Hardware Selection for FreeNAS w/ PlexServer Plugin

[Ericloewe]

Thanks Cyberjock & Ericloewe! Great explanation, got it. (I initially thought that the T-series would be some of architectural power optimization, similar to that between Ivy Bridge and Haswell).

What about i3-4360 (non-T) vs. i3-4370 (see my post #17). It confuses the hell out of me (is that proper english?) that Intel offers the chip in so many flavors, whereas many are almost identical in performance & features.

Yeah, it's correct English.

The 4370 is just a few MHz faster. Might be worth a small premium, but it's not going to make much of a difference in real life. The difference is when you get a Xeon (i5 or i7 equivalent).

The 41xxs have 3MB L3 cache. The 43xxs have 4MB L3 cache. Within each sub-family, clocks increase with model number.

 

[TheWoo]

I actually had a D- in English at school, but that was due to fact that I was a lazy son of a b%tch and interested in practical rather than theoretical things, like importing and reselling Macs :). We are talking about the early 90s here when Mac prices where out of this world.

On i3 vs. Xeon: It’s a matter of cost. Xeon would be total overkill, given that the system is powered off 95% of the time. However I want the investment to be sort of future-proof, in case I change my mind, and switch from FreeNAS to some sort of Windows- or Linux-based Fileserver, which I could use for other things at the same time. Also my hope is that the i3-4370 (I guess I'll go for that one now) is powerful enough to transcode Plex 4K AV content once available, although I fear that’s wishful when looking at the figures. At least that CPU seems to be strong enough to transcode 2 concurrent Plex 1080p streams. See here for some rough info on Plex CPU requirements.

May I ask again about securely powering the FreeNAS up and down? The Node 304 case has a conveniently placed tactile power switch on the front panel. Can it (the hardware through the BIOS and/or FreeNAS) be configured in such a way that the NAS can be turned safely on/off using that switch without any harm to the data?

 

[cyberjock]

I think 4K is out of the question for transcoding. 4K offers 4x the resolution of 1080p, so a single 4K stream would be equivalent to four 1080p streams. That's alot of muscle that will be needed.

 

[Ericloewe]

Pressing the power button will initiate a regular shutdown, if all is right.

 

[TheWoo]

Fully aware of 4K being 4x the data of 1080p. But who knows, perhaps there’s a revolutionary, insanely efficient Video codec around the corner :) Anyhow the advantage of my hardware is that I could theoretically swap the i3 for a powerful Xeon at a later stage. But then again, one has to fear that the 16Gigs of RAM won’t be enough for 4K transcoding.

 

[Ericloewe]

unfortunately, the general trend is for new codecs to be more compute-intensive, in order to achieve better compression.

 

[marbus90]

Sorry, missed the option to publicize that list. Added the Xeon E3-1220v3 option, see for yourself. Chances are you'll never going to utilize it, but the price isn't /that/ bad...

 

[jgreco]

Fully aware of 4K being 4x the data of 1080p. But who knows, perhaps there’s a revolutionary, insanely efficient Video codec around the corner :) Anyhow the advantage of my hardware is that I could theoretically swap the i3 for a powerful Xeon at a later stage. But then again, one has to fear that the 16Gigs of RAM won’t be enough for 4K transcoding.

Well, I'm glad someone's aware of this. Too often around here I see people making handwavy claims about how much transcoding their box is expected to be able to handle, when in reality that's always a function of several different unspecified variables.

 

[TheWoo]

... But then again, one has to fear that the 16Gigs of RAM won’t be enough for 4K transcoding.

Does anyone know if there’s a theoretical chance that the ASRock E3C226D2I can be equipped with 16 or even 32 gig DIMMs at a later stage (e.g. through a to-be-released Firmware upgrade from ASRock)? I’ve such lift of limits on Mac memory sockets countless times.

 

[Ericloewe]

Does anyone know if there’s a theoretical chance that the ASRock E3C226D2I can be equipped with 16 or even 32 gig DIMMs at a later stage (e.g. through a to-be-released Firmware upgrade from ASRock)? I’ve such lift of limits on Mac memory sockets countless times.

None whatsoever.

DDR3 does not support 32GB UDIMMs.

Intel's IMC (except for the one in Avoton CPUs) doesn't support DDR3 UDIMMs, which are crazy expensive, anyway.

 

[TheWoo]

@SweetAndLow & @enemy85 : May I ask for your support in wiring & setting up the ASRock E3C226D2I? I'm very sorry to ask these dumbass questions, but despite using computers since 30 years (C64, Amiga, Macs ever since), this is in fact my first PC assembly ever.

So I have the E3C226D2I, the Node 304 and CS550M PSU (see here for detailed review, which shows connectors & tech details).

1. The PSU has a 4+4 pin EPS/ATX12V, as well as a ATX 24 pin plug. I figured out that the 4+4 can be put in half, so that it fits socket Pos. 25 according to the images below. Do I understand it correctly that you have to connect both the ATX 24 and 4 pins of the ATX12V in parallel?
   
   
2. If so, what happens to the other 4 pin EPS half of the connector? Do I understand it correctly in that this is only used for CPU with higher demand on power and that simply tie that away with no use?
   
   
3. There is a modular 6/8 pin cable PCI-E connector included with the PSU. Do I understand it right, that this cable is used only to directly power a PCI card, such as an graphics adapter?
   
   
4. I’ve installed a giant, passive heat pipe cooler on top of the i3 CPU (see images below) and replaced the 140 mm 3-pin rear fan of the Node 304 with the 120 mm 4-pin fan which came with the heat pipe cooler, as I'm feeling that the air blade design is more advanced. My idea is that with that 120 mm fan screwed into the case and being so close behind the CPU cooler elements, it can do both, help cooling the CPU and blow warm air out of the case at the same time, thus safe me one fan (less power, less noise).
   
   What I'm scratching my head about now is how to connect the two front fans (2 cables @ 3 pins) and the rear fan (4 pins) to the motherboard respectively the case. Of course I would like them to dynamically adjust to the heat, without risking the CPU or the rest of the hardware to overheat. Several options to choose from:
   • CPU Fan 1 (Pos. 3 on MB drawing)
   • Front Fan 1 (Pos. 2)
   • Rear Fan 1 (Pos. 19)
   • Node 304’s own fan speed switch at the rear, which has a Molex connector and three 2-pin breakout cables to which I could connect at least the front fans (constant speed, dumb and not adjusting to the actual heat I guess).
     
   • that mentioned 120 mm 4-pin rear fan (which I have currently connected to Pos. 19 and) which has a 4-pin pass through receptacle.
5. The USB 3 connector (Pos. 8), all SATA connectors, as well the Panel 1 connector bank (Pos. 11) w/ Power Switch, Power & HDD LED are totally clear to me. But what about all these other connectors and jumpers on the board? Do I simply ignore those? If so, no need to explain them in detail. Just tell me "ignore" or "set jumper to ..." (if change from default is needed).
   • SGPIO (Pos. 5)
   • Aux Panel Header (Pos. 16)
   • TPM Header (Pos. 17)
   • PSU SMBus (Pos. 18)
   • Thermal Sensor Header (Pos. 20)
   • Speaker Header (Pos. 21; I understand that the Node 304 doesn’t seem to have a speaker. The case’s front panel cable which connects to the headphone and microphone jack has 9 pins on 2 rows, whereas Pos. 21 has 4 pins in 1 row)
   • Non Maskable Interrupt Button (Pos. 22)
   • ME Recovery Jumper (Pos. 23)
   • Intelligent Platform Management Bus (Pos. 24)

Sorry again for the massive amount of questions. I'm trying to collect as much information as possible on the web, but some on some things I just need help. Please don’t bash me.

 

[Ericloewe]

1. Correct.
2. Tie it out of the way.
3. Graphics cards and little else (PCI-e cards that need more than 75W and a couple of non-standard applications).
4. Sure, try it out.
   • Use the CPU Fan header for the fan(s) that sits directly on the heatsink
   • Use the rest of the headers for the other PWM fans
   • If you have noisy non-PWM fans, connect them to the (ultra-dumb) chassis fan controller.
   • The Y-connector takes two PWM fans and connects them to a single header, but only one of them can have their speed monitored (the other one lacks the third pin). Both will be controlled.
5. Ignore the following:
   • SGPIO
   • TPM header
   • PSU SMBus (only for rackmounts and PSUs that support it)
   • IPMB
   • Non-maskable Interrupt button (is it a button?)
   • ME Recovery Jumper (only used for updating the ME)
   • Any miscellaneous jumpers
6. If possible, remove or stow away the following from the case:
   1. Firewire, eSATA and any other cables you won't be using on the server. Do connect as much USB as possible.
   2. HD Audio (no audio on this board)
7. If the case came with a small speaker, attach it to relevant header. Always observe correct polarity.
8. Connect the following things from the case:
   • Power and reset buttons (they're switches. polarity is irrelevant)
   • Power and HDD LEDs (Careful with the polarity!)

 

[erwinvr]

Maybe off topic, but..
Witch processor will be the cheapest option if i have an x10sl7-f, but i want to use with vmware and enable the vt-d to the lsi?

Few i5 has vt-d and ecc, i3 no ecc support.

Thanks!

 

[SweetAndLow]

Maybe off topic, but..
Witch processor will be the cheapest option if i have an x10sl7-f, but i want to use with vmware and enable the vt-d to the lsi?

Few i5 has vt-d and ecc, i3 no ecc support.

Thanks!

You are not able to use VMware on top of FreeNAS. You can use virtual box though. And for that you will probably want a Xeon since i5's don't sorry ecc and i3's do have ecc but might not be powerful enough. You are also going to want 32GB of memory if you want to use virtualization.

 

[jgreco]

It sounds like the poster meant wanting to run FreeNAS on top of a virtualization layer, which of course we don't recommend, but VT-d is the best way to do it if you must.