Storage server and Computing PC

ExcesiveDiscount · September 2, 2023

Budget (including currency): $2.300 USD (~2.000.000 CLP)

Country: Chile

Workloads that it will be used for: Storage Server, not too much load overall. PC, science computing with main focus on memory (need 128GB).

Other details: READ DETAILS PLEASE

I'm in a kind of tough spot. I have been asked to select components for two different machines on limited budget. Firstly, both machines will be installed on a medium wall mounted rack, so I guess I will have 6 Units free, this is not that important though.

Storage Server: I'am not considering the drives on the budget. I need a rack (as small as possible) with around 20 slots for 3.5 inch HDDs (definitely more than 12 slots). This server won't be loaded with a lot of people downloading and loading info here, so it does not have to be that powerful. I think here is where I can go somewhat cheap. What I am concerned about is the connectivity though, is there a way to maybe run this as a server, and at the same time have 10 Gig connection to PC on the same rack?

The budget for Storage Server considers:

CPU
CPU Cooler
RAM
Boot Drive
Motherboard
Rack Storage Chassis (>12 slots)

PC: Mainly due to hardware disposal, and Chile's prices there is not a way to get workbench (EPYC, Threadripper, etc.) hardware for this. So I am aiming to consumer hardware. The only thing that I need no matter what is 128 GB of RAM and more than 6 cores (8 would be nice). I think it would be nice to have 10 Gig interface between this PC and the Storage server, but I don't know if it's possible. I don't need that much GPU power, so is not considered on the budget. For storage of this machine, it would be nice to have a couple of TB of SSD storage for like a working space.

The budget for PC considers:

CPU
CPU Cooler
RAM
SSD Storage
Motherboard
Rack Chassis

Note: I don't really need a detailed list of the hardware according to my specs. In Chile is kind of hard to get hardware as easy as you guys (US and Canada) can get. So don't worry about that. I need ideas on how to implement this correctly, so I can take off from that. So a budget on US hardware according to my needs is more than useful too.

I don't know if I'm missing something, but just ask, and I will be answering.

Thank you in advance

Edit: I know the budget is kind of garbage for this, but I can't do anything about it. Also, as it is institution money, I can not buy used. That's how science and science money works around here

Dutch_Master · September 2, 2023

28 minutes ago, ExcesiveDiscount said:

I can not buy used

That's a pity, as used enterprise stuff would make this possible within budget but w/o lots of storage.

Earlier this year I bought me a full AMD EPYC system from Aliexpress. This vendor supplied the mainboard, CPU and ECC RAM (128GB, there's room for another 4 sticks on the mainboard)

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005010935691.html

2U CPU cooler with fan:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004556694860.html

I bought a 3U rack enclosure from ebay but that's no longer available. Alternative might be:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32824461987.html

It has 24 drive bays but I never bought from that store.

I put in a 1TB Lexar MN620 NVMe drive for the OS (128GB), future VM's (512GB) and spare space for wear-levelling and/or expansion.

For storage in your use case there's a couple of options:

* SATA 3

* M.2 SATA

* M.2 NVMe

* U.2 NVMe

SATA 3 is just plain 2.5" SSD's, easy to install in the aforementioned case, and probably in a lot more other cases as well. Fairly cheap, but limited in capacity. M.2 SATA has the same problem capacity-wise, but they're also a little more expensive too. And require an adapter board for mounting in a 2.5 or 3.5" drive bay.

For M.2 NVMe drives you can use an adapter board and PCIe slot bifurcation to have 4 drives in a single 16x PCIe slot and at full speed (drive or slot, whatever is slowest). I got a board like that: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005186941984.html Unfortunately, NVMe drives share the capacity issue with SATA drives: at most 8TB and a very steep price, lower capacity drives are significantly cheaper but take up so much space. However, the U.2 option gives decent storage capacity (8TB and up) but again, at considerably higher prices. Even used they're not cheap: https://www.ebay.com/itm/155536888800 Not even 8TB and well above 350$ already. You can't use U.2 drives on a SATA/SAS server backplane, so you either need a backplane specifically for U.2 ($$$) or adapters ($, link!) but loose the hotswap option.

HTH!