My WiP - Cheap Backup NAS - w. The Gigabyte MJ11-EC1 Mini-ITX Mainboard

TrueNAS General
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So while waiting on BlackFriday and hopefully some cheap(er) 8TB-Tosh-N300 disks, for the Primary NAS.
I decided to gather hw. for a Backup NAS, that would inherit the old 4TB drives, from my Primary/Home NAS.

So far i have bought :

2 x Gigabyte MJ11-EC1 Mini-ITX Mainboard
4 x Samsung 32GB 2Rx4 PC4-2666V DDR4 RAM M393A4K40BB2-CTD7Q
2 x SlimSAS (SFF-8654) 4i to SATA breakout cable.
The above price was around 265€

I have a 600W PSU, in the drawer.

Watch out w. the Ram selection , the mobo seems to be “picky”.

This is the “STH Monster thread” about the mobo

I have tested the mobo’s and the Ram.

Bad apple: (Became a Good Apple after a "Enable Clear Bios jumper move)
One Mobo seems to have a working BMC (IPMI), but is doing an endless reboot loop when starting the EPYC. I can’t even get into the BIOS, before it’s rebooting. I have written ram-könig, and asked for a replacement.

Edit Begin
Update on Bad Apple:
I had already tried to reset the BIOS to defaults from the BMC - No Luck.
Then today after being done w. memtests on the other board.
I decided to switch boards again (i just have one spare psu atm.)

I fiddled a bit around, but nothing worked.
The system would never complete the POST, when booting the EPYC.

Then i noticed that the system (BMC) showed that the last Ram installed was a single 16GB Hynix, and that it never detected my Samsung sticks.

I powered totally off, removed the BIOS Battery connector, and set the “Clear BIOS Jumper” to enabled, and waited for 2 minutes …
Now i reverted the Clear BIOS jumper to “normal”, and connected the BIOS battery connector again. .

After powering on , the system behaved diffrently, compared to before.
It was spinning up the EPYC fan.
Waited for a few minutes and started the BMC + Remote KVM viewer.
Improvement … The system wasn’t “Boot looping” anymore , it passed POST , and saw all 64GB of ram.
It booted a few times, loading default bios values & stuff’.

But for the first time I could enter the Real BIOS. :smile:

I changed to boot from usb (memtest86) , and it’s testing now.
I’ll let it finish the memtest, before cancelling the RMA at ram-könig.

Morale:
If you have reboot loop errors on the system, try to “Clear Bios via the jumper”
Load BIOS defaults via BMC Bios access - Doesn’t work in that situation.

Edit End

Good apple:
The other board is working excellent, and has no problems with the Samsung Ram…
A full 4-pass memtest86 took around 9…10h.

epyc1-memtest-dimmset-2-2
epyc1-memtest-dimmset-2-2825×635 51.9 KB

While i was at it i measured the powerusage on the 230v side, using the 600W PSU - Not a high efficient i think …

Mobo had the 2 x Samsing Ram + a USB stick (memtest) installed.

BMC/IPMI Only - 7.6W - (BMC runs on 5v stby pwr - Psu wasn’t “real” on)
Running memtest (4 cores no HT) - 68…70W

The other 2 “Ram sticks” did all 4-passes too wo. errors, and was why i think the “Bad-apple” mobo is defective.

I have not begun to use the Primary NAS yet :thinking:
As i hope that BlackFriday might give good offer on some (6 x 8TB Tosh-N300) , then i have 6 for the primary , and one in “spare”.

Master Plan for making my Backup NAS:
Install new 8T disks in Primary.
Get a Node 304 chassis.
Install Mobo + PSU.
Install a 256GB Boot NVME
Move the 5 x 4-TB disks to Backup NAS.

Q1:
Since i’d like to run RaidZ2, i need another 4-TB
I have a 4-TB WD Purple (Video), w. 4…6 weeks running time, can i use that one as the 6’th disk ?

Q2:
Will my 32GB Sticks -
Samsung 32GB 2Rx4 PC4-2666V DDR4 RAM M393A4K40BB2-CTD7Q
Function in my Primary NAS mobo : X10SDV-6C+ -TLN4 ?

I don’t have much experience w. ECC Ram.

Q3:
Does anyone here use the : Gigabyte MJ11-EC1 Mini-ITX Mainboard
And have some working Bios/BMC update files i can get ?
@etorix … hint…hint :upside_down_face:

My current version on the “Good-apple” is:

Selection_2024110112:04:51
Selection_2024110112:04:511919×854 56.6 KB

I would love to get some hints/tips for the mobo , and settings.
Please don’t just point me to the 25 pages STH thread, if possible.

Q5:
I don’t have a 3-D printer.
I’ll try to see if i can get one printed in DK.

But if not:
Can anyone (EU) print me an IO-Shield ?
Or point me to a place where i can get one for a “reasonable price” (EU).

Q7:
I haven’t enabled CPU (hyper) threading yet.
Someone on YT mentioned that the performance actually got worse, when doing that (mumbled memory bw). If i just run the Box as NAS wo. any APPS installed. Will TrueNAS benefit from 4c/8t vs plain 4c.

Q8:
I was considering the Jonsbo N3 chassis.
But think i read that the Node 304 had much better HDD cooling, is that correct ?

Q9:
Maybe someone knows the below, before i waste time digging.
Can a Node 304 be used w. a Mini-ITX mobo ?
Can a Node 804 ?

That’s it for now …

Ohh - I got two MoBo’s to have a spare, while they have.

TIA
Bingo

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Q1. Yes.
Q2. Yes. (The most important point is UDIMM vs. RDIMM, though I think that MJ11 and X10SDV can use both.)

Q3. 25 pages is quite short… :wink:
I have a 12.61.17 BMC firmware from page 6 of the thread. EC1 BIOS stands at F09, which should be the version your boards came from, and it’s probably better not to play with cross-flashing F02 from the MJ11-EC0.

Q7. I don’t know why performance would be “worse”, but for pure storage use HT is probably not very useful. Enabling HT will bump TDP by 10W (to its nominal value…); either way, you may want to keep an eye on temperature, or just slap a 60 mm fan blowing down on the heatsink.

Q8. I have no personal experience with the N3, but can understand some doubt about fans pulling air through a backplane. Of course, the N3 holds two more drives than the Node 304.

Q9. The Node 304 requires a mini-ITX motherboard (or mini-DTX… if you can find one). All micro-ATX and full ATX cases can take mini-ITX: Standoffs are common.

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Update on Bad Apple mobo:
Rereadig the “Mega thread” on STH … Gave me one “last idea” … Clear the bios hard …
I had tried to do : “Load defaults” via the BMC Bios access, and that did nothing.
Pg. 34 in the mobo pdf manual describes where to find the “Clear CMOS jumper” - It’s to right of the VGA Plug.

After clearing the BIOS via the “Clear CMOS Enable” jumper (see first post “edit”).

The “Bad Apple” mobo detected my Samsung Ram sticks, completed the EPYC POST. And began to behave like the “Good Apple”.

It’s now running memtest86.

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Make sure that any mirrored / RAIDZ drives are NOT SMR disks.

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Thanx for the hint :+1:
AFAIK all “known” WD-Purple are CMR.

wd-purp-cmr
wd-purp-cmr1025×742 75.2 KB

Seems to be a CMR WD-RED (w. video/surveilance fw instead of nas fw)

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No one print for you “locally”?

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Thank you :+1:

I also found this one

I will try to see if i can find someone to help out locally.
Else i’ll try here.

Btw:
I have absolutely no idea which one to chose …
But i think i’ll give the github one a shot,

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The one from GitHub looks like the second design in the STH thread. The one on Printables.com and the first design in the STH thread do not have nicely adjusted holes.

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Yeah agree, the one on GitHub seems more accurate (for what can impact :laughing: ).
Print something so small shouldn’t cost much more a couple of euros… But the shipping :open_mouth:

Btw, i lack of the i/o shield too on my backup Nas… And your question make me realize that maybe can be viable for me try to project one (starting from one of those maybe)

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I have gotten my two IO-Shield/Backplates printed, by a nice countryman.
And I even got another offer from another countryman.

Thank you “All”

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Does the IO shield serve a purpose? I always thought it’s purely cosmetic.

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Dust, airflow, and, for the regular metallic variety, EMI shielding.

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I want to make sure the “Fan air” (hdd cooling) doesn’t esacpe where it’s not supposed to.

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Just to complete this one with the finished build :
Look here