PWRFNK

There are more types of RAID available then 1/10 including combinations in blocks. This build fits 6x2.5" 3x3.5" 1xNVMe. I have more then enough drives to support the speed and redundancy i'm looking for in this build. Im aware of the risks of RAID and am more interested on how a Thunderbolt DAS/NAS may be possible.

Yes it will be using RAID configurations, more specifically multiple raid configurations. As stated before, this server will be backing up nightly to a redundancy specific server.

Update: Still digging but its definitely looking better. It should be possible to emulate the ethernet connection while theoretically taking advantage of the 40GB throughput, more on that soon. https://lwn.net/Articles/705998/ https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Thunderbolt-Network-Linux

Sure.

No offence taken. Not entirely accurate and could be said for almost an modern OS such as Android, google OS and current/future windows. Everything is a version of another piece of software/hardware implemented differently. Linux and Unix is an extremely powerful system, there a reason its implemented and almost all enterprise solutions. Lets not have a Mac vs PC flame war as the entire argument is mute, its use case. What suits your needs best. Id like to keep this tread as open minded as possible.

Mac's have there place outside of the enthusiast/gamer world. Mostly in my case for editing software and continuity across all devices. For clarification you can upgrade the CPU, RAM, NVMe drives and the 3.5" sata fairly easily. The iMac or iMac pro 5ks are surprising good value when you consider the p3 display. Professional work space displays are well over $1000 let alone 5k at 27". MacOS also supports your colour profiles across the OS natively. MacOS thankfully is Unix based, that adds a level of integrating with linux user for things like terminal commands. Plus networking the iMac (via thunderbolt) and iMac Pro you get 10e and external GPUs natively supported. Buying a NAS from QNAS or many other offering would be much easier and likely cheaper. Im building this system as a hobby/project. Im looking into what would be possible in speed for a small form factor thunderbolt based solution. Thank you everyone for you input so far, this is likely to be a bumpy road. From what I have found it does seem possible and supported. I will post an update soon when i can verify this information.

Apologies I did not paste the most updated build list... Opps! Up to date list: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/LFsLr6 A theoretical breakdown: If possible: NVMe cash > 4xSSD RAID 4,5,0,10 > backs up to > 3.5''8TBx2 in RAID 1 > backs up nightly on network. iMac using thunderbolt or USB 3.1 to the server. Other devices on the network will connect via GBe The two spare 2.5'' external cages will be used for hot swapping OS's and physically moving large files to other locations. The plan is to run windows in a VM via KVM using fedora plus a file server. The windows VM for living room TV gaming 1080p 30-60fps is more then enough. Hope is make a bit more sense now! Sorry bout that.

Does anyone know if it is possible to build a high speed DAS/NAS using thunderbolt and GBe? Im looking to build a storage solution for editing workflows (video4k,lightroom,backup) for my thunderbolt3 iMac. It would also be a gigabit NAS for any other devices on the network, like gaming pc library. Would it be possible to utilize the thunderbolt connection from the iTX board to the iMac? Or any other thunderbolt enabled computers? Possible Build part list: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/LFsLr6 A theoretical breakdown: If possible: NVMe cash > 4x2.5"SSD RAID 4,5,0,10 > backs up to > 3.5''8TBx2 in RAID 1 > backs up nightly on network. iMac using thunderbolt or USB 3.1 to the server. (10GB to the mac would be great without using the 16xPCI slot) Other devices on the network will connect via GBe The two spare 2.5'' external cages will be used for hot swapping OS's and physically moving large files to other locations. The plan is to run windows in a VM via KVM using fedora plus a file server. The windows VM for living room TV gaming 1080p 30-60fps is more then enough. This "highspeed" box would then backup each night to a much slower main redundancy server elsewhere on the network.

Whoops! I definitely miss read the website, thank you for correcting that. The post is now updated. To that I guess ill add should we be looking for boards with v4 support? Is the upgrade investment worth the relative performance gains? Im open to any board suggestions, I just picked this one based on value and expandability. The living room is a shared space, theres a studio/editing station on one side, and home theatre/audio/vinyl/gaming lounge area on the other. This side is where the server will go. The server will be connected to two 1080p TVs that are almost directly next to each other so cords aren't an issue. We are not currently looking for anything above 60fps. The peripherals for gaming will be setup wirelessly for each user or with xbox1/ps4 controllers. The whole apartment is drop tile ceiling. Luckily this means we can run hard lines for vid/ethernet to any room relatively easy.

Originally posted under new builds as i'm not to sure where the best place to post this is. Excuse the ignorance this is my first time posting and on the linus forums. Iv just begun researching and working on a new server build leaning outside of my comfort zone. Im looking for any tips, suggestions or part recommendations someone with more insight may have towards the final build. The parts here are just what i'm speculating I might need, any part suggestions are welcomed! Part compatibility is a bit ambiguous as these are new waters for us. Goal: High speed file server/ vm server/ gaming server. There are 3 of use living in the same house with needs for VMs, a gaming PC and a file server. So we thought, why not make one badass system running unRAID to do all of the above. It will be a great learning experience for all of us and simply just nerdy exciting. We will be making posts about the build in detail as we go along for anyone who also may be intrigued. We want to keep this community focused in sharing the knowledge and experience gained throughout this journey. For starters we want a file server that can saturate a RJ45 gigabit network as thats our current network limitation. It will be used for a lightroom/photoshop/capture one libraries that 1 editor will use at a time with direct read/write when working (from a mac of sorts). It will also backup his video content but he will not be editing video directly from the server. This system will also run a weekly backup for the multiple laptops laying around the house. We would also like to be able to game on the PC while its running the file server since it will end up in the shared living room. This system will also be running plex for up 6 users at the same time. We will be starting our gaming needs at the limitation of the GPUs we have laying around now ( two XFXR7700) so, older games on lower settings. We would like to assign each GPU to its own VM (windows or steam os) to run two gamers simultaneously. (while running the file server). With that all being said, its unlikely there will be an event where all of these things will happen at the same time, for the most part the file handing is pretty light. In a perfect world overhead would be nice for running other VMs for testing various light/lighter things. In the future we would like to upgrade to is a 10gb NIC and two high-end GPUs for the same purpose but current games at high settings 1080p. At this point the editor would likely use the system directly for video editing so a lofty gigabit file handling would be ideal via 10gb lines. Questions: What kind of performance requirements are needed to run a system like this? What CPU would be recommended for starters and what kinds of loads should I expect? How much ram should I start with or upgrade to? Lets say 32GB of ram is needed; is fewer larger capacity sticks of ram worse vs having more smaller capacity sticks? SSD choices for cache? I haven set a budget yet as I want to know more about what I need first. However if its not needed, I'd rather not invest in it, unless it can save in the future towards expanding. Parts: -The case we are going with is the Corsair 750D. This case will fit up to 12x 3.5" drives internal, 4x2.5" drives internal and up 24x 2.5" hot swappable drives in the front via the 5.25" bays and ICY DOCKS cages. Lots of different config options for the 3x5.25" bays from ICY DOCK. -The Board we have been pondering is the MBD-X10SRA by SuperMirco. Up to 18 core Xeon v3, 4x16ch PCI 3.0, 2x8ch PCI 2.0, up to 512 DDR4 ECC, 10x SATA3, 8xUSB3(4x3.1), 2x RJ45 intel gigabit ports. Links: -Board: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/xeon/c600/x10sra.cfm -Case: https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139024&cm_re=750d-_-11-139-024-_-Product -Case internal showing cages: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/cheap-case-for-massive-number-of-hard-drives.197749/#lg=_xfUid-3-1515957889&slide=0 -5.25" Bay conversion options: https://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=icy+dock&ignorear=0&N=-1&isNodeId=1 -current free GPUs: http://www.xfxforce.com/en-us/products/all-previous-gpus/amd-radeon-hd-7770-core-edition-fx-777a-znf4

Hey everyone this will be my first post here so bear with me! Iv just begun researching and working on a new server build leaning outside of my comfort zone. Im looking for any tips, suggestions or part recommendations someone with more insight may have towards the final build. The parts here are just what i'm speculating I might need, any part suggestions are welcomed! Part compatibility is a bit ambiguous as these are new waters for us. Goal: High speed file server/ vm server/ gaming server. There are 3 of use living in the same house with needs for VMs, a gaming PC and a file server. So we thought, why not make one badass system running unRAID to do all of the above. It will be a great learning experience for all of us and simply just nerdy exciting. We will be making posts about the build in detail as we go along for anyone who also may be intrigued. We want to keep this community focused in sharing the knowledge and experience gained throughout this journey. For starters we want a file server that can saturate a RJ45 gigabit network as thats our current network limitation. It will be used for a lightroom/photoshop/capture one libraries that 1 editor will use at a time with direct read/write when working (from a mac of sorts). It will also backup his video content but he will not be editing video directly from the server. This system will also run a weekly backup for the multiple laptops laying around the house. We would also like to be able to game on the PC while its running the file server since it will end up in the shared living room. This system will also be running plex for up 6 users at the same time. We will be starting our gaming needs at the limitation of the GPUs we have laying around now ( two XFXR7700) so, older games on lower settings. We would like to assign each GPU to its own VM (windows or steam os) to run two gamers simultaneously. (while running the file server). With that all being said, its unlikely there will be an event where all of these things will happen at the same time, for the most part the file handing is pretty light. In a perfect world overhead would be nice for running other VMs for testing various light/lighter things. In the future we would like to upgrade to is a 10gb NIC and two high-end GPUs for the same purpose but current games at high settings 1080p. At this point the editor would likely use the system directly for video editing so a lofty gigabit file handling would be ideal via 10gb lines. Questions: What kind of performance requirements are needed to run a system like this? What CPU would be recommended for starters and what kinds of loads should I expect? How much ram should I start with or upgrade to? Lets say 32GB of ram is needed; is fewer larger capacity sticks of ram worse vs having more smaller capacity sticks? SSD choices for cache? I haven set a budget yet as I want to know more about what I need first. However if its not needed, I'd rather not invest in it, unless it can save in the future towards expanding. Parts: -The case we are going with is the Corsair 750D. This case will fit up to 12x 3.5" drives internal, 4x2.5" drives internal and up 24x 2.5" hot swappable drives in the front via the 5.25" bays and ICY DOCKS cages. Lots of different config options for the 3x5.25" bays from ICY DOCK. -The Board we have been pondering is the MBD-X10SRA by SuperMirco. Up to 18 core Xeon v4, 4x16ch PCI 3.0, 2x8ch PCI 2.0, up to 512 DDR4 ECC, 10x SATA3, 8xUSB3(4x3.1), 2x RJ45 intel gigabit ports. Links: -Board: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/xeon/c600/x10sra.cfm -Case: https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139024&cm_re=750d-_-11-139-024-_-Product -Case internal showing cages: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/cheap-case-for-massive-number-of-hard-drives.197749/#lg=_xfUid-3-1515957889&slide=0 -5.25" Bay conversion options: https://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=icy+dock&ignorear=0&N=-1&isNodeId=1 -current free GPUs: http://www.xfxforce.com/en-us/products/all-previous-gpus/amd-radeon-hd-7770-core-edition-fx-777a-znf4