Building a NAS in a mini-ITX

[Knowltey]

Then can I ask an honestly serious question here. Why is everyone so afraid to loose a RAID and acting like your data is instantly gone and/or its the end of the world. Is it really that hard to rebuild a RAID with your config data and reload your data from backups? I've never done it yet but doesn't sound like it is a show stopper or all that difficult or am I missing something?

No, if you have proper backups then doing that should be a piece of cake. Hell, I'd rather have that happen to me than the more likely case of the bitflips causing random files here and there to be garbaged and have it go unnoticed until it's too late.

 

[Richman]

Prices still a bit high on that. $220 would be nice and $200 would be compelling.

But look at the X9DR7-TF+ as an example, $650 for an E5 board WITH a built-in LSI2208 and dual 10GbE. The retail version of the 2208 by itself http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118160
costs as much as the whole damn Supermicro MB!! Plus the integrated devices mean your slots are all free.

You still need to shop around to figure out what makes the most sense of course, but a smart shopper can get pretty good deals on server boards.

I've been putting X9SCi-LN4F into old 1U storage servers where the 1 PCIe thing isn't an issue, and it is just about the perfect board for the job... there would be no other good way to get quad ethernets AND an add-on LSI controller into a 1U.

The LSI MegaRAID Internal SAS 9265-8i IS DISCONTINUED.
But the X9DR7-TF+ costing $912 ?????? That breaks just about anyone's bank. I know I won't be salivating over that one. I don't get why you are saying a $912 MB is $650. And is the LSIMegaRAID SAS9265 really the same price. And is it flashable to IT mode?

The X9SCi-LN4F ...... which one are you talking about?
The
SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCI-LN4F-O LGA 1155 Intel C204 ATX Intel Xeon E3 Server Motherboard for $229
or the
Supermicro X9Sci-Ln4F-O Lga1155/ Intel C204 Pch/ Ddr3/ Sata3/ V&4Gbe/ Atx Server Motherboard for $283

 

[jgreco]

Those are both the X9SCi-LN4F, just one being sold by a third party for a ridiculous price.

Just like that price you gave for the X9DR7-TF+, which wholesales around $650 IIRC (retail $676 http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php...b9620f5f97a3&gclid=CPS8qsCazLsCFQlgMgodNUQAew). That the LSI9265-8i is discontinued is of no concern; you cannot get ANY LSI2208 based controller card for substantially less than that price. The 2208 is not an HBA and so is not a desirable pool drive controller for FreeNAS, but it is great with a HDD and BBU for very fast SLOG use.

The point I was making, though, was that purchasing purpose-built server boards can be VERY much less expensive in some cases. Price out the cheapest dual E5 board you can find, a dual 10GbE controller, and LSI2208 controller and I expect you'll land around $1200. I am certainly not suggesting that board for a typical small FreeNAS server, but for virtualization use it is totally effin' awesomely ideal at a fraction of the cost of discrete cards.

 

[Richman]

Those are both the X9SCi-LN4F, just one being sold by a third party for a ridiculous price.

Oh .....

I thought the (MBD-) that was on the one, in front of the rest of the model number X9SCi-LN4F meant something.

Oh and you get a FREE
Mediasonic ProBox HP1-SS3 PCI-Express 2.0 x1 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card

w/purchase for a limited time ......Wooohooo ....... LOL. I don't even know what that is good for except to concect an external drive ..... From the pic it looked like it had a spot for internal ports but didn't put them on.

 

[jgreco]

No, SuperMicro is, sadly, slightly inconsistent with their part numbering vs model number. It helps to try both variations. The suffix can represent packaging such as "bulk" vs "retail" as well. Once you learn to decode them, the numbers actually reveal a LOT of information about the product, but I imagine it is opaque at first. I believe someone posted a guide to SM mainboard part number decoding in the hardware forum recently...

 

[Richman]

I believe someone posted a guide to SM mainboard part number decoding in the hardware forum recently...

Yes there is and it is a sticky ......... in the 'Hardware section. I read it earlyer before I posted that responce but didn't see anything in the SM info about suffixes.

I am so excited, I used the word 'Sticky' in a sentence for the first time.........(doing cartwheels and back-flips) .... whooohoooo, whoooohooo, wooohoo:D