Thoughts on KGPE-D16-ASUS MOBO for FreeNAS

st2

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Apr 30, 2018
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4
Hey All,

I have a quick question- I have a KGPE-D16 Mobo with 2 AMD Opteron 6320 Processors and two (2) 16G of ECC Mem and planning on putting it together for my main FreeNAS build. This is mostly for storage which will be accessed by 4 people (for now). We mostly use AutoCAD and Revit.

I recently purchased the Norco 4220 case to be able to add drives as we grow.

  1. Is this configuration a good one or should I get something simpler?
  2. What SATA controller should I get to expand since this MOBO has 8 SAS/SATA port which only works with a PIKE controller
  3. Should I get a PCI Storage SATA expander? if so which one do you guys recommend?

Thanks
 

Chris Moore

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I have a KGPE-D16 Mobo with 2 AMD Opteron 6320
I recently purchased the Norco 4220 case
Is this configuration a good one or should I get something simpler?
You should have asked before you bought. No, it is not a good one. You might be able to use the case, even though it is not a great choice, but that system board and processors are too old and really need to go to eBay for someone else to deal with.
What SATA controller should I get
You should get a SAS HBA.
Should I get a PCI Storage SATA expander?
No. You will need a SAS expander to go with the SAS HBA.
The hot-swap backplane in that server looks like this:

1553009710075.png


and those connectors I circled in red are SFF-8087 Mini SAS connectors. You will need a cable like this from each of those five connectors to run back to the SAS expander:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2Pcs-Mini-...S-Data-Internal-Server-Cable-1M/202094506489?
Then you will need a SAS expander similar to this to connect all those cables to:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/PBA-E91267-203-INTEL-RAID-EXPANDER-STORAGE-CONTROLLER/282952532714
The Molex power connector on the top must not be used if you are also putting it in a card slot on the system board.
Then you will run another of the Mini-SAS cables from the SAS Expander to a SAS HBA like this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-H310-...0-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162834659601
All the drives in the hot-swap backplane will be data drives ONLY and the boot drives will connect to system board SATA ports.

Looking for more general suggestions on hardware:

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev. 1e) 2017-05-06
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

Hardware Recommendations by @cyberjock - from 26 Aug 2014 - and still valid
https://forums.freenas.org/threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

Proper Power Supply Sizing Guidance
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/don't-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy.48/

Building, Burn-In, and Testing your FreeNAS system
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/building-burn-in-and-testing-your-freenas-system.38/

Github repository for FreeNAS scripts, including disk burnin
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...for-freenas-scripts-including-disk-burnin.28/
 

st2

Cadet
Joined
Apr 30, 2018
Messages
4
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer. I will find something else to do with this motherboard.

I have another MOBO an ASUS M5A97 R2.0 motherboard do you think this will be a good one to use?
 

Chris Moore

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Messages
10,080
I have another MOBO an ASUS M5A97 R2.0 motherboard do you think this will be a good one to use?
That is not a good system board. Too many incompatibilities, from the integrated sound to the old school 32 bit PCI slots.

Edit:. I don't want you to feel like I am an AMD hater but they have a poor record of compatible hardware in FreeNAS. This board you have is equipped with an AMD controller for the SATA drives and a Realtek network interface. That is hardware that has caused trouble before, so it's best to avoid.

No, take a look at this hardware and think about saving up to buy something that is better suited to FreeNAS:

https://www.ixsystems.com/community...anges-to-upgrade-as-high-as-512gb-of-ram.110/
 
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