Home Server

[TwoTen]

Hello!

 

I have lived without a server now for about 5 years as I've virtualized everything on my main machine. But now it's time to get a home server again.

It will be used as a NAS and to run applications. I am going to try to run most things dockerized but I don't exclude ever running VMs. So vt-x AND vt-d is a requirement.

I would also want to run PFSense on it to replace my current router setup, but that's a stretch goal.

 

My current plan is:

- Silverstone DS320 case

- A cheap $20 128GB M.2 SSD for boot

- 3x IronWolf 8TB in raid 5 to start with

- 16gb memory, ecc would be nice but is not a requirement

- Some basic 400 watt SFX PSU or whatever I can get my hands on

 

Now, the processor, motherboard and cooler is what I am unsure about. I definitely want air cooling. I am looking to use a intel CPU unless someone gives me a good reason to go AMD. I am looking for at least 6 cores, so the consumer i5's seem appealing.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations regarding CPU and mobo? Perhaps second hand is of interest?

 

Also, what else will I need? A raid controller?

 

Thanks in advance!

[GhostRoadieBL]

I'm guessing you mean the DS380 based on the SFX psu

 

looks like it's limited to DTX and ITX boards and there's no DTX board for intel 12th gen

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Q7PC8r

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-12500 3 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($202.98 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i-17xx 33.84 CFM CPU Cooler  ($44.95 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H670M-ITX/ax Mini ITX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($169.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair SF 450 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply  ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $482.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-05-24 20:07 EDT-0400

 

- 12500 was $9 more than the 12400 and gains a bit of a mhz boost

- 57mm CPU cooler height is a nasty one to work around with how hot most modern CPUs run, this would be the only reason I can think to go for AMD 5600G

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-5-5600g/22.html The 10 and 11 series intel run alot more power than the 5600G and 12th gen is worse. If you are looking at long high loads you'll need a different case or unfortunately look to liquid cooling to keep the 12500 from throttling.

- Corsair SF psus are well rated and 450W without a GPU should be more than enough even with all the drive bays filled

 

Other than these you'll need a HBA card or Raid card with enough ports for the drives (I'd go LSI 9211-8i) https://www.ebay.com/itm/133702989762 they're pretty cheap and often come with cables for Sata drives. 6G SAS is fast enough for HDDs https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sas-6gb-hdd,2392.html and just keeps up with SATA SSDs (6G SAS is around 600MB/s with SATA SSDs running at 550MB/s) but you can also just use onboard SATA for SSDs and keep the HBA ports all for HDDs.

 

Used won't get you much better for less, and will find much worse for more$ https://www.ebay.com/itm/115395785597 if you resold the HDD and GPU this wouldn't be a bad option other than the i7-7700 being only 4 cores, everything 10th gen or newer was going for over $1k.

 

[TwoTen]

4 minutes ago, GhostRoadieBL said:

I'm guessing you mean the DS380 based on the SFX psu

 

looks like it's limited to DTX and ITX boards and there's no DTX board for intel 12th gen

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Q7PC8r

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-12500 3 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($202.98 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i-17xx 33.84 CFM CPU Cooler  ($44.95 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H670M-ITX/ax Mini ITX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($169.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair SF 450 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply  ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $482.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-05-24 20:07 EDT-0400

 

- 12500 was $9 more than the 12400 and gains a bit of a mhz boost

- 57mm CPU cooler height is a nasty one to work around with how hot most modern CPUs run, this would be the only reason I can think to go for AMD 5600G

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-5-5600g/22.html The 10 and 11 series intel run alot more power than the 5600G and 12th gen is worse. If you are looking at long high loads you'll need a different case or unfortunately look to liquid cooling to keep the 12500 from throttling.

- Corsair SF psus are well rated and 450W without a GPU should be more than enough even with all the drive bays filled

 

Other than these you'll need a HBA card or Raid card with enough ports for the drives (I'd go LSI 9211-8i) https://www.ebay.com/itm/133702989762 they're pretty cheap and often come with cables for Sata drives. 6G SAS is fast enough for HDDs https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sas-6gb-hdd,2392.html and just keeps up with SATA SSDs (6G SAS is around 600MB/s with SATA SSDs running at 550MB/s) but you can also just use onboard SATA for SSDs and keep the HBA ports all for HDDs.

 

Used won't get you much better for less, and will find much worse for more$ https://www.ebay.com/itm/115395785597 if you resold the HDD and GPU this wouldn't be a bad option other than the i7-7700 being only 4 cores, everything 10th gen or newer was going for over $1k.

 

Thank you for this well put together answer!

 

I did indeed mean the DS380.

 

What sort of cooler would you suggest me to pick to keep the CPU from throttling? Is a AOI sufficient? What sort of failure rate can I expect from such a system? I do plan to run long and heavy loads on it with maxed CPU.

 

As for PCI-e, how limited will I be here? In a perfect world I would like a low performance GPU in the system, a 10gbit network port and the raid controller. How well would this work with this motherboard setup?

 

Also, am I likley to fit all of this in this case?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

[GhostRoadieBL]

3 hours ago, TwoTen said:

What sort of cooler would you suggest me to pick to keep the CPU from throttling? Is a AOI sufficient? What sort of failure rate can I expect from such a system? I do plan to run long and heavy loads on it with maxed CPU.

It's looking like a different case would be the best option, 120mm single tower coolers are perfect for the cpu.

120mm AIOs from corsair or EK would be enough and have consistent track records within warranty but mixed life beyond that, high temps cause the liquid to degrade faster too so it's risky.

3 hours ago, TwoTen said:

As for PCI-e, how limited will I be here?

Single x16 slot on ITX, full size ATX would allow for more pcie,

single port 10gig cards usually use x4 or x8 pcie slots or on board more expensive motherboards >$400

Raid cards run x8 or x16 so you'll have to find a board with extra slots (also puts the Motherboard into flagship tier prices)

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175055028902

This is a good starting point for a larger case

 

[TwoTen]

8 hours ago, GhostRoadieBL said:

It's looking like a different case would be the best option, 120mm single tower coolers are perfect for the cpu.

120mm AIOs from corsair or EK would be enough and have consistent track records within warranty but mixed life beyond that, high temps cause the liquid to degrade faster too so it's risky.

Single x16 slot on ITX, full size ATX would allow for more pcie,

single port 10gig cards usually use x4 or x8 pcie slots or on board more expensive motherboards >$400

Raid cards run x8 or x16 so you'll have to find a board with extra slots (also puts the Motherboard into flagship tier prices)

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175055028902

This is a good starting point for a larger case

 

Alright. I would like to stay out of rack formfactor and get something conzoomer focused for now. Perhaps it's just easier for me to get mid tower case instead and ditch hotswap and go standard ATX?

 

Any suggestions of an appropriate case, mobo and cooler setup?

[GhostRoadieBL]

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Aluminum-Trayless-Mobile-Backplane/

https://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-H22-Perforated-Pre-Installed-CA-1B3-00M1NN-A0/

 

this combo would keep both hot swap and a ton of internal drives while giving you ATX space, combo should be around the same price as the 380

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/M3QmC6

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-12500 3 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($202.98 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($41.30 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z690 AORUS ELITE AX DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($239.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2021) 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $554.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-05-25 15:56 EDT-0400

 

dual 120mm tower cooler would be more than enough even if you decide to upgrade later to 12700 or 12900 for extra cores

motherboard steps up to 3 x16 pcie slots (top one is gen 5 for GPU and other 2 are gen 3 x4 wired but have full length x16 slots) This was the toughest to find as most motherboards around this price are all in on a single gen5 x16 slot and gen3 x1 slots for everything else when gen3 x1 only gives you 1GB/s not great for 10Gig network cards or 8 port 600MB/s HBAs