Server hardware/software help.

[mrymr]

PfSense is acts as the router and firewall.  It is a free software that you can install on an old desktop, laptop, server or you can use one of their pre-assembled units from their website.  I got this one:

http://store.pfsense.org/vk-2d13-black/

Okay will look into it.

[Createinator]

If you would pick parts for a server that would run the applications this one will, what would you pick?

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-h97plus

ASUS H97 Plus ~ comes with 6 SATA 6GB/s ports and allows RAID 0,1,5,10 out of the box. With room for expansion via PCIe cards.

[mrymr]

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-h97plus

ASUS H97 Plus ~ comes with 6 SATA 6GB/s ports and allows RAID 0,1,5,10 out of the box. With room for expansion via PCIe cards.

Would you get a i series processor or xeon ?

[Createinator]

Would you get a i series processor or xeon ?

Both of them will work without any problem. A Core series processors packs an igpu whereas most Xeons do not and having an igpu might help out during the initial setup.

[mrymr]

Both of them will work without any problem. A Core series processors packs an igpu whereas most Xeons do not and having an igpu might help out during the initial setup.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3L78M with 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive and FD Node 304.

[Createinator]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3L78M with 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive and FD Node 304.

That looks great ~

Go for it!

[Vitalius]

You wont be using those 16GB DIMM's on that Asrock motherboard. Simply because it's not supported. Only Memphis Memory is supported in 16GB DIMM's.

 

Not officially supported but they could work. I'd just do research on it. Unless you've found someone who has tried them and it failed.

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-h97plus

ASUS H97 Plus ~ comes with 6 SATA 6GB/s ports and allows RAID 0,1,5,10 out of the box. With room for expansion via PCIe cards.

 

... I don't follow. He's going to be using HDDs and ZFS. ZFS would handle RAID so it supporting RAID is irrelevant as is the SATA ports being 6 Gb (not GB) /s. 

Not that those aren't nice features, but I'm just saying, that doesn't give it much of an advantage over any other motherboard.

 

Yes ZFS needs a lot of RAM but only when data is being written to it. In home usage tend to be read intensive which does not require as much RAM.

 

Will you be using RAID configurations?

... wat.

Most of the RAM ZFS uses is for read cache (the ARC specifically). I don't follow how it uses more RAM for write when write cache is limited to around 12.5% total RAM (as opposed to the ARC which is limited to 80% the total RAM).

I mean, the numbers are probably slightly different for Linux over FreeNAS, but still.

Where are you getting this info from?

[Createinator]

Not officially supported but they could work. I'd just do research on it. Unless you've found someone who has tried them and it failed.

 

... I don't follow. He's going to be using HDDs and ZFS. ZFS would handle RAID so it supporting RAID is irrelevant as is it being 6 GB/s. 

Not that those aren't nice features, but I'm just saying, that doesn't give it much of an advantage over any other motherboard.

They will work out of the box ~ E3 xeons are just like any other Haswell CPU.

I know ~ but he might change his mind and he will have the ability to do so. Secondly ~ it has great features for a 110$ board and he doesn't really need to spend more money on a server build unless he needs a lot of expansions.

[Vitalius]

They will work out of the box ~ E3 xeons are just like any other Haswell CPU.

I know ~ but he might change his mind and he will have the ability to do so. Secondly ~ it has great features for a 110$ board and he doesn't really need to spend more money on a server build unless he needs a lot of expansions.

I added some to that post so go back and check the bottom.

As for this one, follow me on this:

The H97 is $110. E3 Xeons are around $200 (depends on deals). So the total is $310 without tax.

This motherboard with embedded CPU is $270. The 8 core version is $400 (the one the OP mentions). Both are also more efficient than a Xeon and roughly equal in power with more SATA ports and IPMI.. 

[Createinator]

I added some to that post so go back and check the bottom.

As for this one, follow me on this:

The H97 is $110. E3 Xeons are around $200 (depends on deals). So the total is $310 without tax.

This motherboard with embedded CPU is $270. The 8 core version is $400 (the one the OP mentions). Both are also more efficient than a Xeon and roughly equal in power with more SATA ports and IPMI.. 

That's nice. But, I doubt he needs something like this

He cannot upgrade the CPU and he will not be able to use it for anything else.

16 GB RAM sticks are quite expensive.

 

[Vitalius]

That's nice. But, I doubt he needs something like this

He cannot upgrade the CPU and he will not be able to use it for anything else.

16 GB RAM sticks are quite expensive.

Well, after looking at those specs for the H97 Plus a little more closely, he can't use it if he wants ZFS. I mean, he can, technically, but it defeats the purpose of ZFS which is to preserve data integrity. ZFS may as well require ECC RAM. The H97 Plus doesn't support ECC RAM. 

I doubt he will need to upgrade the CPU. It can handle transcoding three 1080p video streams at once (at least the 8 core can). It's kind of a beast of an embedded CPU. And while I agree he can't upgrade the CPU or use it for anything "normal", you don't buy hardware for ZFS to do normal things. He can reuse it for pFsense one day (it has dual NICs already), as a file server, or as a VM host. That's a lot of utility for it. 

I'm not sure why he would need 16 GB RAM sticks. He can use 8GB ones. He just wouldn't be able to upgrade to 64GB of RAM, but I doubt you could fit enough Storage in the Node 304 to require that much RAM. 

[mrymr]

I may switch the case to a bigger one to house more HDD's. When my current computer gets replaced it may take over some of the stuff the current server is doing but not the samba/streaming/rtorrent. So the ECC memory actually makes alot of sense since the server will always have ZFS and it will not be used for anything else than a server.