Is there any specific type of motherboard I should get for a home server?

[DriedSponge]

Hi there!

I have a server at home that I use for small personal projects and the occasional Minecraft server. It is housed inside a computer case I used to use. I recently upgraded the CPU in my main machine, leaving me with an extra Ryzen 3800x, so I figured I could just use it for my server so it's not sitting around doing nothing. The issue is, my server currently uses some quad core intel CPU from a pre-built I bought in 2017, and it still uses the original motherboard that was used in the 2017 pre-built.

 

Obviously I will need to upgrade the motherboard to something with AM4, but I'm wondering if any motherboard would do the trick, or if I should go after something marketed as a "server motherboard"?

Any suggestions are very much appreciated. Keep in mind, I do usually keep this server up 24/7, I run Ubuntu server, and most of the stuff I run is very light/casual, nothing enterprise scale.

Thank you!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Any board that fits the parats you need should work fine, but my fav boards for a am4 server are these. https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=X470D4U#Specifications

 

You get onboard graphics so you don't need a gpu, you get ipmi for remote power on, bios editing, and more, and they have version with 10gbe. There not that cheap, so if your building a basic server is probably way overkill.

[RONOTHAN##]

7 minutes ago, DriedSponge said:

I'm wondering if any motherboard would do the trick, or if I should go after something marketed as a "server motherboard"?

Any board would work as long as it supports headless operation (assuming you didn't want to dedicate a GPU to it). Server boards do offer some extra features that can sometimes be really useful, IPMI and guaranteed headless operation are the big ones that comes to mind, but they're also usually double/triple the price of the consumer boards instead until boards are 5-7+ years old. If you can find a server oriented board for a good price, I'd err towards one of those for something like this, but don't spend too much to get one instead. 

[DriedSponge]

1 hour ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Any board would work as long as it supports headless operation (assuming you didn't want to dedicate a GPU to it). Server boards do offer some extra features that can sometimes be really useful, IPMI and guaranteed headless operation are the big ones that comes to mind, but they're also usually double/triple the price of the consumer boards instead until boards are 5-7+ years old. If you can find a server oriented board for a good price, I'd err towards one of those for something like this, but don't spend too much to get one instead. 

Good to know. Thank you very much. I will have to do some research into what IPMI and headless operation are. On board graphics is not a huge deal for me becuase I have a spare 1060 if needed.

[RONOTHAN##]

Just now, DriedSponge said:

I will have to do some research into what IPMI and headless operation are.

IPMI is remote management. You're able to control the entire system (power button, mouse/keyboard, install an OS, view screen, update BIOS, monitor sensors, etc.) from a completely different system, if you set it up correctly not even on the same network. For a server where you want to stick it in a closet/basement and not touch it again, it's really useful, though it's not a necessity if you're willing to have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor hooked up and walk over to the system for management. Headless operation is the ability to run with no GPU present in the system, but if you've got a spare 1060 that's not a necessity. 

[DriedSponge]

4 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

IPMI is remote management. You're able to control the entire system (power button, mouse/keyboard, install an OS, view screen, update BIOS, monitor sensors, etc.) from a completely different system, if you set it up correctly not even on the same network. For a server where you want to stick it in a closet/basement and not touch it again, it's really useful, though it's not a necessity if you're willing to have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor hooked up and walk over to the system for management. Headless operation is the ability to run with no GPU present in the system, but if you've got a spare 1060 that's not a necessity. 

IPMI actually sounds very useful for me, thanks for the information. I will be moving away from home and into a college dorm pretty soon, and I can't take my server with me so it would be nice to have full remote control over it. Right now since I live where my server is, I usually do the OS installation with a monitor/keyboard attached, then afterwards I do everything else over SSH. I only connect my monitor and keyboard is something goes so wrong I can't connect via SSH.