Asrock or Supermicro??

[mattpitts74]

You guys must get really bored with these, but I would appreciate some confirmation of my hardware choices, I have read through all the hardware posts and lots of other posts, videos etc, and its all been very helpful. But as always, budget and requirements come into play when trying to make these decisions. My main use if for backup to my Mac and PC of both photos and video projects, mainly as archive, But I do also serve video and music from the current NAS, so would like to do that with the FreeNAS too. I worry about the reliability of my current very full old Synology two bay NAS, especially with work stuff stored there too.

I've also been looking for a long time for a fast storage solution for video editing so it would be nice to have the option to add a 10GB NIC in the future, this may be just wishful thinking.

I have two 1 TB drives it the old NAS, so I plan to buy four new 1TB drives, and run RAIDZ2 if my understanding of all my reading is correct, I can at some point upgrade these drives one by one as funds allow within the same VDev, is that correct? I assume that RAIDZ2 is my best option with that number of disks? Its unlikely that I will need to increase the total number of disks above six, at least not in the next few years.

Also ideally I'm looking for a small and relatively good value case, hence looking at the Node 304, but that then restricts me to a mini itx board such as the Asrocks listed below.

I'm happy to consider the Supermico board if there was a really compelling reason over the asrock boards, but I would need the bigger more expensive case with more drive space and its my understanding that the Supermico only supports 6 drives. So it seems a bit of waste to me. Sadly the other more expensive Supermicro's are abit out of my budget.

Sorry that was a lot of waffle, I seem to have spent far too much time researching this and now need to make some decisions.

Below are the options I have narrowed it down to, but I would appreciate any input, recommendations

Motherboard Options
ASRock E3C226D2I £164.99 Mini ITX
ASRock E3C224D2I £145.99 Mini ITX

Supermicro X10SLL-F £137.96 Micro ATX

Storage - 6 x 1TB WD Red HDD's
Case Options - Fractal Design Node Case either 304 if I go mini itx
or Node 804 for micro ATX
RAM - 16GB ECC RAM
CPU - Intel Core i3 4330 or i3-4360 3.7GHz cpu
PSU - Seasonic G-450

 

[Ericloewe]

If you're ok with microATX, it's the better choice. 16GB of RAM is rather tight in the long run.

All those motherboards you quoted only take 6 HDDs without extra controllers, so no advantage for the ASRocks there... Of course, the X10SLL-F will gladly take an HBA or two with connectivity to spare for 10GbE (or more HBAs!).

So, expandability or compactness?

 

[mattpitts74]

@Ericloewe Thanks for your quick reply, I'm trying to purchase in the UK, can you confirm this is the right board http://www.scan.co.uk/products/supermicro-x10sll-f

Also are there any other budget case options, that I have missed?

 

[horse_porcupine]

That's the board I own, bought from the same supplier even, and it's a fine board that'll work perfectly with FreeNAS. Got mine just before Christmas and it came with the 2.0 BIOS if that's something you're concerned about. I paired mine with an i3 4160.

 

[Fraoch]

All looks good - you've done your research for sure.

I've also been looking for a long time for a fast storage solution for video editing so it would be nice to have the option to add a 10GB NIC in the future, this may be just wishful thinking.

I've been reading that the Intel X520 cards are somewhat affordable if you find a good deal on used ones on eBay, but the switches are another story. One day maybe...?

I have two 1 TB drives it the old NAS, so I plan to buy four new 1TB drives, and run RAIDZ2 if my understanding of all my reading is correct

4 drives in RAIDZ2 is optimal for data protection - for speed I've been seeing 2 striped sets of mirrors mentioned lately. I haven't looked into this too much and RAIDZ2 seems simpler. Be aware with either option you'll only have a little under 2 TB capacity, which isn't much. I found the cost differential between 1 TB and 2 TB drives small enough to be justifiable so I went with 4 X 2 TB drives. I found the cost differential between the 2 and 3 TB drives to be greater so that's where I stopped. I still have more space than I need and hopefully enough for the forseeable future. Get as much space as you can to start, you will eventually need it.

I can at some point upgrade these drives one by one as funds allow within the same VDev, is that correct?

The manual outlines this procedure:

http://doc.freenas.org/9.3/freenas_storage.html#replacing-drives-to-grow-a-zfs-pool

along with the cautionary statement. While the new disk resilvers, you'll be in RAIDZ1 and if you have another drive failure as you resilver (which is not outside the realm of possibility with all that heavy drive access going on) you'll have no redundancy left. If there is one more drive error in that case, your pool will start to get corrupted. It's a calculated risk - I'd be willing to take it, but you should be aware of it before going into it all the same.

I assume that RAIDZ2 is my best option with that number of disks?

For data protection, yes.

Its unlikely that I will need to increase the total number of disks above six, at least not in the next few years.

Once you create your 4-disk RAIDZ2, you won't be able to convert it to a 6-disk RAIDZ2 though. You could add a mirrored vdev as a separate volume.

I'm happy to consider the Supermico board if there was a really compelling reason over the asrock boards, but I would need the bigger more expensive case with more drive space and its my understanding that the Supermico only supports 6 drives.

True, although you could always add an IBM M1015 later. However you indicate you don't see your total drives going above 6, and with your OS on a USB stick or two, this shouldn't be an issue. The Supermicro boards are well-proven and well-supported on these boards. Lots of new users are going with the ASRock boards though, and iXsystems uses their "Avoton" Atom board in their FreeNAS Mini, so they're gaining traction.

Do note that both ASRock boards you posted also only support 6 drives as well. You might as well go with the C224, the only difference with the C226 is that all drive ports are SATA 3, which is a waste for mechanical hard drives that can barely saturate a SATA 1 bus.

Your components look good!

 

[mattpitts74]

@Fraoch Thanks so much for your detailed reply, I'm tending to learn towards the supermicro boards as they seem to offer more options for future upgrades, although the Asrock Avoton was my inital thought, but I'd have limited options for upgrades I guess with those boards.

4 drives in RAIDZ2 is optimal for data protection - for speed I've been seeing 2 striped sets of mirrors mentioned lately. I haven't looked into this too much and RAIDZ2 seems simpler. Be aware with either option you'll only have a little under 2 TB capacity, which isn't much. I found the cost differential between 1 TB and 2 TB drives small enough to be justifiable so I went with 4 X 2 TB drives. I found the cost differential between the 2 and 3 TB drives to be greater so that's where I stopped. I still have more space than I need and hopefully enough for the forseeable future. Get as much space as you can to start, you will eventually need it.

Sorry I'm still struggling to get my head around the options, even after lots of readings. So what your suggesting is that I could go for four 2TB drives in RAIDZ2 and that would give more storage, would that give me 4TB of storage? I'm afraid I haven't found a good explanation of mirrors. I've got FreeNAS setup on a VM and been playing around, which is helpful.

Is it possible to setup two separate RAIDs within the same box so I could still use my two old 1TB disks?

 

[Fraoch]

Avoton was my inital thought, but I'd have limited options for upgrades I guess with those boards.

This compounded with the price did it for me...

Sorry I'm still struggling to get my head around the options, even after lots of readings. So what your suggesting is that I could go for four 2TB drives in RAIDZ2 and that would give more storage, would that give me 4TB of storage?

In my case, after formatting, a little over 3.5 TB.

I'm afraid I haven't found a good explanation of mirrors. I've got FreeNAS setup on a VM and been playing around, which is helpful.

Yes I'm surprised but there isn't an explanation of the various RAID levels on this forum. Unless I missed it, I had to search elsewhere.

At any rate, a mirror is just that - a vdev (a single drive or even another vdev) that mirrors another, containing the same data. If one vdev fails, you still have a complete working copy in the other. Basic redundancy - if the remaining vdev fails though you lose it. FreeNAS 9.3 allows you to have your boot drive in a mirror. For your main pool, RAIDZ2 offers more redundancy.

Is it possible to setup two separate RAIDZ2 within the same box?

Sure, but since you require a minimum of 4 drives for RAIDZ2, you'd need 8 drives. And RAIDZ2 might not be the best choice for 8 drives.

 

[Ericloewe]

Cyberjock's guide is the go-to resource for ZFS and pool layout questions, up to an intermediate level - plenty to have a safe server.
Cyberjoc

 

[mattpitts74]

I cannot see to find the X10SLL+-F motherboard anywhere for sale in the UK,
I can only find Supermicro X10SLM-F http://www.m4store.co.uk/supermicro-x10slm-f.html?utm_source=Skinflint&utm_campaign=Skinflint I assmune these are not the same board??
Can anyone point me in the right direction ??

 

[mattpitts74]

Thanks @Ericloewe

Cyberjock's guide is the go-to resource for ZFS and pool layout questions, up to an intermediate level - plenty to have a safe server.
Cyberjoc

I've read through the guide several times, and its starting to make alittle more sense the second time. but I'm struggling to find the exact same supermico boards in the UK, I've put a couple in this thread that I can find, which I would appreciate someone who knows checking for me.

I just to make sure I do get the right board from supermicro

Thanks

 

[Ericloewe]

Search the forum for "So, you've decided to buy a Supermicro X10 motherboard". I explain in detail the differences between the various boards, there.

 

[marbus90]

Smart move might be raid10 on 4 disks, copying data from the 2 disks to the new 4disk pool and then create another mirrorset on the existing 1TB HDDs and add them to the pool. would also give you performance where 10Gbe NICs can be justified. it's a little bit less reliable than other raid-levels, but better

Also you should look for bigger disk from the start: even if you ran a 6disk z2, you can do so with mixed capacities. as soon as you replace the existing 1TB HDDs with bigger ones, the pool will automatically grow. So look out for 2/3/4TB HDDs.

 

[mattpitts74]

Thanks everyone for input on this.

In the end I went with the the following

Supermicro X10SLL-F
Pentuim G3220
16GB ECC RAM
G450 450W PSU
R4 Case

I know its a budget build, but its a start, I plan to re purpose 2 1TD drives to get up and running and testing.

Would people recommend mirror if I would to add more storage down the line?

 

[Ericloewe]

We always recommend mirrors at the very least, for data protection.

 

[nick779]

Thanks everyone for input on this.

In the end I went with the the following

Supermicro X10SLL-F
Pentuim G3220
16GB ECC RAM
G450 450W PSU
R4 Case

I know its a budget build, but its a start, I plan to re purpose 2 1TD drives to get up and running and testing.

Would people recommend mirror if I would to add more storage down the line?

Youll be pretty happy with that. im quite pleased with my G3240. I just need 8 more GB of RAM now :P