The server upgrade... from jank to questionably okay.

MrSimplicity · July 31, 2023

Quite honestly after all is said and done I probably wasted quite a bit of money doing this upgrade. All prices in USD.

Previous server:

i7-8700k

64GB DDR4 RAM

EVGA 980ti ftw

6 or the eventual 8 HDDs - 2 of the 4 16TB ironwolf pro NAS drives 7200rpm + 4x 8TB barracuda 5400rpm

2x Samsung 980 1TB

You might not be able to see it but there's only 2 screws holding each drive in, one on each side, except for the top drive for some reason the case just doesn't have a hole on the other side for it. Had to push them out further because the 980ti is in the way. Since my sata cables are 90° all of the drives need to be even.

THE UPGRADE: completely unnecessary but should be worth it eventually.

Ryzen 9 7950X3D - of course matched with a NH-D15

Asus ROG strix B650-F

64GB DDR5 6000MHz - CL36

Asus Dual 4060ti OC edition

Thermaltake Core V71 - cuz it has HDD bays (wish they were hot swap like my O11 Dynamic though)

Got a new PSU cuz I'm dumb and didn't actually need to get one. oh well.

Finally got a UPS specifically for the server. APC 1500VA/900W. - probably the only "upgrade" that was actually necessary.

AND.. with the side panel on. Case doesn't fit in the bookshelf without me moving the shelf so now it gets to sit out.

In total the upgrade came out to ~$1700, don't really feel like doing the math.

Though I got a really good deal on the CPU/MB/RAM at micro center.

$699.99/$299.99/$299.99 respectively and it was all bundled for only $799.99

GPU - $399.99

UPS - $179.99

NH-D15 - $129.99

Case - $177.99

PSU - $169.99

That should be everything...

I utilize the server almost every single day so I can't say it was really a waste and should last me quite a few years. Wish I could've afforded a full rack mount setup but eh... ballin on a budget.

I didn't have a lot of room to take pictures since my racing sim rig is in the way. So that's the best I got.

treestain · August 1, 2023

wow that looks really cool

52 minutes ago, MrSimplicity said:

Asus Dual 4060ti OC edition

what do you use a 4060ti for in a server? AI wizardry stuff? just curious

MrSimplicity · August 1, 2023

5 minutes ago, treestain said:

wow that looks really cool

what do you use a 4060ti for in a server? AI wizardry stuff? just curious

It's really only for transcoding to allow the CPU to focus on other tasks. I have a very large Plex library. Otherwise if I wanted to setup passthrough I could run a Windows VM that can play games. Being though I have a separate gaming PC I don't need to mess with that. My gaming PC is now outdated compared to my server minus it having a 3090 in it.

treestain · August 1, 2023

5 minutes ago, MrSimplicity said:

It's really only for transcoding to allow the CPU to focus on other tasks. I have a very large Plex library. Otherwise if I wanted to setup passthrough I could run a Windows VM that can play games. Being though I have a separate gaming PC I don't need to mess with that. My gaming PC is now outdated compared to my server minus it having a 3090 in it.

very neat build! I'm a sucker for servers because I've been trying to learn a lot about them to simplify my life rather than relying on a bunch of external hard drives. from your experience do you have any advice for newbies looking to build/setup their own server?

MrSimplicity · August 1, 2023

11 minutes ago, treestain said:

very neat build! I'm a sucker for servers because I've been trying to learn a lot about them to simplify my life rather than relying on a bunch of external hard drives. from your experience do you have any advice for newbies looking to build/setup their own server?

lots and lots of research. I ultimately landed on running unraid. Since it seems most Server OS's require you to have all the same size drives and don't really like when you add more. Unraid, however, lets you add drives of any size whenever you want (as long as your license supports the amount of drives you plan on using). Being that scalability is a must for me it was the only fit. Being something that I'll use for years to come, just out right buying the top tier made the most sense for me.

So once you figure out exactly what you want a server for, then you can go from there. If you're just trying to store backups then you don't need anything fancy. If you're like me and run a massive media server for friends and family then (albeit mine is overkill) you'll need a decent CPU. If you want a Server that you can run a VM on that would serve as your main PC then that's when a GPU needs to be a main focus. In the very short time I've been running unraid I've learned a lot just by messing around with dockers and googling stuff every time I run into issues. In the process I'll usually see someone mention yet another program/docker that seems interesting. If you want decent tutorials for unraid you can look up SpaceInvaderOne on youtube. A lot of his stuff is quite outdated from the newest version of unraid but gives you a rough idea of what you're trying to accomplish. Plus a quick google search typically clears things up.

I for the longest time just ran Windows 10 on the old server only really switched because I had all my drives in raid0 (so no parity) and I also really wanted to do things right and switch to an actual Server OS.