Home Server questions

[Tallin21]

I'm looking to build a home server from scratch to run my Minecraft server, satisfactory, and maybe one or two other games. (Probably not all at the same time as we kind of rotate when we play games in shifts). I would also like to use it as a nas to store files redundantly.

 

Essentially the specs I were thinking are as follows

CPU, Intel i5 14600k

 

Cpu cooler will likely be a noctua air cooler 

 

Motherboard, Z790 (haven't chosen which one)

 

Ram 2x16gb ddr5 6000mhz

 

Power supply will probably be a 650w fully modular (likely EVGA or Corsair)

 

1tb ssd (for boot up, probably a western digital or samsung)

 

2x8tb hard drives (likely seagate ironwood hard drives) set up to be redundant 

 

Is this a good setup? Is there anything else I should consider that may suit my needs better? Any tips on what I should consider or can expect to run into?

 

Thanks in advance 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

23 minutes ago, Tallin21 said:

CPU, Intel i5 14600k

 

Cpu cooler will likely be a noctua air cooler 

 

Motherboard, Z790 (haven't chosen which one)

Do you have these parts already? I'd get the non K and B series board. Save some money and power for a small performance hit.

 

If you want to go spend more I'd go ecc to keep data safe.

 

Probably put the vms on a SSD, cause vms on a HDD are gonna be slow.

 

 

 

[Tallin21]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Do you have these parts already? I'd get the non K and B series board. Save some money and power for a small performance hit.

 

If you want to go spend more I'd go ecc to keep data safe.

 

Probably put the vms on a SSD, cause vms on a HDD are gonna be slow.

 

 

 

I don't have the parts yet, any certain parts you'd recommend? My total budget for this build is around $1000 (I don't need to spend all of it just my ballpark estimate as I don't know a ton about building a server as this is my first)

[aggie113]

maybe go a bit slower on the ram but if it stays in budget up the total size.  Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives are good, be sure to slightly over-spec on size.  The Pros have a 5 year warranty so don't outgrow them before then.  Three drives would be better for speed as you could run a Raid 5 instead of a mirror. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 hours ago, Tallin21 said:

I don't have the parts yet, any certain parts you'd recommend? My total budget for this build is around $1000 (I don't need to spend all of it just my ballpark estimate as I don't know a ton about building a server as this is my first)

I'd probably go amd so you don't have to deal with P and E cores. 

 

I'd get something like a 7700x or a 5800x(or older is even fine). Get ecc if you want to help keep your data safe. 

 

Probably get a pair of SSDs in case one diea, but probably fine with a single drive that is backed up

[dreamcast4599]

i run my file/backup server on a dual cpu lga 2011 server board because it was cheap she has 384gig of ddr3 ram sure not as fast as a 14600k but i didnt need blazing fast however i would avoid intel and go amd maybe an older threadripper or a 7700x

[Tallin21]

2 hours ago, dreamcast4599 said:

i run my file/backup server on a dual cpu lga 2011 server board because it was cheap she has 384gig of ddr3 ram sure not as fast as a 14600k but i didnt need blazing fast however i would avoid intel and go amd maybe an older threadripper or a 7700x

Thanks for the info I will look into a 7700x

 

[Tallin21]

3 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I'd probably go amd so you don't have to deal with P and E cores. 

 

I'd get something like a 7700x or a 5800x(or older is even fine). Get ecc if you want to help keep your data safe. 

 

Probably get a pair of SSDs in case one diea, but probably fine with a single drive that is backed up

Thanks for the feedback. I will look into it

 

[Tallin21]

4 hours ago, aggie113 said:

maybe go a bit slower on the ram but if it stays in budget up the total size.  Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives are good, be sure to slightly over-spec on size.  The Pros have a 5 year warranty so don't outgrow them before then.  Three drives would be better for speed as you could run a Raid 5 instead of a mirror. 

Okay, maybe I will look into 3 8tb hard drives and just jump my budget up a little (it's all going to be bought a part a paycheck likely)

 

I likely wouldn't need more than maybe 2tb but like having the option to have more. 

 

Tbh I'm not even sure what I can all use a server for, just was looking at starting another build and am sick of paying for a Minecraft server when I could host one for me and my friends for free 

 

[Tallin21]

3 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I'd probably go amd so you don't have to deal with P and E cores. 

 

I'd get something like a 7700x or a 5800x(or older is even fine). Get ecc if you want to help keep your data safe. 

 

Probably get a pair of SSDs in case one diea, but probably fine with a single drive that is backed up

Suggestions for a motherboard that supports ecc for a 7700x

[Tallin21]

2 hours ago, dreamcast4599 said:

i run my file/backup server on a dual cpu lga 2011 server board because it was cheap she has 384gig of ddr3 ram sure not as fast as a 14600k but i didnt need blazing fast however i would avoid intel and go amd maybe an older threadripper or a 7700x

Suggestions on a motherboard that supports ecc for a 7700x

[dreamcast4599]

6 minutes ago, Tallin21 said:

Suggestions on a motherboard that supports ecc for a 7700x

 

this is the mobo i use its top of the line https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B650E Taichi Lite/Specification.asp#Specification

[Echothedolpin]

17 hours ago, Tallin21 said:

Suggestions on a motherboard that supports ecc for a 7700x

What is the reason for ECC?

[Tallin21]

23 minutes ago, Echothedolpin said:

What is the reason for ECC?

idfk, someone said it was useful for data protection. I'm new to this so I just take the advice I'm given...

[Echothedolpin]

37 minutes ago, Tallin21 said:

idfk, someone said it was useful for data protection. I'm new to this so I just take the advice I'm given...

No worries! It’s just there’s a misconception of what it actually does. To put it simply: for 90%  of people you’d want redundant power supplies before you REALLY needed ECC. It’s not even really a ‘nice to have’ unless you’re not spending any additional money. 

 

 

[Guest]

On 4/6/2025 at 6:16 PM, Echothedolpin said:

No worries! It’s just there’s a misconception of what it actually does. To put it simply: for 90%  of people you’d want redundant power supplies before you REALLY needed ECC. It’s not even really a ‘nice to have’ unless you’re not spending any additional money. 

 

 

That's exactly backwards.  I can count the number of power supplies I've had fail over the last 50 years -- 0.

That far exceeds the number of memory errors that one encounters in a typical day.

 

The fact that you don't SEE the memory errors means you don't have hardware that will alert you of them; or, you don't pay attention to those alerts; or, there's "enough going on" that you simply can't tell whether things are working correctly -- or not.

 

If you are cheap, then look for a 3 year old server at a local auction (school districts, local universtities, businesses, nonprofits, etc. -- folks are ALWAYS discarding equipment -- most need some reassurance that it isn't destined for a landfill!) and get something that was *designed* to be reliable -- instead of trying to piece something together and rationalizing penny pinching.

 

[I brought home a 64G 3.5GHz T330 with 8x8T drives, last week.  Set me back all of $10.  Similar stories for each of the weeks that preceded that!  Oh, but it doesn't have those multicolored blinkenlites...]

[nitraw]

On 4/6/2025 at 3:22 AM, aggie113 said:

Three drives would be better for speed as you could run a Raid 5 instead of a mirror. 

I'm pretty sure* RAID 5 is way worse for performance (maybe unless you have an enterprise grade RAID controller). RAID 5 needs to compute a parity for every write. Especially on software RAID this will massively reduce write performance. There is a comprehensive article about RAID on wikipedia. RAID 5 is optimized for best storage efficiency while maintaining some redundancy. If you need performance you would go with RAID 10, which would require 4 drives. 

I would rather suggest going with SSDs if not much space is required. Even two SATA SSDs should perform way better than those HDDs. 

 

*: I've seen it in action many times and used it myself 10+ years ago because my old boss was set in his ways. Now we only use it on NAS when capacity is almost all that matters.

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, nitraw said:

I would rather suggest going with SSDs if not much space is required. Even two SATA SSDs should perform way better than those HDDs.

^^ This ^^

 

A downside of most redundant storage schemes is the time it takes to rebuild in the event of a failure.  And, if you've had ONE failure, are you sure you won't have ANOTHER while the array is being rebuilt?

And, you want something that does a patrol read so you KNOW (somewhat) that ALL of your data is intact -- not just the data that you just read!