why is "64-bit hardware is required for current FreeNAS releases. Intel processors are strongly recommended."

[huhn]

i would like to know why intel is strongly recommended.

i find some topic where it pretty much suggests AMD as a brand is not a problem:

Intel vs AMD (and form factor)

Hi. I might start buiding a NAS as a replacement for Synology box I am in the process of getting rid of, and I am trying to figure out the hardware basics. Primarily, Intel vs AMD. A mini-ITX motherboard with integrated Celeron J4105 doesn't cost much, and the CPU is supposedly perfectly capable...

www.ixsystems.com

even entry level AM4 boards exist with ECC support.

so why?

 

[sretalla]

Intel boards come with Intel Chipsets and usually Intel NICs, which all have better support from BSD drivers. (but not AMD processors).

That doesn't say AMD won't work, but you may find yourself seeking more help about issues if you go down that road.

 

[huhn]

are you sure about his? that's the reason to recommend strongly intel over AMD?
because they use the same nic both have plenty selection of realtek and intel but the chipset?

 

[sretalla]

both have plenty selection of realtek

But if they do, they should not be selected unless you want problems.

but the chipset?

Chipset drivers are important and FreeBSD development focuses on Intel (first and foremost) even if AMD is eventually supported.

I'm pretty sure that driver/platform support is the primary reason this forum recommends Intel (and particularly Supermicro, since they use Intel NICs and chipsets and include broadcom/LSI disk controllers onboard).

 

[huhn]

so just that you know for epyc i only found one board that doesn't have an intel nic just saying....
and well supermicro builds amd board since "forever" and they don't use intel chipset they use intel chipset for intel and amd for amd.

 

[sretalla]

Nobody here is saying you can’t use AMD. Nor is anyone saying it won’t work.

Most of the more experienced folks run all their systems on Intel and FreeBSD support goes to Intel first, so it’s a recommendation for people to get the best results with the least grief.

If you’re prepared to go into more troubleshooting and potential surprises about how well things do or don’t work, go AMD, we’re not going to stop you. We also may be less well positioned to help you since many of us don’t have AMD systems.

You seem unhappy with Intel... is there a reason for that?

 

[huhn]

i don't know maybe because you can build an ecc system for a fraction compared to intel because pretty much every board supports it.

maybe "64-bit hardware is required for current FreeNAS releases. Intel processors are strongly recommended." without giving a single good reason linked to that is at best unprofessional.

i was expecting answers like it's compiled with intel compiler hence AMD CPU wouldn't use SIMD or it uses intel exclusive SIMD or there are well known issue with all AMD CPUs. something that deserves a strongly recommended something touchable. i was expecting something devastating.
not something good to know but clearly irrelevant for older hardware.
not freebsd cares about intel driver first before they care about amd driver or wrong believes in the used hardware of amd boards.
like with every new hardware freebsd will take longer to fully support it even windows needs time.

do you wanna deny that zen 2 doesn't wish the flow with intel in price/performance?

 

[garm]

What’s your point? FreeBSD har better Intel support.. AMD systems will probably work but potentially require more effort to get reliable. 64 bit architecture is required by the developer because the software is 64 bit and minimum RAM requirements are above 32 bit address space.
It’s not difficult, its all about what hardware is reliable and supported..

without giving a single good reason linked to that is at best unprofessional

If you want a “professional” reply you should probably talk to iX..

 

[huhn]

the bit part is just to take the whole line so i'm not one of these picky quote.

just an information like freenas makes heavy use of AVX2 would be good enough information to me to even support this line.
only zen 2 can do that properly and every intel CPU since haswell? and you don't want to use the cutting edge with hardware if you want reliability.
and the system recommendation doesn't have to be up to date once every 6-12 months or a major change is enough. still a reason should still be given for such a line.

i was scared to even move the data of my old nas because it uses an retired 9 year old AMD CPU i was already preparing to replace the mainboard with an intel board for this operation. that's the effect this line had to me...

 

[sretalla]

Free products require economy in providing support.

IX relies on the community to help with support, but also focuses its efforts on its own products (the FreeNAS mini and TrueNAS appliances... both of which are based on Intel).

The community has not generally adopted AMD for that reason and recommends Intel because it’s what we have experience with and feel will be easier to support (hence the strength of the recommendation).

Don’t be afraid to put your data on an AMD system with ECC RAM, a good NIC and a supported disk controller/HBA.

If you do that, be prepared to be at least somewhat involved in your own support as the community will be less able to give you advice if things don’t work out as expected for you.

It’s a free product with free support from the forums, don’t get too pushy about professionalism.

 

[jgreco]

I'm pretty sure that driver/platform support is the primary reason this forum recommends Intel (and particularly Supermicro, since they use Intel NICs and chipsets and include broadcom/LSI disk controllers onboard).

If we want to be pedantic, the primary reason the forum recommends Intel is because I was busy driving a wooden stake through the hearts of AMD APU's... ah AMD APU issues in the early days of the forum, back when it was common for users to be coming in with 4GB or 6GB of RAM on random desktop systems with Realtek ethernets and all sorts of other dodgy. So when I wrote the original "So you want some hardware suggestions..." thread, it continued my strong push away from random desktop crap and towards actual server grade gear. This had much better FreeBSD support, and the biggest vendor of flexible server gear is Supermicro, which I definitely encouraged. This was around the same time that there were some "issues" with ZFS that were torching pools when you had less than 8GB RAM, and we also had a newcomer in the form of Cyberjock, who came to the forum with a Gigabyte board and an off-brand RAID controller, who fairly quickly got burned by this. And, being who he was, he was fairly black-and-white about things, and had nothing better to do than hang around here answering questions and pushing "The One True Way." (That's not really a bad thing.)

So at a certain point the AMD APU folks focused their eyes and saw themselves holding the short end of the stick. Hardware support had always sucked (Realtek etc), the 4GB APU limit became actively dangerous to their systems and killed a number of them, and the major people doing support in the forums, including Cyberjock and I, railed against AMD APU's.

The real story is that FreeBSD supports decent AMD CPU's pretty well, but probably try to avoid cutting edge stuff unless you enjoy being a guinea pig. AMD boards also have a tendency to use the Broadcom ethernets, which in my experience have been problematic to one of my goals: stable 24/7 99.999% uptime.

Intel was very dominant in the early-to-mid parts of this decade, and there wasn't a compelling reason to go with what little sucksville AMD offerings there were. That situation is now reversed; EPYC is theoretically amazing, and if I had a bunch of cash to burn, I'd update a bunch of our gear here.

But users are still cautioned, you really can't be building this stuff on desktop boards.

still a reason should still be given for such a line.

So feel free to provide such. It's an open source project. I'm not an iX employee. Back when I did the research and found less-than-8G systems were torching pools, I went and created an account and edited the manual. I got sort of an eyebrows-raised e-mail from Dru, to which I responded with a short explanation and examples, and no one has successfully challenged it.

i was scared to even move the data of my old nas because it uses an retired 9 year old AMD CPU i was already preparing to replace the mainboard with an intel board for this operation. that's the effect this line had to me...

Depending on the CPU, I'd probably be scared too, because in 2011, AMD wasn't putting out that much server grade stuff. So if it's not an Opteron, yeah, um. I wouldn't have super-high faith in it, but as long as it's got at least 8GB RAM, hopefully more, and you're using a decent ethernet chipset (NOT Realtek), and you give it sufficient burn-in, it'll probably be OK.

 

[Chris Moore]

so just that you know for epyc i only found one board that doesn't have an intel nic just saying....
and well supermicro builds amd board since "forever" and they don't use intel chipset they use intel chipset for intel and amd for amd.

Here is an example.
Successful Build with AMD Epyc and Supermicro H11SSL-i
https://www.ixsystems.com/community...cro-h11ssl-i-do-freenas-11.63854/#post-490815

There have been others. If you use good hardware, you can get good results with AMD. The problem we see most often is people that bring their antique gaming system with hardware that is not supported and have problems making it work. If you are looking to buy all new gear, just don't look at gaming hardware and you might be all set. If you have questions, run the detailed specs by the forum and people with experience will look at your hardware details and point out potential pitfalls. We want to help you be sucessful.

 

[jgreco]

The problem we see most often is people that bring their antique gaming system with hardware that is not supported and have problems making it work.

You forgot my faves, "overclocked" and "watercooled".

 

[HoneyBadger]

You forgot my faves, "overclocked" and "watercooled".

"But it's been Prime95 stable for 24 hours, certainly that's enough right?" ;)

As a general reply, see below.

Hardcore ZFS users tend to have a fairly risk-adverse mindset - that's why we're using a filesystem that takes such stringent measures to checksum, validate, atomically write, etc. A lot of those same "hardcore" users are the ones providing a lot of support here on the forums. That's what tends to generate the "Gospel of FreeNAS" as alluded to by @jgreco - a set of dictates from upon high about The One True Way To Do It.

But here's a spoiler.

There is no "One True Way For Everyone" - there's only "The Way That Works For You."

There are definitely some guidelines, whether from iXsystems (because FreeNAS should be thought of more as an appliance than an operating system) - these would be the 64-bit processor, the RAM requirements, the very strong encouragement to use an HBA and not a RAID card - and there are other guidelines from the community - like "AMD isn't as well supported" or "you should really prefer LSI HBAs because the FreeBSD driver probably has billions of combined hours of operation" and yes, even the much-discussed "ECC requirement" is in this latter area.

Both of them you're free to ignore if it suits your needs but you need to very strongly consider what those needs are. If you're just storing your pirated movies, music, and bootlegged videos, and don't care if the whole pool eats itself one day - by all means, run FreeNAS on an unsupported platform with less-than-suggested amounts of non-ECC RAM via hardware RAID and access it over Realtek network cards. Just don't be surprised if/when things go off the rails and the first response from the community is "why did you ignore the large volume of evidence, albeit some of it anecdotal, that your configuration would lead to tragedy one day?"

If you're going to put highly critical data on here, then it's really in your own best interests to not only consider the advice of users here, but also consider spending a small amount of money to buy an hour or two of time from a consultant, or even have a solution built to offload the liability especially if it's a business. It's one thing to risk your own free time as an individual troubleshooting why your home NAS is acting flaky - it's entirely another if there will be a row of C-levels asking "where did our data go?"

"But that's, just like, my opinion, man."

 

[huhn]

There have been others. If you use good hardware, you can get good results with AMD. The problem we see most often is people that bring their antique gaming system with hardware that is not supported and have problems making it work. If you are looking to buy all new gear, just don't look at gaming hardware and you might be all set. If you have questions, run the detailed specs by the forum and people with experience will look at your hardware details and point out potential pitfalls. We want to help you be sucessful.

very useful information.
but i don't understand the difference between gaming hardware and desktop hardware while the difference to server hardware is obvious.

Both of them you're free to ignore if it suits your needs but you need to very strongly consider what those needs are. If you're just storing your pirated movies, music, and bootlegged videos, and don't care if the whole pool eats itself one day - by all means, run FreeNAS on an unsupported platform with less-than-suggested amounts of non-ECC RAM via hardware RAID and access it over Realtek network cards. Just don't be surprised if/when things go off the rails and the first response from the community is "why did you ignore the large volume of evidence, albeit some of it anecdotal, that your configuration would lead to tragedy one day?"

the point is money. i get as much security power efficiency as i can pay for.
that's why AMD is so interesting the mainstream board have ecc support.

there is simply stuff i don't understand. if you tell me a new broadcom 10 GB nic makes problem or a realtek and the intels work better more reliable i will instantly believe that. but a 10 year old 1 gb realtek nic?

and isn't the most reliable none server grade hardware you can buy cheap mainstream mainboards? if they have flaws at the sata ports or the nic countless people will flood them with bug reports returned hardware. but high end "gaming" boards with bloated bios well who cares.

Both of them you're free to ignore if it suits your needs but you need to very strongly consider what those needs are. If you're just storing your pirated movies, music, and bootlegged videos, and don't care if the whole pool eats itself one day - by all means, run FreeNAS on an unsupported platform with less-than-suggested amounts of non-ECC RAM via hardware RAID and access it over Realtek network cards. Just don't be surprised if/when things go off the rails and the first response from the community is "why did you ignore the large volume of evidence, albeit some of it anecdotal, that your configuration would lead to tragedy one day?"

are there really still issues with old mass produced realtek onboard nic?
a marvel sata ports really problematic they are pretty much the same for the past 7 years like this: https://www.marvell.com/storage/system-solutions/assets/Marvell-88SE92xx-002-product-brief.pdf
are chipsets sold in the 10 millions really buggy?

again i'm instantly believing if you say me don't trust new realtek nic like the 10 GB ones but the old ones are still an issue after all these years?

the old nas i want to kill and replace with an ECC system is on very old UFS nas4free system i build that system around the time the project split into the both and freenas decided to not supporting ufs anymore (not blaming any one here just to be sure) and i had the choice for UFS and no storage server at all. ZFS was something else back then.

the system was an e-350 8 gb ram and 7*3 TB shucked seagate "greens" HDDs where i just put my old phenom 2 x4 955 with nothing special in it just a mainstream board about 5 years ago where the hardware was old no killernic or rubbish like that.

is this all a miss understanding that old mass produced hardware will not be good supported on freebsd is it maybe just better to get a linux with good driver support and do the ZFS manual in it or is realtek broken on a hardware level same for let's say b350 chipset sata ports?
in my case not general.

the new nas is already build using an my old i3 4130 with currently 24 gb ram which i plan to check the performance on so i can see how many cores i need to get reasonable speed with ZFS. an am4 board with 6 or more sata and ages old 1GB realtek nic even a 1 GB intel sure and an let'S say ab r31200 for just 50 bucks adding 60 bucks of 16 GB ECC ram is not really an investment.

 

[G8One2]

I miss cyberjock..... He's great

 

[jgreco]

very useful information.
but i don't understand the difference between gaming hardware and desktop hardware while the difference to server hardware is obvious.

The desktop hardware isn't a good idea but it usually hasn't been abused (overclocked, overheated, stupid vendor BIOS hackery, etc) in the way gaming hardware often is. Gaming board vendors optimize their products towards a certain use case that includes flashy lights and excitement, with a focus on low price (cheap components) and the idea that many of the buyers will be upgrading in a year or two.

Server board vendors are like "it just processes bytes, that's all it does, 24/7, for at least seven to ten years. Yawn."

The server board is your classic heavy duty Ford F-150.

The desktop board is your daily driver Toyota Camry.

The gaming board is the high end sports car that's likely to end up wrapped around a tree at some point.

the point is money. i get as much security power efficiency as i can pay for.
that's why AMD is so interesting the mainstream board have ecc support.

there is simply stuff i don't understand. if you tell me a new broadcom 10 GB nic makes problem or a realtek and the intels work better more reliable i will instantly believe that. but a 10 year old 1 gb realtek nic?

and isn't the most reliable none server grade hardware you can buy cheap mainstream mainboards? if they have flaws at the sata ports or the nic countless people will flood them with bug reports returned hardware.

No, the reliability of mainstream motherboards is not that great. Most of them are designed for "office use" (8 hours a day) with an expected three to five year lifespan, so the parts used reflect that. The vendors selling discrete mainboards feel a lot of competitive price pressure. You can often get better reliability out of corporate prebuilts (HP Elite, etc) because the incremental cost to put better parts on them is less than the warranty service cost.

are chipsets sold in the 10 millions really buggy?

Yes, because they ONLY have to be good enough to work with Windows. You ever hear of a Blue Screen of Death?

again i'm instantly believing if you say me don't trust new realtek nic like the 10 GB ones but the old ones are still an issue after all these years?

Realtek has never provided useful documentation for their chipsets, as far as I know. Worse. I believe there are a number of cases where Realtek chips have been "cloned" in Shenzhen and have been found on various mainboards. These aren't even going to work as well as the original crappy parts.

Anyways this isn't that interesting to me and you can obviously do as you please.

 

[huhn]

i still wonder how HP could get any better parts B350 is still B350 Vram are not interesting because they are not stressed most board have solid capacitor.

 

[kdragon75]

i still wonder how HP could get any better parts B350 is still B350 Vram are not interesting because they are not stressed most board have solid capacitor.

Total nonsense. Eat humble pie and heed the warnings of those more experienced. Nobody is saying AMD is bad. The big message to drive home is use well tested and known supported hardware to have a known reliable and supportable solution or go your own way and tell us how it's worked out for you.

 

[jgreco]

i still wonder how HP could get any better parts B350 is still B350 Vram are not interesting because they are not stressed most board have solid capacitor.

HP gets better parts by buying them from reputable parts manufacturers. This isn't hard. Even at our small scale here in our shop, you go to a typical industry source like Digi-Key and you can order parts at multiple levels of quality, up to and including mil-spec.

But if you're an off-brand low-cost motherboard manufacturer, you go to a Shenzhen back alley and you buy reels of slightly off-spec parts of a grade that's slightly less than what floats in a sewer. Statistically speaking, each individual part is still likely to work for a long time, but when put on a board with a thousand other parts, you have a much higher chance of a catastrophic failure.

The quality of even theoretically simple devices varies greatly. Dave Jones did a great teardown of iPhone chargers on EEVBlog many years ago, which is still my go-to for introducing people to the difference in quality between a well-engineered product with quality parts (and why it costs $20) and the Shenzhen Special that costs 53 cents and it's mainly luck that it doesn't start on fire or electrocute you.

These principles work at multiple levels. If you want a high quality server that is a safe warehouse for your valuable data, you select the appropriate parts and follow the guidance of those who have done it before you, learning from their mistakes. Some of us actually do this stuff professionally and have put significant time into sharing that in a format accessible to beginners. But of course you're still welcome to do as you please.