My intent is to run a FreeNAS 11 on a dedicated server, no virtualization.
So a dedicated server... So where I'm stuck is whether to get a used Supermicro X9 generation mobo and CPUs and RAM (heck, I'd buy the whole thing already built with the exceptions of the drives/adapter cards/additional NICs) versus whether to buy a brand new X11 motherboard with an E3 v6 processor and new or used DDR4 RAM. If I go the X11 route I'd still probably get a used 3u or 4u Supermicro case - I think.
I think I'll do the cost differences tonight but my impression as of now is that the used X9 route will give me more RAM (cheap DDR3 and the MB can take far more RAM than I'd ever install). The CPUs will have more cores but lower clockrates. IE - A dual proc E5-2xxx v1 will provide 16 cores. The additional cores will probably never be utilized by my FreeNAS box and the lower clockrate probably won't matter for my uses.
The X11 with single E3 v6 approach gives me a much newer part set, faster RAM, and faster single-threaded (higher clock, higher instructions per clock). But I'll be capped at 64GB RAM.
I'm leaning a bit towards the X9 with dual dual E5-2xxx v1 and DDR3 approach. It's nice that you can buy a system like this pre-built used and it's gonna "just work" versus that slight chance of getting something defective with new parts. I'm pretty comfortable troubleshooting hardware but this would be my only X11 system so I won't have spare CPUs or RAM or such to troubleshoot any problems that do come up.
My use cases will be:
- General NAS uses (many terabytes of media and such)
- Heavy torrenting which sometimes entails heavy read access when re-verifying data, etc.
- Periodic use in my software dev like SQL Server storage, etc.
- Maybe as a datastore for vsphere - though I may keep my vsphere box using local storage
I might play with volume encryption and dedup though I suspect I won't use either long-term.
Very few users but when I need to move terabytes of data I want it to go very fast. When torrent clients need to re-check multiple terabytes of data I want it to move fast. If I do use it as a SQL Server datastore I want that to be quick.
I'd probably start with 32GB of RAM if I go X11 and then watch the cache hit rates and such. But I'll never be able to do more than 64GB max. This makes me lean a bit towards X9 with dual E5 v1 where I can easily surpass 64GB RAM and the RAM is cheap.
Anyone else go through the used X9 E5 v1 versus new X11 E3 v6 decision process for a dedicated FreeNas box? Any regrets or additional perspectives you gained after you made your choice?
So a dedicated server... So where I'm stuck is whether to get a used Supermicro X9 generation mobo and CPUs and RAM (heck, I'd buy the whole thing already built with the exceptions of the drives/adapter cards/additional NICs) versus whether to buy a brand new X11 motherboard with an E3 v6 processor and new or used DDR4 RAM. If I go the X11 route I'd still probably get a used 3u or 4u Supermicro case - I think.
I think I'll do the cost differences tonight but my impression as of now is that the used X9 route will give me more RAM (cheap DDR3 and the MB can take far more RAM than I'd ever install). The CPUs will have more cores but lower clockrates. IE - A dual proc E5-2xxx v1 will provide 16 cores. The additional cores will probably never be utilized by my FreeNAS box and the lower clockrate probably won't matter for my uses.
The X11 with single E3 v6 approach gives me a much newer part set, faster RAM, and faster single-threaded (higher clock, higher instructions per clock). But I'll be capped at 64GB RAM.
I'm leaning a bit towards the X9 with dual dual E5-2xxx v1 and DDR3 approach. It's nice that you can buy a system like this pre-built used and it's gonna "just work" versus that slight chance of getting something defective with new parts. I'm pretty comfortable troubleshooting hardware but this would be my only X11 system so I won't have spare CPUs or RAM or such to troubleshoot any problems that do come up.
My use cases will be:
- General NAS uses (many terabytes of media and such)
- Heavy torrenting which sometimes entails heavy read access when re-verifying data, etc.
- Periodic use in my software dev like SQL Server storage, etc.
- Maybe as a datastore for vsphere - though I may keep my vsphere box using local storage
I might play with volume encryption and dedup though I suspect I won't use either long-term.
Very few users but when I need to move terabytes of data I want it to go very fast. When torrent clients need to re-check multiple terabytes of data I want it to move fast. If I do use it as a SQL Server datastore I want that to be quick.
I'd probably start with 32GB of RAM if I go X11 and then watch the cache hit rates and such. But I'll never be able to do more than 64GB max. This makes me lean a bit towards X9 with dual E5 v1 where I can easily surpass 64GB RAM and the RAM is cheap.
Anyone else go through the used X9 E5 v1 versus new X11 E3 v6 decision process for a dedicated FreeNas box? Any regrets or additional perspectives you gained after you made your choice?
