Making some decisions for a propper home server.

[manikyath]

Budget (including currency): €2.5-3.5K -ish

Country: Belgium

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: replacing my current pair of servers with something more 'expandable', think VM farm meets storage server.

Other details: i've been pondering about buying AMD Epyc ever since Rome launched, since we're now well into Milan's lifespan i've been pondering if it's worth the jump or not.

 

Seeing how the price of DDR4 ECC is at this point, and what DDR5 prices are like for now.. i'm considering it's gonna be Milan or waiting a good long while until DDR5 normalizes.

On top of that, i'm coming from 'running stuff on a 4790 and 4790k stuffed with 32GB RAM and every single PCIe lane stuffed with cards.' so the difference between Milan and Genoa is going to be minimal compared to the jump i'm gonna be making from the haswell stuff.

i'm planning on rocking this box as long as i've been rocking the same time as i've been rocking the 4790, so one generation sooner or later really doesnt matter all that much in the long run.

 

NOW... breaking the common rule, i'm not making a PCPartpicker, because i'm well into the werid terretory, in Belgium which means very limited availability of the weird stuff.. (i'm already spread out over 3 webshops to get everything i need..) and i'm both not quite firm on my budget, and not really seeing the benefit in an entire list of custom defined items in pcpp because epyc isnt on there.

 

The stuff i'm set on, feel free to suggest otherwise, but expect to need a good reason, i've done my research:

 

- CPU: EPYC 7313P - the cheapest Milan processor i can buy, and otherwise a nice combination of options either way.

- Motherboard: SuperMicro MBD-H12SSL-I-O - it's available, it's affordable, and it exposes the PCIe lanes in a way i like, with a general featureset i like.

- Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S SP3 - i assume this one makes sense.

- RAM: Micron 16GB DDR4 3200MHz ECC/REG - it's very affordable, even compared to non-ecc DDR4, and again.. it's available...

- i've got plenty of storage to migrate from the other servers, so i dont really need to worry about that.

 

What i'm not set on.. is if i'm getting 4x16GB to get the same 64GB i have now, or just max the thing out to 8x16GB. i'll end up wanting the memory eventually in the expected 8-ish year lifespan i hope to use this board for. it's a matter of if it'll really dent the budget that much, and how troublesome it'll be finding matching ECC/REG sticks a few years down the road, knowing that the second hand market is basicly down to a few refurbers pulling HUGE profits.

 

Between all of this, i'm looking at €2150 for the whole set with 64GB RAM, or €2500 for the whole set with 128GB RAM.

 

The stuff i have no idea for yet:

 

- i need a power supply, for very convoluted reasons i'm specificly looking for a modular power supply that uses the 2x3 connector for the peripheral cables (SATA, molex, etc) because that's a connector i can source easily, and i might want to make custom cables (in fact.. the drive array in one of my servers is custom cabling already)

For the power supply size, i'm contemplating 1000-1600W range, because at some point this thing may be running multiple mid-range GPU's.

I'm obviously looking towards 80+ platinum / titanium because efficiency.. but beyond that and the fact that every power supply in that scope is in the A-tier on our PSU list.. i'm sort of digging in a place i'm not familiar with.

 

- if someone has an idea for a case with A LOT of 5.25" bays, that would be very welcome.

 

- i keep having the distinct feeling i'm forgetting something... i'm accounting for a bunch of small fans to cool the memory and VRM. i went over the part list several times and i'm sure i have everything.. but i feel like i'm forgetting something.

[LIGISTX]

23 minutes ago, manikyath said:

Budget (including currency): €2.5-3.5K -ish

Country: Belgium

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: replacing my current pair of servers with something more 'expandable', think VM farm meets storage server.

Other details: i've been pondering about buying AMD Epyc ever since Rome launched, since we're now well into Milan's lifespan i've been pondering if it's worth the jump or not.

 

Seeing how the price of DDR4 ECC is at this point, and what DDR5 prices are like for now.. i'm considering it's gonna be Milan or waiting a good long while until DDR5 normalizes.

On top of that, i'm coming from 'running stuff on a 4790 and 4790k stuffed with 32GB RAM and every single PCIe lane stuffed with cards.' so the difference between Milan and Genoa is going to be minimal compared to the jump i'm gonna be making from the haswell stuff.

i'm planning on rocking this box as long as i've been rocking the same time as i've been rocking the 4790, so one generation sooner or later really doesnt matter all that much in the long run.

 

NOW... breaking the common rule, i'm not making a PCPartpicker, because i'm well into the werid terretory, in Belgium which means very limited availability of the weird stuff.. (i'm already spread out over 3 webshops to get everything i need..) and i'm both not quite firm on my budget, and not really seeing the benefit in an entire list of custom defined items in pcpp because epyc isnt on there.

 

The stuff i'm set on, feel free to suggest otherwise, but expect to need a good reason, i've done my research:

 

- CPU: EPYC 7313P - the cheapest Milan processor i can buy, and otherwise a nice combination of options either way.

- Motherboard: SuperMicro MBD-H12SSL-I-O - it's available, it's affordable, and it exposes the PCIe lanes in a way i like, with a general featureset i like.

- Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S SP3 - i assume this one makes sense.

- RAM: Micron 16GB DDR4 3200MHz ECC/REG - it's very affordable, even compared to non-ecc DDR4, and again.. it's available...

- i've got plenty of storage to migrate from the other servers, so i dont really need to worry about that.

 

What i'm not set on.. is if i'm getting 4x16GB to get the same 64GB i have now, or just max the thing out to 8x16GB. i'll end up wanting the memory eventually in the expected 8-ish year lifespan i hope to use this board for. it's a matter of if it'll really dent the budget that much, and how troublesome it'll be finding matching ECC/REG sticks a few years down the road, knowing that the second hand market is basicly down to a few refurbers pulling HUGE profits.

 

Between all of this, i'm looking at €2150 for the whole set with 64GB RAM, or €2500 for the whole set with 128GB RAM.

 

The stuff i have no idea for yet:

 

- i need a power supply, for very convoluted reasons i'm specificly looking for a modular power supply that uses the 2x3 connector for the peripheral cables (SATA, molex, etc) because that's a connector i can source easily, and i might want to make custom cables (in fact.. the drive array in one of my servers is custom cabling already)

For the power supply size, i'm contemplating 1000-1600W range, because at some point this thing may be running multiple mid-range GPU's.

I'm obviously looking towards 80+ platinum / titanium because efficiency.. but beyond that and the fact that every power supply in that scope is in the A-tier on our PSU list.. i'm sort of digging in a place i'm not familiar with.

 

- if someone has an idea for a case with A LOT of 5.25" bays, that would be very welcome.

 

- i keep having the distinct feeling i'm forgetting something... i'm accounting for a bunch of small fans to cool the memory and VRM. i went over the part list several times and i'm sure i have everything.. but i feel like i'm forgetting something.

A good thing to add is… what is this thing for? What will it be hosting exactly? Not many home users need Epyc servers. 

[manikyath]

4 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

A good thing to add is… what is this thing for? What will it be hosting exactly? Not many home users need Epyc servers. 

it's the logical upgrade from two 8 year old i7's. The reason i have two, is primarily because i needed more I/O, but there's been plenty of times where i've migrated workloads back and forth between the two because one was overloaded and the other was mostly idle. more cores in one box will be a pretty good experience.

 

as for what 'exactly' it's hosting... nothing 'exactly'. it's homelab stuff, it varies by the week. spooling up game servers that may last a week, may last a month, may last a year. file share and a windows VM have been a constant, but the file share is literally just hosting the contents of a RAID card with some rights management, and the windows VM is two cores with 6GB memory allocated.

 

the best thing to tell you, is that this thing is for "being flexible". fleixibility i lack now, in expandability, switching between workloads, different storage tiers (i currently straight up lack the PCIe lanes to do NVME.), and the ability to just spool up a BIG VM without having to cut down resources on other tasks.

 

if it wasnt for the expansion i'd just buy desktop parts again, buying into a server platform is a solution that i've estimated will last me the amount of time the desktop parts did, given on the way my hosting needs have evolved trough the years.

 

the key here isnt "what do i need the performance for" - because i'll fill that thing up easily with all the ridiculous things i love doing on a friday evening.. the key here is i'm buying a platform that'll support the expandability i want to toy with for the next 5+ years.

[LIGISTX]

2 hours ago, manikyath said:

it's the logical upgrade from two 8 year old i7's. The reason i have two, is primarily because i needed more I/O, but there's been plenty of times where i've migrated workloads back and forth between the two because one was overloaded and the other was mostly idle. more cores in one box will be a pretty good experience.

 

as for what 'exactly' it's hosting... nothing 'exactly'. it's homelab stuff, it varies by the week. spooling up game servers that may last a week, may last a month, may last a year. file share and a windows VM have been a constant, but the file share is literally just hosting the contents of a RAID card with some rights management, and the windows VM is two cores with 6GB memory allocated.

 

the best thing to tell you, is that this thing is for "being flexible". fleixibility i lack now, in expandability, switching between workloads, different storage tiers (i currently straight up lack the PCIe lanes to do NVME.), and the ability to just spool up a BIG VM without having to cut down resources on other tasks.

 

if it wasnt for the expansion i'd just buy desktop parts again, buying into a server platform is a solution that i've estimated will last me the amount of time the desktop parts did, given on the way my hosting needs have evolved trough the years.

 

the key here isnt "what do i need the performance for" - because i'll fill that thing up easily with all the ridiculous things i love doing on a friday evening.. the key here is i'm buying a platform that'll support the expandability i want to toy with for the next 5+ years.

I’m not trying to say you don’t need it, I’m just suggesting you probably can spend a lot less and it be effectively the same. I have a 28 thread xeon, 64 gb ECC 2133, 512 nvme (new) and noctua cooker (new), plus the Supermicro board and PCIe riser card needed to use NVMe with it, and all of that was cost under 500 bucks USD since I got it all used. This has proven to be more then I need by a good bit, and will easily get me to the same goal; many years of growth potential. If I need to, I can easily go up to 128 GB of RAM as well. 
 

It’s a homelab as well, pfsense, Truenas, windows, multiple Ubuntu VM’s, UniFi controller in an an LXC container, FR24, Plex, and home assistant, and it has never even hit 25% usage I don’t think. Average CPU usage is single digits. 
 

Granted being outside the US acres ti used hardware may be limited, but this could prove way cheaper. 

[manikyath]

7 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

since I got it all used

not an option here.

 

i've dug trough the used market here, it's all overpriced as hell.

 

like... haswell generation xeons platforms still going for 2K level of 'not worth it'.

[LIGISTX]

54 minutes ago, manikyath said:

not an option here.

 

i've dug trough the used market here, it's all overpriced as hell.

 

like... haswell generation xeons platforms still going for 2K level of 'not worth it'.

That’s crazy. No American sellers will ship internationally? 

[manikyath]

10 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

That’s crazy. No American sellers will ship internationally? 

to ship anything with weight or volume from the US here would break the bank more than buy an Epyc server.

 

I've done my research.

[LIGISTX]

28 minutes ago, manikyath said:

to ship anything with weight or volume from the US here would break the bank more than buy an Epyc server.

 

I've done my research.

I can’t see shipping a mobo cost more then ~100 bucks. But fair enough.