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Building a home server, components?

RononDex
By RononDex
in New Builds and Planning
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Hello there

 

I am planning on building myself a small homeserver. The server will run several services, game servers and and will be used as a data center (will be running Windows Server 2012).

My budget is around 1200 swiss francs (around 1500 USD or so). It should be a silent build and need as less watt as possible.

 

So these are my components I did pick for this build (nothing purchased yet)

  • Processor: 1x Intel Xeon E3 1245v3 (3.4GHz)
  • Mainboard: 1x Asus Z87M Plus (LGA 1150)
  • HDD: 3x WD Red 2TB (already got one at home, will do Raid 10)
  • RAM: Corsair ValueSelect (2x 8GB DDR3-1333 - DIMM)
  • Case: Cooler Master N300
  • CPU Cooler: beQuiet! Shadow Rock Slim (135mm)
  • PSU: beQuiet! Dark Power Pro (550W)
  • Case Fans:
    • 2x beQuiet! Silent Wings (120 mm)
    • 3x beQuiet! Shadow Wings Low (120mm)

The costs of the above components sums up to around 1250 Swiss francs.

 

This is my first server build and I think I could need some advice on motherboard and such stuff. I did quite a lot of research and I think for the budget I have found something very good, what do you think?

 

All fans and components have a noise level below 20db. Only the HDD might get a bit noisy (28db), However I might get rid of that with some foam.

My beast (PC):

  • ASUS R.O.G. Rampage IV Black Edition, X79, LGA2011, AC4
  • 2x ASUS Fury X
  • Intel Core i7 4930K BOX (LGA 2011, 3.40GHz) OC @4.4GHz
  • Corsair H100i, CPU Cooler (240mm)
  • Samsung SSD 830 Series (512GB)
  • Samsung SSD 850 Pro 1TB
  • Western Digital 512GB HDD
  • TridentX 4x 8GB 2400MHz
  • Corsair Obsidian 900D

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https://linustechtips.com/topic/206160-building-a-home-server-components/
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There is no need to have 16GB of ram for RAID 10. Unless you are going to run other things on that as well, like hosting Minecraft servers, etc.

Projects | > Project DisplayGRID < | > Portable Virtualization Server < | > CORE GTX < | Projects

Community | > Schnitzel Teamspeak Server < | Community

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Yes, it will run several game servers like minecraft, hl2 mod, Space engineers, ...

My beast (PC):

  • ASUS R.O.G. Rampage IV Black Edition, X79, LGA2011, AC4
  • 2x ASUS Fury X
  • Intel Core i7 4930K BOX (LGA 2011, 3.40GHz) OC @4.4GHz
  • Corsair H100i, CPU Cooler (240mm)
  • Samsung SSD 830 Series (512GB)
  • Samsung SSD 850 Pro 1TB
  • Western Digital 512GB HDD
  • TridentX 4x 8GB 2400MHz
  • Corsair Obsidian 900D

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Is that RAM ECC? Sorry too lazy to check :P 

 

The build looks good for a nice home server, I take it you will be running these game servers on virtual machines?

System/Server Administrator - Networking - Storage - Virtualization - Scripting - Applications

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Thanks for the reply :)

 

The RAM is non-ECC. the mainbord only supports unbuffered RAM...

 

The gameservers will run directly on the local machine. I have no virtualisation planed so far. I simply don't see the benefit of it.

My beast (PC):

  • ASUS R.O.G. Rampage IV Black Edition, X79, LGA2011, AC4
  • 2x ASUS Fury X
  • Intel Core i7 4930K BOX (LGA 2011, 3.40GHz) OC @4.4GHz
  • Corsair H100i, CPU Cooler (240mm)
  • Samsung SSD 830 Series (512GB)
  • Samsung SSD 850 Pro 1TB
  • Western Digital 512GB HDD
  • TridentX 4x 8GB 2400MHz
  • Corsair Obsidian 900D

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Thanks for the reply :)

 

The RAM is non-ECC. the mainbord only supports unbuffered RAM...

 

The gameservers will run directly on the local machine. I have no virtualisation planed so far. I simply don't see the benefit of it.

 

Yeah, this was my point, it's that the RAM speed seems to slow I thought it was ECC and was about to say about your Motherboard. I didn't know you could still buy 1333.

 

I would personally use virtual machines for game servers (I personally use it for many other things), as you can spin up a Linux server to do most of these, which takes far less resources. It also means you can keep each server separated, so you know what each one does, also for routing IP address's.  

System/Server Administrator - Networking - Storage - Virtualization - Scripting - Applications

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Yeah, this was my point, it's that the RAM speed seems to slow I thought it was ECC and was about to say about your Motherboard. I didn't know you could still buy 1333.

 

I would personally use virtual machines for game servers (I personally use it for many other things), as you can spin up a Linux server to do most of these, which takes far less resources. It also means you can keep each server separated, so you know what each one does, also for routing IP address's.  

 

Well 1333 isn't that fast, that's true.

However for that price I could choose between 1666 with CL 11 or 1333 with CL 9. The CL9 should be faster even tough it has lower clock speeds

My beast (PC):

  • ASUS R.O.G. Rampage IV Black Edition, X79, LGA2011, AC4
  • 2x ASUS Fury X
  • Intel Core i7 4930K BOX (LGA 2011, 3.40GHz) OC @4.4GHz
  • Corsair H100i, CPU Cooler (240mm)
  • Samsung SSD 830 Series (512GB)
  • Samsung SSD 850 Pro 1TB
  • Western Digital 512GB HDD
  • TridentX 4x 8GB 2400MHz
  • Corsair Obsidian 900D

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Well 1333 isn't that fast, that's true.

However for that price I could choose between 1666 with CL 11 or 1333 with CL 9. The CL9 should be faster even tough it has lower clock speeds

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the speed, I was just concerned you were about to buy ECC RAM, cause generally that's all that 1333 is available in these days, when your Motherboard doesn't support it. 1333 should be fine for server use. 

 

Good luck with the build, should be fine for your application. Have you much experience with Server 2012 or 2008? Or even 2000/2003.

System/Server Administrator - Networking - Storage - Virtualization - Scripting - Applications

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I am a programmer (C#) and know the Windows plattform quite well ;)

At the moment I have really small and low end debian server running at home (Only has 2 SATA ports lol).

 

I am working with WIndows Server 2012 on a daily basis.

 

EDIT:

Just switched my RAM to Corsair Vangance Pro DDR3 - 1600 (Dual channel 2x 8GB). Is only 10 Francs more :)

My beast (PC):

  • ASUS R.O.G. Rampage IV Black Edition, X79, LGA2011, AC4
  • 2x ASUS Fury X
  • Intel Core i7 4930K BOX (LGA 2011, 3.40GHz) OC @4.4GHz
  • Corsair H100i, CPU Cooler (240mm)
  • Samsung SSD 830 Series (512GB)
  • Samsung SSD 850 Pro 1TB
  • Western Digital 512GB HDD
  • TridentX 4x 8GB 2400MHz
  • Corsair Obsidian 900D

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I am a programmer (C#) and know the Windows plattform quite well ;)

At the moment I have really small and low end debian server running at home (Only has 2 SATA ports lol).

 

I am working with WIndows Server 2012 on a daily basis.

 

EDIT:

Just switched my RAM to Corsair Vangance Pro DDR3 - 1600 (Dual channel 2x 8GB). Is only 10 Francs more :)

 

That's cool. We are very similar  ;)

 

Good luck with the build, hopefully look forward to a build log!

System/Server Administrator - Networking - Storage - Virtualization - Scripting - Applications

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That's cool. We are very similar  ;)

 

Good luck with the build, hopefully look forward to a build log!

 

So you mean you are a C# developer too? :)

 

I have never done a build log before, but might do one ;)

My beast (PC):

  • ASUS R.O.G. Rampage IV Black Edition, X79, LGA2011, AC4
  • 2x ASUS Fury X
  • Intel Core i7 4930K BOX (LGA 2011, 3.40GHz) OC @4.4GHz
  • Corsair H100i, CPU Cooler (240mm)
  • Samsung SSD 830 Series (512GB)
  • Samsung SSD 850 Pro 1TB
  • Western Digital 512GB HDD
  • TridentX 4x 8GB 2400MHz
  • Corsair Obsidian 900D

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So you mean you are a C# developer too? :)

 

I have never done a build log before, but might do one ;)

 

Server technician, among other things. I do a lot .net development for our company. 

 

That would be good :)

System/Server Administrator - Networking - Storage - Virtualization - Scripting - Applications

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I switched to a Noctua NH-U9B SE2 which is smaller and more quiet.

Do you think it is able to cool my Xeon (TDP 84W) when using U.L.N.A??

My beast (PC):

  • ASUS R.O.G. Rampage IV Black Edition, X79, LGA2011, AC4
  • 2x ASUS Fury X
  • Intel Core i7 4930K BOX (LGA 2011, 3.40GHz) OC @4.4GHz
  • Corsair H100i, CPU Cooler (240mm)
  • Samsung SSD 830 Series (512GB)
  • Samsung SSD 850 Pro 1TB
  • Western Digital 512GB HDD
  • TridentX 4x 8GB 2400MHz
  • Corsair Obsidian 900D

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