Customized CPU for FreeNAS
David Christensen
dpchrist at holgerdanske.com
Wed Apr 3 22:38:22 UTC 2019
On 4/2/19 11:27 PM, Naveena Chary (Attra) wrote:
> Hi Team,
>
> We are planning to build FREENAS in our environment and below is our requirement. Please suggest the best hardware and its configuration
>
>
>
> 1. 6 HDD Connectivity
> 2. 32 GB RAM
> 3. Suggest me Which Motherboard and Processor will suit?
> 4. Dual Power Supply
> 5. Dual Cooling FAN's
>
> Kind Regards
> Naveena Chary
> Senior System Administrator
> Attra Infotech Private Limited
> 10B Electronic City Phase II, Industrial Area, Begur
> Bangalore - 560 100
> Website : www.attra.com<http://www.attra.com/>
> T: +91 080-61841000
> M: +91 9731008242
> [cid:CB376D97-9715-42C3-8C4D-676B3CF6A7E7]
> "We believe it can be done,
> So we make it happen"
An advantage of built-your-own is that you have a wide choice of parts
and combinations. A disadvantage is that the total parts cost is often
higher than an equivalent commercial-off-the-shelf product.
I needed to replace my Debian 9 SOHO Samba/ CVS file server last year --
Intel D945GNT desktop board, 3.4 GHz Pentium D, 2 @ 1 GB memory modules
(failed memory slot for 3rd or 4th memory module), single 3 TB desktop
disc with ext4, and 1 Gigabit port. After much research and many
delays, I bought a recent and lightly used Dell PowerEdge T30 for $375
on Craig's List. It came with a mini-tower case, single 290 W power
supply, single rear cooling fan, half-height 5.25" DVD+-RW drive, 4
internal 3.5" drive bays, 1 @ 1 TB SATA drive, Intel Xeon E3-1225 v5
processor, 1 @ 8 GB ECC memory module, 4 SATA III ports, 1 PCIe x16 3.0
slot, 1 PCIe x16 3.0 slot (x4 speed), 1 PCIe x4 3.0 slot, 1 PCI slot,
and 1 Gigabit port. I removed the 1 TB drive, added a second 8 GB ECC
memory module (system supports 4 @ 16 GB), and installed 3 @ 1.5 TB SATA
desktop drives. The goal was a SanDisk Ultra Fit 16 GB USB 3.0 flash
drive as the system disc, encrypted swap, encrypted ZFS root, one large
encrypted partition per SATA disc, and RAIDZ1 for data. I tried Debian
9 with contrib ZFS -- it ran for a while, then broken when I forced a
kernel update. Then I tried FreeNAS, thinking it was FreeBSD with a
nice web GUI on top -- I was wrong. Then I tried FreeBSD 11.2 --
success! This computer rocks, and should be overkill for years to come.
The problem with having a computer with several discs in RAID is that
you want another computer with several discs in RAID as a backup and
maintenance mule for the first. So, I am currently rebuilding my old
file server, keeping the ATX full-tower case, power supply, optical
drive, and hot-swap bays. I found an Intel S1200V3RP motherboard with
Intel E3-1225 v3 processor and 2 @ 4 GB ECC memory modules on eBay for
US $110+. (I believe this motherboard has 6 SATA III ports and supports
32 GB ECC memory.) The motherboard also has an unusual 5-pin connector
for communicating with the power supply; my power supply does not have
the matching cable. If it works, it should be equivalent to a Dell
PowerEdge T20. This approach may or may not work for you.
In either case, if you plan to do disc encryption, be sure to get a
processor with AES-NI. Ideally, one core per disc plus additional
core(s) for everything else.
You might get more/ better replies if you stated your workload/
applications/ services, number of concurrent users, compute
requirements, RAM requirements, storage requirements, network
requirements, etc., and the make/ model of parts you plan to re-use.
David
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