CPU/Mobo needs

[Retrofit]

How I got here:
What happened to me recently is my wife had lots of video's and photo's locally stored on in a different folder that was not being backed up and they got lost after the SSD was wrecked.
This led me to this post, increase space and make sure some things are slightly more oops-proof. After adding new disks to my existing NAS i discovered it is getting slow to my liking when my wife or kids start using data from it. It's an older NAS and budget build from 2012

Goals:

Work on it, code & video editing.
Examples: Video editing storage space, video's of course, storage for code and backups of off-site websites. Save the steam library on it etc.

Reduce harddisk space per workstation.
My house is filled with computers. All 3 kids have one, wifey has one and I have 2 pristine ones (i7's with bells and whistles). A laptop as well. I tend to switch between computers alot, depending if I work with someone for work or sit alone in the mancave.
My goal is keep the workstations simple with no data on it that needs to be backed up.

Run VM's on the machine.
4VM's - 4 run on 4x2G RAM total 8 with not alot to do. The need for existing when it gets used which is often planned with my clients.
1VM - I play with to testout installations on fresh OS-installs. I keep these running often and they do execute some sort of workload

2 till 4 People will be using the NAS actively during the day.
From this including the hardware advice I am pondering the big question: Not sure how powerful my CPU / MOBO combination should be?

• I will go for 2x 10 GbE, onboard or addon card. (I prefer RJ45)
• One 10GbE is reserved as a directlinkt to my most used workstation as i dont have 10GbE switches yet.
• No sizing constrains, E-ATX/ATX all ok.
• Needs to fit: 6 * 6TB and 4 x * 2 TB drives running (2x a VDEV mirror mode) wich are actively used. The 4x2TB backup to the big ones, nightly and run in raidz2
  I was looking for 12 SATA ports, I can settle for 10. Somehow more always seems better. It's like the amount of computers you need is the amount of computers you have + 1
• Needs to fit an expansion slot if no 2x onboard 10GbE RJ45
• Trying to keep power draw not too much above 100W, it's on 24x7x365
• RAM 64GB ECC to start with room to increase. I want to be able to put 128GB in it.

The question: CPU / Mobo
I have been considering the C3000 Atom series, (Supermicro A2SDi-H-TF).
Also the Supermicro A1SA7-2750F (retail)
I read on the "hardware 2016 R1e". Atom is generally not recommended, but the C3000 series is newer than 2016, is this still the case end 2017?
Then later I also considered a cheaper board with 2011-3 socket: Supermicro X10SRI-F
This part kept me googling and reading for a day or two and gave me no answers ( actually lot of answers which induced even more questions ). Time to talk with some specialists.. Hello freenas forum!

What CPU/Mobo should I go for with the VM + storage and speed needs?
Another alternative is also ok

 

[BigDave]

Hardware Recommendations Guide
Your needs would point towards a quad core xeon (Skylake).
I don't see a need for more than 64GB of memory and Skylake will do this.
Ports for drive expansion, network expansion can be accomplished via PCIe
add-in cards.
A nice place to start would be:
X11-SSM-F | E3-1240 V5 | CT7982341 - Crucial 16GB DDR4

 

[Retrofit]

Thank you,

What I get from this is that my I do not need 8 cores as I previously tought, since I was thinking 4+- VM's = 4 cores gone for the VM's.
The X11-SSM-F has more expansion room which is nice, I would need an addin for extra SATA cards to fit my disks as well as a 10GbE addin card.

 

[BigDave]

I'm a fan of motherboards that have several PCIexpress ports and the
use of expansion cards. If a motherboard's on-board controller goes
bad, you are looking for a new motherboard. If an add-in card goes
bad, you simply replace the card. You can upgrade add-in cards and/or
change them out if they're no longer supported by the manufacturer or OS!

 

[Ericloewe]

I read on the "hardware 2016 R1e". Atom is generally not recommended

It doesn't say that, it even recommends a bunch of C2000 models. C3000 is going to be fine, too. The NICs are supported as of 11.1, so no problems there.

If you want the Skylake platform, for whatever reason, the X11SSH-CTF is probably what you want. Onboard 10GbE and SAS3 (LSI SAS3008 controller).

 

[Retrofit]

Thanks for the tips, this helped me focus, the X11SSH-CTF board i didnt look at actively before, kind of was focussing on atom + xeon-d CPU-onboard editions.

So, the final check for the CPU/MOBO/RAM combo.

1x - Intel Xeon E3-1245 v6 Boxed
1x - Supermicro X11SSH-CTF
2x - Crucial CT2K16G4WFD8213

I was thinking, the E3-1245 has onboard GPU (since the board has a VGA output).
I want to be able to
1) attach an monitor to it during install
2) Run windows VM (not for games but jsut testout software)

If there is a CPU with close-to-equal power but lower TDP im all ears ;-)

PSU will be something I have 700W Nexus, Disks etc are already existing WD Reds

 

[Arwen]

@Retrofit, the VGA output is SOLELY for the IPMI controller. It's built into the system board, not the CPU. (Aspeed is the company that makes popular IPMI chipsets, and this system board has an AST2400 BMC on it.) Thus, for item 1, you could bother and wired up a keyboard, video monitor and mouse. Or just use the network version of it, through the IPMI's network port. If you don't know what IPMI is, read up. (Other vendors have called them BMC, DRAC, iLO, ELOM, ILOM, ALOM, HMC, SC, etc...)

But for item 2, not really possible for locally attached video.

So for that specific system board, the on-CPU video is useless.

That said, if someone was intending to use the GPU for computing, (no video monitor), then it might make sense.

 

[Retrofit]

@Arwen Thanks for the info.
I didnt entirely understand how the VGA think worked. I previously only used on board versions with IPMI so i didn't have to think about the display.

The Part 2 (VM). This was not meant as locally attached video. I probably run some VM and use VNC to that VM (IF i run a windows VM, otherwise it'll be SSH all the way)

 

[Retrofit]

The SAS connectors on the motherboard: SuperMicro X11SSH-CTF

Are these: SFF8643 or SFF8087 connectors? Looking for a SAS->SATA cables. Since I have SATA drives.