Trying to come up with a cheap home server

[ShadowChaser]

Right now I'm looking into having a dedicated file/media server for myself and my family. Budget is a little tight as I'm putting most of it into the drives I'm getting.

Currently I'm interested in a LGA 1156 server + motherboard and pairing it with a Xeon x3450 and 16GB of ECC memory. I have my boot drive (MX300) already, but not much else. This would cost me $150 sans drives and give me a 2U chassis with 8 3.5" drive slots and 2 2.5" drive slots and a 600W power supply. 

The motherboard is a Supermicro X8SIL (non F as far as I can tell), and I can't tell what memory config is best - 4x4GB Udimms, 4x4GB Rdimms, or 2x8GB Rdimms. I'm confused as there is 32GB support yet none of the charts indicate such a configuration. I'm thinking about 1600mhz sticks which will unfortunately be run at much slower speeds. However, I think in order to get 32gb I need to get dual or quad rank memory? I wish I understood memory support better...  

[Windows7ge]

What OS were you thinking of going with? Different OS's can benefit less or more with different types of server memory.

 

For a most basic home file/media server it's unlikely you'll need 32GB DIMM's (not to mention they're kind of overpriced). DDR3 16GB RDIMM ECC are the sweet spot for price:density. They come very cheaply.

 

I'll admit when it comes to rank I don't know very much but as far as my research has done for my own applications it's generally better the lower the rank. I believe the higher ranks are a form of sacrifice to achieve higher density. Something about the rank determines how the DIMM behaves. As in dual rank means the modules behaves as if it were 2 modules. Quad rank the module behaves as if it were 4 modules and as far as I've read this comes with a penalty to performance.

 

Single rank would be best but with servers most high density modules are dual I believe. This is fine. For the performance of this to really impact you you'd have to be doing particular computational things such as virtualization.

 

Someone will come along and correct the crap out of me here so don't worry about my accuracy. Maybe @leadeater will be the one to do that.

 

Personally 1600MHz is pretty standard for desktops & servers when using DDR3. Again your application will determine if going higher/lower will hurt you or help but your application shouldn't be impacted either way.

[ShadowChaser]

2 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

What OS were you thinking of going with? Different OS's can benefit less or more with different types of server memory.

 

For a most basic home file/media server it's unlikely you'll need 32GB DIMM's (not to mention they're kind of overpriced). DDR3 16GB RDIMM ECC are the sweet spot for price:density. They come very cheaply.

 

I'll admit when it comes to rank I don't know very much but as far as my research has done for my own applications it's generally better the lower the rank. I believe the higher ranks are a form of sacrifice to achieve higher density. Something about the rank determines how the DIMM behaves. As in dual rank means the modules behaves as if it were 2 modules. Quad rank the module behaves as if it were 4 modules and as far as I've read this comes with a penalty to performance.

 

Single rank would be best but with servers most high density modules are dual I believe. This is fine. For the performance of this to really impact you you'd have to be doing particular computational things such as virtualization.

 

Someone will come along and correct the crap out of me here so don't worry about my accuracy. Maybe @leadeater will be the one to do that.

 

Personally 1600MHz is pretty standard for desktops & servers when using DDR3. Again your application will determine if going higher/lower will hurt you or help but your application shouldn't be impacted either way.

I'm planning on going with FreeNas  

Also, the 32GB memory is for the whole board, as a 4x8GB config, I just couldn't actually find any information on such a config.

Who knows, maybe I should just drag out my other dual 1366 board and use that instead... it supports stupid amounts of memory even with 8gb sticks.

How does freenas handle being run in a vm? Probably going to use vSphere so I can get a plex server and a MC server in the same box ^^

 

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, ShadowChaser said:

I'm planning on going with FreeNas  

Also, the 32GB memory is for the whole board, as a 4x8GB config, I just couldn't actually find any information on such a config.

Who knows, maybe I should just drag out my other dual 1366 board and use that instead... it supports stupid amounts of memory even with 8gb sticks.

How does freenas handle being run in a vm? Probably going to use vSphere so I can get a plex server and a MC server in the same box ^^

 

FreeNAS does benefit from ECC memory. Maybe not all the time but it's nice to have as an extra layer of protection. 

 

Ah, that's what you meant. If you know it will support it single rank UDIMM ECC that would probably give you the best results (if your workload can leverage it). What motherboard are you using? Is it a retired server? Model number? We can check what RAM it's compatible with.

 

It's discouraged to run FreeNAS in a VM. ZFS likes direct access to the drives which means don't use a RAID controller (HBA's a fine), and there's concern with VM's where the disks may not be passed though properly which could interfere with error reporting. This could hurt down the road if a drive is failing and FreeNAS didn't even know because vSphere didn't pass it though.

 

If it can be helped it's recommended to run FreeNAS natively. FreeNAS does support some virtualization functions (Bhyve/Docker). I have not checked out the latest version of FreeNAS which may have more & be better but as of V11.1-U5 Bhyve isn't great. It works but wouldn't want to use for anything task intensive.

[ShadowChaser]

2 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

FreeNAS does benefit from ECC memory. Maybe not all the time but it's nice to have as an extra layer of protection. 

 

Ah, that's what you meant. If you know it will support it single rank UDIMM ECC that would probably give you the best results (if your workload can leverage it). What motherboard are you using? Is it a retired server? Model number? We can check what RAM it's compatible with.

 

It's discouraged to run FreeNAS in a VM. ZFS likes direct access to the drives which means don't use a RAID controller (HBA's a fine), and there's concern with VM's where the disks may not be passed though properly which could interfere with error reporting. This could hurt down the road if a drive is failing and FreeNAS didn't even know because vSphere didn't pass it though.

 

If it can be helped it's recommended to run FreeNAS natively. FreeNAS does support some virtualization functions (Bhyve/Docker). I have not checked out the latest version of FreeNAS which may have more & be better but as of V11.1-U5 Bhyve isn't great. It works but wouldn't want to use for anything task intensive.

If I can't virtualize it, that's totally fine, I can spin up a vm on another computer for those functions.

The motherboard I already have is the supermicro X8DTU-F, which is a proprietary form factor and that's why I haven't been using it. I'm planning on putting dual x5650s in it if this works out better though. It already has 12x2GB of ECC memory in it but I'm planning on getting 6x8GB or even 6x16GB.

Speaking of memory, what should I be expecting to pay per 8GB or 16GB stick? I'm looking at 1066mhz registered RDIMMs

If you could, some recommendations for HBAs would also be nice as the motherboard only has 6 SATA ports.

[Windows7ge]

59 minutes ago, ShadowChaser said:

If I can't virtualize it, that's totally fine, I can spin up a vm on another computer for those functions.

The motherboard I already have is the supermicro X8DTU-F, which is a proprietary form factor and that's why I haven't been using it. I'm planning on putting dual x5650s in it if this works out better though. It already has 12x2GB of ECC memory in it but I'm planning on getting 6x8GB or even 6x16GB.

Speaking of memory, what should I be expecting to pay per 8GB or 16GB stick? I'm looking at 1066mhz registered RDIMMs

If you could, some recommendations for HBAs would also be nice as the motherboard only has 6 SATA ports.

So lets see supermicro X8DTU-F:

Quote

System Memory
Memory Capacity	12x 240-pin DIMM slots Supports up to 192 GB 1333 / 1066 / 800MHz DDR3 ECC Registered memory Supports up to 48 GB 1333 / 1066 / 800MHz DDR3 ECC / Non ECC Unbuffered memory Memory Mirroring supported
Memory Type	1333 / 1066 / 800MHz ECC Registered / ECC or Non ECC Unbuffered DDR3 SDRAM 72-bit, 240-pin gold-plated DIMMs

So it looks like if you want to be able to utilize the maximum amount of memory the highest you can use is 1333MHz DDR3 ECC RDIMM in 16GB modules which will likely be dual rank (that's fine).

 

The X5650 supports 288GB in 800/1066/1333MHz modules.

 

For 8GB modules it looks like you'll be paying around $10-$20 on eBay/each

For 16GB modules it looks like you'll be paying around $20-$35 on eBay/each

 

You could also talk to @CircleTech here on the forum. He runs his own shop with retired gear he might have the RAM you need and give you an offer for a matching kit.

 

It's a little bit of a crap-shoot if the HBAs I use will work with hardware this old but I like the LSI 9207-8i. If that's not enough ports then the 9201-16i. Both can be had relatively inexpensively if you search around a bit.

[ShadowChaser]

20 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

So lets see supermicro X8DTU-F:

So it looks like if you want to be able to utilize the maximum amount of memory the highest you can use is 1333MHz DDR3 ECC RDIMM in 16GB modules which will likely be dual rank (that's fine).

 

The X5650 supports 288GB in 800/1066/1333MHz modules.

 

For 8GB modules it looks like you'll be paying around $10-$20 on eBay/each

For 16GB modules it looks like you'll be paying around $20-$35 on eBay/each

 

You could also talk to @CircleTech here on the forum. He runs his own shop with retired gear he might have the RAM you need and give you an offer for a matching kit.

 

It's a little bit of a crap-shoot if the HBAs I use will work with hardware this old but I like the LSI 9207-8i. If that's not enough ports then the 9201-16i. Both can be had relatively inexpensively if you search around a bit.

Thanks! I really appreciate it  

I'll be sure to shop around, currently aiming to get 6x8GB for under $80