Deploying ECC on an AM1 Platform for ZFS

[rustyfork]

Hi everyone!

I'm considering a FreeNAS build, and Error Correction Code (ECC) RAM is a must to prevent any potential errors in RAIDZ parity calculations. Unfortunately, only certain hardware supports ECC outside of the full-blown server scene.

I know most AMD chips and lower end Intel chips (celerons, pentiums, and low i3) support unbuffered ECC memory, but the motherboard support is a bit sparse (the ECC traces from cpu socket to dimm slots are frequently omitted in consumer boards, so even if the memory controller on the cpu supports ECC, the board won't). That leaves only expensive server-grade boards, or so I thought!

Recently, AMD's new low-power AM1 platform CPUs seem to sport ECC enabled memory controllers (Athlon 5350/5150) and are very easy on the wallet. Most boards again claim only to support non-ECC memory, but some intrepid experimenters revealed that the ASUS AM1M-A mATX motherboard *does* indeed support unbuffered ECC memory - which led ASUS to update its manual to reflect such.

Now, I really want to go with an mITX solution and ASUS released a companion board to the AM1M-A called the AM1I-A - an ITX version. Its manual still says it does not support ECC memory, though.

Does anyone have any experience with this board, or any other low-cost ECC solutions for that matter?

 

[Pharfar]

Hi, there is a thread that could help you
http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/kabini-next-step-up-from-n40l-microserver.22782/
I wouldnt do it, there is a reason server grade equipment costs a lot more = quality and stability of components. But then again, we all have the right to make our own decisions and learn from possible mistakes

 

[cyberjock]

I agree with Pharfar. The minute you try to skimp you often end up with far less than you thought you'd get. For example, lots of AMD boards have no CPU temp monitoring at all because AMD's temperature monitoring isn't included in FreeBSD. The reason why we push Supermicro and Intel is because it's hands down the most trouble-free setup you can go with. As soon as people start talking about things in a "I can't afford this so I'm gonna try to settle for this instead and I think I know what I'm doing" I pucker up. Why? Because I always have to wonder what little thing is gonna bite you in the but that nobody is going to know about by looking at a spec sheet.

The bottom line, if you want a quality engineered and quality manufactured product that has great support in FreeNAS (and FreeBSD obviously) our hardware recommendations are basically all you should look at. Anything else is going to be at your own risk and your own gains. I've seen enough threads to say with pretty strong confidence that probably 50% of people that try to go cheap end up returning the cheap stuff to buy the right stuff once they've spent dozens of hours and the cost of shipping the parts back along with a "restocking fee".

So think this through *real* hard and then just go with the recommended stuff. If it means you'll have to wait another month I'd absolutely wait. Better to wait a month and have a great system than have it now and have a shitty system you'll be stuck with for the next 1-5 years. You'll thank us later for not having problems. ;)

 

[rustyfork]

Thank you very much for your detailed response, cyberjock. I suspect you may indeed have saved me quite a bit of headache.

If you wouldn't mind my asking your opinion, what do you make of this Tyan motherboard paired with a Celeron G1820:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._re=TYAN_S5533GM2NR-LE-_-13-151-295-_-Product

Unfortunately, ITX form-factor is a must in my implementation.

 

[cyberjock]

Tyan isn't a particularly common company with regards to FreeNAS. So I can't really vouch for how good or bad they are. I know Tyan used to be very good about 10 years ago, but I've heard mixed things about them. It's hard to say if they are good or not based on the small sample size and the fact that people that have a bad experience (even if it isn't the boards) fault will often blame the board and make it VERY public and vocal.

Spec wise it looks like it would be a good board. But you may be the only one in the forums that's ever even looked at that board. Tyan really doesn't come up much around here.

 

[wintermute000]

You can try some avoton boards as well using C2550 atoms. ECC support, IPMI, passive cooling, dual intel NIC and lots of SATA ports, they're basically designed for low end NAS.

Asrock C2750D4I / C2550D4I. I have the latter, seems to run well for my requirements (home media, iSCSI for lab/test only not production), others here have had good success with these models. I can saturate gigabit with CIFs sharing and a 6 drive RAIDZ2 which is pretty much all I do. If you want plex transcoding I'd step up to at least a C2750 if not an i3 or xeon outright, the C2550 can handle 1 stream more or less @ 100% CPU.
Supermicro also have a few models using this CPU/chipset.