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Recommend an Upgrade Route

mehtaman
By mehtaman
in Servers, NAS, and Home Lab
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Posted

Hi there,

 

I currently have a HP MicroServer (N54L) setup.

Optical Bay has been swapped out for an SSD (OS) and in total there are 5 Standard 2TB Data Drives.

 

I have Windows Server 2016 installed on the SSD and just used Windows Storage Spaces to mirror my data over 4 of the Data Drives.

The other (fifth) Data Drive is used by Veeam Backup Free Edition.

 

The system is getting old and the new MicroServers are not value for money like the N54L was.

 

What are my upgrade options?

 

I was thinking of just building a new PC but struggling to find a decent ITX / mATX that supports a large number of SATA Drives.

Want to keep costs below £600, I already have the data drives and a GPU.

 

Any suggestion are welcomed.

Current RIG: 

Motherboard:    ROG Crosshair VIII Impact
CPU:            AMD Ryzen 9 3900X @4.4GHz
RAM:            32GB DDR4 G.Skill Trident Z
M.2:            1TB Western Digital Black
GPU:            16GB Asrock 7800XT OC
Case:           Fractal Design Define Mini C
Cooler:         Corsair H115i Platinum
PSU:            Corsair CS850M

 

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What about looking at a PCIe SATA card and a mATX board? There are quite a few with 2 x16 slots, so you could have a GPU and a SATA expansion card.

REMEMBER:

IF YOU WANT ME TO RESPOND, YOU GOTTA QUOTE ME 

OR

PUT @Fixinit1 IN YOUR RESPONSE!!!!!

 

 

Gosh, I hate it when people forget. Anyway, check out my PC below, and there's a PCPartPicker link on my profile, If you wanna see what I'm planning.

Spoiler

SYSTEM SPECS: Finally ditched the Pentium N3540, now I've got the following:

 

CPU - Ryzen 5 2400G

GPU - 1060 6GB Gigabyte G1 Gaming

RAM - 16GB DDR4 3000mhz Team T-Force Delta RGB

MOTHERBOARD - MSI B350 Tomahawk

PSU - EVGA 450BT

CASE - PHANTEKS  P350X

 

 

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15 minutes ago, Fixinit1 said:

What about looking at a PCIe SATA card and a mATX board? There are quite a few with 2 x16 slots, so you could have a GPU and a SATA expansion card.

A very valid point and certain something I'll look into...

Do you know if it needs to be RAID compatible or is Windows Storage Space a 'virtual' RAID?

 

I know when I have had to rebuild my OS drive, the storage space was not affected, Windows detected all the settings from the Data drives.

 

Thanks

Current RIG: 

Motherboard:    ROG Crosshair VIII Impact
CPU:            AMD Ryzen 9 3900X @4.4GHz
RAM:            32GB DDR4 G.Skill Trident Z
M.2:            1TB Western Digital Black
GPU:            16GB Asrock 7800XT OC
Case:           Fractal Design Define Mini C
Cooler:         Corsair H115i Platinum
PSU:            Corsair CS850M

 

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I'm going to be honest, RAID isn't exactly my area of expertise, so I'm not 100% sure. I would do a little research, and maybe just get a RAID compatible card anyway. Just in case.

REMEMBER:

IF YOU WANT ME TO RESPOND, YOU GOTTA QUOTE ME 

OR

PUT @Fixinit1 IN YOUR RESPONSE!!!!!

 

 

Gosh, I hate it when people forget. Anyway, check out my PC below, and there's a PCPartPicker link on my profile, If you wanna see what I'm planning.

Spoiler

SYSTEM SPECS: Finally ditched the Pentium N3540, now I've got the following:

 

CPU - Ryzen 5 2400G

GPU - 1060 6GB Gigabyte G1 Gaming

RAM - 16GB DDR4 3000mhz Team T-Force Delta RGB

MOTHERBOARD - MSI B350 Tomahawk

PSU - EVGA 450BT

CASE - PHANTEKS  P350X

 

 

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1 hour ago, mehtaman said:

I was thinking of just building a new PC but struggling to find a decent ITX / mATX that supports a large number of SATA Drives.

Good mini ITX motherboards are super expensive. Why don't you get a standard ATX motherboard and a new case to house your new system. With 600 pounds you can set up a new system for your needs.

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I guess I got wrapped up with the term MircoServer and went down the like for like route when in reality an mATX or ATX will certainly have 6+ SATA Ports along with 2-4 PCIe Slots (For Future Expansion)... back to the drawing board I think.

 

 

Current RIG: 

Motherboard:    ROG Crosshair VIII Impact
CPU:            AMD Ryzen 9 3900X @4.4GHz
RAM:            32GB DDR4 G.Skill Trident Z
M.2:            1TB Western Digital Black
GPU:            16GB Asrock 7800XT OC
Case:           Fractal Design Define Mini C
Cooler:         Corsair H115i Platinum
PSU:            Corsair CS850M

 

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The Microserver G8 was particularly good value I think. Full iLO4, huge pro, upgradable CPU, built-in SAS support (just add a RAID card or HBA and boom) the lot.

 

I run a G10 now because it's super power efficient and performs well enough.

 

The pro to entry level servers is that they were designed to be a server 24/7 and off the shelf consumer hardware is not. I'm not saying it won't work, but there's a chance. Also remember Windows Server 2016 is quite picky on hardware. W10 drivers aren't guaranteed to work.

PC Specs - AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D - MSI B550M Mortar - 32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4-3600 @ CL16 - ASRock RX7800XT - 660p 1TBGB & Crucial P5 1TB - Fractal Define Mini C - CM V750v2 - Windows 11 Pro

 

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hmmm maybe I would be better off with the Gen10 (4 core version) as its just over £500 in the UK:

https://www.ebuyer.com/854984

 

Looking cheaper than a custom build, supports 5 of my 6 drives and I can stick my backup drive into a USB caddy 

Just the RAM to upgrade (as I plan to create a VM or two).

Current RIG: 

Motherboard:    ROG Crosshair VIII Impact
CPU:            AMD Ryzen 9 3900X @4.4GHz
RAM:            32GB DDR4 G.Skill Trident Z
M.2:            1TB Western Digital Black
GPU:            16GB Asrock 7800XT OC
Case:           Fractal Design Define Mini C
Cooler:         Corsair H115i Platinum
PSU:            Corsair CS850M

 

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