First Home Server Project (Hardware)

[Context]

Greetings my fellow computer enthusiasts,

 

I recently began my plans for my first home server. I am partly doing this to put into practice what I have been learning in my Computer Science Master program and partly doing it for fun. While I am confident on the software side of things I would like an nth opinion from those more experienced in hardware. Here is the link: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kwQrNQ

 

Most of the time it will be a simple home media server but I will also be using it in personal data science projects in the future, hopefully, by then my ram will be past the 100GB mark

 

I wanted to find a high quality, but economicly priced power system around 400W but only found some in the 550W range which were still in stock. The current wattage is a bit low comparatively because I do plan on expanding and maxing out my drive capacity as well as adding ram.

 

I will be shucking those hard drives to drive the price down.

 

Is this design ok, should I make minor modifications or restart from scratch?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Can you go used? id look at something like a used dell r720 or r730 instead. you get much more bang for your buck, and there are some weird choises in your system.

 

looking at that system.

-why 2011-3, got lga 3647 if your going new

-why a400? Id get a better ssd, unless that is just a hypervisor boot, then get a drive to run vms on

-Im assuming your getting more than one stick of ram.

- I don't think that cooler will fit as the mobo is narrow and the cooler is normal

-why gt 710? The mobo has a igpu, and the 710 is way to slow to bother with for gpu computer.

 

 

Also power usage will be much lower than what the psu is rated for, thats just a max. This will probably idle at around 100w.

[Jarsky]

Perhaps consider going used hardware with something like this

 

Motherboard: https://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERMICRO-X9DRI-F-Dual-Socket-XEON-LGA2011-Extended-ATX-Server-Motherboard/303029793059

CPU: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-E5-2695-V2-12-Core-2-4GHz-30MB-SR1BA-CPU-Processor/372648114890

 

Far more powerful CPU with 12C/24T @ 2.4Ghz vs 6C/12T @ 1.7Ghz. Great if you want to transcode or something like virtualisation or run simulations for learning. 

It has 2 CPU slots so you can always expand by adding a second CPU later to double your cores & memory. 

It uses DDR3 which is far cheaper for buying 128GB if you need that much for some reason.

 

 

[Context]

Thanks, Jarsky, I will look into those and probably adjust.

 

I grabbed that video card because it had an hdmi port, so I can directly plug into my TV, unless I am wrong it should be able to handle a 4k video

[K3rupt]

The GT710 i can 100% confirm can NOT handle 4K Video, 1080P is its limit, 1440P is choppy.

 

I have one in a spare computer in the shed and even youtube 1080 is not 60FPS

 

[Context]

Thanks!

 

Updated Server Setup:

 

Motherboard (not on PCPP yet): https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DRi-F.cfm

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Xeon E5-2695 V2 2.4 GHz 12-Core Processor	$199.99
CPU	Intel - Xeon E5-2695 V2 2.4 GHz 12-Core Processor	$199.99
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler	$29.89 @ OutletPC
Memory	Kingston - 32 GB (1 x 32 GB) Registered DDR3-1600 Memory	$95.00
Memory	Kingston - 32 GB (1 x 32 GB) Registered DDR3-1600 Memory	$95.00
Storage	Western Digital - Red 8 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$167.80
Storage	Western Digital - Red 8 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$167.80
Video Card	MSI - GeForce GTX 950 2 GB Video Card
Case	Phanteks - Enthoo Pro M Tempered Glass (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case	$99.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Platinum 550 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$99.90 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$1165.36
	Mail-in rebates	-$10.00
	Total	$1155.36
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-14 03:23 EDT-0400

I think I still need some case fans but its super late and fans should be super easy. The power supply should be able to handle 6 additional HDD's and another 2-4 32GB memory sticks with the opitmal range of being 10-15% below the actual W.

 

Thoughts, critiques, angry rants?

[Jarsky]

4 hours ago, Context said:

Thanks!

 

Updated Server Setup:

 

Motherboard (not on PCPP yet): https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DRi-F.cfm

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Xeon E5-2695 V2 2.4 GHz 12-Core Processor	$199.99
CPU	Intel - Xeon E5-2695 V2 2.4 GHz 12-Core Processor	$199.99
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler	$29.89 @ OutletPC
Memory	Kingston - 32 GB (1 x 32 GB) Registered DDR3-1600 Memory	$95.00
Memory	Kingston - 32 GB (1 x 32 GB) Registered DDR3-1600 Memory	$95.00
Storage	Western Digital - Red 8 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$167.80
Storage	Western Digital - Red 8 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$167.80
Video Card	MSI - GeForce GTX 950 2 GB Video Card
Case	Phanteks - Enthoo Pro M Tempered Glass (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case	$99.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Platinum 550 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$99.90 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$1165.36
	Mail-in rebates	-$10.00
	Total	$1155.36
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-14 03:23 EDT-0400

I think I still need some case fans but its super late and fans should be super easy. The power supply should be able to handle 6 additional HDD's and another 2-4 32GB memory sticks with the opitmal range of being 10-15% below the actual W.

 

Thoughts, critiques, angry rants?

 

Looking good, but keep in mind with FreeNAS you cannot add disks at a later time to a VDEV. 

So with 2 disks like you have 2 x 8TB - you can set up a mirrored VDEV for 8TB (7.2TB usable) space, and then create a second VDEV later as you need more space, and add it to the ZPOOL to increase your total space.  But keep in mind that this setup you lose 50% space across the pool. 

You might be better to just run 1 CPU to start with, and use the $$ to get an extra 8TB drive to create a RAIDZ1 to give you 16TB space with 3 disks....it's a better trade off for space vs redundancy vs cost. 

 

That PSU should be fine. I'm running the same PSU with dual LGA1366 Xeons, 6 sticks of RAM, 7 fans (+2 coolers) and 15 drives

[Context]

@Jarsky I don't plan on using FreeNas, I am familiar with Linux and will probably use Ubuntu. However, I am open to changing my mind. I want the freedom to change and update on a six month basis and from what it looks like your saying it is tougher to add drives with FreeNas. As mentioned before I am much more confident on the software side of things.

[Jarsky]

1 hour ago, Context said:

@Jarsky I don't plan on using FreeNas, I am familiar with Linux and will probably use Ubuntu. However, I am open to changing my mind. I want the freedom to change and update on a six month basis and from what it looks like your saying it is tougher to add drives with FreeNas. As mentioned before I am much more confident on the software side of things.

Sorry so many freenas threads recently, had it in my mind that you were wanting to use ZFS 

MDADM has flexibility to move from a 2 disk RAID1 to RAID5, and to expand so all good. 

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, Jarsky said:

Sorry so many freenas threads recently, had it in my mind that you were wanting to use ZFS 

MDADM has flexibility to move from a 2 disk RAID1 to RAID5, and to expand so all good. 

At least it's not another unRAID thread