BUILD First FreeNAS box

[njord]

I have been a long time lurker, but now I have finally been able to save up the funds to do a build.

Hardware:
Chassis: Supermicro 823TQ-653LPB
CPU: Intel Xeon E3 1230v3
Mobo: Supermico X10SL7-F
RAM: 16GB ECC (verified by part number on Supermicro's website).
PSU: (650W Gold in the chassis)
Boot: 120GB Samsung 750 SSD (way overkill, but I already have it laying around)
Storage: HGST Deskstar NAS 3TB x6 in RaidZ2

I want to stay below the $2,000 price point for the FreeNAS box. What I want to do is not cut corners and do a proper build that is tried and true and highly reliable.

My use case is storage and accessing various work files, backups of workstations, and multimedia. I'm going to be serving about 10 clients total with 4 of them being local and the rest remote.

Are there any issues with the above build that stand out?

 

[BigDave]

I'm too lazy to do the research, but I would check to make sure the backplane
supports drives larger than 2TB.
Other than that, it looks good to me.

 

[danb35]

I'm too lazy to do the research, but I would check to make sure the backplane
supports drives larger than 2TB.

It will, but it really isn't a good choice.

@njord, IMO, you have a poor combination of chassis and motherboard. The chassis you've chosen only has room for six drives, while you're paying a price premium for a motherboard that will support up to 14 (or even more with a SAS expander). The chassis does give you a place for a CD-ROM, but you won't have any use for that with FreeNAS anyway. I'd strongly recommend an 826 chassis instead of the 823--the 826 will give you 12 bays instead of 6.

Second, in general I'd recommend avoiding -TQ backplanes, since they require a single SATA cable for each drive bay. It isn't really a big problem with only six bays, but with 12 or more cabling can become a real rat's nest (I speak from experience). I'd look for an 826A, or better yet an 826E16.

Third, your CPU is probably overkill. That won't hurt anything but your wallet, but since you mention budget as a concern I thought I'd mention it.

Edit: A system like this would be nearly perfect. Just replace the RAID controller with a SAS HBA like the LSI 9211-8i and you're set (and you can probably sell the 9260 the server comes with for more than the 9211 would cost). $575 shipped for everything but the drives. The motherboard and CPUs are an older generation, but should still perform fine.

 

[Stux]

I've looked into it a bit recently, and the X11 skylake version of this motherboard is essentially the same price and gets you a 64GB ram limit and DDR4 ram.

Would suggest looking into skylake

The X11SSM-F provides 8 SATA ports.
The X11SSL-CF provides 6 SATA and 8 SAS3 and is the more modern equivalent of the X10SL7-F, but if you don't need 14 drives....

 

[njord]

@danb35 Thank you for your recommendations. I am completely out of my depth when it comes to server chassis so I greatly appreciate your help.

After doing some more reading on the subject, I really see the value in the 826E16. You have me sold on it as I see it being able to keep up with my demands for quite some time. Would it be a correct statement that with the 826E16, I could just use a motherboard that has even a single SAS3 connection and that would connect all the drive bays off one cable going from the motherboard to the backplane?

If that is true, would it be a better value proposition to get say the X11SSL-CF. The price difference between the X11SSM-F and X11SSL-CF is ~$40 USD. Even though it has a lot more ports than what I would be using (at least currently, who knows what I'm doing 2+ years from now), it would be cheaper than a SAS HBA + X11SSM-F and not having a SAS HBA is just one less thing to go wrong in my data path.

As you might have noticed, I did change from the X10 series to the X11 series since after looking into skylake some more in this application, it looks to give me more options down the line later on. While it isn't needed right now, I do like the fact of being able to increased to up to 64GB of RAM if I do decide to use more of those bays in the 826E16 later on.

 

[danb35]

Would it be a correct statement that with the 826E16, I could just use a motherboard that has even a single SAS3 connection and that would connect all the drive bays off one cable going from the motherboard to the backplane?

I think so. That's definitely the case with a SAS2 connection (as you'd have with the X10SL7 and a single reverse breakout cable), but I'm not 100% sure about a SAS3. The 826E26 would have a SAS3 backplane, but those aren't readily (or inexpensively) available on the used market from what I've seen. I think you'll be able to do it with the right cable though. Check out https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-sas-sy-a-primer-on-basic-sas-and-sata.26145/ for a lot more detail on the subject, and perhaps @jgreco can chime in on this question.

If that is true, would it be a better value proposition to get say the X11SSL-CF. The price difference between the X11SSM-F and X11SSL-CF is ~$40 USD.

I'd think so, from what you say about the boards--it's comparable to the advice we have given on the X10SL7.

 

[njord]

From what I can see it looks like on the 826E16 I should be able to run a single non-breakout SFF8087 cable from the back plane directly to the motherboard and be fine. Then the only other connection for storage devices would be using a SATA port for my SSD as the boot drive.

 

[Stux]

The X11-SSL-CF will have Mini SAS HD (SFF-8643). And you will need to connect it to regular mini sas (SFF-8087)

You will need something equivalent to this:
Internal HD Mini-SAS SFF-8643 to SFF-8087 Internal Mini-SAS Cable