Not sure which motherboard to go with - X11SSL-F or the A2SDi-8C?

[SillyPosition]

I have two options on the table for my new nas, either I go with the SM X11SSL-F, its an LGA1151 socket 6th/7th gen, or I go for the Atom based a2sdi with 8cores, 2.2Ghz each with 16MB cache.
The goal for my nas build is to run about 10 different services (mail server, file server, couple of web servers for personal use etc), torrent client, and 1-2 lightweight linux VMs (2cores 2gb will be sufficient)
If I could run a windows 7 machine occassionaly for some windows tasks (like office tools etc) that would be awesome, but not mandatory

For the X11 board I will have to pick a CPU, either something very simple such as the G series with 2 cores, or I go for a much pricier Xeon E3 v5/6 that altogether will cost more than the Atom for sure, giving me a 4 cores with HT, lower cache (8MB) and HT (so # of threads is 8)
Im struggling to pick, on one hand the X11 with a cheap CPU (such as the dual cores G4500) are a cheaper option, but I dont know how well it perform, and with the atom Im worried about the general performance for my tasks due to the low clock speed.
I would appreciate your thoughts on this.
If to talk about RAM, The X11 board operates with UDIMMs, and I found such from Kingston that seems good enough. For the Atom board, RDIMM type, I found only the timetec samsung chip memory cards, which Im less familiar with as a brand. Is it ok?

 

[LimeCrusher]

The goal for my nas build is to run about 10 different services (mail server, file server, couple of web servers for personal use etc), torrent client, and 1-2 lightweight linux VMs (2cores 2gb will be sufficient)
If I could run a windows 7 machine occasionally for some windows tasks (like office tools etc) that would be awesome, but not mandatory

What you're describing seems actually like quite a workload. VMs will eat your RAM and you may need some CPU.
I have considered the Atom C3XXX for a build. I gave it up because I needed more CPU power to run a Plex server. I think they are great boards, but I would only do file sharing with them, maybe some torrenting and cloud services for my family but no more. No VMs, no web hosting.

For the X11 board I will have to pick a CPU, either something very simple such as the G series with 2 cores, or I go for a much pricier Xeon E3 v5/6 that altogether will cost more than the Atom for sure, giving me a 4 cores with HT, lower cache (8MB) and HT (so # of threads is 8)
Im struggling to pick, on one hand the X11 with a cheap CPU (such as the dual cores G4500) are a cheaper option, but I don't know how well it perform, and with the atom Im worried about the general performance for my tasks due to the low clock speed.
I would appreciate your thoughts on this.

Talking about $£€, here in Europe, I can't find the A2SDI-8C-HLN4F for less than 430€ VAT included. A X11SSL-F is 165€. That leaves you a lot of cash to pick up the CPU you want. I would personaly start with a cheap Pentium G. They are very capable CPU. Once I start hitting bottlenecks, I would consider upgrading the CPU to some Xeon.
Ultimately, those boards are just different. The Atom C boards have 12 SATA connectors. 12!!! On a Mini-ITX format! The X11SSL-F definitely offers you more flexibility. The Atom C boards are great if you want to build a NAS with a lot of disks just for file sharing for instance (super low power consumption). So you've figured out what you want to do exactly with your NAS, good. Try to evaluate the workload more precisely, your storage needs (# of disks), your RAM needs and try to translate that into a hardware solution.

 

[Antioch18]

You should read some of the Cxxxx reviews on servethehome to get a better idea. I'd say you might be able to get away with running what you want (minus the Win VM) depending on the perf you want from the linux VMs, and how much stress you'll put on the web servers.

 

[SillyPosition]

Ill read further about the Cxxxx series, thanks.
Everything I mentioned is for personal use, private cloud for family usage sort-of. nothing commercial or publicly available, so load isn't high.
Would you say that in general, minus the VMs, a G4500 should get the job done for couple of jails?
Would you say that in general, If I am to put a Xeon E3-12xx v5/v6, which is 4 cores but at a much higher clock rate, it will perform better than an 8core weaker clock rate Atom CPU?
Its hard to understand where the line is since on one hand I need multi core for quite a few services, but the downside is the clock rate.

 

[Constantin]

I'm a current user of the C2xxx series and I took a long hard look at the C3xxx offerings as well. For me, the C3xxx boards out there all share compromises that I believe will hamper their usefulness. For example, none of them to my knowledge offer a SAS controller, a m.2 slot at 4x, or multiple PCIe expansion slots at x8. What they do offer is slightly (but not dramatically) lower power consumption than the D-15xxx and a lot more cores. Thus, if you're going to serve multiple customers, the C3xxx series is a great low power option, though with the above caveats.

For SoHo use, I would take a look at the Super Micro X10SDV-2C-7TP4F. It only has two cores / 4 threads but retails for just $500, has a m.2 slot at x4 for future Optane SLOG installs (if desired), a LSI 16-channel SAS controller, Two 10GBe SFP+ ports built in, and two PCIe ports at x8. All with a CPU that has a 25W TDP and only marginally higher power consumption than the C3xxx series. I consider this board far more future-proof than the C3xxx series in a small SOHO environment that doesn't need transcoding.

They also make a smaller version with just one PCIe slot, other versions with built in copper 10GBe, etc. Have a look on the Supermicro site, there are a lot of boards to choose from. Figure out what you need and then go hunting among their offerings. If you're lucky, ServeTheHome or a similar reputable site will have reviewed it.

On the other hand, if you expect to do transcoding, VM, and other like activities that might require a powerful CPU, the X11 board is a better choice because the CPU is upgradeable. Power consumption is likely higher also, however. Sorry, no free lunch! Cheers!

 

[LimeCrusher]

For SoHo use, I would take a look at the Super Micro X10SDV-2C-7TP4F. It only has two cores / 4 threads but retails for just $500, has a m.2 slot at x4 for future Optane SLOG installs (if desired), a LSI 16-channel SAS controller, Two 10GBe SFP+ ports built in, and two PCIe ports at x8. All with a CPU that has a 25W TDP and only marginally higher power consumption than the C3xxx series. I consider this board far more future-proof than the C3xxx series in a small SOHO environment that doesn't need transcoding.

What a beautiful board! What a galore of SATA/SAS connectivity! Two PCIe x8 slots, a x4 M.2, two SFP+ ports and two Gbe LAN! All this in a FlexATX format! That's a lot! For information, it is sold here in Europe for 420€.
I want to attract your attention on the X10SDV-2C TLN2F, sold for 310€ here. It has less SATA connectors, only one 16x PCIe slot, only 6 SATA on-board but two 10Gbe LAN and it fits in a Mini-ITX format.
In a scenario where the goal would be to use a small Mini-ITX case (like the famous Fractal Design Node 304) with no plan to go beyond 6 disks, the builder could choose between that latter board and the Supermicro A2SDI-4C-HLN4F, that sells for 280€ here. I would probably go for the Xeon board if I was in this situation.

Interestingly, the Xeon D1508 is very similar to the Atom C3558: 2 cores and 4 threads versus 4 cores, both clocking at 2.2GHz. The Xeon D can Turbo Boost to 2.6GHz though. Passmark scores are about 3600 vs 2000.

 

[Constantin]

One advantage of the C3xxx and D-15xx series boards is that they usually accommodate 1-2 m.2 slots (though not at the same speed) and hence one of your your SATA slots does not have to get eaten by the SATADOM or SSD for the boot disk (booting from USB is possible but discouraged). The C2xxx series boards have no m.2 slots or 32GB of on-board flash memory like that C3xxx series Gigabyte unicorn.

For my use case, the D-15xx series makes more sense due to the additional PCIe lanes that the D-15xx series seems to have over the C3xxx series. Those extra lanes (or the iXFI bus) potentially allow the D-series to connect at high speed to many more types of cards, interfaces, etc. than the more cost-optimized implementations I've seen for the C3xxx series.

To me, the C3xxx motherboards on the market suggest that the CPU pricing between the low end of the D-15xx series and the C3xxxx series is not that different and thus OEMs like Supermicro, Tyan, Gigabyte, ASRock, etc. struggle to develop a lower cost board with the C3xxx series. At the retail level, boards based on these CPUs feature pretty similar prices. Yes, there are differentiators like core count, power requirements, and so on, but this sort of overlap strikes me odd as a end-consumer that usually sees "good, better, best" in the marketplace with attendant price clusters also.

 

[pro lamer]

OTOH are you considering a Xeon entry (Xeon e-21xx) capable motherboard? You can start with a cheap Pentium with an upgrade path up to ~16000 passmark in future... Or a core i3@8000 passmark...

Sent from my phone

 

[SillyPosition]

Thanks
I'll go for the X11SSH-F which is more available than the SSL I first mentioned, and will start with my pentium g4500 as I first mentioned. Worst case I'll upgrade to a xeon as everyone suggested.

 

[LimeCrusher]

Thanks
I'll go for the X11SSH-F which is more available than the SSL I first mentioned, and will start with my pentium g4500 as I first mentioned. Worst case I'll upgrade to a xeon as everyone suggested.

You might want to consider the X11SSM-F rather than the X11SSH-F if it is available. It should be slightly cheaper, same number of SATA, more PCIe slots but loses the M.2 connector (that is only x2).

For information, the Pentium G4400 should be more available than the G4500. Both are Skylake Pentiums though. Truth is: in my country right now the Kaby Lake Pentium G4560 is more widely available and cheaper than both Skylakes.