BUILD FreeNAS 2.0

[goudviske]

Hi,

Due to some issues with a newly acquired ibm m1015 SAS addon card (on an ASUS M3A76-CM board), I find myself in a position where I need to upgrade (change motherboard, and therefore also CPU & memory)

I've been doing some reading and I'm thinking about this:
Motherboard: Intel S1200BTSR or Supermicro X9SCM-F or X9SCL-F (leaning more towards the supermicro M-F, coz it's a little cheaper)
CPU: Pentium G2020 @ 2.9Ghz
Kingston Valueram 16GB (2x 8GB) unbuffered ECC RAM kit.

At some point I was thinking about getting the Asus P8C WS, but kinda lost track of that once the Supermicro & Intel boards came to play

It'd be important to know that this board works with an ibm m1015 flashed in IT mode. Also, it has to fit in an Antec twelve hundred case, so µATX or normal ATX, EATX, all good, but dedicated server boards probably wont fit.

At first I was planning to get a Intel Xeon E3-1220V2 Boxed as CPU, but I'm not sure it's worth the +/- 130,- euro premium. Or am I missing something here that required me to have the Xeon. Encryption will not be required, NAS will be serving no more then 2 hosts at the same time.

Plan is to connect 8 x 3 or 4 TB in RaidZ2 and 4 x 2 TB in RaidZ1, allowing me to connect 1 2,5' HD for OS & downloads, and 1 spare port for resilvering or hot spare or whatever.

Comments or suggestions are more then welcome

 

[Sir.Robin]

If your bying such a nice mobo, it would be silly to not use ECC memory and that pentium dont support ECC. Xeon and core i3 do. :)

 

[paleoN]

If your bying such a nice mobo, it would be silly to not use ECC memory and that pentium dont support ECC.

Says who. The question is does it work with motherboard?

 

[goudviske]

I believe the G2020 does support ECC, not sure if it will go on the supermicro though.
Didn't know the i3's had ECC nowadays, so yes that may also be an option.

Ofc the Xeon is nicest, but it has the nicest price tag also, retailing around 190,- € over here
Where you can get the pentium g2020 for like 60,- €
The i3 sits in between (as expected), and goes for little over 100,- €

 

[Sir.Robin]

Sorry if i gave wrong information.

It's been " a well known fact" that only Xeons support ECC. Not the desktop models from Intel.

This seems to be not entirely correct though as at least the i3 is supposed to support it.

 

[cyberjock]

The G2020 does support ECC. People have built systems with some Supermicro boards and ECC RAM and had the system work.

However, Supermicro has said something to the effect of "its not supported" with their boards that should support the G2020. Some people have questioned if the ECC function actually works with the G2020 processor and the Supermicro boards because of the cryptic response from Supermicro.

 

[goudviske]

Ok so to be on the safe side it'd probably be better to side with something like the Intel Core i3 2120T Boxed (around 110,-)
Or would you recommend getting the Intel Xeon E3-1220V2 Boxed (about 80,- more expensive) anyway.

Ending up with:


Intel Core i3 2120T Boxed
Processors € 108,- € 108,-

Supermicro X9SCM-F
Moederborden € 164,10 € 164,10

Kingston KVR1333D3E9SK2/16G
Geheugen intern € 142,10 € 142,10

 

[Sir.Robin]

Good call :)

This might be interesting though:
Does the Intel® Core™ i3 Desktop Processor support Error Correction Code (ECC) memory?

The Previous Generation Intel® Core™ i3 Processors and the 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i3 Processors do not support ECC memory, but the 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i3 Processors support ECC memory.

Source: http://www.intel.com/support/processors/corei3/sb/CS-031175.htm

And that 2120T is second gen.
Source: http://ark.intel.com/products/family/59133/2nd-Generation-Intel-Core-i3-Processors?q=2nd

So shoot me :D

 

[goudviske]

Good to know, thank you
but now I'm wondering, are the 3rd gen CPU's (ivy bridge then I suppose) supported on the supermicro board?

Update:
The Supermicro board does support 3rd gen i3

Their website lists:
Intel® Xeon® processor E3-1200 & v2 series, Intel® 2nd Gen and 3rd Gen Core i3, Intel® Pentium® and Celeron processors

Changing set-up to:
(changed CPU and switched memory to 1600)


Intel Core i3 3220 Boxed
Processors € 102,30 € 102,30

Supermicro X9SCM-F
Moederborden € 164,- € 164,-

2x
Kingston ValueRAM KVR16E11/8
Geheugen intern € 71,29 € 142,58

 

[Sir.Robin]

http://www.supermicro.com.tw/products/motherboard/Xeon/C202_C204/X9SCM-F.cfm

Single socket H2 (LGA 1155) supports
Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 & E3-1200 v2
series, 2nd and 3rd Gen Core i3
processors***, Pentium, Celeron

 

[goudviske]

interesting read here
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1693051
G620 cpu (so older series sandy bridge) with ecc working on intel 204 chipset

Newer ivy bridge series such as g2020 should also support it according to intel:
http://ark.intel.com/products/71070

But then again, probably not worth the risk

 

[goudviske]

Thoughts I'd pick this up from the trash for an update:

Got the supermicro X9SCM-F, is working like a train, also both onboard intel nics are supported without any modifications.
Using the intel i3 ivy bridge with ECC

But now i've got the following question, what would you advise to do:
- either get 8 x 4 TB storage in RZ2 and keep using the 6 x 2 TB storage in RZ2 (so 32 TB in total)
- or get 10 x 4 TB storage in RZ2 and sell the 6 x 2 TB drives i'm using atm

Drives I've got at the moment: WD20EARS, they're 2,5 years old, have been a breeze all the way (note that the system is not on 24/7)
Drives I intend to get are Seagate HDD.15 drives (ST4000DM000), read some good things about these, and the price is good.

Thoughts ?