go ryzen,I have all this ddr3 lying around. The os drives I'm trying to keep on USB drives for the os drive. My budget is around 150 to 160 for mobo/cpu/and sas/sata hba (lsi 1910/11)

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, kaibsora said:

Funny. Totally forgot about proxmox. I've used it before and loved it. (Virtualization is my hobby)

2 to 3 vms as well as this is going to be a plex host. and I'm starting out with 8 1tb drives and 1 cache ssd and 1 vm ssd. As much as I'd like to go ryzen,I have all this ddr3 lying around. The os drives I'm trying to keep on USB drives for the os drive. My budget is around 150 to 160 for mobo/cpu/and sas/sata hba (lsi 1910/11)

why so many small drives, Id get fewer bigger drives. Id go with 2x 8tb if you can.

 

Id for get the cache for the main pool, it really won't help with media.

 

Id really try to get a ryzen 5 1600 if you can, its a bit more, but should work fine here. I don't think you will need a ton of ram from your listed use.

[kaibsora]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

why so many small drives, Id get fewer bigger drives. Id go with 2x 8tb if you can.

 

Id for get the cache for the main pool, it really won't help with media.

 

Id really try to get a ryzen 5 1600 if you can, its a bit more, but should work fine here. I don't think you will need a ton of ram from your listed use.

That's the thing I already have all of these 1tb drives that I'm going to upgrade when I can start shucking larger ones. And again I have about 24gb of ddr3 ram already, so if I'm buying ddr4 it's going to upgrade my gaming system that only has 8gb already. The cache drive is just because I can, i have a spare 256gb ssd not being used for anything. Just trying to get acquainted with storage configs, but i digress. 

 

this has is going to be collecting all of my gameplay recordings from my gaming rig as well as transcoding Sony Vegas renders. And since I have the ram already to start me out, I figured I would just try to find older boards for value. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, kaibsora said:

And again I have about 24gb of ddr3 ram already,

What ddr3? ECC? buffered?

 

2 minutes ago, kaibsora said:

The cache drive is just because I can, i have a spare 256gb ssd not being used for anything. Just trying to get acquainted with storage configs, but i digress. 

Id just add that to the vm pool, really the cache drive won't help at all for videos.

 

[kaibsora]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What ddr3? ECC? buffered?

 

Id just add that to the vm pool, really the cache drive won't help at all for videos.

 

Not even for writers? Is the zfs striping that good? And no. Just regular ddr3 for now. I will be buying ecc provided the motherboard recommended supports it. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, kaibsora said:

Not even for writers?

zfs l2arc is read only. a log drive won't help at all as it only helps with sync writes.

 

 

1 minute ago, kaibsora said:

Just regular ddr3 for now.

Then your gonna have issues with a lot of older server systems, so check that they support non ecc. Id probalby try to find a used desktop with a older i5 or amd fx system

 

1 minute ago, kaibsora said:

I will be buying ecc provided the motherboard recommended supports it. 

But if your buying new ram, might as well just get a ryzen or new desktop part. Also that power savings will be nice.

[kaibsora]

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

zfs l2arc is read only. a log drive won't help at all as it only helps with sync writes.

 

 

Then your gonna have issues with a lot of older server systems, so check that they support non ecc. Id probalby try to find a used desktop with a older i5 or amd fx system

 

But if your buying new ram, might as well just get a ryzen or new desktop part. Also that power savings will be nice.

The motherboard I listed supports non ecc up to 64gb. It also supports 24 thread processors iirc. On top of that x79 has most of the same features, while maxing out at 64gb of ram. That is why I am asking about what to go with, or if there is a x79 motherboard that is cheaper than 115usd that has features like this board or even similar. 

 

Most older server systems, even lga1366 support non ecc. I had a Dell r410/420 that worked fine with this same ram. I would even just go and buy a dell 710 and call it a day, however, it doesnt have the storage options I want and it is too big for a 1bedroom apartment. Hence why I'm looking for an atx solution. Fx processors run hotter than older server hardware and use more power than the atx form factor. I know with Intel if I enable c1e in mobo bios it will sip power when not in use. Not really worried about that

[Firewrath9]

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?forums/for-sale-for-trade-want-to-buy.2/

I'd reccommend taking a look around here or on reddit.com/r/homelabsales, theres a LGA2011-3 dual socket board for ~200$ there, and a couple of e5-2650L V3/V4 is ~24-28 cores for like 300$, and theres a bunch of DDR3/4 sales

Thats probably wayy out of your budget, but look around, there was a free Xeon X5675 server there that would be fine

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, kaibsora said:

The motherboard I listed supports non ecc up to 64gb. It also supports 24 thread processors iirc. On top of that x79 has most of the same features, while maxing out at 64gb of ram. That is why I am asking about what to go with, or if there is a x79 motherboard that is cheaper than 115usd that has features like this board or even similar. 

x79 boards won't be cheap, so hunt around for them

 

If you don't really care about power, id just get a cheaper 1366 board, look for one with a built in hba.

2 minutes ago, kaibsora said:

Most older server systems, even lga1366 support non ecc. I had a Dell r410/420 that worked fine with this same ram. I would even just go and buy a dell 710 and call it a day, however, it doesnt have the storage options I want and it is too big for a 1bedroom apartment. Hence why I'm looking for an atx solution. Fx processors run hotter than older server hardware and use more power than the atx form factor. I know with Intel if I enable c1e in mobo bios it will sip power when not in use. Not really worried about that

fx systems use less than dual 1366, I have tested that, there not too bad at idle and when clocks aren't too high

 

You can go r510 for 12x 3.5 hdd or c2100 and most of those are pretty easy to make quiet.

 

Also I have found rack servers pretty easy to hide in small places by putting something on top of them or leaning against a wall.

 

 

[bimmerman]

Just curious, why not X58? Core count / PCIe 2.0 / power consumption?

 

I'm in a similar boat, debating what to do with my old X58 system and the frontrunners are convert it into a NAS/windows VM host....or just sell it.

[kaibsora]

Just now, bimmerman said:

Just curious, why not X58? Core count / PCIe 2.0 / power consumption?

 

I'm in a similar boat, debating what to do with my old X58 system and the frontrunners are convert it into a NAS/windows VM host....or just sell it.

X58 has a max ram allocation of 48gb. too low for what I'm wanting. 

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

x79 boards won't be cheap, so hunt around for them

 

If you don't really care about power, id just get a cheaper 1366 board, look for one with a built in hba.

fx systems use less than dual 1366, I have tested that, there not too bad at idle and when clocks aren't too high

 

You can go r510 for 12x 3.5 hdd or c2100 and most of those are pretty easy to make quiet.

 

Also I have found rack servers pretty easy to hide in small places by putting something on top of them or leaning against a wall.

 

 

Yeah. My apt is really small. Not cupboard under the stairs small but still small nonetheless. I also dont want the noise factor, and while the 710 is fine on noise levels, it's bad on the drive amounts. The r410 was a freaking jet engine. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, kaibsora said:

Yeah. My apt is really small. Not cupboard under the stairs small but still small nonetheless. I also dont want the noise factor, and while the 710 is fine on noise levels, it's bad on the drive amounts. The r410 was a freaking jet engine. 

Well im was the one that brought a 12u rack to a drom. And it was a double.

 

You can mod most servers to get them pretty quiet with resistor mods on the fans.

 

3 minutes ago, kaibsora said:

X58 has a max ram allocation of 48gb. too low for what I'm wanting. 

Why do you need so much ram, you use above doesn't need that much.

 

But then just get the server version with 288gb max.

[bimmerman]

Iirc some of the lga1366 xeons on could support much more ram. Might find some old server boards that could work? I forget what the enterprise chipset version of x58 was called.

[kaibsora]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Well im was the one that brought a 12u rack to a drom. And it was a double.

 

You can mod most servers to get them pretty quiet with resistor mods on the fans.

 

Why do you need so much ram, you use above doesn't need that much.

 

But then just get the server version with 288gb max.

I'm actually looking at rackmount servers again thanks to you. Is there a way to make them sip power under light load along with the silent fan mods? Woll the Dell 510 support 4tb hdds? Are there other brands that can house the same amount of drives you would recommend for this project? Thanks for your insight. 

7 minutes ago, bimmerman said:

Iirc some of the lga1366 xeons on could support much more ram. Might find some old server boards that could work? I forget what the enterprise chipset version of x58 was called.

While they do, the x58 board do not. And the server versions isnt a viable option when I can get a full Dell r510 for the same price of a mobo

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, kaibsora said:

Woll the Dell 510 support 4tb hdds?

I forget what hba it uses, but it should support 8tb+ if you have a supported hba in it(so h200 or newer).

 

1 minute ago, kaibsora said:

Are there other brands that can house the same amount of drives you would recommend for this project?

Lots of supermicro systems, dell c2100, hp dl180 g6(bit louder, I haven't bother to make mine quiet)

 

2 minutes ago, kaibsora said:

Is there a way to make them sip power under light load along with the silent fan mods?

What do you mean by sip power? Other than c states, you can remove all the ram but one stick and all pcie cards to save a good amount, but getting dual lga 1366 under around 70w is a pain. If you want to save power, really get something newer.

[kaibsora]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I forget what hba it uses, but it should support 8tb+ if you have a supported hba in it(so h200 or newer).

 

Lots of supermicro systems, dell c2100, hp dl180 g6(bit louder, I haven't bother to make mine quiet)

 

What do you mean by sip power? Other than c states, you can remove all the ram but one stick and all pcie cards to save a good amount, but getting dual lga 1366 under around 70w is a pain. If you want to save power, really get something newer.

Great help you have been. You answered what I really needed. 70w without load is actually really good all things considered. I dont think there is anything newer that would be around the 100$ area. 

 

Would the h200 work fine with zfs? I really dont think I have any other questions. I need to do more research on the r510 vs 710, as I do want to be able to use ssds with the hdds. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, kaibsora said:

Would the h200 work fine with zfs?

yup

Just now, kaibsora said:

70w without load is actually really good all things considered.

but your not getting that with a lot of ram and those 8 drives

 

1 minute ago, kaibsora said:

. I need to do more research on the r510 vs 710,

r710 gets you more pcie slots, more ram slots(18 vs 8), more tool less parts. Maybe a better drac, but depends on config.

[kaibsora]

11 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

yup

but your not getting that with a lot of ram and those 8 drives

 

r710 gets you more pcie slots, more ram slots(18 vs 8), more tool less parts. Maybe a better drac, but depends on config.

Yeah true. I used to run a bunch of Cisco switches and routers, so I'll eat the cost of power if I have to lol. I cant find a 710 with 12 bays though so the 510 will have to do. Should be plenty for my needs and i can get a 12 baby one for 164 shipped on Ebay. Unless there are other options for brands/models. The c2100 is said to be bad with support for alot of cooling situations, so I'll be skipping that. 

[kaibsora]

Also, @Electronics Wizardy , with the r510 will I need to get the perc h310/200 mini? Or as a standalone pci card?