FreeNAS motherboard & CPU help!

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

Stevenson

New Member
Feb 3, 2018
16
0
1
43
8 drives will allow a large amount of boards in smaller sizes to be used including mATX which allows smaller cases ;)

So next question is - Expansion capabilities.
Do you want/need 10GBe or multiple (more than 2) 1 GBE NICs ? If you have only 2 concurrent users 2 x 1GBe should suffice
More drives in the future? Or will you replace with larger ones if you need more space?

How many VMs do you want to run? What kind of VMs? -> 64 Gigs should be fine if you only have 1 or two smaller VMs
That will allow to pick any recent Intel generation (including E3 v5/6, limited to 64)
If you need more (->128) that still leaves XeonD or C3000, even more (->256) C3000 or Xeon E5
1 GBE is enough. no more drives - replace with higher capacity if storage requirements go up (don't see that for next 3 years for sure)

VMS - 2 windows and 2 Linux servers along with plex - 2 streams max.
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
6,626
1,767
113
Any modern Intel CPU will support AES-NI and VT-D
Any ECC capable board will have IPMI (or an option to add it)
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
6,626
1,767
113
Ok, the 4 vms run at the same time 24/7?
What services are you running?
The reason for the question is how many cores/threads will be needed to run at the same time, i.e. are 4 cores/8 threads enough or not;)
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
6,626
1,767
113
I use this case to provide an alternative to the R5, totally depends on look & feel though, both are very good cases imho

lol forgot the link
Node 804
 
Last edited:

Stevenson

New Member
Feb 3, 2018
16
0
1
43
yes Sir - VMs will be running 24/7 I will be running an AD and DHCP (labs for studying) and linux machines for testing etc...
 

K D

Well-Known Member
Dec 24, 2016
1,439
320
83
30041
Here's a quick run down on what VMs I run in my "production" home server. As you can see I have provisioned less than half of the available 64gb ram. And actual utilization is lesser. The host OS is esxi 6.5.

Omnios + Napp-it - 2 cores 16gb
Plex 1 (Linux) -4 cores 2 gb
jump box (windows 10) - 2 cores 4 gb
DNs and dhcp (server 2016 core) -1 core 2 gb
Pihole(Linux) - 1 core 1 gb
Git (Linux) - 1 core 1 gb
Usenet access (Linux) - 2 cores 1gb
Unifi controller (Linux) - 1 core 1 gb
Mysql (Linux) -2 cores 2gb
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
6,626
1,767
113
How does your cpu wait time look like? Quite heavily overcommitted;)
 

K D

Well-Known Member
Dec 24, 2016
1,439
320
83
30041
How does your cpu wait time look like? Quite heavily overcommitted;)
That's why I love esxi.

All of these are extremely low usage vms. Only heavy ones are plex, Usenet and storage and plex uses h/w transcoding . I've not had cpu contention issues so far so never had to check.
 

K D

Well-Known Member
Dec 24, 2016
1,439
320
83
30041
I just had to check after you asked :). Saw that I had moved my vcenter also on to this host before I had left on vacation.

Here's the CPU util for the past 3 days.
2018-02-04 08_43_03-vSphere Web Client.png

and esxtop
2018-02-04 08_48_56-172.16.10.51 - PuTTY.png
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
6,626
1,767
113
Actually had to look that up again (VMware Knowledge Base)

Examine the %READY field for the percentage of time that the virtual machine was ready but could not be scheduled to run on a physical CPU.

Under normal operating conditions, this value should remain under 5%. If the ready time values are high on the virtual machines that experience bad performance, then check for CPU limiting:
So looks like you are fine (as expected) :)
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
6,626
1,767
113
Noctua should come with a patch of thermal paste
"Noctua’s proven NT-H1 thermal compound and full 6 years manufacturer’s warranty, the NH-D15 forms a complete premium quality solution that represents a deluxe choice for overclockers and silent-enthusiasts alike."
NH-D15

Why 4TB drives?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Stevenson

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
6,626
1,767
113
You going to use USB for boot drive? Then you might need a drive or two

Or the board @K D recommended if you want SATA (due to 8 drive sata limit), his board has extra SAS HBA for your 8 drives providing then option to use ESX later if you would want to and pass through tha onboard HBA

O/c you can also get a HBA with the SSH-F
 

Stevenson

New Member
Feb 3, 2018
16
0
1
43
felt 4TB gives more $/tb value according to some forum posts...

I would like to use SATA DOM - so I was going to ask you if you can suggest an expansion board to accomodate two more drives. I can use the two orange colored SATA DOM slots (oh wow I talk like a pro - LOL - ...hehe - i read the manual) and then use the two from the expansion board to use the remaining two drives...

if not, any problems using USB? I could only find one USB onboard port - I thought these server boards have two for mirrored boot drives...

I heard USB boot is slow and upgrade is also true....

is it worth spending money on SATA DOM or better to use USB?
 

K D

Well-Known Member
Dec 24, 2016
1,439
320
83
30041

  • Motherboard - I recommend X11SSH-CTF (Onboard HBA and 10GB)
  • The E3 retail box comes with a stock intel cooler. You may want to try that and if you dont like get the noctua. May save a few bucks. You wont notice the intel cooler's noise inside the fractal design case.
  • Go with 4x 8TB reds (Bestbuy still has the shuckable ones for $160)
  • Again purely from a budget perspective - Start with 2 sticks of RAM and then add 2 more if it is not enough.
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
6,626
1,767
113
USB has endless options
-Use the 1 internal USB-A and an external one
-get an adapter from internal pin USB3 bridge to 2 USB -A ports
-use 2 external ones

etc

SATA-DOM - not worth it in my opinion if you have space in your case/chassis to position another drive (ie 2.5")
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
6,626
1,767
113
  • Motherboard - I recommend X11SSH-CTF (Onboard HBA and 10GB)
  • The E3 retail box comes with a stock intel cooler. You may want to try that and if you dont like get the noctua. May save a few bucks. You wont notice the intel cooler's noise inside the fractal design case.
  • Go with 4x 8TB reds (Bestbuy still has the shuckable ones for $160)
  • Again purely from a budget perspective - Start with 2 sticks of RAM and then add 2 more if it is not enough.
Without any 10G client ?;) Yes its future proof but ...
The SAS HBA onboard might be good to get the 2 slots for mirror'ed boot drive (and maybe a cache drive later)

Re drives - have you thought about pool layout already? Mirror Or Z-2/3 ?