Transplanting HP Z400 motherboard vs. getting a Supermicro board

[file_haver]

I have never owned a supermicro board or a proper server class motherboard like that. I have a HP Z400 i was going to repurpose for freeNAS since my current PC it runs on is not very good at all. The problem with the z400 is i remembered although it has 6 SATA connectors on the motherboard the case only holds 2 drives.

I am considering putting the z400 motherboard in a different case with more drive mounts, I was worried it would be impossible due to the z400 mobo probably being a non atx size but it seems to be a possibility: https://youtu.be/OstxW_YOafQ

Considering i already own the z400 which i paid $40 for, does anyone think i'd be better served in the long run by buying a X10SLM-F on ebay for $65 shipped and basing my system on that? I see it's a popular board around here, but not sure if there's enough reason to invest in the supermicro since i would need a cpu and ram for it still.

 

[Chris Moore]

No. The HP board is custom shape, not a standard shape like ATX or E-ATX. You would be better off with a Supermicro board like this one:

CASE: Fractal-Design-Define-R5-FD-CA-DEF-R5-BK-Black-Silent-ATX-Midtower-Computer-Case - - US $89.24
https://www.ebay.com/itm/253026336681

POWER: Corsair-Certified-CS-M-Series-CS650M-650W-80-Plus-Gold-Active-PFC-Modular-Power - - US $64.99
https://www.ebay.com/itm/382130407495

These are older components, but still very powerful.
I use similar components in both my 48 bay primary NAS and in my 24 bay backup NAS that runs ESXi with FreeNAS in a VM.

This one comes with a CPU and fan, but it is really slow, so probably want to replace it:

System Board: Supermicro X9SRL-F Motherboard LGA2011 System Board w/Intel E5-2650L 0 @ 1.80GHz - - US $174.99
https://www.ebay.com/itm/132762499937

Nothing included with this one, so the price is lower, but an option:

Supermicro X9SRL-F Motherboard Socket LGA2011 System Board w/ I/O Shield - - US $161.49
https://www.ebay.com/itm/401593992194

Memory: SAMSUNG 16GB PC3L-12800R DDR3-1600 ECC Registered 1.35V RDIMM - - US $44.95
https://www.ebay.com/itm/302606459277

Note: You could go for the 32GB memory modules, but they are more than twice the price.

If the board above doesn't come with a cooler, or you want a better one, I use this model on two of my systems.
It is only slightly louder than the Noctua cooler I have on my wife's desktop PC.

CPU Fan: Dynatron R27 Side Fan CPU Cooler 3U for Intel Socket LGA2011 (Narrow ILM) - - US $39.59
https://www.ebay.com/itm/401284811045

The CPU that comes in the board above is pretty low speed, so you might find that you need a better one.
You have a lot of options for CPUs to go in this board, but I recently bought one of these for myself:

PassMark score of 13073... If you are wondering... This is the model I use for the NAS I run Plex in.

CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2650 V2 2.6GHz 8 Core 20MB 8GT/s SR1A8 LGA2011 ( Ivy Bridge ) Processor - - US $89.97
https://www.ebay.com/itm/142937685210

Only it was $30 more when I bought it... It works great. Plenty of resources for all the things I am doing.

If you want more, you can get a 10 core model like this:

Intel Xeon E5-2680 v2 Ten Core 2.8GHz 25MB CPU PROCESSOR LGA2011 SR1A6 - - Price: US $189.99
PassMark score of 15796... If you are wondering...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/192637399687

For the drive controller, I would suggest a SAS controller, just to get all the drives on a single controller. It works better that way. One SAS controller like this can run up to 256 drives by use of expander controllers. We can talk more about that when you need more drives but this will get you to eight drives to start.

Drive Controller: SAS PCI-E 3.0 HBA LSI 9207-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID - - US $69.55
https://www.ebay.com/itm/162862201664

Drive Cables: Mini SAS to 4-SATA SFF-8087 Multi-Lane Forward Breakout Internal Cable - - US $12.99
https://www.ebay.com/itm/371681252206

I would suggest one of these SSDs for the boot drive.
These are used data-center drives, but as a boot drive in FreeNAS, it should last as long as the server, if not longer:

Boot drive: Intel SSD DC S3500 Series 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s, 20nm, MLC 80GB - - US $29.99
https://www.ebay.com/itm/273102509397

Thermal Compound: Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Paste Grease Conductive Compound for CPU/GPU - US $6.95
https://www.ebay.com/itm/302624513215

Just rough math in my head, I think that is all around $650.... Still, you might need some odd bits, and hard drives, but it should be simple to get there from here and this should save you a buck or two vs buying new and still do the job for years to come.


SAS Expander: IBM (46m0997) ServeRAID Expansion Adapter 16-port SAS Expander - - US $15.88
https://www.ebay.com/itm/192326557905

SAS interconnect: Mini SAS SFF-8087 to Mini SAS SFF-8087 - - US $3.49
https://www.ebay.com/itm/183129085895

 

[file_haver]

Thank you so much for that comprehensive list!!

OK, i'll ditch the idea of keeping it on the HP board and go for a Supermicro. I was about to expand the HP with a SAS controller, so thanks for recommending I start off by putting them all on a controller to begin with. :)

 

[Chris Moore]

but it seems to be a possibility:

If you want to throw down with a hacksaw...