Figuring Out Server Specs/Parts

Biohack · December 29, 2022

How does one go about figuring out the hardware specs of a server? Should I start using something like Prometheus and Grafana (have 0 experience using them) to track the applications that I use and then go from there? Or how? In my case it's for a home lab. Want to get one server and run a bunch of VMs for all my stuff.

LIGISTX · December 29, 2022

2 hours ago, Biohack said:

How does one go about figuring out the hardware specs of a server? Should I start using something like Prometheus and Grafana (have 0 experience using them) to track the applications that I use and then go from there? Or how? In my case it's for a home lab. Want to get one server and run a bunch of VMs for all my stuff.

Explaining what you plan to do with it, including what VM’s you want to run would be a good start…

I ran my homelab on an i3 6100 for years and it was plenty of power. ESXi was the hypervisor, truenas, windows LTSC, multiple Ubuntu’s, home assistant, and a handful of docker containers all were perfectly happy being virtualized on it, including being a Plex server…

So we would need more detail to be able to actually help point you in the right direction.

wseaton · December 30, 2022

Most PC's now have more than enough horsepower to handle a half dozen VM's.

You also don't need server 'hardware' because most of the time the only difference between the desktop PC and 6yr old server is the former is WAY faster while the later has ECC RAM and sucks more power doing less.

Biohack · January 8, 2023

I am pretty much against server grade hardware for the reasons that wseaton mentioned, but I still want some of their capabilities. As I'll mention in my requirements, I want ultra low power because I don't want to also build a power station.

Good point guys, what do I want? I did some thinking and here's what I've come up with:

I have 3 uses for the server.

1.) 2 Network programs + database. Preliminary estimates would be 1CPU core 1Gb RAM for each program. Database requires 1Ghz 2Gb RAM.

2.) x2 VMs for CI servers - x1 Windows 10 and x1 Ubuntu.

3.) File server for all users on the network. (20Tb will do nicely for the next couple of years at least).

The file server will be hit by 5-6 users with all sorts of different types of files but this network traffic won't be very high. I mean sure, occasionally a big file will be transferred, but occasionally. The file server will mostly be for backup which will run daily. The VMs will obviously be hit at the same time when the software builds come through (the software isn't your Linux Kernel type program). The software i.e. point 1.) above, will be hit by one user at any given point in time. I see no change to these requirements for the lifetime of the server.

- Lifespan, I don't know 10 years? I do want this thing to last as long as possible.

- 10Gbps future proof. (low on the priorities list) So this should be as simple as enough PCI slots to add a 10Gbps NIC at some point. But I also want to have the ability to expand my HDD array at will if storage use cases suddenly change which as I said, is unlikely for the next few years at least.

- I want to run this whole thing on Ubuntu, so the only implication here is that the file server needs to run in Ubuntu somehow. I haven't done enough digging to figure out what the best solution would be for this use case. Samba is obviously an option but I guess I can run some file sharing OS in a VM also? Who knows. I really want to be able to expand my storage easily in the future and I don't know how good samba is for that.

- Preferably no fans.

- Hot swappable hard drives would be nice. But shutting everything down to change a HDD and rebuild wouldn't be the end of the world either.

- Low power consumption is a must. This is probably the most important requirement. I want this to sip power. Apart from the VMs, as you can see, my use case is I think you'll agree to be very modest.

- I think ECC would be close to a non optional requirement.