recommendations for file server based zfs appliance

[Stefan Hagen]

* Patrick M. Hausen wrote:
>> Am 18.08.2017 um 11:19 schrieb Pete French <petefrench at ingresso.co.uk>:
>> The HP micro servers work very well, and you can pick them up remakably cheaply [...]
>> Not sure about ECC memory support there though.
>
>They do support ECC, no problem.
>
>They are available with different CPU configurations from
>as Pete said remarkably cheap Celeron D based systems
>up to Xeon CPUs.

I've just sold my Microserver Gen8 (Xeon) just recently.
It's a beautiful little machine, but I didn't make me happy in the long run.

Reasons:
 - Limited to 8GB Ram in total
 - Only 4 HDDs
 - JBOD support is not great
 - Harddrives are never going to sleep (not supported)

Installing FreeBSD was harder than expected. The machine refused to boot FreeBSD
from the internal non-raid SATA ports. I didn't try FreeNAS though.

Also, in case you go with a Microserver - I think all non-xeon models do not
support AES-NI, which will cut the throughput in case you plan to encrypt your
drives.

iX-Systems would have been my choice to replace this machine until I found out
that I can build something myself that suits my needs even better.

Note, I was looking at the 8 bay model and I would have to add around $280 for
shipping and tax to Germany.

I'm now going for this custom build:
 - Fractal Design Define R5
   Reason: Silent, enough space for 12 drives
 - SuperMicro MBD-A1SAI-2550F-O
   Reason: IPMI, ECC, AES-NI, 64GB Ram, Intel NIC, low power consumption
 - 4x 8GB Kingson ECC SODIMM
   Reason: 16GB modules are not yet available
 - Seasonic X-Series Fanless X-400FL 400W passiv
   Reason: Fanless -> silent

The complete order was around 1000€

That being said, I'm planning to put an older 3ware controller in JBOD mode in
it and I also have SSDs and drives already. The board has only 6 SATA ports.
But that would be enough for you.

This might be a little big for you. But maybe it gives you ideas.

Best Regards,
Stefan