Personal computing discussed

Moderators: renee, JustAnEngineer

 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Fri Aug 31, 2018 11:07 pm

So the wife won the Intel 8086K anniversary contest and also proceeded to win the 1950X exchange contest that AMD was running simultaneously.

Yes, she's my luck dragon.

She also said she didn't care about upgrading her rig (4770k delidded, water cooled, SLI 770s, lots of SSDs). I don't see TR as an upgrade for gaming for my desktop, so into the NAS it's going to go. IT ARRIVED TODAY.

Threadripper! https://photos.app.goo.gl/4ej8JDkAjCoaBXDY9
Another beauty shot...https://photos.app.goo.gl/r7vkeLMj6ioYHAp16
Jesus. This is a big heatspreader. https://photos.app.goo.gl/taPM381bsqX2gWbE8
Dem pins! https://photos.app.goo.gl/MUHzfNhSEAyFAMzt9

I have to say, the packaging really does the job. It's freakin' awesome.

So, since this is going into the NAS (4K transcoding here we come!) I proceeded to start the search for motherboards that actually enable ECC for Threadripper. ASRock is high up on that list, and I have some hope that going forward Aquantia will create BSD drivers for their 10G chipsets.

The ASRock Fatal1ty X399 Professional Gaming ended up being at the top of my list and Newegg has a $40 rebate to bring it down to $350 shipped. Arctic Cooling apparently decided to make something special for TR with the Freezer 33 TR. It's under $30 and easily supports better fans (I plan to run a pair of Corsair high pressure fans in push/pull). Given that the server sits in our boiler room in the basement noise isn't really a concern, but the tower fits in my 4U 20-bay case with a little room to spare.

For RAM I don't really have a need for lots of random IO (it's a media server), so I basically went down the route of the minimum amount I could buy at good cost/bit and still get maximum memory bandwidth. Four 8 GB sticks of Kingston ValueRAM DDR4-2400 Unbuffered ECC did the trick, and I can expand to 64 GB if need be down the road (or add bigger sticks, EPYC/Threadripper seem to be pretty flexible for mixed size sticks).

All of that will combine with the existing pair of LSI 6 Gbps SAS controllers (Dell Perc H200 flashed to LSI IT firmware), triple mirror USB boot drives, single Seasonic Platinum PSU (yes, weak point), and Norco RPC-4020 case.

Bad picture, but you get the idea: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2rYVLkZKKiRL4x896

This drives a pair of ZFS pools. One is built with 2 TB drives of various descent (Charon), the other is built with 8 TB Seagate Barracuda Compute SMR drives (Discovery).
[root@enterprise ~]# zpool list                                                                                                     
NAME           SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  EXPANDSZ   FRAG    CAP  DEDUP  HEALTH  ALTROOT                                                   
Charon        7.25T  4.40T  2.85T         -    13%    60%  1.13x  ONLINE  /mnt                                                     
Discovery     50.5T  22.4T  28.1T         -     0%    44%  1.00x  ONLINE  /mnt     


[root@enterprise ~]# zpool status Charon                                                                                            
  pool: Charon                                                                                                                     
 state: ONLINE                                                                                                                     
  scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0 days 03:39:32 with 0 errors on Sun Aug 26 03:39:35 2018                                               
config:                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                   
        NAME                                            STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM                                                 
        Charon                                          ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
          mirror-0                                      ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/6b50be58-887c-11e8-b8bd-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/6dd65049-887c-11e8-b8bd-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
          mirror-1                                      ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/720a0872-887c-11e8-b8bd-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/744d9f51-887c-11e8-b8bd-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
          mirror-2                                      ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/77df8a3c-887c-11e8-b8bd-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/7aae716d-887c-11e8-b8bd-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
          mirror-3                                      ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/7d26ce17-887c-11e8-b8bd-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/7e6085e8-887c-11e8-b8bd-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
        spares                                                                                                                     
          gptid/804df4a2-887c-11e8-b8bd-bc5ff4cb2c8d    AVAIL                                                                       
                                                                                                                                   
errors: No known data errors


[root@enterprise ~]# zpool status Discovery                                                                                         
  pool: Discovery                                                                                                                   
 state: ONLINE                                                                                                                     
  scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0 days 06:18:43 with 0 errors on Sun Aug 26 06:18:44 2018                                               
config:                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                   
        NAME                                            STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM                                                 
        Discovery                                       ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
          raidz2-0                                      ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/ad4f1fd0-86ff-11e8-a879-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/ae2a63b0-86ff-11e8-a879-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/af0b96ff-86ff-11e8-a879-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/affb0b58-86ff-11e8-a879-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/b1120fd2-86ff-11e8-a879-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/b2244059-86ff-11e8-a879-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
            gptid/b339b23d-86ff-11e8-a879-bc5ff4cb2c8d  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                 
                                                                                                                                   
errors: No known data errors


This is all backed by a few 6 and 10 TB Seagate Enterprise Capacity drives that get synced every few weeks and stuck into the safe. I'd love to back it up online somewhere but I only have ~12 Mbps upload, so the initial sync would take a year or so assuming I never used upload bandwidth for anything else.

The primary use case is Plex serving from Discovery. Charon hosts our home security camera dumps (motion detect IP cams, run through iSpy on our HTPC), backups of local systems, and write-intensive workloads.

All of this is run off a pair of battery powered UPS bricks - one powers the server itself, the other powers our router and modem. If the power goes out we can still stream locally, likely have Internet access, and can shut down gracefully after 30-40 minutes depending on load.

I'll add updates as parts come in - I just ordered them today so hopefully I'll have things up and running in the next week or so. :)
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
MileageMayVary
Gerbil XP
Posts: 370
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2015 9:18 am
Location: Baltimore

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Wed Sep 05, 2018 2:20 pm

You lucky SOB!

Also, awesome!
Main rig: Ryzen 3600X, R9 290@1100MHz, 16GB@2933MHz, 1080-1440-1080 Ultrasharps.
 
cheesyking
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2756
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2004 7:52 am
Location: That London (or so I'm told)
Contact:

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Thu Sep 06, 2018 10:54 am

Honestly, you go through setting up all that and then you put in on a wooden shelf instead of a rack :roll:

Seriously though, that's awesome!
Fernando!
Your mother ate my dog!
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Thu Sep 06, 2018 11:46 am

cheesyking wrote:
Honestly, you go through setting up all that and then you put in on a wooden shelf instead of a rack :roll:

The WAF for a half or quarter rack was lower than the WAF for a server upgrade. :)
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
Airmantharp
Emperor Gerbilius I
Posts: 6192
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:41 pm

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Thu Sep 06, 2018 2:38 pm

Posting to follow- actually planning to use BTRFS and extensions for the purpose of more flexibility in place of ZFS, but otherwise embarking on a similar project myself :).
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:41 pm

Parts are here! I'll spend more time composing something once Hurricane Florence has passed (or maybe before to distract myself from my family being idiots and not evac'ing).

I got it booted in the mobo box with an old GTX 770 for video. 32 GB of ECC validated with memtest for 8 hours so far. I figure that's probably good as an initial test.

I am annoyed that the CPU temp sensor reports 27 C higher than the actual die temperature. I nearly ripped the cooler off to lap it when I saw the initial temps just sitting in the BIOS. I booted up an Ubuntu live USB image just to poke around and was reminded how much I absolutely hate Ubuntu, but at least I was able to confirm that all the onboard hardware was working properly (except the 10G Aquantia interface, I don't intend on using it till FreeNAS supports it anyway).

I apologize in advance for crappy cell phone pictures - I don't pay much attention to professional-type shots now that neither of us are hardware reviewers. :P
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
MOSFET
Gerbil XP
Posts: 373
Joined: Fri Aug 08, 2014 12:42 am

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Wed Sep 12, 2018 6:47 pm

When and where was that? (You know what I'm talking about - the part right before the smiley face :) )
Be careful on inserting this (or any G34 chip) into the socket. Once you pull that restraining lever, it is either a good install or a piece of silicon jewelry.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Wed Sep 12, 2018 7:43 pm

We used to do reviews for OverClockersClub.com from 2010 through late 2016. Nothing particularly fancy, but it was a good way to spend time with new hardware. Writing the reviews was a huge time-sink and we also were told we couldn't do reviews any more once we started to control funding/purchasing at our current jobs (conflict of interest) so we had to let them go.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:52 pm

Sigh, of course it isn't as easy as a simple swap. If I install my LSI SAS cards, the server either doesn't boot (hangs on a SAS card reset) or boots and crashes with any real IO.

Further, ASRock boards seem to not boot if you don't have a GPU installed. Seriously? I didn't notice when testing because I had a GPU installed temporarily. There doesn't seem to be a way to disable hanging on boot without a GPU installed.

GRRRRRR.

I'm attempting to update to the newest beta to see if it helps. Then I'll have to leave a GTX 470 (ugh, power bill) in the server until I can get a low-power card to keep the UEFI happy.


Bah.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Sat Sep 22, 2018 6:26 pm

Full abort. No configuration I could find would make the LSI cards happy in an OS (tried FreeNAS, Ubuntu, and Fedora).

Goddammit.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
DancinJack
Maximum Gerbil
Posts: 4494
Joined: Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:21 pm
Location: Kansas

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Sat Sep 22, 2018 8:41 pm

Your past two posts are probably why a lot of people just use their 8086K (or whatever Intel chip you can think of) instead of this route. :)
i7 6700K - Z170 - 16GiB DDR4 - GTX 1080 - 512GB SSD - 256GB SSD - 500GB SSD - 3TB HDD- 27" IPS G-sync - Win10 Pro x64 - Ubuntu/Mint x64 :: 2015 13" rMBP Sierra :: Canon EOS 80D/Sony RX100
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Sat Sep 22, 2018 8:53 pm

The GPU thing is an ASRock specific problem. The PCIe flipping out with the LSI cards likely is too - I have EPYC machines at work with the same cards and they work fine.

I'm in touch with ASRock support to hopefully resolve it quickly. I wouldn't hate buying PCIe3 SAS cards as a forced upgrade, I'll be testing next week to see if the SAS3008 controller fares better than the SAS2008 controllers.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
ptsant
Gerbil XP
Posts: 397
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:45 pm

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:44 am

Waco wrote:
Further, ASRock boards seem to not boot if you don't have a GPU installed. Seriously? I didn't notice when testing because I had a GPU installed temporarily. There doesn't seem to be a way to disable hanging on boot without a GPU installed.

Bah.


I have the exact same problem. I run my home server (Kaveri 860K with several TB storage and 32GB RAM) on an Asrock board and I discovered that I can't boot without graphics. This did not bother me so much because I wanted to experiment with GPU compute/deep learning, but now I am a bit annoyed because I would like to move the GPU (a relatively decent AMD 280X) to another system.

I really don't think AsRock is the best choice for a server system. ASUS has confirmed support for ECC and I would chose that instead. To be clear, I don't know if ASUS boots without a GPU, but I think it's more likely. It's also more likely to be compatible with obscure peripherals. Have you looked at other brands?
Image
 
freebird
Gerbil
Posts: 89
Joined: Thu Aug 31, 2006 4:03 pm

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Sun Sep 23, 2018 3:09 am

I remember reading about some people having issues with LSI raid cards working on Asrock motherboards before, so I did a quick search and found this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/co ... er_issues/

There is a BIOS setting listed that may help for some or not like in this thread. Sounds like most ASUS boards work fine however.

This guy seems to have gotten his LSI Raid card partially working: it was an LSI 9201-16i with an Asrock Fatal1ty X399 mobo and 1950x CPU.
but he also wound up replacing the motherboard.
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.p ... 16i.21255/

Personally, I like my X370 Asrock Fata1ity, but it sounds like RAID cards don't like Asrock unfortunately.
 
just brew it!
Administrator
Posts: 54500
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:51 pm
Location: Somewhere, having a beer

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Sun Sep 23, 2018 7:17 am

I thought it was not uncommon for desktop boards to refuse to boot without a GPU?

I know it doesn't help you in this case, but for older motherboards (with a legacy PCI slot) these are a reasonable solution. I have one of them in my current home server. Doesn't add much in terms of power consumption, and even if the motherboard is capable of booting without a GPU, it's good to have a fallback console in case the OS install gets borked to the point where you can't get in over the network.

I also suppose the LSI issue means I need to cross ASRock off my short list; I was considering them for a Ryzen build (to take place at some unspecified point in the future).
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Sun Sep 23, 2018 3:55 pm

I unfortunately spent most of my time researching different boards ensuring that ECC would function properly. Silly me for assuming headless booting and PCIe compatibility would be easy. :P

I've tried all the tricks I could find in the BIOS, I'm waiting on ASRock to get back to me now. There are a few cheap PCIe GPUs that idle well that I can jump to once I get the LSI cards working.

Normally I'd just return the board and swap it for an ASUS as everyone is suggesting...except I stupidly bought from Newegg and they don't allow returns for this board. I didn't think to check it when purchasing. I should have just used Amazon as my gut told me to since they have a ridiculously good return policy. :(

I'm hoping ASRock support can help me out on this one. I'm tempted to try a PCIe 3.0 LSI card (since I have one in my desktop) to see if it behaves better. If so, that's a way out, just more expensive than I was hoping since I need a pair of them.

EDIT: I'm talking to Newegg to see if I can return the board...
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
just brew it!
Administrator
Posts: 54500
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:51 pm
Location: Somewhere, having a beer

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Sun Sep 23, 2018 4:14 pm

Waco wrote:
I unfortunately spent most of my time researching different boards ensuring that ECC would function properly. Silly me for assuming headless booting and PCIe compatibility would be easy. :P

I generally don't assume a board supports headless boot unless it is explicitly aimed at server applications. The PCIe issue would've probably tripped me up too though.

Waco wrote:
There are a few cheap PCIe GPUs that idle well that I can jump to once I get the LSI cards working.

I would be interested in seeing your recommendations for this. I prefer passive cooling (since it is one less fan to fail), but these days that generally means the card takes up two slots.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Sun Sep 23, 2018 4:22 pm

Man, I hate Newegg. My motherboard (for whatever reason, they couldn't explain it to me) is listed as non-returnable. Apparently that means for any reason. I asked bluntly if I'm stuck with a nearly $400 paperweight, and the rep had the gall to actually reply "yes".

I should have just spend the extra few bucks for the board on Amazon. At least they know how to make exceptions (especially for longstanding accounts, I've had my Newegg account for over 15 years now).

EDIT: On the phone with them, after nearly 40 minutes on the phone I've relayed the issue and they are granting me a store refund without a restocking fee! It's store credit, but at least I can swap the board out with another one. :) I'm still not happy with them, but at least I could waste an hour getting it fixed versus being stuck with the board.

EDIT2: If the new board (whatever it ends up being) has the same problem with booting headless, I'll post up my solution. I don't mind fans so much (since it'll be sitting there doing nothing 99.9999% of the time anyway) and the box sits in the basement so noise isn't a concern. I have enough front->rear airflow to keep a card cool even if the fan dies if it's a reasonable heatsink design, but I'll probably try to find a passive one anyway. Two slots wouldn't be the end of the world, but I'd much prefer one.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
just brew it!
Administrator
Posts: 54500
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:51 pm
Location: Somewhere, having a beer

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Sun Sep 23, 2018 10:24 pm

Waco wrote:
EDIT2: If the new board (whatever it ends up being) has the same problem with booting headless, I'll post up my solution. I don't mind fans so much (since it'll be sitting there doing nothing 99.9999% of the time anyway) and the box sits in the basement so noise isn't a concern. I have enough front->rear airflow to keep a card cool even if the fan dies if it's a reasonable heatsink design, but I'll probably try to find a passive one anyway. Two slots wouldn't be the end of the world, but I'd much prefer one.

Looks like there are at least a couple of passively cooled single-slot GT 710 cards out there these days:
https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-GeForce-PC ... 01AZ7W76W/
https://www.amazon.com/NVIDIA-GeForce-G ... 07CNH96P7/
This is better than when I was last looking at such things a year or two ago (when all the passively cooled PCIe GPUs were 2-slot).

The inclusion of an analog VGA out may also be a tacit acknowledgement that they expect some of these to be used in datacenter environments with legacy analog KVM management consoles (still more common than you might expect).

Edit: And yes, I've been gravitating to Amazon for most of my online purchases these days, in spite of the fact that I was a Newegg fan going way back, with many thousands of dollars in orders for work and personal use over the years. No, Amazon doesn't always have the lowest price. But whenever I've had an issue with anything I've ordered from them, Amazon has made things right with a minimum of hassle.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Mon Sep 24, 2018 12:12 am

It appears there are a few 710s that would work well even in a single slot - which would be great, since it means I can tuck them into the corner of the board.

Assuming my return to Newegg goes well and the new(er) board has the same issue with GPUs, I'll update with what I end up with. Bonus from all this is that X399 prices have dropped so my refund will fund a new board and maybe some other upgrades.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
ptsant
Gerbil XP
Posts: 397
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:45 pm

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:57 am

Waco wrote:
It appears there are a few 710s that would work well even in a single slot - which would be great, since it means I can tuck them into the corner of the board.

Assuming my return to Newegg goes well and the new(er) board has the same issue with GPUs, I'll update with what I end up with. Bonus from all this is that X399 prices have dropped so my refund will fund a new board and maybe some other upgrades.


If you think there is any chance of actually running some sort of application on the GPU, you could consider a 1030 or even 1050. This of course depends on what you intend to do and whether you like experimentation.
Image
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Mon Sep 24, 2018 10:07 am

I intend to brute force transcoding with CPU, the GPU would only be for diagnosis if something broke honestly. GPU support in FreeNAS isn't wonderful either.

The 1030s are attractive simply because the idle power is lower, but the cost of entry is essentially double.
Last edited by Waco on Mon Sep 24, 2018 5:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
DragonDaddyBear
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 985
Joined: Fri Jan 30, 2009 8:01 am

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Mon Sep 24, 2018 10:53 am

Waco wrote:
I intend to brute force transcoding with CPU, the GPU would only be for diagnosis if something broke honestly. GPU support in FreeNAS isn't wonderful either.

The 1030s are attractive simply because the idoe power is power, but the cost of entry is essentially double.

I've seen rumblings of Docker instances being able to use Plex GPU decode. You might be able to get it working. Depends on how much you feel like playing around with it.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Wed Sep 26, 2018 10:08 pm

Decode wouldn't help a whole lot, it's transcoding into different resolutions/formats that really hurts the CPU. My quad can *almost* do 4K on the fly if it's low-ish bitrate. The Threadripper will do better. :)
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Wed Oct 03, 2018 5:37 pm

Holy crap. Newegg accepted the return and didn't try to say I damaged anything! :)

New parts will be ordered as soon as I see the credit show up on my account. I'm still undecided on the replacement board, but X399 boards have all dropped in cost over the last 2 months...so woot!
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
dragontamer5788
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 715
Joined: Mon May 06, 2013 8:39 am

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Wed Oct 03, 2018 6:05 pm

Waco wrote:
Holy crap. Newegg accepted the return and didn't try to say I damaged anything! :)

New parts will be ordered as soon as I see the credit show up on my account. I'm still undecided on the replacement board, but X399 boards have all dropped in cost over the last 2 months...so woot!


Whatever board you do get, you'll have PCIe slots up the wazoo.

I've been trying to figure out how to get 10G on my NAS4Free (or whatever its called now). I'm halfway thinking of buying a cheap SPF+ Mellanox card off of Ebay for like $25, some direct-attach fibers and have a point-to-point between my NAS and Desktop. I mean, 1G is decent, but I can definitely tell that my hard drives are faster than 1G (you can hear them spin-up and spin down repeatedly... "shoe shining" is what it'd be called in the tape business). So getting up to 10G would improve my NAS <--> Desktop connectivity for sure.

Mellanox SPF+ cards do have FreeBSD support, which is why I'm thinking about this route. But it really depends on the physical location of your computers. My NAS is in the same room as my desktop (for now anyway).
 
Airmantharp
Emperor Gerbilius I
Posts: 6192
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:41 pm

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Wed Oct 03, 2018 6:30 pm

Waco wrote:
Holy crap. Newegg accepted the return and didn't try to say I damaged anything! :)

New parts will be ordered as soon as I see the credit show up on my account. I'm still undecided on the replacement board, but X399 boards have all dropped in cost over the last 2 months...so woot!


Whack! I'm doing the happy dance for you, lol.

dragontamer5788 wrote:
I've been trying to figure out how to get 10G on my NAS4Free (or whatever its called now).


It's called XigmaNAS, and it's pretty slick- though FreeNAS just did an interface upgrade that's even slicker. I'd prefer to use XigmaNAS but had some trouble configuring it for my needs so I tried the 11.2 FreeNAS beta, and I'm currently hitting 700MB/s to the array for large files through an HP SOHO 10Gbase-T switch with Aquantia AQ-107 NICs on each side.

dragontamer5788 wrote:
I'm halfway thinking of buying a cheap SPF+ Mellanox card off of Ebay for like $25, some direct-attach fibers and have a point-to-point between my NAS and Desktop. I mean, 1G is decent, but I can definitely tell that my hard drives are faster than 1G (you can hear them spin-up and spin down repeatedly... "shoe shining" is what it'd be called in the tape business). So getting up to 10G would improve my NAS <--> Desktop connectivity for sure.

Mellanox SPF+ cards do have FreeBSD support, which is why I'm thinking about this route. But it really depends on the physical location of your computers. My NAS is in the same room as my desktop (for now anyway).


Make sure that you drill down to the specific drivers needed, but for a point-to-point 10Gbit connection, this is the cheapest way.

The downside is that you need a larger PCIe 2.0 slot- and if you decide to split up your GPU slot, make sure you don't drop to PCIe 2.0 x8 if you don't want it to affect gaming too much.

For that reason I went with the Aquantia 10Gbase-T NICs, which come in around $80 and take up a smaller PCIe 3.0 slot. The equivalent Intel cards are far more expensive.
 
dragontamer5788
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 715
Joined: Mon May 06, 2013 8:39 am

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Wed Oct 03, 2018 7:10 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
Make sure that you drill down to the specific drivers needed, but for a point-to-point 10Gbit connection, this is the cheapest way.

The downside is that you need a larger PCIe 2.0 slot- and if you decide to split up your GPU slot, make sure you don't drop to PCIe 2.0 x8 if you don't want it to affect gaming too much.

For that reason I went with the Aquantia 10Gbase-T NICs, which come in around $80 and take up a smaller PCIe 3.0 slot. The equivalent Intel cards are far more expensive.


Oh yeah, the only reason why I even consider it acceptable is because of Threadripper's myriad of PCIe lanes (which is my Desktop). The NAS (FX-6300) doesn't have any GPU in it, so I can use the x16 slot on anything I want.

Image

That's 16+8+16+8+1 PCIe slots (in x16 format). As far as I can tell, all Threadripper boards offer 16+8+16+8 PCIe lanes, except for that one mATX Threadripper board for size reasons.

-------------

Hmmm... Waco's situation is different though. It sounds like Threadripper is the NAS (which has plenty of I/O), but I don't know what his desktop client computer is. So that could definitely change things up.
 
Waco
Maximum Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 4850
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:14 pm
Location: Los Alamos, NM

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Wed Oct 03, 2018 8:56 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
It's called XigmaNAS, and it's pretty slick- though FreeNAS just did an interface upgrade that's even slicker. I'd prefer to use XigmaNAS but had some trouble configuring it for my needs so I tried the 11.2 FreeNAS beta, and I'm currently hitting 700MB/s to the array for large files through an HP SOHO 10Gbase-T switch with Aquantia AQ-107 NICs on each side..

??? I thought BSD drivers for those Aquantia chipsets didn't exist! If they do work in FreeNAS, damn, I'm game.


Order update: I got my refund in hand and ordered the Gigabyte Designare EX. ECC support is guaranteed and they seem to have no issues with LSI SAS cards. :) I picked up a pair of 80x38mm fans for the rear of my Norco case as well, the stock fan bearings are shot so they make a pretty obnoxious rattle. I can't hear it when it's in the basement, but I know it's there. :P
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
Glorious
Gerbilus Supremus
Posts: 12343
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2002 6:35 pm

Re: FreeNAS I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ ̶8̶0̶8̶6̶k̶ AMD Threadripper upgrade!

Thu Oct 04, 2018 8:19 am

dragontamer5788 wrote:
'm halfway thinking of buying a cheap SPF+ Mellanox card off of Ebay for like $25, some direct-attach fibers and have a point-to-point between my NAS and Desktop. I mean, 1G is decent, but I can definitely tell that my hard drives are faster than 1G (you can hear them spin-up and spin down repeatedly... "shoe shining" is what it'd be called in the tape business).


I did this, and I am quite happy with it.

Linux though.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest
GZIP: On