It’s 80W TDP should be good, I don’t want a huge cpu cooler with 1kg+ of weight…
I saw many reviews and the thermalright SI100 is an outstanding cooler, with a lot of capabilities at a reasonable price … I’ll go for it.
One question: truenas does include settings for choosing system fan speed/curve ?
Updated my signature with full configuration 
I’m a bit late, you have been faster 
good choices IMHO
For the signature, use
[details="whatever you want as title"]... [/details]
Can i also point to the fact that using 1TB NVME just for boot is an overkill and a total waste?
Keep it for something else, maybe a fast storage (or in future if you change mind about apps, can be usefull). 16gb Optane NVME are not cheap as some month ago, but you should achieve to take 1 for 10€ or 2 for ~15€ (one to use, another as spare, always usefull).
If you need an additional NVME port, buy also a PCIEX-NVME adapter (motherboard supports bifurcation? in case you have a better choice about that, buy a cheap passive raiser instead)
Thanks!
Actually I’ve 2x spare 1TB SDD and 1xspare 2TB SSD.
1TB will be useful for hosting some VMs or containers for non critical application in the future…(if I will rely enough on it)
or maybe there is a limitation than the boot ssd couldn’t be used for storage of VM/Containers?
Yes pcie bifurcation is supported but only on the x16 slot that I would like to leave for a graphics card in the future…
No. This is left for BIOS/IPMI.
Boot drive is for booting only.
Yes, without manually partitioning the ssd before installing truenas, you can’t use the boot pool for anything else. And partitioning it is an unofficial, not supported configuration.
Just get a dirt cheap 120 ssd and use the 1tb drives in a separate mirror pool for apps/vms
Ah ok! Now i understand why is it a big waste…which is the minimum size for truenas boot drive ? 64GB is ok?
Got it! I will take a 128GB drive
If I buy a pci express card to host 2x SSD in raid1 (for instance) the motherboard need mandatory to support the pci express bifurcation on that slot ? Or bifurcation is for something else ?
No thats mandatory. If you want to e.g. use an x8 slot it should bifurcate to 2 times x4
Xeon E can only bifurcate the 16x slot down to 8x4x4. But that would be enough for a carrier card that hosts 2x NVME.
If you want to split another PCI slot, or the 16x down to 4x4x4x4x or even 8*1x, you need a card with a PLX switch. They work well with Truenas/ZFS but cost usually between 200-500 USD.
May I inquire why? For trancoding you may use the iGPU.
Possibly even less than that, but SCALE creates a swap partition on 100+ GB drives. Just get a cheap second hand 100-128 GB drive, and optionally an adapter to put in the x1 slot.
It is a solid choice. Not the best efficiency at 60-65 watts (which is where your nas will be most of the time) but it will do.
Bifurcation is splitting a single PCIE slot into multiple. Your board can bifurcate the x16 slot into x8x4x4.
Get a bifurcation card like this: https://a.aliexpress.com/_EylVHHs and you can have 2 nvme m.2 ssds and a gpu. You will probably need a flexible riser for the gpu.
I have that exact card and was planning the exact setup (2x nvme + gpu) but changed my mind.
For boot, any 16GB nvme will do.
3 things remain: make sure you run a full cpu and memory tests when you get your components
Make sure you burn in your hard disks before loading your data
Make sure to run smart tests regularly (i run daily short, weekly long, scrub every 2 weeks or so).
Sorry, just to understand: this card is meant to be put on the gpu slot ?
The boot ssd I would leave on the motherboard, not on any pcie expansion card…for additional security.
So I can get a 128gb m2 ssd for boot and place on the motherboard.
Then to have 2xssd I need a pcie slot that support bifurcation, as the only one supported in the motherbora is the 16x and I want to leave for a future graphic card upgrade (coffee lake igpu has pretty old encoding and decoding capabilities ).
So to have 2xM.2 pcie ssd I understand that I have 3 option:
I am more on the side to run short smart weekly, and scrub every 1 month. That’s it.
If some runtime error happens you will be anyway notified even if you don’t run smart tests.
Running too much test and scrubs you’re going to “shorten” the hdd life without reasons…
I Would really consider to put the boot drive only in the motherboard m.2 slot…not on any pcie expansion card adapter…looks too risky to me…
Let’s keep it simple…
What do you want to achieve? A mirrorred app pool?
You have two x4 from the PCH: A M.2 slot and a PCIe x4. Use these, possibly with an adapter if your drives are a pair of M.2. Done.
Which security? What risk? Adapters here are just traces on a small PCB, carrying lanes from a physical connector to another.
Hosting the boot drive is the only possible good use of this PCIe 3.0 x1 slot.
It is meant to be placed on a full-height x16 slot which is bifurcated x8x4x4, and provides an x8 electrical slot for a half-height card and two M.2 connectors on the sides.
So you can have a half-height Arc A310 for transcoding and a pair of M.2 for a mirrorred pool on CPU lanes.
Note, however, that the board routes the 16 CPU lanes to a pair of slots: x16/x0 or x8/x8. So, if all the right options are in place in BIOS, you could have a full-height card in one of these slots (with 8 lanes) and a pair of M.2 on a passive riser in the other slot.
The adapter is meant for a 8x4x4 bifurcated 16x slot. Like yours. It enables you to run a GPU in 8x and two NVMEs at 4x speed from one 16x slot.
Just one thing:
If I configure correctly, you think in the second slot the x8 support the bifurcation? I understood only the x16 slot support it
anyway thanks a lot to everyone, and sorry if I bothered with so many questions
I was going to buy an intel optane 16GB but from official doc is suggested 20+ go for boot drive.
do you have any reccomandation for the boot driver ? 32+gb optane not easy to find