Great motherboard: Supermicro X10SL7-F

[IonutZ]

So I found out that my old computer hardware that I was going to use for my NAS is not good at all... as a matter of fact if you're at all serious about considering creating your own NAS and you care about your data, you need server hardware. I didn't really know this going into the whole thing, but that's fine.

I was looking at a motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCL-F-O

Which I would pair with a XEON E3

This mobo has 6x SATA 3 ports. Do I need any sort of Host Bus Adapter like an LSI or will the mobo ports suffice for my configuration? I plan to have 5x 4 TB HDDs for storage and 1x something old for FreeNAS.

I understand it's easy to save a configuration for the FreeNAS which can just be uploaded in case anything happens (so I wouldn't lose my array, I just have to replace the FreeNAS drive with a working install and upload my config). Is this correct?

Are the 2 NICs onboard legit?
Intel 82579LM
Intel 82574L

Or do I need something along the lines of an I340-T2? The I340-T2 has the 82580 chipset... can't be that much of a difference?

Also would the Intel 9301 NICs for the clients be a good match with the 2 chipsets above?

Thank you very much.


EDIT so you don't have to read everything!!!

Supermicro X10SL7-F
Intel Xeon E3-1220 v3
Crucial 32GB Unbuffered ECC 1.35v (CT2KIT102472BD160B)

This is the config I went with, and it works perfectly.


ALSO READ further comments on pages 2-3 on links and arguments whether you should FLASH your board with controller firmware to match!

 

[cyberjock]

Get the X9SCM. It's like $5 more and gives you one more PCIe slot.

I am using the X9SCM and it works great with FreeNAS. The X9SCL is the same board but minus one PCIe slot.

 

[ethereal]

the SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCL-F-O has 6x SATA 2.0 with RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 - NOT SATA 3

 

[Yatti420]

It works fine.. You don't need to worry about raid #s as you won't be using it.. You will use zfs raidZ#.. Which you just plug your disks into he motherboard and fire up FreeNAS to create your pool..

Xeon is fine if you want to transcoded and run VMS.. But if you need basic grab a Pentium g or I3..

Sata 3 (6 Gbps) certainly not required.. X9 has sata 2 ports if I recall.. X10 has a split of sata3 and sata2 ports..

Sent from my SGH-I257M using Tapatalk 2

 

[Ericloewe]

the SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCL-F-O has 6x SATA 2.0 with RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 - NOT SATA 3

Irrelevant, since no mechanical hard drive comes close to saturating SATA 3Gb/s (other than from its cache). Not to mention that GbE is the limiting factor here...

 

[ethereal]

i was letting lonutz know because in the first post he says it has sata 3 - i just don't want them to buy it and be dissapointed

 

[IonutZ]

Thanks for the answers guys, so at any point if I decided to expand and/or go for high rpm drives or SSDs I could get a host bus adapter that's sata 3, so that's fine then.

Any idea about the networking components? Is that a good way to go?

 

[danb35]

The networking on that board is fine (I'm running it myself). As already mentioned, there's no need for a separate HBA until you run out of ports on the motherboard. There's also no need (or reason) to use a SATA port for the OS installation--install it on a USB stick and be happy. You can even put the USB stick inside the case, since the board has a standard USB A connector right on it for exactly that reason.

If this is a new build, and you don't already have the board, you'd probably want to look into one of the X10 boards--just generally newer, at comparable price points.

 

[jgreco]

Given a choice between X9 and X10, probably go X10, newer... but the X9SCL is a great board. We've got some acting as ESXi nodes (actually the X9SCL+-F) and they're real workhorses. Problem-free for years.

 

[IonutZ]

So this is what I went with:

For the fileserver
SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SAE-O
Kingston 32GB (4x 8GB) 1600 UDIMM KVR16E11K4/32
Xeon E3-1220V3 Haswell

3x Intel 9301 (for the clients)
1x Intel I340-t2 (for the main server)
150 ft of CAT6 550mhz which I'm going to cut up into smaller segments and crimp connectors to View: http://www.ebay.com/itm/231297459388?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT


Do you guys approve? :)

 

[Yatti420]

With an x10 you won't need a separate nic for the server.. Get a ups instead.. If you have decent client PCs you don't need to dedicate Intel NICs.. Looks fine though..

Edit: the x10 with Kingston ram may be an issue..

Sent from my SGH-I257M using Tapatalk 2

 

[IonutZ]

The i340-t2 is for my AD/router basically. I'm fine with the nic on the x10. And even though I have decent clients, I'm willing to supply them with 9301s just to make sure there are no bottlenecks there.

Why would the Kingston mem be an issue? :(

 

[Yatti420]

Its been an issue with x10 there are a few threads on it.. Specific nand chips are the issue I think not sure which though..

Sent from my SGH-I257M using Tapatalk 2

 

[IonutZ]

I returned the Kingston ram and went with the recommended Crucial ram instead. No problem posting, no problem installing, no problem booting, found the NICs - everything is dandy!!! Thank you

 

[jgreco]

Awesome.

 

[mclarkin9681]

I returned the Kingston ram and went with the recommended Crucial ram instead. No problem posting, no problem installing, no problem booting, found the NICs - everything is dandy!!! Thank you

What RAM did are you using from Crucial?

*EDIT* Nevermind, just realized you have it in the first post :)

 

[panz]

Crucial is making some poor hardware recently...

 

[Ericloewe]

Crucial is making some poor hardware recently...

Crucial? Got any specifics?

 

[panz]

Throwing in the rubbish A LOT of SSDs from them. Was not the same 2 years ago.

 

[Ericloewe]

Throwing in the rubbish A LOT of SSDs from them. Was not the same 2 years ago.

Odd, I'll keep a look on my M500s...