Freenas server, used parts build

[Member]

Hello:

 

I am going to be building a Freenas home server.

 

These are the specifications:

 

CPU:2 X          Intel Xeon 5520

Motherboard: X8DTI Supermicro

RAM:              Samsung M393B1K73CHD-CF8

Power supply:EVGA Supervona 750W

Hard drives: 3X WD RED 2TB

Case:            Undecided    <--- need suggestions (EATX case)

 

Any suggestions? Any parts not compatible? 

I will be running Freenas, ZFS.

 

@Vitalius

@wpirobotbuilder

Please help 

 

Thank you

[RavenXE]

If you're using cifs (smb/windows) as your primary sharing service having multiple cpus is useless because samba is single threaded i recommend using a single cpu with 4 cores but with a higher clock speed

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

I assume you have plans to upgrade the capacity. If not, 32GB of RAM and a dual socket motherboard and 2 Xeons is complete overkill.

I'm running a 32TB FreeNAS on an i3 with 16GB of RAM and am still maxing out my gigabit network with ease.

So if those 3 drives are all you'll be using, you can look at 16GB, a single CPU and a single-socket server board and probably save yourself some money.

[Member]

snip

yep, I agree. I think I will get a single socket LGA1150 or LGA2011 motherboard and a Xeon. Do you recommend any motherboard and CPU?

Nice NAS btw; do you stream any media?

 

Cheers

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

You'll probably want to stick with ECC memory, so you're limited to the list of ECC-compatible processors.  It doesn't have to be a Xeon, there are plenty of regular Intel processors that support ECC. 

Here's the full list : http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced?s=t&ECCMemory=true , you may want to add extra filters to find whatever model range you're thinking of (i3, i5, i7, Celeron, Xeon, etc)

The 4170 I picked for mine does the job just fine.  I have occasionally monitored it the first few days and it doesn't seem to break a sweat even when writing to the RAIDZ2 array at the full 125MB/s that my network allows.

 

Motherboard-wise, there appear to be several consumer boards that support ECC even though it isn't specified anywhere.  However not all of them do, so your best bet is to stick with a server board unless you find a consumer board of a type that is known through consumer testing to support ECC. 

I went with an Intel server board and it does the job just fine, but Asrock boards are cheaper new and probably also cheaper second-hand.

 

 

 

Thanks. 

I stream to my PC and laptop.  No TV, I got rid of mine when I cut the cable a decade or so ago and with dual monitors I just haven't really felt the urge to buy a TV anymore. 

I might get a projector and one of them mini PCs somewhere in the next 12 months and set that up so I can watch movies from the sofa again.  

 

With my previous (prefab) NAS I occasionally streamed to my phone too, but I simply haven't got around to checking that out on the current one yet.  For now that's too low on my list of priorities.  I have tons of corrupt files after one of the drives in my previous NAS went bad, so I'm currently re-ripping and re-multiplexing roughly 10TB worth of DVDs and Blu-Rays.  That's going to keep me busy for another month or so.

[Member]

snip

I'm thinking of getting an LGA 1366 or LGA 1155 motherboard and a Xeon, both mobo and the cpu will be bought used.

[wpirobotbuilder]

LGA1366 is the way to go for inexpensive hardware, it really is. It is plenty powerful for server/NAS stuff as long as you don't need cutting-edge capabilities.

 

The L5520 is an awesome chip for the price, especially if you care about idle power consumption. You should have no trouble maxing out gigabit ethernet with that, as the modern Atom processors can do a couple hundred MB/s at ~2.4GHz, and the L5520 has better single-threaded performance (rough estimate here).

 

You shouldn't have a problem with the Supermicro board, they're very high quality. Make sure that memory you selected is on their Qualified Vendor List.

[Member]

snip

LGA 2011 and LGA 1155 components are quite expensive at the moment. 

Ok, thanks.