None of the 8TB disks in the WD EasyStores are SMR. Not sure where you got that from.
I’ve got 8 white-label shucked drives.
They are white-label reds or enterprise disks.
@Airstripone, so I am basically tossing a coin here. As for HBA, if I search “lsi hba card” on eBay, what should I be looking for? I see tons of unbranded cards from China, is there anything amongst those worth looking at (I am mostly interested where legit offers start, $30, $40?
@SgtAwesomesauce, you are right, some time ago I was digging through an unending amount of reddit threads looking for such information, but it seems 8TB+ models should still be white-labeled REDs, however there are strange information around new RED “EFAX” models, where it seems lower capacity models already have both, PMR and SMR versions (SMR being those models with 256MB of cache)
but probably the 8TB models are still PMR, or maybe not…they should be direct about this, this feels sometimes more like a ghost hunting.
I tend to have more luck just searching for sas controllers as you get more used listing and rebranded LSI controllers, like a Dell PERC. The last ones I got were Toshiba branded but same chipset. Do your research as there is usually extensive documentation for “good” brands. Anything you can’t find a data sheet for should be avoided. A quick search on eBay shows a lot of HP and Adaptec branded cards. Avoid these as driver support is less optimal. Dell seem to be looked on kindly for ease of flashing the bios to IT mode.
I don’t live in the US but a reasonable used card price for a 2port 6Gbps HBA would be the equivalent of $40 here, so if you see new ones listed for less than that… avoid. Also avoid anything where it is just a photo of a card in a plastic tray.
If you are less fussed about peak performance an older 3Gbps card can be hard for $10 or so. Good way to get started cheap, test the rest of your setup then upgrade to a faster HBA when you find one.
If I may to iterate on the topic, I am actually just MB+CPU+RAM away from building the NAS, however last three Xeon 1240L v5 offers (2x eBay, 1x Aliexpress, all from Chinatastic sellers) didn’t go through, all were “out of stock”.
And in general it still seems not a good idea to buy those from China (e.g. different SKUs with a replaced IHS etc.), so here I am again, is there something you would recommend me to focus on instead?
Bin hunting old Xeon back from v2 gen or so from US/EU sellers on eBay (absolutely no idea what to look for)?
Buying a very expensive board with an embedded CPU such as X11SDV-4C-TP8F with both 10GbE+HBA?
Maybe yolo it with Ryzen? HW might be less of an issue, whether
- I would go with a consumer board which supports ECC (maybe I would fine some good with B450 chipset and at least Intel 1Gbit to have a connection to the rest of LAN) , I can much easier find one with a quality VRM,
+++ 10GbE NIC whether some Intel X540-based ones (I see them for around $100 on eBay (US/EU) or taking a risk with a similarly priced Asus XG-C100F with Aquantia which would not be a problem with Linux (there is an un-official driver for FBSD as well)
+++ HBA from eBay (US/EU), I see currently some Dell H200 pre-flashed to IT mode for around $60 - Or I would go with one of Asrock Rack boards, they have three models for AM4, all look good, pricing varies, but it could end up being cheaper (with an extra HBA card as above) than that Supermicro board I was planning originally, but man oh man oh man, those are absolutely lacking here in EU, I will try to contact both manufacturer and Scan in UK as they seem to be only ones who have them at least listed.
And whether Ryzen R5 1600 AF (=2600), 2600 or 3600, I would decide by the price, 3600 went down on price nicely as well.
I am trying to dig up some updates on a current experience with Ryzen and FreeNAS, but I may need to consider alternatives. Linux-based OS could be the better match for this HW, but what in such case, Proxmox? OMV (less painful addition of ZFS)? Unraid (more painful addition of ZFS)? One thing I know I want to do is ZFS, preferably via GUI, as I mentioned at the beginning I have absolutely no problem working in CLI, but I also like an ease of GUI.
Any reason to go for the L CPUs? In my experience they are usually overpriced and don’t exactly save you enough on modern architectures to be worth it.
Hell, even on my ancient LGA771 dual CPU system going from an E5335 to an L5410 only saved ~32Watt accross two CPUs, so ~16Watt/CPU. Which is really nothing on a system that sucks down over 300Watt at idle…
I mean, my pfSense box (E3-1240 v2) pulls <50Watt from the wall. Saving a few Watts off of that isn’t worth the premium the L’s tend to command, at least in my experience (not even at the expensive EU electricity prices we have over here).
Also FCLGA1151 (used by the 1240L v5 you have there) is still pretty new so prices will be quite a bit higher as a result.
Personally I tend to look in the LGA1155 to the LGA2011 range for motherboards/CPUs. That seems to be the sweet spot power-consumption vs price currently.
Handy reference on the sockets out there.
Ofc the above is imho, ymmv etc. etc.
I expected a lower power consumption by such L-chip. Honestly said, prices were all over the place, I could not find any median in prices for any of models. It will be a machine running 24/7 and I don’t need (and want) something made for a much higher performance-demanding use case.
And what I meant by “absolutely no idea what to look for” when mentioning v2 Xeons and bin hunting is that, there are dozens of Xeons per generation and motherboards just as difficult to spot any difference between and hard to navigate through them.
I have no problems orienting in consumer components, those are a second nature for me, but these old generations of Intel parts and motherboards…ufff.
If someone wants a super low-priced rig with used components I can always pinpoint components at every generation I know or simply said - I know what to look for specifically.
Then I take a breath and I try to do it logically, I throw a simple search phrase “supermicro c602” on eBay and what I get is all dual-socket boards with proprietary form factors and by the time I stumble upon single-socket ATX board I am already at $320 price tag. Or when I try something more reasonable such as “supermicro c216”, then even if I am lucky I find boards with a support for up to 32GB od RAM.
But in all fairness, Xeons are easier to find, like a second of search and I got this $20 incl. shipping 6/12 Xeon v2, but finding a motherboard for anything even distantly close to a great deal is a completely different matter. Our local Supermicro reseller of course has a ton of such boards, but starting at $350, but eBay? A ghost town.
Don’t start with the CPU. The motherboard qvl will tell you what chips are compatible, then get a chip to suit.
A year ago I would have said “buy used”. I’ve always gone back a couple of generations and all my servers have run cheap ddr3 ecc dimms. However the ryzen stack is now just too compelling. Ddr4 prices have dropped and are fairly reasonable now for modest speeds (2666). Ddr4 gives you options.
If you are starting from scratch a first or second gen ryzen CPU and motherboard is a compelling deal, and will give you enough lanes for 10GbE and a HBA.
If you are looking at used, I’d stick with 2011v3 era as a minimum, unless you get a great deal on older boards.
More I am searching eBay, more I am leaning towards Ryzen (probably Asrock X570 Phantom Gaming 4, it is for around $150, so I might be able to squeeze an additional 10GbE NIC and HBA card for a total of $300, B450 boards have some unimpressive pci-e lanes layout, but I need to look at it more).
I took your recommendation to look at 2011v3 era, which should be C602 chipset, so trying these two searches
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=supermicro+2011+v3&_sacat=0&_sop=15&rt=nc&LH_PrefLoc=3
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_nkw=C602+motherboard&LH_PrefLoc=3&_sop=15
I got absolutely nothing, anything for an acceptable price is dual socket (I don’t have a space for such a monster). And if there is some, it is for around $300 which is just like a sale price from a retailer.
Then again, it is absolutely no problem to find a cheap Xeon from US/EU listing for even $20-$30, but boards are a completely different story.
“v1” vs v2 was a big jump in (lowering) power consumption, as far as I’ve been told, so I wouldn’t go below the v2’s, but curious as to why v3 as a minimum?
Just be aware that not all desktop boards that take ECC memory also support the actual ECC functionality, so be sure to double check that if you want ECC functionality.
When Wendell does Mobo reviews he usually tells you if it does ECC so that’s a good place to start looking
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if you get the IBM M1015 raid card I can give you everything you need to flash it to an HBA.
You can get them for $25 on ebay all day long and then another $25-ish for decent mini sas to sata cables.
probably the cheapest way to get +8 sata on your setup
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If your price ceiling is $300 all in then you will struggle for V3 era enterprise boards. One option may be to repurpose a prebuilt, like a Lenovo thinkstation, hp Proliant or Dell. Can be a pain to get them to fit a normal chassis but if you go for rackmount boards they tend to be more standard.
For $300 you could get a moderately good x99 desktop board and still use your Xeon. ECC support is more spotty.
Like I said in my first post, the ryzen boards are just so compelling and give you warranty and modern features. I don’t know why used prices are holding up so well in the face of Ryzen.
Simply availability. V2 was a fairly short window whereas V3 chips are now quite common (at slightly higher price). Note I use a 2011-v1 server and am hanging on until the board dies so will likely skip V3 altogether and go straight to Zen.
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@droptheghost How does your setup compare to just a simple pair of 16T drives in RAID1?
Optionally with some flash zil/cache?
@marelooke @GigaBusterEXE You are both right, I think I will need to double-check with Asus and Asrock. I am a bit worried about Asrock, though. According to ASRock Rack has created the first AM4 socket server boards, X470D4U, X470D4U2-2T it seems there are issues with Asrock (although I don’t know a background of Asrock Rack, if they are a completely separate branch or same people working on two separate product lines).
@Adubs Thank you for the tip, I didn’t know about this one, I will add it to the list of ones to look for.
As far as the breakout cable goes, I will be honest, I just saw our local offerings here and it is the same I see on eBay, same generic stuff, I got two of these cables for under $18
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184108447500 .
I hope they will not fail on me (I am holding up on giving a feedback until I can verify they work).
@Airstripone Yes, $300 for the board + 10Gbe + HBA + CPU (I see plenty of them laying around eBay, 6/12 Xeons v2/v3 are cheaper than a single HBA card) from entirely used sources is, in my opinion, more than enough for such old HW. For the same price or less it looks it would cost me to get Ryzen components.
But then I have to keep in mind that if I ditch Intel, FreeNAS may protest a bit when the red one is served to it. I am already doing a little research on other options such as OmniOS or SmartOS.
@risk I’d say this - speed, redundancy and maybe 1/8th of the time required to resilver 3TB of 4TB drive vs. 12TB of a 16TB drive. And, of course, 50% capacity cut is just too much to bear. Last but not least, as far as I know, all 16TB drives are SMR…archival/cold storage? Great, go with them. A live storage? Nonononono.
The cheaper cables probably work OK but I like to spend a little bit here for the cablematters cables
Your statement isn’t quite true, AMD has some of the same security flaws and also has different security flaws, at least that is my understanding.
If you finish the whole thread, you’ll probably notice that since the Dec release BIOS and bmc firmwares that thread has almost died, maybe meaning hardly any one coming in to complain about them.
It was my understanding that AMD “had” some few security flaws and was able to actually fix them.
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