Server Build - RAM Question

[The Print Craftsman]

Planning to use the following:

 

Motherboard: AsRock Rack EP2C602-2L+/D16 SSI EEB Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011 Intel C602 DDR3 1866 / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 R / LR ECC and UDIMM

Processors - Qty 2: Intel Xeon E5-2670 SR0KX 8-Core 2.6GHz 20MB LGA 2011 Processor

 

The motherboard has 16 DDR3 DIMM slots.  8 per processor.  And it supports QUAD Channel memory.

 

QUESTION: I don't have the money to buy all the RAM at once that I want to eventually put into this server.  What would be my best strategy if I am going to buy just some of the RAM and add to it little by little?  Do I start out by purchasing 8 sticks of 4GB or 8GB and put 4 on each processor?  Or should I just buy 2 sticks of 32GB to start with and put one on each processor and not worry about the quad channel factor to start with?  Once I eventually acquire eight 32GB sticks will I be able to invoke or enjoy QUAD CHANNEL memory?

 

[TheGlenlivet]

19 minutes ago, The Print Craftsman said:

Planning to use the following:

 

Motherboard: AsRock Rack EP2C602-2L+/D16 SSI EEB Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011 Intel C602 DDR3 1866 / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 R / LR ECC and UDIMM

Processors - Qty 2: Intel Xeon E5-2670 SR0KX 8-Core 2.6GHz 20MB LGA 2011 Processor

 

The motherboard has 16 DDR3 DIMM slots.  8 per processor.  And it supports QUAD Channel memory.

 

QUESTION: I don't have the money to buy all the RAM at once that I want to eventually put into this server.  What would be my best strategy if I am going to buy just some of the RAM and add to it little by little?  Do I start out by purchasing 8 sticks of 4GB or 8GB and put 4 on each processor?  Or should I just buy 2 sticks of 32GB to start with and put one on each processor and not worry about the quad channel factor to start with?  Once I eventually acquire eight 32GB sticks will I be able to invoke or enjoy QUAD CHANNEL memory?

 

You'll be able to use quad channel on both CPUs with 8 Dimms.  

If you buy 4GB dimms you'll only have 32GB to use, but the system will run faster.

WHat are you using the server for and how much RAM do you need now vs eventually?

[manikyath]

ideally you take your desired "end goal memory amount" and divide it by the number of slots you have, that results in an amount of memory per dimm.

 

i'd suggest against the 'more smaller dimms' approach if you'll have to swap them out in the future. that said, 16x32GB dimms is rather extreme for most use cases, perhaps there's a middle ground there?

 

do the math on your workload, and figure out how much ram you'll sensibly be able to use. that'll be your target.

[The Print Craftsman]

So my 1st purpose is to either backup my NAS (4 - 10TB Drives) to it or move my working files to it and use my NAS to back it up.  I currently have 5 drives (8TB each) mounted in my workstation that I back my NAS up to.  But I am not totally happy with that solution and I'm worried if my workstation ever crashes or craps out then I might have difficulty in getting my backup off of it... since the 5 drives are configured using "windows spaces" into one 40TB volume less overhead.  That being said what are the chances my workstation would crash on the same day my NAS goes out???  So probably not a big thing to worry about.  

 

I've considered just buying a 2nd NAS to use as a backup.  But I am also interested in learning more about servers and figured this might be a good way to do it.

 

I also figured I might get better performance if I moved my working files to the server and started working on them there rather then on the NAS.  Although I've been satisfied with the current NAS performance.  So that may be a non-issue really.

 

So in the end it sounds like buying 4 to 8 8GB sticks might make the most sense.  If I can't afford all 8 at once I just won't get the QUAD CHANNEL memory performance.  But I'm guessing for just a file server that is probably not a big deal...

 

Thanks for your replies.

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, The Print Craftsman said:

So my 1st purpose is to either backup my NAS (4 - 10TB Drives) to it or move my working files to it and use my NAS to back it up.  I currently have 5 drives (8TB each) mounted in my workstation that I back my NAS up to.  But I am not totally happy with that solution and I'm worried if my workstation ever crashes or craps out then I might have difficulty in getting my backup off of it... since the 5 drives are configured using "windows spaces" into one 40TB volume less overhead.  That being said what are the chances my workstation would crash on the same day my NAS goes out???  So probably not a big thing to worry about.  

 

I've considered just buying a 2nd NAS to use as a backup.  But I am also interested in learning more about servers and figured this might be a good way to do it.

 

I also figured I might get better performance if I moved my working files to the server and started working on them there rather then on the NAS.  Although I've been satisfied with the current NAS performance.  So that may be a non-issue really.

 

So in the end it sounds like buying 4 to 8 8GB sticks might make the most sense.  If I can't afford all 8 at once I just won't get the QUAD CHANNEL memory performance.  But I'm guessing for just a file server that is probably not a big deal...

 

Thanks for your replies.

 

 

what is your worload, if its mostly a nas, ram performance won't matter, your network or hdd limited.

 

How much ram do you need now.

[TheGlenlivet]

11 minutes ago, The Print Craftsman said:

Snip

Sounds like you might have bought a cool old badass server when you just needed another lightweight PC. 

If you are looking for reliability then some used ECC on ebay would be good and cheap.  

Good luck.

[The Print Craftsman]

Well I haven't bought anything yet.  

I am not happy with my current backup solution.

I want the backup to be independent of my Workstation.  A lightweight PC might work fine.

I may need to ponder this awhile.

I'm kind of interested in configuring things such that all of my family members laptops could also backup to it.  Is it possible to configure things so that it could act sort of like a cloud backup?  Or have the backup computer available to the laptops so they could back up to it.

 

Maybe I'm overthinking things... lol.

[Electronics Wizardy]

25 minutes ago, The Print Craftsman said:

Well I haven't bought anything yet.  

I am not happy with my current backup solution.

I want the backup to be independent of my Workstation.  A lightweight PC might work fine.

I may need to ponder this awhile.

I'm kind of interested in configuring things such that all of my family members laptops could also backup to it.  Is it possible to configure things so that it could act sort of like a cloud backup?  Or have the backup computer available to the laptops so they could back up to it.

 

Maybe I'm overthinking things... lol.

If this is for backups, this is way overkill, a celeron is fine for home backup use normally.

 

You can make is publically accessible, but that has its security risks, and requires a home internet connection with reasonable speed and public ipv4(or all the clients need a v6 when they wanna backup)

 

Look up something like urbackup if you want a simple backup program that is managed by the server, or veeam if you want pain.

[Blue4130]

If it's a hobby and you have extra cash, go hard and load up that dual socket with as much ram as possible. Play around with ram drives and marvel at the speed.

 

But if it's just a single or couple users hitting a Nas, some lower power CPU with 4gb or ram will do fine.