Why such a high powered CPU?

[JimPhreak]

I see most of the FreeNAS vets in here recommending Xeon processors. My question is, what are you guys using your FreeNAS boxes for that you require such high powered CPUs for your NAS? I'm not being skeptical either here I'm genuinely interested in all the different uses one might have for their FreeNAS box that I might not have considered.

 

[sapper]

I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to xeon processors, but from what I do know, they aren't about sheer power. A lot of the i5 and i7 processes are just as powerful, if not more than a xeon. The advantage a Xeon has is the ability to use ECC memory which is a huge advantage when it comes to detecting errors in data passed to the system memory. They are also designed to run 24/7 for years. The desktop grade i5 and i7's dot support ECC and weren't designed to be running 24/7.

 

[HolyK]

Well, depends what features are you planning to use - how much horse power will you need. Also depends if you are care how much power will the CPU eat or not, if you want ECC or not or if you want AES-NI support ... or not ^^

Not only Xeon CPUs are supporting ECC. There are plenty CPUs supporting ECC.
From the last 4th gen Haswell CPUs there is 4340, 4130, 4330T, 4130T which aren't Xeons, supporting ECC, AES-NI and have lower maxTDP ... well, they also have less cores, but if the CIFS is your main need then you don't need trillion slow CPU cores but one (two) CPU(s) with a power of the bull since Samba is single-threaded :]

And about the life of the CPU ... i don't think that none-Xeon CPU will die so much earlier than Xeon, and if yes, then where is the difference in case i really don't need that much cores? If i buy i3 for $150 which might die in two years or Xeon for $750 which might die in 10 years? The price/year is the same but if the i3 die, i will buy a new one again for $150 but with new architecture. But in case of the Xeon, it will get old before year10 :D ... Numbers/prices are there just to outline the question :]

 

[JimPhreak]

I will only be using my NAS to share files between a few physical computers and media streaming (media server will be on a separate machine). I may store some VMs on it that will be used for Vmware with high availability but that's as far as I'm going to go with this NAS.

 

[jgreco]

The real issues are:

1) ZFS is a big fat pig
2) FreeNAS was written with that in mind ... the way you write code is different if you know you're writing for a small platform than a big one
3) ECC is a nonoptional part of the ZFS protection strategy
4) Server grade boards are generally the best shot at acquiring a competent ECC implementation (logging etc)
5) Server grade boards typically have server grade Ethernets built in
6) Server grade boards typically omit superfluous crap like unnecessary high end video options
7) Server grade boards often sport other useful features
8) Server grade boards often only support Xeon (whether in practice or only on paper)

From a higher level point of view:

9) ZFS has features like compression that can eat CPU, making the typical "cheapest-ass i3 CPU I can find" a poor choice of CPU
10) When you're spending potentially thousands of dollars on drives, chassis, etc., the incremental cost of the "right" CPU is minimal. Unless you're buying an E5-2697v2. Haha.

From a Xeon-vs-non-Xeon point of view:

Mostly the Xeons are designed to turbo a little less aggressively, which may help with longevity. "If it dies" is the wrong attitude. You want to build a system so it doesn't have a reasonable opportunity or reason to die. That means no overclocking. That means being conservative and a little paranoid. But really you can probably put an ECC-capable i3 on a nice Supermicro board and be perfectly fine, as long as you understand the tradeoffs.