8 cores, 2 10GbE port, all on board!...Also my first build...45W...


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Well here we go, first post is going to be my upcoming UnRAID 6 Plus build. My expectations for this build is the following:

-Initial Uses:

-NAS

-Window Server 2012 R2 - Active Directory (I've got the enterprise version from work ;D (Yes they know))

-Mail Server

-Plex

-Eventual Uses:

-Router (Via 10GbE connection to eventual 10GbE switch)

-Game server

-VPN Server

-Conference Server

-Web Server

 

The build parts will be:

 

Case: SilverStone DS380B

Motherboard/CPU: SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SDV-TLN4F-O

RAM: Samsung DDR4 2133MHzCL15 (x1, eventually x4)

Storage:

-Boot Drive: SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB

-RAID 1 write cache/VM OS Drives: Samsung 850 EVO (x2)

-Data: HGST Deskstar NAS 4TB (x4, Eventually x8)

HBA: IBM M1015 IT mode

PSU: SILVERSTONE SFX ST30SF

Accessories:

-UPS CyberPower CP850PFCLCD

-SATA Breakout 3ware CBL-SFF8087OCF-05M (x2)

-PMW Splitter

 

I'm open to any opinions or recommendations. I'm not really to aware of what apps are available to UnRAID so if anyone has any ideas I'd be glad to hear them.

 

*Edit, I figured out how to use the Hyperlinks  :P

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Ya, it's mainly the Xeon that has a TDP of 45W and is pretty close to a 4790K performance wise (http://cpuboss.com/cpu/Intel-Xeon-D-1540)...it doesn't help that it's new too. The 10GbE turns out to only be an $100 Addon (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182963&cm_re=d-1540-_-13-182-963-_-Product)...Though if you look into how many boards have built in 10GbE I'd personally say this board is worth the price...

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When you factor in the E5-class Xeon with 8 hyperthreaded cores with registered RAM support, dual 10Gb Ethernet ports, and the amazingly low TDP for a CPU with a PassMark > 10,000  this board isn't all that expensive.   

 

An 8-core E5-1660v3 would indeed give a bit more performance (PassMark about 20% higher), but has a TDP of 140w vs. the 45w for the CPU on this board, and the CPU alone costs well over $1,000.

 

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When you factor in the E5-class Xeon with 8 hyperthreaded cores with registered RAM support, dual 10Gb Ethernet ports, and the amazingly low TDP for a CPU with a PassMark > 10,000  this board isn't all that expensive.   

 

An 8-core E5-1660v3 would indeed give a bit more performance (PassMark about 20% higher), but has a TDP of 140w vs. the 45w for the CPU on this board, and the CPU alone costs well over $1,000.

 

And those 8 Hyper-threaded cores means it's a VM BEAST!

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When you factor in the E5-class Xeon with 8 hyperthreaded cores with registered RAM support, dual 10Gb Ethernet ports, and the amazingly low TDP for a CPU with a PassMark > 10,000  this board isn't all that expensive.   

 

An 8-core E5-1660v3 would indeed give a bit more performance (PassMark about 20% higher), but has a TDP of 140w vs. the 45w for the CPU on this board, and the CPU alone costs well over $1,000.

 

And those 8 Hyper-threaded cores means it's a VM BEAST!

 

The other really neat characteristic of this board is that it's in the mini-ITX form factor => not only is it amazingly power efficient, but it fits in a mini-ITX chassis !!    The amount of power in that tiny little box is awesome  8)

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It's great if that's what you're after..  My next board is going to be the complete opposite of small form factor.  I'm wanting as many pci-e expansion slots as I can get.  I've got a mostly empty kvm switch sitting here and I'd like to do gpu passthough to at least 2 or 3 vm's.

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It's great if that's what you're after..  My next board is going to be the complete opposite of small form factor.  I'm wanting as many pci-e expansion slots as I can get.  I've got a mostly empty kvm switch sitting here and I'd like to do gpu passthough to at least 2 or 3 vm's.

 

Agree => If you want a bunch of VM's and need video cards to pass through to those VM's, you clearly do NOT want a mini-ITX form factor  :)    But for those who just want a powerful NAS that can support a few VM's that don't need video pass-through, the size of the mini-ITX boxes is very attractive.    And the amount of processing power this little box can provide at a VERY low power draw is amazing -- clearly the power draw would be much higher if you installed a single high-end graphics card in the x16 slot ... but it would still be much lower than any other system that had the same total CPU/GPU processing capabilities.

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Interested to see how this works out for you. I've been following all the Xeon D hype at Serve The Home the last few weeks, but there hasn't been any unRaid specific coverage.

 

I myself will be looking to upgrade my old Atom 525 board to the lowest end quad core Xeon D-1518/1520 supermicro board if the Asrock Rack Xeon D boards do not come out soon.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Parts came in last week, been slowly building it and after getting through some problems I've finally got it up and running. At work right now so (Swing shift on a Sunday gives me nothing to do :P) I'll try to get some pics up tonight. I will say this though: The board is too new and you have to get the UnRAID beta for any network connectivity...I'm still unsure if the 10GbE NIC even works, I'm running a cat 7 cable from the 1GbE and only getting 100Mbit/s. New tech problems  :-\

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've had this same board since last year and it's fantastic.  Selling it because I picked up two D-1537 (along with a D-1518) Flex-ATX boards so I can use SFP+ instead of 10Gb copper but the Xeon D is my new go to for at home.  The performance at this low of power (the D-1537's are 8-core 35w!) is just incredible.

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  • 2 weeks later...

What kind of read/write/copy speeds do you get just dragging and dropping files across the network? I want to upgrade from my old Atom 525 because I partially blame it for my abysmal 20MB/sec write and copy speeds to my server with a SSD cache drive...

 

Initial speeds for about 10 seconds saturate 1GbE going at 110 MB/s. After a few seconds though i drop down to 50-60 MB/s.

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What kind of read/write/copy speeds do you get just dragging and dropping files across the network? I want to upgrade from my old Atom 525 because I partially blame it for my abysmal 20MB/sec write and copy speeds to my server with a SSD cache drive...

 

Why don't you just check the cpu usage while you have a large copy going (that is holding steady at 20MB/sec)?? That'll tell you for sure its the cpu.

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What kind of read/write/copy speeds do you get just dragging and dropping files across the network? I want to upgrade from my old Atom 525 because I partially blame it for my abysmal 20MB/sec write and copy speeds to my server with a SSD cache drive...

 

Why don't you just check the cpu usage while you have a large copy going (that is holding steady at 20MB/sec)?? That'll tell you for sure its the cpu.

 

It's only at 40-45% utilization during copy. I've got a gig Intel NIC onboard but maybe it's bad.

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What kind of read/write/copy speeds do you get just dragging and dropping files across the network? I want to upgrade from my old Atom 525 because I partially blame it for my abysmal 20MB/sec write and copy speeds to my server with a SSD cache drive...

 

Why don't you just check the cpu usage while you have a large copy going (that is holding steady at 20MB/sec)?? That'll tell you for sure its the cpu.

 

It's only at 40-45% utilization during copy. I've got a gig Intel NIC onboard but maybe it's bad.

 

It's unlikely it's the NIC.  Are you sure the shares you're copying to are set to use the cache drive ?    Just installing a cache drive does NOT cause the shares to use it -- you have to specifically enable each share to be cached.

 

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It depends on the drive mix; but in general yes, I'd expect speeds better than 20MB/s for writes.  On my D525-based server, I typically get write speeds in the mid-to-upper 30's or even the low 40's (for relatively empty drives where the writes are to the outer cylinders.  All of the drives in that system are 3TB WD Reds.

 

If you have an older SSD that's not trimmed, it's possible it's actually degrading your performance.  Try setting one of your shares to NOT use the cache, and see what the write speeds are to that.

 

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