Help with building a upgradeable, affordable system

[hayer]

Hi,

so I've been lurking around here for a couple of weeks now.. And for 2 years now I've been thinking of buying a file-server. The problem is that I don't want to spend too much,.. But not to little either.

So I've decided to go with a;

I&S EYE4808BK, 4U -- about 200$
6x WD Red 3TB -- about 1,045$
IBM ServeRAID M1015 -- about 100$

And that is all. I'm to "scared" to pick out motherboard, CPU, and RAM.

The only requirements I have is; Have to be ECC RAM, at least 16GB -- I'm aiming for 32GB. But I want to be able to upgrade to 64GB later(Since the case fits 6 more drives).
And when it comes to CPU, if I am correct, I should get a dual-core with as much speed as possible?
The server is only going to be used as a file server. I've got another PC to handle Plex-streaming to phone, etc. Concurrent users will at a maximum be 4 users.
And it has to be able to fit a dual Intel card - one of these with 2 ports, so I at least can get a 2GBit connection to the file-server.

I live in Norway, so buying stuff on eBay can become very expensive some times as I have to pay 25% of the value. So the price is about; (product + transport) * 1.25

 

[hayer]

Okey, so I tried to 'throw' something togheter last night. It only supports 32gb memory, but I can live with that. If I expand with 6 more drives later I guess I can afford another upgrade of the mb, cpu and memory too.

1x IBM ServerRAID M1015
1x Corsair TX650 v2 650w
1x Intel Core i3 2130 3,4GHz, S1155
4x Kingston ValueRAM TS DDR3 PC10600/1333MHz, Non-Buffered, ECC, Registered
1x Asus P8B-X
1x I&S EYE-4808 4U

Not yet found any HDD-cages..

How does this look?


Edit:

2nd setup - used hardware.
Just got a offer to buy

1x Supermicro H8DAE-2
2x AMD Opteron 2382 Phenom II 2.6GHz
8x HP DDR2 667MHz ECC RAM 2GB (total of 16GB)

for about 275$ ... How does that sound to you guys? I would still have to get the IBM ServerRAID, the chassis, and the PSU.

 

[jgreco]

Ok, help is available, maybe not exactly what you hoped for though.

1) Define "affordable" correctly. Go take a look at what a Netgear ReadyDATA 5200 costs. Go look at what any of the other commercial 6-bay offerings cost (and they're not expandable).

2) I don't think that the i3's support ECC.

3) The ASUS board is very pricey, and is a supposedly server-grade board made by a desktop manufacturer. But it does sport a nice Intel ethernet offering. See below.

4) By the time you end up adding decent HDD cages to the chassis, you might have been better off spending money on a decent rackmount storage chassis. See if you can find something like a SuperChassis 826TQ-R800LPB (probably only a good idea if you pick a Supermicro board) or one of the less expensive Norco options.

5) There's already a fairly ideal set of suggestions in the forum, see this. You probably don't need more than 32GB for light- to moderate-duty fileserver duties.

 

[hayer]

1) Affordable atm means a system for about 2150$ - is that realistic?

2) That is correct :o

3) The Supermicro X9SCM-F costs about 270$..

4) The 826TQ-R800LPB with a 800w PSU costs me about 1330$ - so it is kinda expensive for a chassis for a home server. Atleast thats my opinion.

5) I've read that thread - its like 2 suggestions for MB, 1 for CPU.. Kinda missing more of a "These works best with FreeNAS"

 

[jgreco]

1) I don't know your local currency rates or prices for gear. Around here, the X9SCM goes for about $154USD. The rest... well, see below.

2) Ok, you initially said ECC as a requirement.

3) Ok, but around here the X9SCM is $154USD and the P8B-X is $208USD and both LAN ports are 82574L, which is a bit inferior to the Supermicro 82579LM/82574L setup. The P8B-X does have 6x SATA3 ports going for it, but that makes no difference with hard drives.

4) Around here the 826TQ runs $738. What you get: a well-built product that integrates cleanly with most Supermicro boards, plus selection of accessories that also integrate cleanly. No need to guess at heatsinks, etc. Very nice drive trays, etc. Redundant power supplies that you probably don't need, but boy is it nice when one fails.

Now I don't know how much that EYE-4808 costs, but let's say it's $100USD. Your typical SATA 3-in-2 cage runs around $80. You'll need two to hold six drives, and for all twelve drives, four of them. So that's $320USD. A decent power supply will run you another $100USD. You've just spent $520USD to hack together a solution that's cheaper than the Supermicro. But there's a lot of plastic in there, plus the frustration of assembling it (and what-if-it-doesn't-fit-right), etc.

5) Yes, because so far, no one has come up with a compellingly better suggestion. From what I can tell, the Supermicro boards are similarly priced, or, often, cheaper than most of the "server-y" boards offered by mass market manufacturers such as ASUS. I feel comfortable recommending them, for many reasons, including the fact that I can get responses from Supermicro support from people who know that a "server" isn't the guy who brings you food in a restaurant. The Supermicro boards implement obscure features like VT-d correctly, so if you decide to re-task the board later as a different kind of server, you're good to go. They report ECC issues correctly. They sport Intel ethernets, generally dual, sometimes quad, a few 10GbE. Each processor family comes in multiple form factors and variants.

So you want another suggestion? The Intel S1200BTLR is a decent board. Too bad it's $50 more than a similar Supermicro, and doesn't support VT-d or some of the other stuff Supermicro does.

The sad fact is that the PC enthusiasts that come to this forum, having built a few PC's over the years, generally have a favored vendor, and they come here trying to make that vendor's parts fit FreeNAS. But prosumer boards, while they are very likely to work with FreeNAS, are rarely the best choice. Generally respected PC vendors like Gigabyte, ASUS, etc., make great boards to stick in your PC, but for a server, you want things like PCIe slots that aren't "restricted to video card use", support ECC with reporting, and have Intel (not Realtek!) ethernet ports. I also want to see inexpensive and stuff like VT-d supported.

 

[paleoN]

5) I've read that thread - its like 2 suggestions for MB, 1 for CPU.. Kinda missing more of a "These works best with FreeNAS"

We've been having great luck with Supermicro's X9S lineup of 1155 boards, but Tyan, HP, IBM, Dell, and others make usable hardware too. Unsure if it's a server board? Good server boards typically lack audio ports.

I counted 2 CPUs ;) and that's 5 brands of motherboards right there.

 

[jgreco]

Yes, but it wasn't a broad endorsement of all the boards made by any of these companies (even Supermicro).

The Supermicro stuff, in general, is unusually focused on the server market. They don't make consumer PC's, however they do make "workstations" which are high-end Xeon-based desktops. I do suspect that most of their business is gear that ends up in datacenters, however, and as such, there is a tendency for the stuff to "just work" more readily for a server build than some of the other mfrs.