Home server build

[pokibalboa]

Hi,

 

So the thing is i have had or I still have Dell poweredge r710 server, but i will sell it in a near future, so I need to build a new one.

The budget is around 600$ (+- 100$), I'll use this server for NAS and media server (plex and the arrs). It will run a couple of VM (win, couple of linux instances). I would like it to be upgradable in the future and somewhat decent in power usage.

I don't care about form factor or noise as I have a special server room (basement). 

I also have HDD's (sata and SAS) i can use and two m.2 sticks. So the two of HDD are SAS disks and if I could, i would like to use them.

It has to be good enough to stream to 4 users and I do run quite a lot of apps on it and a couple of databases.

 

TNX!

[jaslion]

Whats the storage amount you need?

 

600$ isnt a lot especially ifnit also needs to include a sas card.

 

What are the current specs and do they suffice for the tasks you need it to do?

[pokibalboa]

Tnx for the reply. 

I don't need any new storage i have disks (about 8TB) and will change them as time goes by.

It doesn't need to include the SAS card, but it would be nice to have as I have two 2TB SAS HDD full od data.

Now my dell server runs on 2x Intel® Xeon® CPU X5670 with 48gb ddr3 ECC memory and it does it's job.

Basicaly i need to buy CPU, motherboard (with as many sata ports as possible), ram, case and PSU.

 

[LIGISTX]

10 hours ago, pokibalboa said:

Hi,

 

So the thing is i have had or I still have Dell poweredge r710 server, but i will sell it in a near future, so I need to build a new one.

The budget is around 600$ (+- 100$), I'll use this server for NAS and media server (plex and the arrs). It will run a couple of VM (win, couple of linux instances). I would like it to be upgradable in the future and somewhat decent in power usage.

I don't care about form factor or noise as I have a special server room (basement). 

I also have HDD's (sata and SAS) i can use and two m.2 sticks. So the two of HDD are SAS disks and if I could, i would like to use them.

It has to be good enough to stream to 4 users and I do run quite a lot of apps on it and a couple of databases.

 

TNX!

If it doesn’t need to be ECC, maybe find a used PC with say a i5 8500 or something. Could do that for pretty cheap I bet. 

[gaetanocostanza]

This is ware build a serving gets difficult and expensive 

[pokibalboa]

I found one used pc with i7 9700k and 16gb ddr4, waiting for info on the motherboard, for 400e (500gb Samsung 970evo Pro and  WD blue 500gb ssd) . So I would just need to plug my hdds in and party on, maybe upgrade ram...

Is it a good price? What do you guys think? 

 

Or just used i7 9700k for 250e, which seems like a good price? And then build from that? 

[LIGISTX]

7 hours ago, pokibalboa said:

I found one used pc with i7 9700k and 16gb ddr4, waiting for info on the motherboard, for 400e (500gb Samsung 970evo Pro and  WD blue 500gb ssd) . So I would just need to plug my hdds in and party on, maybe upgrade ram...

Is it a good price? What do you guys think? 

 

Or just used i7 9700k for 250e, which seems like a good price? And then build from that? 

What will the VM’s be hosting? A 9700 is likely pretty overkill depending on what your trying to do. 
 

I ran my homelab on an i3 6100 for years with 28GB of RAM…. Just to put that into perspective. It was ESXi with truenas, 3 Ubuntu server VM’s, docker containers, home assistant, all virtualized and all happy. One of the VM’s was a Plex server. 

[pokibalboa]

Homeassistant with a lot of devices, win VM and two or three Linux VM. 

OS will be UnRaid and I use a lot of apps or docker containers. I also have a large photo collection which will be stored on the drives + managed with photoprism. So I'll have two or three large databases also. 

[LIGISTX]

25 minutes ago, pokibalboa said:

Homeassistant with a lot of devices, win VM and two or three Linux VM. 

OS will be UnRaid and I use a lot of apps or docker containers. I also have a large photo collection which will be stored on the drives + managed with photoprism. So I'll have two or three large databases also. 

Yea, a 9700 will be massive overkill. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but if you want to try and shave some cost down, could go with a lower tier CPU. I suppose it may depend what your windows VM is doing…. But that would all be very easy for a much lower tier CPU. A raspberry pi could easily do all of that, except being arm based makes it not at all ideal - just using it as an example of the level of CPU power needed.

 

My i3 6100 homelab used to power a TrueNAS VM with 50TB of storage under it, ~20+tb Plex library, home assistant, 6-10 docker containers, windows LTSC VM for veeam, 3 Ubuntu server VM’s, and the CPU usage while streaming a Plex video (via direct play) would be under 20%. If I was transcoding, I would see up to 40% depending on the bitrate… but I could comfortably transcode two 1080p to 720p movies at once, it would do three but that started to push things. 

[pokibalboa]

21 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

Yea, a 9700 will be massive overkill. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but if you want to try and shave some cost down, could go with a lower tier CPU. I suppose it may depend what your windows VM is doing…. But that would all be very easy for a much lower tier CPU. A raspberry pi could easily do all of that, except being arm based makes it not at all ideal - just using it as an example of the level of CPU power needed.

 

My i3 6100 homelab used to power a TrueNAS VM with 50TB of storage under it, ~20+tb Plex library, home assistant, 6-10 docker containers, windows LTSC VM for veeam, 3 Ubuntu server VM’s, and the CPU usage while streaming a Plex video (via direct play) would be under 20%. If I was transcoding, I would see up to 40% depending on the bitrate… but I could comfortably transcode two 1080p to 720p movies at once, it would do three but that started to push things. 

On 9/3/2022 at 5:12 PM, LIGISTX said:

What will the VM’s be hosting? A 9700 is likely pretty overkill depending on what your trying to do. 
 

I ran my homelab on an i3 6100 for years with 28GB of RAM…. Just to put that into perspective. It was ESXi with truenas, 3 Ubuntu server VM’s, docker containers, home assistant, all virtualized and all happy. One of the VM’s was a Plex server. 

Hm maybe you are right, but I want to have options in the future for upgrades so I would need a motherboard that is future proof. 

I will use Windows VM as a daily driver and one of the Linux VM also. Well not my daily use but for my kids so they can start to learn... 

[Blue4130]

14 minutes ago, pokibalboa said:

Hm maybe you are right, but I want to have options in the future for upgrades so I would need a motherboard that is future proof. 

I will use Windows VM as a daily driver and one of the Linux VM also. Well not my daily use but for my kids so they can start to learn... 

No motherboards are future proof. especially intel. You get two generations of chips.

[pokibalboa]

ryzen 7 2700x, ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR VII, 24 ddr4  for 300e i think it's a good deal? 

With some 2gb graphics card it should do it job and some more. Right?