LGA 1366 2P Build - NAS from Hell

N

NobleX13

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jun 15, 2010
Messages
4,126
I recently purchased some 8TB WD Red Drives (the Best Buy EasyStore deal) and was quite disappointed with the pricing out there for a decent NAS unit. I priced out several Synology Units and an HP MicroServer Gen8 and neither one really got me excited about paying $300 for such anemic hardware.

Digging through the scrap heap I found an old Philips-branded E-ATX mid-tower server chassis with 8 hot-swap bays. Here is my proposed build so far:

  • Dual Intel Xeon X5650s (pulled from retired HP BL460c G7 blade)
  • SuperMicro X8DTE Dual Socket 1366 E-ATX Motherboard
  • 6x8GB Micron DDR3 PC3-10600R ECC Memory
  • 128GB Samsung Enterprise SSD (Boot Drive)
  • 4x8TB WD Red 3.5" SATA HDDs
  • Mellanox ConnectX-2 10GbE NIC
  • Intel 980X Stock Coolers (compatible with LGA1366 XEON mounting plates)
  • SeaSonic 850W Power Supply (Unknown model, dual EPS 8-pin, ~2007 vintage)
  • Dell Perc H310 Cross-Flashed to LSI 9211-8i
  • Lite-ON DVD R/RW SATA Optical Drive
Any thoughts as to what OS I should run on here? I have a Server 2016 license from Bizspark available, but I was also pondering running ESXi 6.5 and passing-through the SAS HBA to a VM running either Napp-IT or the Synology OS using Jun's loader for DSM 6.1.

Additionally, does anyone have any experience with EPS 8-PIN adapters? I would like to replace this old SeaSonic PSU with an 80 plus Platinum one I recently retired from my gaming rig, but I don't have a second EPS 8-pin connector available on it.

I realize that this will not be the quietest or most power-efficient build, but the only component I had to purchase was the SuperMicro board from eBay. Everything else is recycled from previous projects or the scrap pile at work.

I will post some photos of my build later this week when I have more time.
 
With a 9211-8i, you're pointing me personally at FreeNAS or Napp-IT.

Looking forward to the build pictures. I am working towards a similar setup.
 
I'm currently in the midst of building a replacement ESXi 6.5 hypervisor using a Supermicro X8DAi/2x Xeon X5650/60GB DDR3 ECC registered (6x8GB, 6x2GB).

I run FreeNAS on my current hypervisor using a M1015 crossflashed to LSI 9211-8i.

The only problem I see you having is if you're going ESXi then you'll want to have mirrored drives for the datastores - but the onboard SATA ports do not support hardware RAID and you'll be passing through the PERC H310 so it won't be available for datastores.

I'm currently using an old Adaptec 3405 to do the mirrored drives, but the darn thing won't work with VT-d enabled so I have to get something else like another M1015.

My X8DAi board works with only 1x EPS 8-pin connector, but I worry it will draw too much power over that line so I went out and bought a 850W EVGA 80plus Bronze. I have an old OCZ 1000W 80plus Gold available but it is 12 years old and the thought of using it on a dual-CPU server makes me nervous.
 
where are you guys finding those supermicro mbs? i have 6 x16gb, 6x 8gb and dual xeons but i can't find a decent mb for a reasonable price.
 
trick0502 said:
where are you guys finding those supermicro mbs? i have 6 x16gb, 6x 8gb and dual xeons but i can't find a decent mb for a reasonable price.
Click to expand...

eBay. I may have one to sell soon; this project may be on hold.
 
trick0502 said:
where are you guys finding those supermicro mbs? i have 6 x16gb, 6x 8gb and dual xeons but i can't find a decent mb for a reasonable price.
Click to expand...

Someone gave me my Supermicro board and CPUs just so I would stop using AMD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top