X9SCM-F-O & ServeRAID M1015 VS X10SL7-F-O

[turdferguson6400]

Hi, I've been reading the forums for a while to plan my new FreeNAS 9.2.0 box. I searched for an answer to this question but didn't find any.

I haven't decided between two Z2 options: 10 3TB or 6 4TB drives. I'm going to use this NAS for general home storage such as videos, pics, etc. I'm planning to use a Pentium G or Core i3 processor with 16 GB ECC RAM. If I need more RAM, I can add another 16 GB later.

I read Cyberjock's awesome guide and was originally going to use the recommended X9SCM-F-O motherboard. It has 6 onboard SATA ports. If I need more ports, I can get a M1015 for about $100 on eBay. But I'm a little concerned about the M1015 card being so long that it might interfere with the onboard SATA ports, depending on which slot is used. Plus the hassle of reflashing to IT mode.

The X10SL7-F-O has 6 onboard SATA ports with an additional 8 SATA ports using a LSI 2308 chip.

I can get the X10 for about$70 more than the X9 board, about the same price as a M1015. I like the fact I can use standard SATA cables with the X10 instead of breakout cables.

Is there any disadvantage to using the onboard LSI ports vs. the M1015 board?

Would I have to do any BIOS flashing with the onboard 2308 chip like I would the M1015 card to get it to work with FreeNAS?

Thanks to everybody!

 

[HolyK]

Yes, you will need to flash onboard LSI controller on X10SL7 to IT mode too. The process is straightforward, just follow the procedure.

I am not aware about any disadvantage related to the controller. Maybe just the fact that the PCIe controller will eat a slightly more power than then onboard one...
I'm using X10SL7 with 6x3TB WD green connected to LSI and it's working flawlessly.

Anyway X10 is newest chipset so it's supporting latest generation of Intel CPUs, also X10SL7 has IPMI ... X9SCM does not have that.

 

[cyberjock]

If you go with the X10 board you'll still have to reflash the 2308 to IT mode. So nothing saved there.

As for the M1015 making SATA ports unavailable, the thought never crossed my mind when I setup my server. And while I can't open the case to look inside now, I don't think I ever considered it a potential problem. I'm using some of my motherboard ports and put my M1015 in the closest PCIe slot to the CPU.

 

[jgreco]

The X9SCM certainly does have IPMI. As with many Supermicro boards it is an option, so it is ALSO available without, sometimes for a few bucks less and taking a few watts less.

 

[HolyK]

Aha, you're right ... "X9SCM" is w/o IPMI and "X9SCM-F" is with IPMI.

 

[Sir.Robin]

For what it's worth:

Some people like the miniSAS breakoutcables.

I really liked that i could buy exactly the SATA cables that fit my build/case the best. Short cables with sideways 90 degree angle. :)

 

[turdferguson6400]

Thanks for the quick responses!

Since I know nothing about the M1015 cards, I figured it would be easier to flash the onboard 2308 versus flashing a M1015.

It doesn't seem that there will be any performance difference between the onboard 2308 and the M1015 so I'm leaning towards the X10SL7.

I'm planning to get 6 Seagate NAS 4TB drives. I've seen posts saying that Z1 is bad for 4TB drives. Is Z2 ok with 4TB drives or should I go with 3 TB drives instead?

Thanks.

 

[Sir.Robin]

First of all. you should not think "IF" a drive fails. It's "WHEN".
Second, the larger the disk, the longer a rebuild takes.

So, when a disk fails your raidz1 (same with raid 5) are no longer protected (your redundant array is no longer redundant until rebuild finishes). Wich means if another disk fails or starts behaving badly, you have a fubar array.
The longer the rebuild, the higher a risk your running.
With raidz2 you will still be protected after the first disk failure and under rebuild.

Offcourse, if you can afford to loose your data your'e free to choose whatever.

Raidz2 is highly recommended. So is backup nomatter what array u run.

 

[turdferguson6400]

I knew the reason that RAID 5 or Z1 wasn't recommended was because during the time the array was being rebuilt another drive might fail. Which is more likely during rebuild because of extra drive activity.

RAID 6 or Z2 is better because the chance of losing another drive during rebuild is much lower.

I guess I'm wondering if Z2 is good enough for the newer 4TB drives. Their larger capacity would mean longer rebuild times than a smaller drive. Does anybody else run Z2 with 4TB drives? Or do they run Z3?

Thanks for your response.

 

[jgreco]

I'm happy with 12 4TB drives (11 in Z3 plus a warm spare) plus an additional drive sitting in spare on the shelf. Our expectations of reliability may differ from a home user's though.

 

[JohnK]

I'm happy with 12 4TB drives (11 in Z3 plus a warm spare) plus an additional drive sitting in spare on the shelf. Our expectations of reliability may differ from a home user's though.

Home reliability expectations, when your wife is the main end user, is much higher than when in business. That is why I do both Z2 and backup Z3...

 

[Sir.Robin]

Haha!! Yah... I got threatened myself. better not loose those pics of mommys two golden ones :-o


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[memhog]

Thanks for the quick responses!

Since I know nothing about the M1015 cards, I figured it would be easier to flash the onboard 2308 versus flashing a M1015.

It doesn't seem that there will be any performance difference between the onboard 2308 and the M1015 so I'm leaning towards the X10SL7.

I'm planning to get 6 Seagate NAS 4TB drives. I've seen posts saying that Z1 is bad for 4TB drives. Is Z2 ok with 4TB drives or should I go with 3 TB drives instead?

Thanks.

I also have a question about performance comparisons of onboard SATA vs HBA.
(purely) My intuition says that the performance should be the same (onboard even
possibly offering better latency with same throughput).

However, I came across this post (MArch 2013) that helped me put a finer context to RAID levels
and performance numbers. It offered me relative speeds (yes our mileage WILL vary).
Look 80% of the way down he has a section "All SATA controllers are NOT created equal".

https://calomel.org/zfs_raid_speed_capacity.html

I was very surprised to see how poorly the SuperMicro X9SRE sata3 onboard fared and have since
been looking all over this site and the web to find a similar benchmark (confiming or reputing).
I am beginning to just hope that the newer chipsets (C222/224/226) in the X10 have fixed any
performance issues that MIGHT (I have no other confirmation) have been in the onboard X9(C602).

Then again, maybe I am just interpreting his results incorrectly?!?
This is only my second post so I hope I am addressing my question in the proper place.

 

[cyberjock]

Frankly, he provided no info on how he did that test. I have not noticed any difference in performance between onboard and RAIDs such as the M1015. Being that I look at people's benchmark numbers day-in-and-day-out I think I would have noticed the correlation after a while.

But, the reality is this. Once you've hit saturation speeds on your 1Gb NIC, who cares how much faster your pool goes. Seriously? You can do 10,000TB/sec but if you have a 1Gb LAN port, you're getting just 133MB/sec best case.

There's far more important things to worry about than one guy claiming a performance penalty on a single motherboard. I think it's very likely he forgot to turn in AHCI mode and the RAID card defaults to AHCI and can't be changed(or something else equally as stupid). I don't know, just one guy and his blog to me.

You should be more worried about getting good quality hardware than something like the SATA speeds. Really ;)

 

[no_connection]

From the blog linked:

TRIM is not used and not needed due to ZFS's copy on write drive leveling.

Is this true?

 

[jgreco]

From the blog linked:

Is this true?

No.