TrueNAS Motherboard/CPU combo suggestions?

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seanherron

New Member
Nov 8, 2020
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I’m upgrading my TrueNAS machine and looking for recommendations of a motherboard/CPU combo. This machine will run Proxmox as the hypervisor with TrueNAS as the only VM, serving up VM images and storage to my Proxmox cluster over a directly connected 10gb fiber link and with a disk controller directly passed via PCIe. A few requirements I have:

- Either vPro or IPMI
- Support for 64gb DDR3/4 ECC
- At least 3x PCIe slots (one for 2x SFP+ network adapter, one for disk controller, one for future expansion)
- Ideally dual M2 slots for mirrored boot drives, but I could go SATA for this if needed
- Power efficient
- noise is a concern
- Less than $400 for mobo/cpu combo
- will run TrueNAS with 4x 16TB HDD and 3x SSDs plus a SSD for l2arc

Any suggestions for good hardware to look for on eBay/hardware swap?
 
Last edited:

itronin

Well-Known Member
Nov 24, 2018
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Denver, Colorado
I would like to have my DDR3 cake and eat it too.

Am familiar with intel so will go forth with that. I tried to call out my assumptions which may not be valid.

64GB DDR3 ECC - this will create a bit of a challenge with everything else you want.
For example, you have x16 pcie lane consumption just with the SFP+ NIC and any reasonable HBA. Add in 2 x4 for m.2 (assuming nvme) gets you to 24. If you find a motherboard with multiple x4 electrical in x8 then you can try and get away with fewer lanes but sacrifice performance if you can find a board with the slots (older SM or Tyan maybe.)

Basically means you are looking at E5-x6xx v1/v2 (40 lanes). Generally not considered power efficient. You will find IPMI but not vPro. i3/e3 etc with DDR3 will max at 32GB unbuffered only so not a consideration which means you are looking at registered. There are some bybrid boards that support DDR3 and select E5-26xx v3 cpus I guess but those tend to be cheap asian chip scrapped boards and without IPMI (or vPro).

m.2 didn't really start appearing on MB's until cpu gens with DDR4+ (exclude cheap asian chip scrapped boards which are more consumer oriented anyway) so some challenges there like more slots and finding solid bifurcation for low cost dual m.2 carrier boards.

ZFS likes memory - consider more memory rather than burning an SSD for L2ARC. Do consider SLOG (if your workload is consistent with sync enabled, vm's via NFS generally are) and m.2 would be a good choice (inexpensive - see P1600X deals in STH thread).

If TNC (TNS sharing performance - ick) is the only VM why not run it baremetal? Lower sizing requirement for your boot devices and typically only see use during boot. used enterprise low cap sata ssd's are cost effective for this use case.

Most things can be made quiet but power efficiency more consistent with newer kit. DDR3 is not newer kit.
Power efficient? or do you have an idle consumption number in mind?

Rackmount or tower chassis?

there are hyperscaler complete systems that have been posted of late but you probably won't get the m.2 you are looking for.

Best I can come up with for your requirements in the intel arena will be an X9SRL-F and choose a cpu with the power consumption you want to see. Even then you are probably looking at 100-125w idle with what you have listed.

Get rid of the DDR3 requirement and a lot more choices open up.

- Either vPro or IPMI
- Support for 64gb DDR3 ECC
- At least 3x PCIe slots (one for 2x SFP+ network adapter, one for disk controller, one for future expansion)
- Ideally dual M2 slots for mirrored boot drives, but I could go SATA for this if needed
- Power efficient
- noise is a concern
- Less than $400 for mobo/cpu combo
- will run TrueNAS with 4x 16TB HDD and 3x SSDs plus a SSD for l2arc

Any suggestions for good hardware to look for on eBay/hardware swap?
 

seanherron

New Member
Nov 8, 2020
3
1
3
Wow, thanks for the detailed response! If I do change out the memory to DDR4 is there an obvious choice you would point me towards instead?

re:running in a VM, it’s mostly for ease of snapshotting and not having to muck with ipmi for most console needs.
 

nexox

Active Member
May 3, 2023
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Best I can come up with for your requirements in the intel arena will be an X9SRL-F and choose a cpu with the power consumption you want to see. Even then you are probably looking at 100-125w idle with what you have listed.
My experience with that kind of system suggests a lower idle power consumption than that, my fileserver with an X9SRI-F, E5-2640v2, 2x16GB rdimms, Solarflare S7120, HP H241, a couple SATA SSDs, and a $25 PSU idles under 60W. My desktop has an e5-2690v2 and more components, haven't put an accurate meter on it but my UPS says it's under 80W idle.
 
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