Best CPU and Motherboard for low power server?

[orangecat]

I want to build a low power server for NAS use but I'm having a hard time finding good server hardware that fits my needs and isn't $50,000. I want the server to be low power so less than 4 cores and I want ECC support. I thought there were some low power Xeon chips for cheap because they were slow but they had ECC support but I can't seem to find them anywhere.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Why do you want ecc, you dont' need it

 

What os do you want to use?

 

What are you using this for?

 

If you want low power, id go xeon d.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813599016&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Motherboards+-+Server-_-N82E16813599016&gclid=CKegu4Cg188CFUQ2gQodpMEIDg&gclsrc=aw.ds

[Eniqmatic]

13 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Why do you want ecc, you dont' need it

 

What os do you want to use?

 

What are you using this for?

 

If you want low power, id go xeon d.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813599016&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Motherboards+-+Server-_-N82E16813599016&gclid=CKegu4Cg188CFUQ2gQodpMEIDg&gclsrc=aw.ds

I like how you tell him he doesn't need ECC before asking him what he will do with it.

 

I would say if you care about the data, go ECC.

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, Eniqmatic said:

I like how you tell him he doesn't need ECC before asking him what he will do with it.

 

I would say if you care about the data, go ECC.

For a home user it won't make a difference. Have a backup and your good. If you not a home user your not posting here or your doing it wrong.

 

 

Hey OP, If you want a basic nas, id just get a synology or eqv like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108232&cm_re=synology-_-22-108-232-_-Product

[Eniqmatic]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

For a home user it won't make a difference. Have a backup and your good. If you not a home user your not posting here or your doing it wrong.

 

 

Hey OP, If you want a basic nas, id just get a synology or eqv like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108232&cm_re=synology-_-22-108-232-_-Product

How do you know this isn't for his backup? Saying "it won't make a difference" is so ridiculous when you have no idea what his use case is.

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, Eniqmatic said:

How do you know this isn't for his backup?

How would that make a differnce?

 

ECC wont make a difference for a home user

[Eniqmatic]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How would that make a differnce?

 

ECC wont make a difference for a home user

Ahh, you are so right. Guess all us home users should chuck out all our ECC RAM then. What a waste.

11 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Hey OP, If you want a basic nas, id just get a synology or eqv like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108232&cm_re=synology-_-22-108-232-_-Product

Clearly states in the OP that he wants to build a NAS, he wants a Xeon and he wants ECC.

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, Eniqmatic said:

Ahh, you are so right. Guess all us home users should chuck out all our ECC RAM then. What a waste.

Clearly states in the OP that he wants to build a NAS, he wants a Xeon and he wants ECC.

And how does ecc help a home user, you got numbers??

 

 

Also a premade nas is oftern cheaper and better than a home made unit

[Eniqmatic]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

And how does ecc help a home user, you got numbers??

 

 

Also a premade nas is oftern cheaper and better than a home made unit

That's not my point. The point is just because someone is a "home user" means absolutely nothing until you know what they are trying to achieve, which you do not. You are just making blind recommendations as to what someone should get without knowing. You have automatically assumed "home user" for some reason which has no bearing.

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, Eniqmatic said:

automatically assumed "home user"

Your not asking a forum for a buiness.

 

If you buying for a buiness you should be running a premade unit.

[Eniqmatic]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Your not asking a forum for a buiness.

 

If you buying for a buiness you should be running a premade unit.

Ignored the rest of the post. That's good.

 

Who says you should be running a pre-built unit? Once again you have no idea of the situation or use case.

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, Eniqmatic said:

Ignored the rest of the post. That's good.

 

Who says you should be running a pre-built unit? Once again you have no idea of the situation or use case.

Companys do build systems as its not worth the hassle. You can Just get a SAN and plug it in and it works.If it has a problem, a tech comes and fixes it. You don't worry about it.

[Eniqmatic]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Companys do build systems as its not worth the hassle. You can Just get a SAN and plug it in and it works.If it has a problem, a tech comes and fixes it. You don't worry about it.

How wrong. I know plenty of places that do it. Not sure if it is Apple or Google or something you work at, but back in the real world of business, not every company has infinite money to just "get a SAN" whenever they please. Especially not SAN's. I find it amazing how much knowledge and experience you must have that you are able to generalise every category so easily, saying that no one in business builds storage servers and no home user needs ECC...

As I say, depends on what the use case is for a business. Totally feasible.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Eniqmatic said:

How wrong. I know plenty of places that do it. Not sure if it is Apple or Google or something you work at, but back in the real world of business, not every company has infinite money to just "get a SAN" whenever they please. Especially not SAN's. I find it amazing how much knowledge and experience you must have that you are able to generalise every category so easily, saying that no one in business builds storage servers and no home user needs ECC...

As I say, depends on what the use case is for a business. Totally feasible.

I haven't seen any home made units sitting around in businesses. 

 

Depends on the company size and budget of course. 

 

And most home home uses don't need Ecc. Your much better off saving the money and getting about drive to store offsite. Ecc might fix the memory error but won't save any data in a fire. 

[Eniqmatic]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I haven't seen any home made units sitting around in businesses. 

 

Depends on the company size and budget of course. 

 

And most home home uses don't need Ecc. Your much better off saving the money and getting about drive to store offsite. Ecc might fix the memory error but won't save any data in a fire. 

My point exactly, it depends. It always depends.

 

What money saving?

 

Non ECC at £42.23

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-KVR16N11H-1600-Non-ECC-240-Pin/dp/B0099U25IW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1476347406&sr=8-3&keywords=8gb+kingston+ram+1600

 

Same module with ECC at £44.99:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-Technology-DDR3-Memory-Module/dp/B008LMNHB8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1476347235&sr=8-4&keywords=8gb+kingston+module

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Eniqmatic said:

My point exactly, it depends. It always depends.

 

What money saving?

 

Non ECC at £42.23

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-KVR16N11H-1600-Non-ECC-240-Pin/dp/B0099U25IW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1476347406&sr=8-3&keywords=8gb+kingston+ram+1600

 

Same module with ECC at £44.99:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-Technology-DDR3-Memory-Module/dp/B008LMNHB8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1476347235&sr=8-4&keywords=8gb+kingston+module

 

And mobo is normally more expensive. 

 

 

Id still suggest a premade nas. 

[NelizMastr]

3 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

And mobo is normally more expensive. 

 

 

Id still suggest a premade nas. 

Any mobo that takes a Xeon takes ECC. It's all down to CPU support these days.

 

I agree that an off the shelf NAS is the way to go if all you need is storage, but cost is not really a factor anymore when it comes to ECC/Non-ECC. It's virtually the same price. It won't hurt to have a bit of a failsafe if you want to keep a long uptime and better data integrity during read and write cycles to the storage.

[Phate.exe]

What is our definition of "Low Power"?

 

If low power means you don't need multiple xeons with eleven fans running, but still need a decent amount of horsepower out of the server, you could do a lot worse than an i3.  I think the one in my thinkserver has a TDP of 55W.

 

If you want the thing to use less power than the drives you install, something like an intel Atom C-series seem pretty nice.  I was originally going down that road for my Plex server, but got my thinkserver for way too cheap to pass up (plus the single-core performance of the i3 demolishes the C2750's, but the atom is an 8 core with a 20W TDP).

 

I have ECC ram because my server came with it, but I'm probably going to drop in the the 8gb of (faster, non-ECC) DDR3 I yanked out of my gaming computer a while back.  Not that it really needs it to be a NAS/Plex box.

[jj9987]

2 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

Any mobo that takes a Xeon takes ECC. It's all down to CPU support these days.

Nope. Most consumer boards (Z97, Z170, X99 etc) can easily take Xeon processors, but they do not work with ECC RAM.

[Dark]

Low power server grade-- Look at the Intel Avoton {4k passmark, 16w} (~$500) and Xeon D {12k passmark, 36w} (~$1000)

 

If you simply want ECC performance then look in to an Intel Core i3 with a 'workstation/server' class motherboard offering ECC support.

 

 

[SLAYR]

9 hours ago, Kilobytez95 said:

I want to build a low power server for NAS use but I'm having a hard time finding good server hardware that fits my needs and isn't $50,000. I want the server to be low power so less than 4 cores and I want ECC support. I thought there were some low power Xeon chips for cheap because they were slow but they had ECC support but I can't seem to find them anywhere.

You don't need a xeon for ecc support, low end celerons/pentium/i3s have ecc support depending on the model

 

This is $250 with 8gb of ecc.

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/Y8VD2R

[NelizMastr]

5 hours ago, jj9987 said:

Nope. Most consumer boards (Z97, Z170, X99 etc) can easily take Xeon processors, but they do not work with ECC RAM.

Since Skylake, Z170 doesn't take Xeons anymore. Gotta have a C series chipset now.

[Mikensan]

G4400 is low power, only 2 cores however but supports ECC. If you're doing jails or dockers, you won't need too many cores. If you want to do actualy virtual machines then maybe something like an E3 would suite you. I don't know anything modern, but the E3-1220v2 is a whopping 70w which is pretty darn good. That means at idle it's going to be very very low. 

 

Orrr if you got some extra dollars laying around a really badass solution is the intel atom avoton. That thing is pretty much built for NASs. This might not be the latest, but just an example... the ASRock C2750D4I is a really badass little AIO cpu/mobo.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7970/asrock-rack-c2750d4i-review-a-storage-motherboard-with-management/4

 

Now if you want to get under say 50watts idle for the entire solution, you're going to end up going with something like a synology/qnap 2-4 disk solution. Those are engineered specifically for being a NAS and low powered. They typically support dockers which will give you things like plex. However with reduced power consumption comes sacrifice of clock speed - so don't expect more than 2 plex streams out of these things.

 

On the ECC debate - it could be argued why does a home user need raid too. We're not a business in need of high availability and only have a gigabit network 99% of the time. Some people just inherently want that extra level of protection, not a matter of "need." Also it's rather cheap these days, unbuffered at least. I'd easily sacrifice memory speed for ECC to keep the price 1:1.

[Mark77]

On ‎10‎/‎13‎/‎2016 at 8:47 AM, jj9987 said:

Nope. Most consumer boards (Z97, Z170, X99 etc) can easily take Xeon processors, but they do not work with ECC RAM.

Intel apparently dropped microcode support for Xeons in the Z170 and other 'consumer' chipsets.  You can use i-Series processors in the Xeon E3 boards, but not vice versa as of the "Skylake" generation.

[AshleyAshes]

Why not some cheap embedded Atom board or something and just hang a bunch of SATA controllers off it?  Stick it in a suitable case, pick your NAS OS of choice and voila.