ECC single board computers

[rendaw]

So I've been using a Raspberry Pi for a while and have been fairly satisfied, but then I had an epiphany regarding ECC and my satisfaction disappeared.

I don't like assembling hardware, I don't need a lot of power, and I don't want to spend a lot of money. Considering these criteria, I googled around until I came across the magic acronym "sbc" and combining it with some other magic words like "soc" and "ecc" and "-"non-ecc""I found these:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/Compact/IoT/SYS-E100-8Q.cfm
- Coming soon. Or so they say, but other websites say it's released. And out of stock.
- Kind of weak. I couldn't find the spec, but I think it's 400Mhz, and 512MB ram?
- 2.2W. Is that max or average? I dunno. RPi is 3.5 by comparison.

http://www.itox.com/products/ProductDetails-bt253.php
- Coming soon.
- If it's a Atom E3815 then 5W (max?), 1.46Ghz.
- Nonstandard size, or at least they don't list a form factor.
- Onboard RAM? That would be nice.

http://www.portwell.com/products/detail.php?CUSTCHAR1=NANO-6060
- Released!
- Atom E3815 version: 5W, 1.46Ghz.
- nano-itx form factor, but I can't find any cases!
- About $300 USD.

http://www.dfi.com.tw/news/NewsDeta...31A21BFBC7D7A77CB981C860B46F.node1?press=4805
- The more I read about this the less I know.
- Atom E3845? 1.95 Ghz? But maybe also a Celeron?

http://www.seco.com/prods/other/q7-gx.html
- AMD GX-210JA, 1.0Ghz, 6W TBD
- Qseven module, I think it needs this to actually be usable? I wouldn't know how to connect them though. http://www.amcuk.com/amc_conga_mcb_qseven.php

http://www.congatec.com/us/products/qseven/conga-qg.html
- AMD GX-210JA, 1.0Ghz, 6W TBD
- Also a Qseven module

I couldn't find any AMD GX-210JA standalone boards.

Is this the first line of ECC supporting SBCs out there? It seems like they're mostly targeting embedded system developers or something.

Am I looking at this and totally miscomprehending things? If not, I might get one of those NANO-6060 ones.

 

[cyberjock]

What are you planning to use it for? This is off-topic, so I'm not sure...

 

[solarisguy]

@rendaw, and what is the storage?

 

[rendaw]

This is for home storage/backup. I'm currently using a USB external drive tower with separate power - with the RPi it was USB 2, I'm not sure if it supports USB 3. I'm mostly doing small, infrequent writes, so the speed I had with the RPi was acceptable.

 

[cyberjock]

I wouldn't consider the AMDs because they are AMDs. No this isn't fanboyism, it's pretty well known that AMD and FreeBSD don't always play nice. To boot, embedded setups often have very simplified BIOSes which can make FreeBSD even less likely to work.

The problem is the Intel options are shitty. Limited to 8GB of non-ECC or 4GB of ECC (or even less). One has 512MB of RAM and isn't upgradeable.

Of all of the options I'd say none are even "acceptable".

 

[rendaw]

The RPi has only 1GB RAM and I didn't see any performance issues when I was using that, so I think probably for my limited use the memory is fine, I might have had to limit the arc cache. 512MB does seem a bit small. I don't presume to have a bird's-eye view of the consequences of low memory though.

 

[cyberjock]

You looking at this for FreeNAS or something else? FreeNAS won't even *install* with 1GB of RAM.. LOL

I accidentally tried once. The installer crashed before it got to the main menu.

You need 8GB of RAM. LOL

 

[rendaw]

That's certainly a show stopper. With the RPi, obviously I was using an ARM linux distro, but I was hoping to move to FreeNAS.

Wait though, isn't the minimum requirement 4GB? Unless there's some other non-ZFS memory-intensive processes running I'd be willing to try that out.

 

[cyberjock]

4GB is for UFS. UFS is dead in FreeNAS though. 9.3 which is about to be released in BETA has no UFS support. In 9.3 even the boot device is ZFS. One person that experimented with 9.3 said that his system was using 6GB of RAM just by booting up! No file sharing or *anything* yet.

In essence, you'd be installing an OS that will never see an update. To make a long story short, if you are planning to go UFS you should just find another OS to use. One that will have updates you can use is a good candidate since there will be something resembling security fixes.

 

[solarisguy]

This is for home storage/backup. I'm currently using a USB external drive tower with separate power - with the RPi it was USB 2, I'm not sure if it supports USB 3. I'm mostly doing small, infrequent writes, so the speed I had with the RPi was acceptable.

In case you continue with FreeNAS, current versions of FreeNAS (i.e. 9.2.1.x) would get stuck on a reboot if the only storage or pool with .system is connected using USB. And they are USB 2 only (that is, FreeNAS can use USB 3 chipset in USB 2 mode, not all the chipsets though).

 

[rendaw]

In case you continue with FreeNAS, current versions of FreeNAS (i.e. 9.2.1.x) would get stuck on a reboot if the only storage or pool with .system is connected using USB.

Ah, sorry, I'd be using the built in SDHC or a directly connected small drive for the system root. Thanks pointing out the USB 3 thing!

 

[solarisguy]

Ah, sorry, I'd be using the built in SDHC or a directly connected small drive for the system root. Thanks pointing out the USB 3 thing!

It is confusing:

The root is read-only (or read-mostly), so actually most people have it on USB (using some solid state USB memory device).

System (OS) needs to write log files and persistent state files (for example for Samba) and some other peanuts somewhere (long story), so there is a special dataset named .system that is writable.

 

[ealltech]

The Graperain single board computer has only 1GB RAM and I didn't see any performance issues when I was using that, so I think probably for my limited use the memory is fine, I might have had to limit the arc cache. 512MB does seem a bit small. I don't presume to have a bird's-eye view of the consequences of low memory though.

 

[Ericloewe]

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, FreeNAS has a minimum requirement of 8GB of RAM. This is not open for discussion, it's been beaten to death.

ZFS on other platforms won't be much better and 1GB of RAM is absolutely tiny.