Newbie Build help request (hardware review)

[Lazarus]

Hello,

I am looking to build a freenas to replace an aging netgear readynas.

My thought was to build something I could also use as a plex server that could handle several transcodings at once, and possibly run a minecraft server off of as well.

Based on used parts I have found (and my understanding of the hardware guide) this is what I am currently looking at


Supermicro 4U System with 36x 3.5" Drive Caddies
X9DRi-LN4F+ Mother Board
2- Intel Xeon E5-2680 V1 Octo Core 2.7GHz
128GB DDR3
1 LSI 9211-8i


My original plan was for a 24 drive unit so I could load 12 drives now and have 12 slots for migrating the data to when I upgrade drives in the future. Thus avoiding the need to off load the data when upgrading. But I have not been able to find one used that I liked.

I have not yet decided on drives as I planed to get those new.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

 

[Spearfoot]

Hello,

I am looking to build a freenas to replace an aging netgear readynas.

My thought was to build something I could also use as a plex server that could handle several transcodings at once, and possibly run a minecraft server off of as well.

Based on used parts I have found (and my understanding of the hardware guide) this is what I am currently looking at


Supermicro 4U System with 36x 3.5" Drive Caddies
X9DRi-LN4F+ Mother Board
2- Intel Xeon E5-2680 V1 Octo Core 2.7GHz
128GB DDR3
1 LSI 9211-8i


My original plan was for a 24 drive unit so I could load 12 drives now and have 12 slots for migrating the data to when I upgrade drives in the future. Thus avoiding the need to off load the data when upgrading. But I have not been able to find one used that I liked.

I have not yet decided on drives as I planed to get those new.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

Funny, I've been server shopping on eBay, too. There are quite a few 36-bay Supermicro systems available, whereas 24-bay units are harder to find. I guess they're more popular.

I've been negotiating for a 24-bay X9DRi-LN4F+ 128GB system similar to this unit and from the same seller, based on the 846BA-R920B chassis. It has the direct-attached backplane and therefore uses three LSI 9210-8i cards, but that's okay with me; SAS2-compatible expander backplanes add ~$400-500 to the price. Plus, I'm building an all-in-one (FreeNAS VM running on VMware ESXi) and this setup allows me, if I wish, to pass two of the LSI cards through to the FreeNAS VM (for a maximum of 16 drives) and use the third card to boot ESXi from a pair of SSDs in a RAID1 array. This is similar to the way I've configured my X10SL7-based AIO (see 'my systems' below for details).

I don't like the Supermicro 36-bay units for two reasons:

1. I'll never use 36 drive bays. Heck, I'll probably never use 24 drive bays!
   
2. You have to use half-height cards, unlike most of Supermicro's 4U and 3U chassis, which support full-height cards. I have a full-height 10Gb NIC to install, and I may want to install one of my full-height Dell H200 HBAs at some point.

Another consideration is the power supply: my system has 2 of the 920W SQ 'Super Quiet' PSUs. We'll see how quiet they really are, but I know from experience that Supermicro power supplies can be, not just loud, but obnoxiously loud.

Regarding memory: I called the seller and asked about installing 8 x 16GB RAM sticks, instead of 16 x 8GB sticks. The motherboard has 24 DIMM slots and I didn't want to get stuck with a bunch of 'slot stuffer' RAM that I'd have to get rid of in the future, if I ever want to upgrade to an even more obscene amount of RAM. This will cost me a reasonable upcharge, but I think it's worth it for 'future proofing' purposes.

 

[Lazarus]

Thank you for the info. I have been trying to correctly size the system and would like to use it for more then just Freenas. Possibly even a few vms. In your opinion are two e5-2680v1s Enough horse power? should I be looking at more powerful processors?


I fully agree I do not need or want 36-drives. I was planing 24 mainly so I would have at least 12 slots free when I do a drive upgrade so as to make data migration easy.. just drop in the new drives set a new raid group and move the data before standing down the old raid group.

I did reached out to the person selling and he mentioned he had other equipment so I may be able to more exactly specify

What about :

SC846BA-R920B 24 Bay
X9DRi-LN4F+
2- Intel Xeon E5-2680 V1 Octo Core 2.7GHz
128GB DDR3 8 X 16GB sticks
1 LSI 9211-8i (or do I need more to provide cover all 24 drives?)

Though I have read the hardware guide and posts "explaining" LSI cards, Backplanes etc. I am still really confused about what is needed beyond "Get an LSI card and flash it to TI mode".

Any Advice/guidance?

 

[Spearfoot]

Thank you for the info. I have been trying to correctly size the system and would like to use it for more then just Freenas. Possibly even a few vms. In your opinion are two e5-2680v1s Enough horse power? should I be looking at more powerful processors?


I fully agree I do not need or want 36-drives. I was planing 24 mainly so I would have at least 12 slots free when I do a drive upgrade so as to make data migration easy.. just drop in the new drives set a new raid group and move the data before standing down the old raid group.

I did reached out to the person selling and he mentioned he had other equipment so I may be able to more exactly specify

What about :

SC846BA-R920B 24 Bay
X9DRi-LN4F+
2- Intel Xeon E5-2680 V1 Octo Core 2.7GHz
128GB DDR3 8 X 16GB sticks
1 LSI 9211-8i (or do I need more to provide cover all 24 drives?)

Though I have read the hardware guide and posts "explaining" LSI cards, Backplanes etc. I am still really confused about what is needed beyond "Get an LSI card and flash it to TI mode".

Any Advice/guidance?

The system you describe is nearly identical to the one I just bought!

With the backplane that comes in the SC846BA-R920B you will need 3 of the LSI 9210 or 9211 adapaters: 1 for each 8 drives. Each LSI board has two connections; each supports 4 drives. So in this case you will have 6 cables running from the 3 boards to the backplane. There are other configurations - expander backplanes - that can run all 24 drives from a single HBA card, but they cost more money and I've read of people having problems with SATA drives on expanders. YMMV.

The E5-2660 series CPUs are enterprise-class and are more than adequate to run quite a few virtual machines.

Check out servethehome.com - there are quite a few posters there who are familiar with Supermicro gear and a there's lot of information about Supermicro servers.

Good luck!

 

[Lazarus]

Thank you for the help.

So If I use the 3 LSI cards that will handle all 24 bays but could NOT uses SATA drives?

and might I ask where you bought yours and the cost?

 

[Spearfoot]

Thank you for the help.

So If I use the 3 LSI cards that will handle all 24 bays but could NOT uses SATA drives?

and might I ask where you bought yours and the cost?

Oh, no! You can use SATA drives with the LSI cards! Especially if the backplane is a direct-attached unit; the drives are directly connected to the LSI controller.

I've read about some people having problems with SATA drives connected to an expander backplane, which is different to what we're discussing. With an expander backplane, there's an expander chip that enables you to use all of the HBA's capabilities; a single LSI 9210/11 can actually support up to 256 drives when connected the right way.

Besides, who believes anything they read on the internet? Those tales may be apocryphal nonsense! :)

I bought my server directly from "The Server Store", the seller at the eBay listing I linked above. Reason being, I wanted different memory sticks and asked to make sure I got some dummy inserts to go in the empty drive bays, etc.

EDIT: Again, check out servethehome.com; there's quite a bit of useful information and commentary there.