Gary,

 

There's a newegg combo on this motherboard...  which I noticed has 12 RAM slots and seems to have more network and USB ports too (one less SATA):  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128819 

 

It also seems this processor doesn't ship with a hotsink.

 

I'll go with your expertise.  :-)

 

Russell

That's a nice board, but the CPU is about 30% less powerful than the 1650v3 -- up to you if you want to save a couple hundred at the cost of that extra power.

 

I'd forgotten that Intel doesn't ship heatsinks with the E5's ... so yes, you'll need to select a cooler as well.

 

Personally, I'd stay with the 1650v3 -- I think it's a good tradeoff between performance and price among the various E5 alternatives [there are several much more powerful choices, but they cost triple or more what a 1650 costs].

 

 

 

Gary,

 

I'm ordering now... 

 

The combo above is with the 1650v3.  Here's the link again:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128819

 

I can go with either.  It seems like the to max out the RAM in the SuperMicro Motherboard, you need to use LRDIMMs (more expensive), which is not what has been suggested above (because of cost).  It seems the Gigabyte Motherboard does not have this requirement.  Another bonus, the Gigabyte supports a "mezzanine" card that I could add on someday - to two 10 GB network ports (and there's four 1 Gigabit ones already on board).  Not only that, their manual makes it clear what cooler I need (see below).  I'm leaning toward the Gigabyte board unless you advise against it!

 

For the SuperMicro, NewEgg "suggested" the Noctua NH-C14 cooler...  It's a tiny bit pricey...  but that's okay, if it's what you recommend...

 

But I also came across a posting which describes problems with Noctua (slow RPM fans) and SuperMicro Server Motherboards (https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/supermicro-mbd-x10slm-f-o-motherboard-in-mini-tower.34954/).

 

Is there a cooler you suggest?  (Prefer non-liquid - sounds like it must be a Narrow ILM (whatever that is))  Since this will be on my desktop, hopefully not something too loud.

 

I have a support ticket opened with Noctua for their opinion.  :-)

 

Not sure what Motherboard to grab.

 

Thanks,

 

Russell

When I click on that link and then on "View Details" for the combo at the bottom of the page, it shows a Xeon E5-2620 v3 for the processor -- NOT the 1650v3.    Is there another combo option I'm missing ??

 

As for the best cooler -- that's largely a matter of personal preference. 

 

I think the Gigabyte board is fine -- it supports 12 RAM modules and doesn't have the fan issues that some have noted with SuperMicro board 'nor the size limitation for a cooler.

 

Note, however, that as with the SuperMicro board, the Gigabyte board supports a maximum module size of 32GB with RDIMMs, or 64GB with LRDIMMs => so this board also requires LRDIMMs to maximize the installed RAM.    HOWEVER ... in both cases you can have PLENTY of RAM without using the much more expensive LRDIMM modules.

 

Gigabyte also supports the same nifty feature that Asus does on their latest boards => the ability to do a BIOS upgrade even without an installed CPU.  This completely eliminates the old "Catch 22" of having a motherboard that requires a newer BIOS than the neat new CPU you just bought !!    [Although that's not at all likely to be an issue here]

 

 

Another bonus, the Gigabyte supports a "mezzanine" card that I could add on someday - to two 10 GB network ports (and there's four 1 Gigabit ones already on board).

 

This is where you will gain allot of network speed (or throughput) if you ever separate the two functions Desktop/File Server and use more advanced switching technology (and wiring).

Thanks Gary and Weebo,

 

It appears there's a bunch of Gigabyte/Processor combos.  Maybe that link only worked for me because I had already put the processor in my "cart".  Here's a more complete list:  http://www.newegg.com/Store/eventsaleStore/ID-2140302

 

It sounds like you have "green lighted" the Gigabyte board, so I'm going to pull the trigger in a few hours - after I do a little research like I did on the SuperMicro.

 

Thanks,

 

Russell

It sounds like you have "green lighted" the Gigabyte board, so I'm going to pull the trigger in a few hours - after I do a little research like I did on the SuperMicro.

 

 

In particular you might want to research comments with difficulty with virtualization.

Thanks Weebo.

 

I have two 120GB SSD's that I can donate to this project (I'll have two UnRaid 6 machines - one monster that you and Gary are helping me spec and one running on a core2quad with 8GB of RAM).

 

I was thinking of buying two 500GB SSDs as part of this order.  I was thinking of setting the 120's as Cache Drives for each machine - and having a 500GB SSD for VMs (I realize I'll have no redundancy on these; I'll back them up, like they're "regular computers" and buy replacement drives as needed).

 

Does a single Cache drive create a vulnerability - when I move a file to it - the file is off my desktop, not yet on the array, and if the SSD dies, I've lost the file?

 

Thoughts?

 

Russell

Does a single Cache drive create a vulnerability - when I move a file to it - the file is off my desktop, not yet on the array, and if the SSD dies, I've lost the file?

 

Thoughts?

 

Russell

 

A single drive does have a vulnerability. However the failure rate is usually pretty low.

You can, if you choose, use BTRFS and setup redundancy with multiple drives.

You can reschedule the mover to run once an hour and/or even on demand.

 

If you are going to configure unRAID Dockers on the cache drive, then I would consider some form of redundant setup or practice a regular backup and test a restore.

Agreed, run 2 SSDs in a cache pool.  You get redundancy, and you also get a performance increase as btrfs can read both drives at the same time making a pseudo-RAID0 in regards to performance.

 

I was running a pair of Crucial BX100 500GB, but I had to pull them for another project.  Currently using a pair of 180GB Intel SSDs, which work just fine.  I did use a pair of WD RE 1TB HDDs, and also a pair of WD Black 2.5" 500GB HDDs and they also worked great.

+1 on the cache pool => since v6 supports btrfs pooling, you can setup a fault-tolerant cache, so you eliminate the period of vulnerability you'd normally have with a cache, where the files aren't fault tolerant until they're moved to the array.    This also provides fault tolerance for your cache-only files (applications, etc.).

 

Okay...  Ordered my equipment.  :-)

 

Cache Pool...  I'm going to have two UnRaid machines - a Monster and a local Backup (Crashplan for remote backup).

 

I have two 500GB and two 120GB SSDs.

 

How do you suggest I use them?  Do I put all four in the monster - the two 120's as redundant cache drives and the two 500's (non-redundant) for 1TB of VMs?

 

Or what would you guys do?

 

Thanks,

 

Russell

Two things to think about before deciding how to allocate your SSDs ...

 

Is a 120GB cache large enough?    ... i.e. is it safe to assume you will never write more than that in a day, so you won't run out of space before the Mover runs?

 

And how much storage do you anticipate needing for VM's ??    I've got 73 virtual machines that occupy a total of about 1.7 TB  [Granted, MANY of these are of older OS's that don't need nearly the space a new Win7, 8, or 10 VM does.    My largest VM is Windows 10 ... and it occupies a bit over 50GB of disk space.  These are all VMware based VM's, so the disks are dynamically sized [i.e. my Win 10 disk is sized as 100GB, but only occupies 47GB of actual space.  If all of my virtual disks required as much space as their indicated size I'd need a LOT more storage (probably ~ 4 TB).

 

 

 

Yikes... 73 VMs???

 

First, I don't expect a lot of file transfers...  never anywhere near 120GB a day - unless I just did a photoshoot - which would be about 500GB, but there's no rush to load it.  You imply that the mover only runs every 24 hours?  Maybe cache doesn't really help my situation...  I don't load new files to Unraid very often - and when I do, there's no rush to get them saved.  I've never felt I needed cache drives before (even with my horribly slow 7MB/sec write speed)...  but maybe if I load the SSDs onto the older machine, for VMs/Dockers, then I can let that machine run CrashPlan, Plex, and other activities - so my main machine doesn't have to?  Maybe even a single Windows 7 VM so I can run Antivirus and a few things that are Windows apps.

 

I am envisioning three or so VMs on the main machine...  One as my usual, do everything, VM - photoshop, scanning, typical office type work, software development (Visual Studio/Corona).  One for testing new software (sheesh, I've tried nine different Sync softwares this week and none are working perfectly).  And one for learning new things - like Windows 10, perhaps.  Ideally I could keep Plex, CrashPlan and other tasks off this computer.  :-)

 

Does it make sense to use the SSDs only to run VMs?

 

Russell

 

 

 

 

SSD's for VM's is a must, at least from my perspective.  The more you have running in parallel the more important it is.

 

For many years I ran windows 2000 and XP on a raid1 mirror pair of drives, they were 10,000 RPM SCSI drives.

It was adequate; I ran that configuration for over 10 years with Linux and VMware workstation under it. But that was a different beast.

When I added the SSD and moved the VM's there, the performance shot up.

When I full screened workstation, it felt like a bare metal machine. I could not tell it was virtualized.

 

SSD's for cache, if you want to offload data as fast as the network can support and/or not spin up drives while doing so.

If you choose you can adjust the mover to run more often or even manually.

 

If the points above matter or if you intend to run dockers on the unRAID then I would suggest using the 120GB drives for cache and dockers.

Agree ... given your relatively limited transfers, I'd use the 120's for Dockers and cache, and the 500's for your VM's.    With only 3 or 4 VMs, you could use the 500s as a fault-tolerant pool ... although I'd still backup the VMs.

 

Definitely agree that VMs run better on SSDs.  I have a 500GB SSD dedicated to the VMs I use more frequently, and, as Weebo noted, if you full screen the VM it feels like "bare metal".

 

Thank you both... you are rock stars to this community and so helpful and valuable.

 

I get my boxes in the next couple of days - I hope to get both machines on 6, with at least on VM, by end of weekend!  :-)

 

Russell

Upgrading my current machines to UnRaid 6...  Then I'll upgrade all the hardware.  I hope that's the suggested methodology.

 

But I'm already a little confused where I'm headed:  https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=42499.0

 

Thanks,

 

Russell