Advice for modest DIY NAS hardware

[florentrvr]

Hello,

I'm searching for the ideal hardware for my next home NAS, but no luck so far for motherboard+CPU.
I'm looking for a relatively modest setup, mainly focused on optimized power-usage but still supporting ECC and several SATA ports.

The usage will be:
- system: FreeNAS/ZFS
- zpool: 6x 6TB HDDs (raidz2) and probably metadata on 2 SSDs (mirror)
- storing: documents, photos, musique, videos
- and running some containers (nginx, bt, backup) but nothing very powerful or big VMs

I've listed precisely my criteria here:


Do you have any suggestion of motherboard + CPU that fits well those criteria ?
Thanks !!

 

[T_Minus]

I went with the 9100F + MIcroATX for my home DIY NAS as it supported ITX, super low power, very affordable, and ECC works.

The CPU isn't <35w but it's low power and idles low.. 15-20w is just a bit more than my HBA uses itself

I use 8x10TB and 2xSSD so my hDD + HBA use more power than the system itself

 

[florentrvr]

Hello T_Minus,
Which motherboard did you use with your 9100F ? Because, from what I saw, you need a server-grade chipset to have the ECC support and I appreciate any feedback on those

 

[T_Minus]

Hello T_Minus,
Which motherboard did you use with your 9100F ? Because, from what I saw, you need a server-grade chipset to have the ECC support and I appreciate any feedback on those

It's a SuperMicro motherboard I'll see if I can get model # for you today.
I want to say they were 180-220 when I got it a year or so ago and the CPU was $90 -- but I think prices have gone up down up down so I have no clue what they currently go for.

 

[TLN]

I got myself Asrock EPC612D4U-2T8R:
C612 Chip (Xeon E3-v3/4), DDR4-2133/2400, 2x10G interfaces, 8xSAS and all that integrated into mobo. Plus 3x slots that can do x8/x8/x8 if fully populated. Compact and silent with Noctua C14 cooler.

 

[RolloZ170]

Which motherboard did you use with your 9100F ?

chipset C242/C246
Supermicro X11SCx
ASUS P11C
ASRock E3C242/E3C246/C246 WSI
Fujitsu D3644-B
GIGABYTE C246(M)-WU4
Intel M10JNP2SB

 

[florentrvr]

After some comparison, I ordered a X11SCH-F motherboard, a (second-hand) i3 8100T and 16GB of DDR4 ECC. It's the best compromise for my requirements (I can't get all my ideal criteria at once obviously).
We'll see how all that work when everything is received and installed

Thanks you all for your responses !

 

[thimplicity]

I got myself Asrock EPC612D4U-2T8R:
C612 Chip (Xeon E3-v3/4), DDR4-2133/2400, 2x10G interfaces, 8xSAS and all that integrated into mobo. Plus 3x slots that can do x8/x8/x8 if fully populated. Compact and silent with Noctua C14 cooler.

This seems to fit to my CPU choice Xeon E5-2640v4. Where did you get it?

 

[TLN]

This seems to fit to my CPU choice Xeon E5-2640v4. Where did you get it?

I got one long time ago on Amazon, and just got another one in custom-build server on ebay.
There's EPC621D6U-2T16R (C621 Chipset, 6x DDR4, 2x10G and 16xSAS/SATA), but it's pretty expensive ($900) with CPUs that cost more.