Need help making a smart choice

[_Grid21]

I have an issue right now where I am faced with 2 different motherboards that I could use, one of them I am using, and the other I was going to set up.

 

I currently have a Dell Precision T5500 with 2 dual Xeon X5550s. It's 2 CPU sockets that adds up to 16 Threads. It has ECC Support, 24GB of ram, and sadly, an old GTX 260. My issue with it is, Dell made it so it's none upgradable, has limited SATA slots, the onboard NIC is only 100MBs. Currently, I am using a Gigabit to PCI network card but even that feels slow because it is PCI. It has no hot-swap SATA which is nice on my main work station, and it gets hots and collects a lot of dust. AND WORST PART all the hardware in it is proprietary so I can't upgrade much at all. 

 

Then on the flip side, I have an Asus Z87-A with a 4790, 16GB of ram, Onboard Gigabit NIC, Hot-Swap SATA, and isn't proprietary hardware that makes you have to get parts from Dell. 

 

On the Dell "server" I usually run Game servers like Minecraft, Space Engineers, and currently my Discord bot and maybe once in awhile a VM to try stuff out. But if I switch to the Z87-A board, I'd be losing ECC ram, going from 24GB to 16GB, and going from 16 cores down to 4 cores 8 threads. But I am also gaining a few extra features and I am really lost as to what to do. I feel like right now I am tired of external hard drives and need more SATA slots, but love having extra cores. I was hoping someone here who is really knowledgeable with home server setups could help me think this out and make a final choice. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id use the z87 system.

 

THe cpu is probably fast, yea less cores, but there way fast.

 

You can get more ram if you want, how much are you using.

 

And it uses much less power and has newer instructions like avx2.

[_Grid21]

53 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id use the z87 system.

 

THe cpu is probably fast, yea less cores, but there way fast.

 

You can get more ram if you want, how much are you using.

 

And it uses much less power and has newer instructions like avx2.

Fair enough, just reinstalling Windows Server will be a pain, but I may try something with it so I don't have too. Would it still be enough for VMs and game servers?

[Electronics Wizardy]

31 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

Fair enough, just reinstalling Windows Server will be a pain, but I may try something with it so I don't have too. Would it still be enough for VMs and game servers?

Id run a hypervisor on the system, makes everything easier. If you go windows, just run hyper-v on the host.

 

Should be fine, you can see if 16gb is enough on your current system easily.

[_Grid21]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id run a hypervisor on the system, makes everything easier. If you go windows, just run hyper-v on the host.

 

Should be fine, you can see if 16gb is enough on your current system easily.

Run it on which system? The new one or what?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, _Grid21 said:

Run it on which system? The new one or what?

the new system, its just a better way to run servers for most uses.

[_Grid21]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

the new system, its just a better way to run servers for most uses.

The issue is Hyper-V doesn't have full GPU pass through. I may try my idea and see what happens. I'll keep it in mine.

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, _Grid21 said:

The issue is Hyper-V doesn't have full GPU pass through. I may try my idea and see what happens. I'll keep it in mine.

 

hyper-v supports gpu passthrough

 

what do you need need gpu for anyways?

[_Grid21]

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

hyper-v supports gpu passthrough

 

what do you need need gpu for anyways?

I was thinking of making it a rendering Server maybe, or Stream encoder. But my other question is, how do you break a RAID 1 mirror so I could maybe try carrying over the install to the new hardware.

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

I was thinking of making it a rendering Server maybe, or Stream encoder. But my other question is, how do you break a RAID 1 mirror so I could maybe try carrying over the install to the new hardware.

how did you make raid array?

 

Id do a reinstall on the new system

 

You can run programs that need gpu on the host if needed. 

 

But if you streaming, id stay away from gpu as its quality isn't great, and just use the gpu on the gaming system.

[_Grid21]

26 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

how did you make raid array?

 

Id do a reinstall on the new system

 

You can run programs that need gpu on the host if needed. 

 

But if you streaming, id stay away from gpu as its quality isn't great, and just use the gpu on the gaming system.

Yeah, it's just gonna be a pain in the butt. But I had a spare SKHynix so install should be fast, I am trying to correct a lot of mistakes I made in the first go.

 

I enabled raid mode in the bios, and set it up through the chipset I guess. Then Intel's Rapid Store Technology software took over managing it in Windows Server.

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

Yeah, it's just gonna be a pain in the butt. But I had a spare SKHynix so install should be fast, I am trying to correct a lot of mistakes I made in the first go.

 

I enabled raid mode in the bios, and set it up through the chipset I guess. Then Intel's Rapid Store Technology software took over managing it in Windows Server. 

Id stay away from intel chipset raid, it isnt' great, just use storage spaces in windows or something like zfs on linux and it will be much better for raid.

 

Moving to vms now will make migrations in the future much easier

[_Grid21]

12 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id stay away from intel chipset raid, it isnt' great, just use storage spaces in windows or something like zfs on linux and it will be much better for raid.

 

Moving to vms now will make migrations in the future much easier

What makes Intel Raids so bad exactly?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, _Grid21 said:

What makes Intel Raids so bad exactly?

its just how the chipset raid works, known for causing issues. Software raid or real hardware raid is much better.

[_Grid21]

33 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

its just how the chipset raid works, known for causing issues. Software raid or real hardware raid is much better.

I've just been finding Raid in general really slow, especially if the power goes out and it has to do a "recovery verify" deal. If I install something like Manjaro onto this new Machine, does manjaro have a VM software I could load Windows Server 2012?

[Electronics Wizardy]

48 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

I've just been finding Raid in general really slow, especially if the power goes out and it has to do a "recovery verify" deal. If I install something like Manjaro onto this new Machine, does manjaro have a VM software I could load Windows Server 2012?

you can use kvm on linux to run vms.

 

but if you want to run vms, id run a hypervisor like proxmox, esxi or others.

 

Why server 2012, id run 2019 if your gonna run windows server

[_Grid21]

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

you can use kvm on linux to run vms.

 

but if you want to run vms, id run a hypervisor like proxmox, esxi or others.

 

Why server 2012, id run 2019 if your gonna run windows server

BecauseI can't afford Windows server 2019. So I have to use the older one. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

BecauseI can't afford Windows server 2019. So I have to use the older one. 

but server 2012 is about the same cost. If your moving to a new system you will need a new license

 

Also can't these programs run on linux?

[_Grid21]

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

but server 2012 is about the same cost. If your moving to a new system you will need a new license

 

Also can't these programs run on linux?

No, Game servers like Space Engineers are easier to run on Linux, I should be able to transfer a licenses to the new box right?

[Electronics Wizardy]

11 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

No, Game servers like Space Engineers are easier to run on Linux, I should be able to transfer a licenses to the new box right?

You can't easily move a windows license, but look at the exact details for the type of license you bought

 

Id run every game server you can on linux.

[_Grid21]

10 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can't easily move a windows license, but look at the exact details for the type of license you bought

 

Id run every game server you can on linux.

How do I check what kind of license I have? Also, how do I undo my raid for my server without losing the install of the OS? And the issue is, not every game server runs on Linux. This is almost becoming more trouble than it's worth.

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 hours ago, _Grid21 said:

How do I check what kind of license I have? Also, how do I undo my raid for my server without losing the install of the OS? And the issue is, not every game server runs on Linux. This is almost becoming more trouble than it's worth.

how did you buy the key?

 

You can use windows 10 for most game servers just fine, why do you need windows server here?

 

If you destroy the raid array, you lose all the data and the os. I don't get why you want to keep os and destroy raid.

[_Grid21]

11 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

how did you buy the key?

 

You can use windows 10 for most game servers just fine, why do you need windows server here?

 

If you destroy the raid array, you lose all the data and the os. I don't get why you want to keep os and destroy raid.

I have good news, I was able to simply transfer the windows server to the new hardware, license worked, and I was able to "delete Raid Volume" and Window Server still worked. Apparently you don't lose data when you delete a RAID 1 Volume. So everything works just fine. Just have to finish up a few lose ends.