Multipurpose Server Build: Help!

[iPC]

Hi, I wanted to build a multipurpose server (NAS, webserver, video rendering machine). Is it possible to run all those things on one server? And if so, is this a good server build on which to do so (https://pcpartpicker.com/user/iPC/saved/hZ67WZ)? Also, if you have any OS suggestions, they would be welcome! Thank you so much for your help! Any thoughts/input is greatly appreciated!

[Electronics Wizardy]

You can run that all one system just fine. Id run a hypervisor on it and run everything in a vm if it was me.

 

What are you using for video rendering? This chips normally aren't the fastest for that.

 

Id get a used server like a dell r720, normally cheaper than building the parts your self and you get lots of extra goodies like remote management and extra dimm slots and others. Something like this is a pretty good deal https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Poweredge-R720XD-2-x-SIX-CORE-2-00GHZ-E5-2620-8GB-12-x-2TB-SAS-24TB-QTY/372625159527?hash=item56c230b567:g:5nMAAOSw9D1cVd0M

 

Maybe swap out the cpus if needed, add a ssd and somre more ram, but it will be fine stock.

 

Why the 16gb dimms? 8gbs are normally cheaper and filling all the channels will be faster. ALso get ram on ebay, its much cheaper there.

[iPC]

27 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can run that all one system just fine. Id run a hypervisor on it and run everything in a vm if it was me.

 

What are you using for video rendering? This chips normally aren't the fastest for that.

 

Id get a used server like a dell r720, normally cheaper than building the parts your self and you get lots of extra goodies like remote management and extra dimm slots and others. Something like this is a pretty good deal https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Poweredge-R720XD-2-x-SIX-CORE-2-00GHZ-E5-2620-8GB-12-x-2TB-SAS-24TB-QTY/372625159527?hash=item56c230b567:g:5nMAAOSw9D1cVd0M

 

Maybe swap out the cpus if needed, add a ssd and somre more ram, but it will be fine stock.

 

Why the 16gb dimms? 8gbs are normally cheaper and filling all the channels will be faster. ALso get ram on ebay, its much cheaper there.

Thanks so much for the response! Do you mean run each thing in its own vm?

 

I'm rendering mainly in h.264 from premiere. I'm pretty sure that codec renders entirely on CPU? When I render from my desktop with a 1080, it doesn't use it at all, purely CPU.

 

I'll definitely consider that as an option. If I had to build it though, where could I do better for a similar price point (1500$)? And could I get remote management on a built server?

 

The 16GB dimms were for expandability if I wanted to go to 128GB in the future, but maybe I should just go with 8GB dimms.

 

[Windows7ge]

8 minutes ago, iPC said:

And could I get remote management on a built server?

If I recall the Dell servers use something called iDRAC it's the equivalent to the IPMI you would find on that ASRock board. (Remote Management)

 

10 minutes ago, iPC said:

The 16GB dimms were for expandability if I wanted to go to 128GB in the future, but maybe I should just go with 8GB dimms.

 

8GB ECC UDIMMs aren't that costly and that board can hold 128GB of it. (I own that board in my own server)

[iPC]

6 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

If I recall the Dell servers use something called iDRAC it's the equivalent to the IPMI you would find on that ASRock board. (Remote Management)

 

8GB ECC UDIMMs aren't that costly and that board can hold 128GB of it. (I own that board in my own server)

How's it working out for you? Also, what CPUs do you run? Do you recommend the dual 2670s or something different? And does that mean I do have remote management with that board? Thanks!

[Electronics Wizardy]

50 minutes ago, iPC said:

Thanks so much for the response! Do you mean run each thing in its own vm?

 

Thats what id do, it makes managing easier and easier to move to other systems later on.

 

50 minutes ago, iPC said:

'm rendering mainly in h.264 from premiere. I'm pretty sure that codec renders entirely on CPU? When I render from my desktop with a 1080, it doesn't use it at all, purely CPU.

gpu does effects and other things, you really want a gpu for this. Unless your only exporting, most other things use the gpu.

 

And those cpus really aren't great for premiere rendering, something like a ryzen or i5/i7 would be faster here.

 

51 minutes ago, iPC said:

'll definitely consider that as an option. If I had to build it though, where could I do better for a similar price point (1500$)? And could I get remote management on a built server?

Get a board on ebay, you can normally get better boards there for cheaper. Id get a bigger ssd for vms and current files.

 

52 minutes ago, iPC said:

The 16GB dimms were for expandability if I wanted to go to 128GB in the future, but maybe I should just go with 8GB dimms.

If you get soething like the dell r720 above, you have 24 dimm slots. Fill 8 with 8gb starting for 64gb quadchannel. Then if you need more you can get 192gb of ram with 8gb dimms. You probably won't need more than that for a while. 

 

32 minutes ago, iPC said:

How's it working out for you? Also, what CPUs do you run? Do you recommend the dual 2670s or something different? And does that mean I do have remote management with that board? Thanks!

I have dual e5 2680 v2. 10 cores, 2.8. About 25-30% faster than the 2670's, really depends on the price you get them.

 

 

For your use here, id really look at a ryzen based system as well. You get much faster video rendering for premeire, and lower power.

[Windows7ge]

30 minutes ago, iPC said:

How's it working out for you?

I've had no drastic downtime. In terms of reliability the board has served me well. It does however have an unusual bug which may actually be the fault of the processors. This bug hasn't harmed normal operations though so I ignore it.

 

30 minutes ago, iPC said:

Also, what CPUs do you run?

Intel Xeon E5-2670s.

 

30 minutes ago, iPC said:

Do you recommend the dual 2670s or something different?

Unfortunately I cannot confidently advise you on that. For rendering more faster cores is always better but for maximum performance the socket/chipset itself may not be optimal. I don't know. I don't render. Outside of rendering for their price they're nice chips which should work well for VM applications. I plan to convert my server to PROXMOX in the near future partly for that reason. If I had to offer an alternative I would suggest the E5-1680v2 as it has a 3.9GHz turbo but the motherboard doesn't support it. As high as it supports is the 1660v2 with a 3.7GHz turbo. That would offer better umph to the rendering process than the 2670.

 

30 minutes ago, iPC said:

And does that mean I do have remote management with that board?

The one you picked? Yes, it supports IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) you may run into issues with what javascript version the KVM will work with and Google Chrome has many types of issues with the elements in the WebUI (due to support removal). Firefox may be the only browser that runs all the page elements.

[iPC]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Thats what id do, it makes managing easier and easier to move to other systems later on.

 

gpu does effects and other things, you really want a gpu for this. Unless your only exporting, most other things use the gpu.

 

And those cpus really aren't great for premiere rendering, something like a ryzen or i5/i7 would be faster here.

 

Get a board on ebay, you can normally get better boards there for cheaper. Id get a bigger ssd for vms and current files.

 

If you get soething like the dell r720 above, you have 24 dimm slots. Fill 8 with 8gb starting for 64gb quadchannel. Then if you need more you can get 192gb of ram with 8gb dimms. You probably won't need more than that for a while. 

 

I have dual e5 2680 v2. 10 cores, 2.8. About 25-30% faster than the 2670's, really depends on the price you get them.

 

 

For your use here, id really look at a ryzen based system as well. You get much faster video rendering for premeire, and lower power.

I may just do my rendering on my desktop then because it has a 6700K and GTX 1080. I may be able to go with two 2680v2s, if I use Natex to get them. Do you think getting the motherboard and CPUs from there is ok? Or do you think it's wiser to get worse hardware new?

[Electronics Wizardy]

16 minutes ago, iPC said:

I may just do my rendering on my desktop then because it has a 6700K and GTX 1080. I may be able to go with two 2680v2s, if I use Natex to get them. Do you think getting the motherboard and CPUs from there is ok? Or do you think it's wiser to get worse hardware new?

If your not gonna do rendering on it, then this is way overkill, and id get something a good amount lowerend and cheaper personally. Id look at a single 2011 or a ryzen system.

 

Natex is fine, look at ebay aswell.

[iPC]

7 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

I've had no drastic downtime. In terms of reliability the board has served me well. It does however have an unusual bug which may actually be the fault of the processors. This bug hasn't harmed normal operations though so I ignore it.

 

Intel Xeon E5-2670s.

 

Unfortunately I cannot confidently advise you on that. For rendering more faster cores is always better but for maximum performance the socket/chipset itself may not be optimal. I don't know. I don't render. Outside of rendering for their price they're nice chips which should work well for VM applications. I plan to convert my server to PROXMOX in the near future partly for that reason. If I had to offer an alternative I would suggest the E5-1680v2 as it has a 3.9GHz turbo but the motherboard doesn't support it. As high as it supports is the 1660v2 with a 3.7GHz turbo. That would offer better umph to the rendering process than the 2670.

 

The one you picked? Yes, it supports IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) you may run into issues with what javascript version the KVM will work with and Google Chrome has many types of issues with the elements in the WebUI (due to support removal). Firefox may be the only browser that runs all the page elements.

What OS are you running? I'd probably want to run a Linux distro but the specs of the motherboard say that the Ethernet controllers' drivers aren't officially supported anymore. Do you think that would be a problem?

[Windows7ge]

1 hour ago, iPC said:

What OS are you running? I'd probably want to run a Linux distro but the specs of the motherboard say that the Ethernet controllers' drivers aren't officially supported anymore. Do you think that would be a problem?

FreeNAS, I would like to say it should work fine but that's entirely dependent on what version of Linux you plan to install. If you opt for an older version I'd expect it to work fine. If you install the absolute latest version they may have removed compatibility requiring you to buy a NIC again I don't know. However my experience with things that are no longer officially supported usually mean they still work there may just be bugs, hiccups, or loss of features but the core function usually still works.

[iPC]

8 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If your not gonna do rendering on it, then this is way overkill, and id get something a good amount lowerend and cheaper personally. Id look at a single 2011 or a ryzen system.

 

Natex is fine, look at ebay aswell.

What hypervisor would you suggest? And what OS for each vm? Is a hypervisor software or an OS? If it's software, what OS should I run it on?

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 hours ago, iPC said:

What hypervisor would you suggest? And what OS for each vm? Is a hypervisor software or an OS? If it's software, what OS should I run it on?

a hypervisor is a os that is designed to only run vms.

 

For a free hypervisor that works well id give proxmox a shot. Many are free or have a free version, so id give multiple a shot and see what you like if you want to experment. There is esxi(vmware, most common option in buinesses), hyper-v(the microsoft one, kind of a free version(or a trial with no end date, its windows server than can only run hyper-v), xcp-ng(the free/community version of xen server from citrix).