Multipurpose server or PC? Need help choosing hardware and software

[TechMeThatsSexy]

Hey!
New to the forum. Love the show btw, and I thought it might be a good idea to ask like minded people for some advise here.

I have been building PCs and doing water cooling since I was a kid so I know how to build, but im a n00b when it comes to servers.

Got started with my own physical cloud (WD HDD), a Plex media server on a Windows 10 PC, and have started to researching different things like;

Ubuntu / Linux, ZFS, Unraid, StableBits, ClonOS, Next Cloud / Own Cloud, Transmission, VM Ware and Proxmox.

 

Im still have a lot learning so please speak to me as if I was a n00b Im generally looking for advise on what hardware to choose,

motherboard & CPU combination etc, but ideas no what software to use is also much appriciated.

How I would like to use the server (If one server can be used for all this tings):

- The server will be my only computer if I can use Windows 10 with GPU passthrough for video editing and rendering with

Adobe Premier Pro and/or Avid, Ableton Live 10, mayeb some CAD modelling etc.

- Email client
- Websites (one to stream video to a small audience, 1 webstore and a couple of small websites. Not massive traffic.

- Cloud

- Media server: Plex
- NAS for backup and filesharing (That Plex can access and a VM that I will use as my daily workstation).

- Cisco IP phone (I heard its possible to host VoIP over Asterisk SIP)

 

Some of the hardware I think I might be needing is:

- Case: Can be server case or it will most likely be a normal PC case, mid-large size. Maybe Corsair Obsidian 1000D. That would be fun to build! :D
- OS drive: "Samsung 960 EVO Series MZ-V6E250BW 250GB"

- Raid controller for example: "LSI SAS 9207-4i4e SGL"

- RAM: ECC +64 GB (Would probably start with 64 GB but would be good to have the possibility to exapnd to 128 or 256 GB in the future).
- Cache: M.2? Is an Intel Optane SSD useful in my case as OS or cache or will it not matter much for me?

- GPU: Would like to have the possibility to add another GPU and use NVlink in the future.
- Networking: "DeLock PCI Express Card 1x 10 Gigabit LAN (89456)" or "DeLock PCI Express Card to 2x Gigabit LAN (89520)"
- HDDs: "Seagate IronWolf Pro ST16000NE000 256MB 16TB" or "WD Red Pro WD141KFGX 256MB 14TB"
Ive heard that Seagate fail more often than WD. I havent fact checked that. What do you guys think?
Would like to be able to start with 2-3 HDDs and expand later with different HDD sizes.
- Motherboard: ?
- CPU: ? 1 or 2? Is it possible to start with 1 CPU and add the same type to the empty socket on the motherboard later?

 

Any suggestions would be much appriciated! Have a good one guys:)

 

[Radium_Angel]

2 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

GPU passthrough

You are not looking for a server then, just a high-end workstation.

In which case, practically anything high end (dual/Quad Xeons, Epyc AMD chips) would do fine, what's your budget?

[TechMeThatsSexy]

Is it okey to host websites, cloud etc on a PC instead of a server? The main task is video editing, hosting videos for my website so I have everything in-house. Im not sure yet about the budget, I might have to pay for the machine all by myself or with help from an employeer whom I will edit videos for. Im probably could go for $2-3000 GPU.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

Is it okey to host websites, cloud etc on a PC instead of a server? The main task is video editing, hosting videos for my website so I have everything in-house. Im not sure yet about the budget, I might have to pay for the machine all by myself or with help from an employeer whom I will edit videos for. Im probably could go for $2-3000 GPU.

If video editing is the main task, Id build a normal workstation. Running vms will just make it slower, and more of a hassle to work with.

 

For hosting online, Its probably best to use a cloud host, but if you can't id just have a small seprate server, or run a vm on your workstation

 

 

You can easily make storage arrays with storage spaces on windows, id do that for storage, then share on the network.

21 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

Cache: M.2? Is an Intel Optane SSD useful in my case as OS or cache or will it not matter much for me?

Optane probably won't help here, but storage spaces supports tiering you can use

 

20 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

Raid controller for example: "LSI SAS 9207-4i4e SGL"

Just saying thats not a raid card, thats a hba.

 

Why the external ports, do you have a external sas enclosure your using?

 

21 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

Networking: "DeLock PCI Express Card 1x 10 Gigabit LAN (89456)" or "DeLock PCI Express Card to 2x Gigabit LAN (89520)"

Are you networking to other systems?

 

22 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

HDDs: "Seagate IronWolf Pro ST16000NE000 256MB 16TB" or "WD Red Pro WD141KFGX 256MB 14TB"
Ive heard that Seagate fail more often than WD. I havent fact checked that. What do you guys think?
Would like to be able to start with 2-3 HDDs and expand later with different HDD sizes.

Failures rates are about the same, just have backups and you won't lose data.

 

22 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

CPU: ? 1 or 2? Is it possible to start with 1 CPU and add the same type to the empty socket on the motherboard later?

 

Really don't use dual socket these days, something like threadripper is probably your best option here. Dual socket just isn't faster with most of these workloads these days.

 

23 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

OS drive: "Samsung 960 EVO Series MZ-V6E250BW 250GB"

Why not go 970 evo plus?

 

Also id go 500gb for boot, or maybe a 1tb.

[TechMeThatsSexy]

12 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If video editing is the main task, Id build a normal workstation. Running vms will just make it slower, and more of a hassle to work with.

 

For hosting online, Its probably best to use a cloud host, but if you can't id just have a small seprate server, or run a vm on your workstation

If I could avoid server all together to begin with it would be best. I can keep my cloud host for the website for now and expand with a small dedicated server for the website. Good idea.
 

12 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Optane probably won't help here, but storage spaces supports tiering you can use

What do you mean by "storage spaces supports tiering"?

 

12 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Just saying thats not a raid card, thats a hba.

 

Why the external ports, do you have a external sas enclosure your using?

My parts list is getting out of hand. Ive looked at so many different part. No external storage yet other than external harddrives.

 

12 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Are you networking to other systems?

Not at the moment. That could wait.

12 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Failures rates are about the same, just have backups and you won't lose data.

I guess it would be much easier to just internal harddrives in a normal pc and backup on external harddrives. I like to take the difficult route some times:p

12 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Really don't use dual socket these days, something like threadripper is probably your best option here. Dual socket just isn't faster with most of these workloads these days.

Okey, then I have been considering "AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X 3.5GHz Socket TR4"

12 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Why not go 970 evo plus?

I copied the wrong text I was thinking about the 970 evo plus. 250 isent enough for a OS drive if I have another drive for sowftware / games? I would like to be able to reinstall the OS without having to install everything els.

Thanks a lot for the great answers!

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

What do you mean by "storage spaces supports tiering"?

You can have ssds and hdd and it will store stuff that needs the speed on ssd and the stuff that doesn't need speed as much on the hdds. Helps it make the array a bit faster.

 

2 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

Not at the moment. That could wait.

Also for networking, don't get a 1gbe card, your board already has one.

 

3 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

Not at the moment. That could wait.

Id go 3970x if you can, much faster for most workloads.

 

3 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

I copied the wrong text I was thinking about the 970 evo plus. 250 isent enough for a OS drive if I have another drive for sowftware / games? I would like to be able to reinstall the OS without having to install everything els.

Id put software on the boot drive, and the extra space is nice. Also the bigger drives are faster.

[BrinkGG]

9 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

Hey!
New to the forum. Love the show btw, and I thought it might be a good idea to ask like minded people for some advise here.

I have been building PCs and doing water cooling since I was a kid so I know how to build, but im a n00b when it comes to servers.

Got started with my own physical cloud (WD HDD), a Plex media server on a Windows 10 PC, and have started to researching different things like;

Ubuntu / Linux, ZFS, Unraid, StableBits, ClonOS, Next Cloud / Own Cloud, Transmission, VM Ware and Proxmox.

First off, welcome to the forum! 

Let me start by talking through the elephant in the room: GPU passthrough

Windows 10 (and Win 7, Win 8 and 8.1 as well) can detect when they are being run as a VM, and some features may actually change or be disabled because of this. Many hardware drivers also check for VT-x or VT-d when booting to see if they are being run in a virtual environment or not. Unfortunately, this includes Nvidia drivers. Usually if a consumer grade GPU (GTX or RTX series) detects it's in a VM, it will refuse to work and spit out a litany of errors. You can attempt to fight this with boot flags such as "Virtualized=NO" or "Hidden=YES" in proxmox, but they don't always work as windows looks for these. AMD GPUs and workstation grade (Quadro) nvidia cards do not have this restriction. You also have to be careful with when you add the card to the VM. If you try to install windows using the passed through GPU, there's a good chance you'll get no signal and have to revert back to the VNC video driver to install windows.

 

TL;DR, Yes you can virtualize a GPU, but it's complicated and unstable. I seriously recommend getting a separate workstation and server.

 

Now let's talk specs.

28 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

- Raid controller for example: "LSI SAS 9207-4i4e SGL"
- Cache: M.2? Is an Intel Optane SSD useful in my case as OS or cache or will it not matter much for me?
- HDDs: "Seagate IronWolf Pro ST16000NE000 256MB 16TB" or "WD Red Pro WD141KFGX 256MB 14TB"
Ive heard that Seagate fail more often than WD. I havent fact checked that. What do you guys think?
Would like to be able to start with 2-3 HDDs and expand later with different HDD sizes.

How much data do you plan on storing?

How important is this data?

Since you mention a raid card (but actually name an HBA), do you plan on building in redundancy? If so, you may want to step down from the IronWolf Pro drives to something that doesn't use shingled recording, as this will MURDER your rewrite speeds. Here's an excerpt from Backblaze's Hard drive Buying Guide: (Source)

Quote

For a long time, the recording technology a drive manufacturer used was not important. Then SMR (shingled magnetic recording) drives appeared a couple of years ago.

Let’s explain:

PMR: Perpendicular Magnetic Recording

This is the technology inside of most hard drives. With PMR data is written to and read from circular tracks on a spinning platter.

SMR: Shingled Magnetic Recording

This type of drive overlaps recording tracks to store data at a lower cost than PMR technology. The downside occurs when data is deleted and that space is reused. If existing data overlaps the space you want to reuse, this can mean delays in writing the new data. These drives are great for archive storage (write once, read many) use cases, but if your files turn over with some regularity, stick with PMR drives.

I usually recommend sticking with PMR drives if you can. These usually top out between 8TB and 12TB iirc. 

30 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

- RAM: ECC +64 GB (Would probably start with 64 GB but would be good to have the possibility to exapnd to 128 or 256 GB in the future).
- Motherboard: ?
- CPU: ? 1 or 2? Is it possible to start with 1 CPU and add the same type to the empty socket on the motherboard later?

Stick with single socket. Dual socket boards run into NUMA aggregation issues where certain programs can only take use of one CPU at a time. Pretty sure premiere is actually stuck like this now. If you need a lot of cores, go with a threadripper board and a lower end TR4 CPU if needed. You can always upgrade the CPU if you buy a compatible motherboard.

As for RAM, Yes. More is always better, but you might not necessarily need it. Look at Puget's Adobe premiere recommended hardware, they recommend 64GB for 4K video editing. 

 

I'll stop there for the moment to let you look over what I've written and ask any questions.  

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, BrinkGG said:

I usually recommend sticking with PMR drives if you can. These usually top out between 8TB and 12TB iirc. 

those 16tb drives are pmr, they are just stuffed with platters.

The "pro" drives are almost all non smr drives. You can get 18tb on non smr now with some other drives.

 

 

[TechMeThatsSexy]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can have ssds and hdd and it will store stuff that needs the speed on ssd and the stuff that doesn't need speed as much on the hdds. Helps it make the array a bit faster.

Oh okey, is that also called "cache-ing with SSDs" or am I confusing the two? 10% SSDs per TBs of HDDs is a good rule of thumb?

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id go 3970x if you can, much faster for most workloads.

Looks good! Its now on my parts list.

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id put software on the boot drive, and the extra space is nice. Also the bigger drives are faster.

Okey since the empty space isent just sitting there, bigger is better.
You cleared up a lot of things for me, and saved me A LOT of time. Thanks budd!

[BrinkGG]

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

those 16tb drives are pmr, they are just stuffed with platters.

The "pro" drives are almost all non smr drives. You can get 18tb on non smr now with some other drives.

Apparently I missed that.

Did some reading, I was thinking of the Exos drives. My bad. 

[TechMeThatsSexy]

9 minutes ago, BrinkGG said:

First off, welcome to the forum! 

Thanks man!

10 minutes ago, BrinkGG said:

GPU passthrough

Good to know. I though it would be interesting to test it out, but since its not necessary ill rather opt for a stable system.

14 minutes ago, BrinkGG said:

redundancy?

Yes, ive lost data many years ago and I would like to do my best so that it dosent happen again. Max 2 disk failiure i guess is good?

 

18 minutes ago, BrinkGG said:

Quote

Interesting! I will research more about the difference betwwen PMR and SMR. Most of the data I have today is video that will be accessed with Plex. I guess archive/SMR HDDs do just fine then + SSD help library load faster. But I will be editing video again and those files in use should be located on a SSD. Then I could haev some PMR HDDs for other files maybe.

23 minutes ago, BrinkGG said:

one CPU at a time. Pretty sure premiere is actually stuck like this now

Yeah, unreal. I dont get it. Hope they are working on this.

25 minutes ago, BrinkGG said:

64GB for 4K video editing

I will be editing in 1080 for myself and 4k for someone. Is there a big difference between DDR4 and DDR3? I would rather pay a bit more for a great machine than cheep out on important parts. But then again theres no point in going overkill eighter, even if I would love to!:D

Thanks a lot. This was helpful!

[TechMeThatsSexy]

Feel rusty. It been a while since ive built a PC. Damn Apple haha. Oh well. Sold the iPad, Macbook and now I just have to get rid of that iPhone:) Can wait to start this PC build.

[TechMeThatsSexy]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can have ssds and hdd and it will store stuff that needs the speed on ssd and the stuff that doesn't need speed as much on the hdds. Helps it make the array a bit faster.

Do I need to set anything up for the Samsung 970 PRO SSD to help the other HDDs access data that is often used? Should I keep the 970 mostly empty, except OS & software so it can do its thing? Regarding cache-ing will the OS drive / all 970 SSDs help with cache-ing witout any setup?

[TechMeThatsSexy]

1 hour ago, BrinkGG said:

VM

Can I run a VM on Windows 10 for Plex? Is there any point? My Plex library got screwed up since I have the media on a external HDD and the computer crashed several times when I tried to unload everthing from iCloud... Got it all out in the end. Never had crashes before. Maybe because I called Apple support and said im leaving and why^^, Ive heard that Plex library can get screwed up if the machine is turned off often or have a crash. What do recommend for Plex, a dedicated server, or having one server that dos both Plex and hosting a website or two?

[TechMeThatsSexy]

2 hours ago, BrinkGG said:

Puget's Adobe premiere recommended hardware

I couldnt find any spesifics about ram other then GB. What 4x32 GB RAM do you guys recommend? I will be editing 6-8k on this computer also. MHz higher the better, should I go for 3600 for example and is there any this els I should look for when it comes to RAM, brand or other specs?

[Electronics Wizardy]

30 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

Do I need to set anything up for the Samsung 970 PRO SSD to help the other HDDs access data that is often used? Should I keep the 970 mostly empty, except OS & software so it can do its thing? Regarding cache-ing will the OS drive / all 970 SSDs help with cache-ing witout any setup?

You need to set it up manually.

 

Id probably get a seprate drive for cach,e and don't use the boot drive.

 

28 minutes ago, TechMeThatsSexy said:

Can I run a VM on Windows 10 for Plex? Is there any point? My Plex library got screwed up since I have the media on a external HDD and the computer crashed several times when I tried to unload everthing from iCloud... Got it all out in the end. Never had crashes before. Maybe because I called Apple support and said im leaving and why^^, Ive heard that Plex library can get screwed up if the machine is turned off often or have a crash. What do recommend for Plex, a dedicated server, or having one server that dos both Plex and hosting a website or two?

You can run a vm with something like hyper-v for plex. I would as it makes it easier to move the vm if needed, and restore to a previous state.

 

Do you already havea  serever, use it if you have it, but if you don't, and downtime doesn't really matter, just run it on your desktop.

[TechMeThatsSexy]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

hyper-v

Heard about it, dont know much. Will look into it, thanks.

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Do you already havea  serever

No, considering buying the Corsair Obsidian 1000D case so that I can build my first server in the same case as the PC. Good idea?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, TechMeThatsSexy said:

No, considering buying the Corsair Obsidian 1000D case so that I can build my first server in the same case as the PC. Good idea?

Id put it in a different case, then its easier to seprate if needed, and you can work on one system and the other will be working fine.

[TechMeThatsSexy]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

easier to seprate

Thanks true. Maybe better.

Would you only use M.2 970 for cache or combine with other SSDs also? Last question for today then I have to go. Thats for all the good feedback guys! Talk to you later:)

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, TechMeThatsSexy said:

Thanks true. Maybe better.

Would you only use M.2 970 for cache or combine with other SSDs also? Last question for today then I have to go. Thats for all the good feedback guys! Talk to you later:)

Yea Id get some 970's for caching only.

[TechMeThatsSexy]

Hey guys,

 

Thanks so much for the help so far. The parts list is taking shape, but I’m still a bit uncertain about RAM, MB and HDDs.  

 

MOTHERBOARD: 

Im looking for a max 256GB cap. and support multi-GPU-technology (NVlink) to future proof. 8 HDDs. and. 3x M.2 slots would be great. Maybe add a PCI M.2 adapter if the mother board dont have more that 1-2 M.2 slots. Look at these two cards for now. Any suggestions?

• ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme
• ASRock TRX40 Creator

 

RAM:

I plan to first buy one 128GB kit, populate the first and thirs slot from the outside towards the CPU, and then be able to expand with another kit (the exact same) to max out the 256 limit on the board in the future. Is 3200 MHz the optimal clock speed for the 3970X?

• G.Skill RipjawsV DDR4-3200 C16 QC - 128GB F4-3200C16Q-128GVK
• Corsair Vengeance LPX 128GB (4-KIT) DDR4 3600MHz CL18 (CMK128GX4M4E3200C16)

 

 

HARDSRIVES:

Which M.2 should I use for OS & cache separately? The Firecuda has twice the capacity as the 970 Pro for almost the same price, is the Firecuda the right choice both as a OS drive and for cache?

 

I would like to start with one M.2 for the OS and one for cache, and then add another one for cache later, or should I use all 3 M.2 slots for cache?

 

In that case, can I use a smaller OS drive or why / what would the empty space on a 1 TB 970 benefit the system, would the space be used for cache or is dos the OS drive just faster with OS alone on it and lots of free space? I thought I was going for the 970 until I saw the 510... What to choose for what?

M.2 NVMe (PCI Express 3.0 x4):

• Samsung 970 Pro
• Seagate Firecuda 510
• WD Black SN750
• Intel 660p

 

2.5” SSD:

What would you guys use a 2.5" SATA connected SSDs for when there is a dedicated M.2 for OS and cache in the system?

• WD Blue 2,5" intern SSD 1 TB