help Going to build a server rack and need advice on parts and right os's for each

[XxRubyxX]

ok guys im updating this thread so people know exactly what i want and what im looking for and what kinda power i want 

 

i know i will have two seperate servers now heres where i want help, ya all make suggestions of servers would be good for me and or what kinda parts i should get ie from pcpartpicker, i know racks wont be on there so thats why im asking what ya would suggest. this will be in my room in my closet now i have thin walls so i can hear alot if it loud and i want something decently quiet

 

Now one server will be for games server hosting using virtualzation maybe or is there a better option to that? and this server will be loaded as much as i can and games i would be running

Minecraft modded server FTB varient

Ark

G-mod

also id like a option for one more if i want to run two ftb servers 

 

second will be Freenas server only for data storage now that im looking for hotswappable and 3.5 drive options or 2.5 can be converted to 3.5 and im going to run zfs i think in free nas and planning that 24 gb will be enough or is that over kill for ram?

 

now i want maybe a firewall server but that is only if my linksys 1900ac router would be better as a fall back router and if i should make my own router

 

now i am not sure if this is enough info but if not let me know in the comments and ill fill in the gaps 

[1823alex]

1. FreeNAS is cool. I'd go for 2U rack cases probably not 4U, but personal preference. I'd only have 2 beast physical servers. One to run FreeNAS the other to virtualize your game server, web server and firewall. I would use ESXi for the virtualization os (hypervisor).
2. You can run what's called jails with FreeNAS and IIRC they're basically mini VMs inside FreeNAS, but I've only ever installed things like Plex and OwnCloud on FreeNAS jails before
3. Opterons can't compete, period. New AMD opterons can't even compete very well with the older Intel xeon CPUs. I'd recommend some lower end Intel Xeons not sure what socket/chipset you want though. RAM can be quite expensive and depends how much you'll be taxing everything. For FreeNAS the rule of thumb is 2GB per TB and like 4GB per TB if you have dedup on (I'd recommend turning it on) so say you want 12TB storage 24GB of RAM or 48GB of RAM with dedup but those are estimates, you should be able to scrape by with something like 32 or 24GB tbh. I'd recommend WD Red drives since SeaGates are not so safe these days or at least I don't personally trust them.
4. Umm not getting the question here gonna skip to #5
5. You should be alright, I run MC servers on 75/10 Comcast residential and friends report that there's little to no lag. (4-10 ppl at a time btw).
6. You don't necessarily need a firewall, but just don't go opening ports willy nilly like. Only open the ports you absolutely need open and keep your IP safe (as in only with your friends maybe, but if these servers are gonna be public, a firewall might be nice to have, but setting up something like Fail2Ban would probably be fine on a Ubuntu distro. (Fail2Ban auto bans IPs that keep trying to connect, basically if someone is port scanning you and they find SSH open and there's a vulnerability after X attempts the IP is blocked for X amount of time. (Never used Fail2Ban though, but have heard it works quite well).

Alright, here's where I have some major input you should consider. You're probably going to spend a lot more money on 2-4 physical custom servers than you would be spending on something like a Dell R710. By the sound of your post you've got a good bit to spend so you could get something like an R810 which is newer and more powerful. The R710 comes in a 8x2.5" config or a 6x3.5" config for HDDs I'd take the 6 3.5" bays if you can find it on eBay. The other nice thing about buying a decommed server is have things like Dell's iDRAC or HP's iLO which are management interfaces for you to check the health of the server from your web browser. So in short, I'd buy 2 R710s or 2 R810s depending on budget have 1 be a storage server and another be running ESXi to virtualize your game servers, web server and firewall/PFSense if you do want to add in a software firewall. I'd cross post this to http://reddit.com/r/homelab since they're some great people over there that love this type of stuff and they've got some baller equipment sometimes. (I'm a poster over there as well)

[XxRubyxX]

ok i was gonna run duel socket 16core cpu on the gaming one or duel socket 1231 but im worried about will that be enough cpu power in each in a duel socket config. and will i need any raid controllers and or what mobo would i be good going with on intel  and amd side? and or what rack size and rack design would u reccommend? and will my linksys 1900ac router be good for that stuff too? or should i build a custom router?

[1823alex]

5 minutes ago, XxRubyxX said:

ok i was gonna run duel socket 16core cpu on the gaming one or duel socket 1231 but im worried about will that be enough cpu power in each in a duel socket config. and will i need any raid controllers and or what mobo would i be good going with on intel  and amd side? and or what rack size and rack design would u reccommend? and will my linksys 1900ac router be good for that stuff too? or should i build a custom router?

I don't build out custom servers so I don't really know, but as I said in my post take a look on eBay at R710/R810s they are generally pretty cheap and are usually fully loaded minus HDD and RAM. As I said about your router, if it's public maybe virtualize PFSense if it's private like only friend then your 1900AC is fine. Tbh your 1900AC is fine in both cases as long as you don't plan on becoming a crazy big group of people that are 1k people+ but at that point your upload speed might be the limiting factor and not your router.

[leadeater]

1. Well designed and laid out 2U cases have better airflow than 4U. It is easier to keep things cool in a 4U since you have less to worry about but 4U is not inherently better than 2U. Just pick what you feel is right and have space for. More components support 4U cases also due to the extra room and flexibility to lay things out so that's something to consider.

 

2. FreeNAS will work well but there are other options. If your wanting 10TB+ then FreeNAS is your best option. For the second server I'd recommend virtualizing, will get much more use out of the hardware and easier maintenance including upgrading/migration. Create a VM for web hosting and one (or more) for game hosting.

 

3. If you compare AMD to Intel at the same price points the performance is fairly similar. Most Intel CPU's cost more and with reason perform better. You will find with your use on the NAS that an Intel CPU will perform better. Single core performance is much better and not all usage profiles can actually make use of many cores, particularly with low user counts.

 

4. If you are going to virtualize then AMD with higher core counts can help a lot. But again be careful single core performance is low so if the game you are hosting is poorly designed for distributing load across cores (minecraft) go with an Intel.

 

Rest has been answered by @1823alex, I also agree that your best option is actually a used server off ebay. There are extremely good deals on there for very powerful servers, much better than you can do with new parts and self building.

[1823alex]

46 minutes ago, leadeater said:

1. Well designed and laid out 2U cases have better airflow than 4U. It is easier to keep things cool in a 4U since you have less to worry about but 4U is not inherently better than 2U. Just pick what you feel is right and have space for. More components support 4U cases also due to the extra room and flexibility to lay things out so that's something to consider.

 

2. FreeNAS will work well but there are other options. If your wanting 10TB+ then FreeNAS is your best option. For the second server I'd recommend virtualizing, will get much more use out of the hardware and easier maintenance including upgrading/migration. Create a VM for web hosting and one (or more) for game hosting.

 

3. If you compare AMD to Intel at the same price points the performance is fairly similar. Most Intel CPU's cost more and with reason perform better. You will find with your use on the NAS that an Intel CPU will perform better. Single core performance is much better and not all usage profiles can actually make use of many cores, particularly with low user counts.

 

4. If you are going to virtualize then AMD with higher core counts can help a lot. But again be careful single core performance is low so if the game you are hosting is poorly designed for distributing load across cores (minecraft) go with an Intel.

 

Rest has been answered by @1823alex, I also agree that your best option is actually a used server off ebay. There are extremely good deals on there for very powerful servers, much better than you can do with new parts and self building.

Pretty much what I said but in proper english lol. Agreed he should definitely be virtualizing game servers and web servers. Although I'd say hands down Intel as AMD is pretty much a joke in the server space. Some think that Opterons are power efficient but they really aren't at all power efficient, the old ones at least.

[XxRubyxX]

Can ya tell me a good rack that allows for airflow and if i wanted to custom build what case id be good with?

 

i dont mind the cost of building them i enjoy building pc's that kinda was my plan but im worried about the clockspeed on the R810's being used for minecraft and gmod and ark and if they do well with low clock speed or higher clock speed cpus and such 

[leadeater]

41 minutes ago, XxRubyxX said:

Can ya tell me a good rack that allows for airflow and if i wanted to custom build what case id be good with?

 

i dont mind the cost of building them i enjoy building pc's that kinda was my plan but im worried about the clockspeed on the R810's being used for minecraft and gmod and ark and if they do well with low clock speed or higher clock speed cpus and such 

You asking for an actual rack or rackmount cases? For the most part every rack is the same. The premium ones cost a lot more and don't actually off anything more for what you want (single rack).

 

Things to look for in a server rack are: full depth not comms depth, vertical PDU mounting support along the sides, blanking panels for unused slots and good internal adjustment for the mounting cage. Forgive my poor terminology on that last point, forget the proper name and can't be bothered looking it up.

[Scheer]

First and foremost, are you fully aware how loud something like a R810 is? With a high load its about like running a vacuum. 

 

The cooling you will need to worry about is making sure you get fresh air over to your closet. It doesn't matter how many fans you put in the cases if they are sealed in a room away from any venting or conditioning.

 

To be clear, you don't need a Xeon or Opteron CPU for it to be a server. Server just means it is serving data. If you want to save some money for the NAS just grab an i3. One good option though is something like a Lenovo TS140 or Dell T20, which occasionally go on sale with a e3-1225 for ~$250. Its pretty hard to beat price wise for the specs on a decent little NAS. The downsides are they use a semi-proprietary power supply connector, and have limited drive mounting options. I transferred my TS140 into a different case to remedy the latter issue.

 

Speaking of saving money, in all honesty I would skip the rack and server cases and just do two normal computer cases, one for a NAS and then one beefy computer to virtualize everything else. A normal power strip is like $5, a rack power strip starts at $40. A normal sinewave 1000VA UPS is $100, a rack mounted one is $400. Those two little ears with holes for screws are crazy expensive for some reason.

 

If you still want to rack it all I would go with 4u cases for the simple fact it allows you to run 120mm fans so it is fairly quiet.

 

If you are on a budget, don't worry about hotswap drive bays, its a lot of money to pay for convenience. A failed hard drive is then a good reason to open up the case and clean the computer out.

 

How many players are you planning on hosting? Because 12 up is going to be the bottleneck if you intend to fully use a server with 64GB of RAM and a 16 core processor, if you aren't hosting for many people then the computer is just overkill. Also, unless something has changed, Minecraft servers only leverage a single core, so frequency is much more important than core count.

 

Some info on hosting Ark: https://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/613957600548879671/

Gmod and Minecraft ultimately come down to what kinds of mods/game modes you are hosting and can range from needing very little power to needing multiple servers... definitely need a lot more info to answer that.

 

If you run either ESXi or FreeNAS, a KVM is nearly pointless as its just a command line screen with a few options, everything is managed through the web interface/software ran on a remote computer. 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Scheer said:

A normal sinewave 1000VA UPS is $100, a rack mounted one is $400. Those two little ears with holes for screws are crazy expensive for some reason.

 

If you still want to rack it all I would go with 4u cases for the simple fact it allows you to run 120mm fans so it is fairly quiet.

 

If you are on a budget, don't worry about hotswap drive bays, its a lot of money to pay for convenience. A failed hard drive is then a good reason to open up the case and clean the computer out.

 

Any UPS that cheap is worthless and should never have money spent on it that could be used on something more useful, talking servers only here. If a UPS is going to be used on a server then it should be done so correctly. The minimum you need to install is a Line-Interactive type but honestly if it's not Online Double Conversion then it isn't worth the money and effort. The power filtering on low end UPS's is no better or worse than a standalone surge filter/power conditioner and without proper configuration with a network module for graceful shutdown of VMs and the host all you're doing is delaying power failure by ~15 minutes. This doesn't protect operating systems from faults due to improper power off .

 

Every Eaton UPS is the same price for the same model in the Tower or Rack version so there is no cost difference.

 

Good point regarding the fan noise.

 

Also agree with the hostswap HDD bays if you have to buy them as extra, unlikely to use them enough to be worth the cost.

[1823alex]

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

 

Any UPS that cheap is worthless and should never have money spent on it that could be used on something more useful, talking servers only here. If a UPS is going to be used on a server then it should be done so correctly. The minimum you need to install is a Line-Interactive type but honestly if it's not Online Double Conversion then it isn't worth the money and effort. The power filtering on low end UPS's is no better or worse than a standalone surge filter/power conditioner and without proper configuration with a network module for graceful shutdown of VMs and the host all you're doing is delaying power failure by ~15 minutes. This doesn't protect operating systems from faults due to improper power off .

 

Every Eaton UPS is the same price for the same model in the Tower or Rack version so there is no cost difference.

 

Good point regarding the fan noise.

 

Also agree with the hostswap HDD bays if you have to buy them as extra, unlikely to use them enough to be worth the cost.

On the UPS thing never ever cheap out on it. I bought an on sale CyberPower one, it was great for like 3 months, then it went downhill and recently just crapped itself and would not provide any power. Never again. I ended up with a nice APC brand UPS, and have never had issues with APC yet, although fuck their proprietary bullshit with the 4 batteries strapped together with special cables and adapters. 

[XxRubyxX]

the topic been updated to have alittle more better plan

[brandishwar]

On 3/6/2016 at 6:42 PM, XxRubyxX said:

ok guys im updating this thread so people know exactly what i want and what im looking for and what kinda power i want 

 

i know i will have two seperate servers now heres where i want help, ya all make suggestions of servers would be good for me and or what kinda parts i should get ie from pcpartpicker, i know racks wont be on there so thats why im asking what ya would suggest. this will be in my room in my closet now i have thin walls so i can hear alot if it loud and i want something decently quiet

 

Now one server will be for games server hosting using virtualzation maybe or is there a better option to that? and this server will be loaded as much as i can and games i would be running

Minecraft modded server FTB varient

Ark

G-mod

also id like a option for one more if i want to run two ftb servers 

 

second will be Freenas server only for data storage now that im looking for hotswappable and 3.5 drive options or 2.5 can be converted to 3.5 and im going to run zfs i think in free nas and planning that 24 gb will be enough or is that over kill for ram?

 

now i want maybe a firewall server but that is only if my linksys 1900ac router would be better as a fall back router and if i should make my own router

 

now i am not sure if this is enough info but if not let me know in the comments and ill fill in the gaps 

 

For the FreeNAS, you have several options available. The one I'd say to lean toward, if you're open to the idea, is used hardware. Specifically I have a dual Xeon E5520 workstation on the way that I purchased from a refurbisher in Canada called refurb.io. I paid only about 250 USD for it (another 50 USD for shipping). Since you're wanting to put this in a rack, I'm not sure if the mainboard in this workstation can be put in a rack as I'm not sure of its form factor - yet. The benefit here is that you can get what will still be a very good performing server for dirt cheap. Sure some things on it may need to be upgraded -- like the RAM as the workstation I ordered comes with only 8GB -- but it starts out at a good price point.

 

With FreeNAS, the key here is ECC RAM. Especially since this is going to be in a rack. ECC DDR3 RAM is currently going for a very good price. I was able to pick up a 16GB kit for my FreeNAS server for only a little over 100 USD. The rule with FreeNAS (which can be broken depending on use case) is 1GB RAM per TB, with 8GB being the absolute minimum required. The Xeon workstation I mentioned can support up to 144GB RAM -- not that I'll be going that crazy.

 

Alternatively, another low-power option for FreeNAS is ASRock's miniITX embedded CPU options. These support ECC RAM as well (they're advertised for servers), and some have a lot of SATA ports, making them good for a NAS.

 

For mobile racks, you have a lot of options available at varying price points. NAS drives are, unfortunately, available only in 3.5" HDD options, though WD did make a 2.5" NAS HDD, but only in 1TB. 4TB seems to be the "sweet spot" for NAS drives right now when it comes to price and capacity. Since you want to use hot swap bays, that relegates you to only 3U and 4U options. You can use a 2-bay mobile rack, which will allow you to use a 2U chassis, but those options support only 3 HDDs. 3-bay mobile racks, though, will allow for 4 or 5 HDDs. And if you want to expand later, getting a 3U or 4U chassis that has multiple 5.25" drive bay sets will be worth your while.

 

For the rack chassis, one company with which I've had success finding ones that meet my needs is PlinkUSA.

 

On the virtualization option, that's actually what I'll be doing with that Xeon system. VMWare vSphere Hypervisor will be a good option for that since it's a bare metal hypervisor. Processor power doesn't matter here nearly as much as memory as well, so you'll want to make sure to find hardware that can support a lot of memory -- baseline recommendation for that would be 64GB given what you want to run, along with plenty of HDD or SSD space to support the VMs you want to run. I'm going to presume you intend to farm out each game server to their own VM, so again go for memory.

 

So since memory is going to be a concern with both the NAS and virtualization servers, server boards -- whether Xeon or Opteron -- is where you'll want to look. If you're not planning on having a lot of storage on the NAS -- for example you're planning on 16TB raw HDD space (i.e. 4x4TB physical drives) -- or into the 20TB range, you can save some money by going with an AMD FX processor -- the quad-core 4xxx series will be more than enough for a NAS, and the 6-core and 8-core options are good if you expect it to be hit a lot or you plan on running a few jails. They support ECC RAM out of the box as well, though most 990FX boards max out at 32GB RAM, but that's more than enough if your total physical capacity will stay under 32TB. If you plan to go higher than that or you want to run more than one or two jails, some 990FX boards support 64GB RAM, so those are options as well, or you can look at used Xeon boards to get the higher memory capacity. If you go with an AMD FX, I'd say a good "sweet spot" is the 8320E or the 6300.

 

For the virtualization server, I'd recommend leaning toward a used dual-Xeon system for the much higher memory support. This will be especially important for Minecraft as the more users you get onto that server and the more plugins you want to run, the more memory you're going to need, and since you want to have the option to run two Minecraft servers, you'll want the higher memory capacity. This may need to push you toward newer generation Xeon setups which will be more expensive, but will support more memory. Some evaluation on the memory requirements of what you want to do will be in order and should guide your purchasing decisions.

[XxRubyxX]

can you link me to some servers that would serve me well for my uses and or make pcpartpicker for each type maybe?

[F4S4K4N]

2 hours ago, XxRubyxX said:

can you link me to some servers that would serve me well for my uses and or make pcpartpicker for each type maybe?

I think it's already been pointed pointed out that the 11th generation Dell PowerEdge servers are your best bet as far as the price to performance ratio is concerned. If you need to hit a lower price point, the 10th generation is also good. They don't support EPT, but they can still virtualize and run up to 64GB of RAM.

 

If you're going to build a new box, then you have to understand the different markets AMD and Intel are trying to cater too. Intel, as per usual, is targeting the high performance market. AMD cannot compete in that market, so they are targeting the scale out market. Basically if you need to run a few VM's that need high performance CPU's then go Xeon. If you need to run tons of VM's that don't care much about single core performance and can leverage CMT, then go AMD.

 

Either way, you could probable pick up all of the R710's / R810's you need for the cost of one custom rig.

[XxRubyxX]

EPT do u mean ecc or what do u mean by that?

[twisties]

I'm going to go and agree that the 2U rackmount options might not fit with your 'decently quiet' mandate. And that's exacerbated by the fact that you want to close them in a closet.

The warmer they get without proper ventilation, the faster the fans ramp up, and they generally sound pretty loud even at idle, and these will not be running at idle.

Look instead for used T (tower) model dells or similar. They usually have a corresponding T model to each R model. These have much larger and quieter fans.

I have an old T410 with 2x 4core xeons + 32gb of ram, with VmWare ESXi on it and I happily run a bunch of VM's. This one has 6x hotswap bays.

If you do go the used server route though, check what controller card is behind the hotswap bays. For FreeNAS you'll want a 'Host Bus Adapter' specifically.

For example, the Dell H700 raid controller in my server will ONLY present a raid array to the BIOS, it's not possible for it to present each individual drive, which is what you'll need for FreeNAS.

[XxRubyxX]

Well i was going to put a vent in my wall leading to my closet and a fan on both ends to pull air in and out so air can circulate 

[twisties]

Have a look at 

Should give you an idea of what they'll do at idle, as well as where they can ramp to when they get loaded up.
I have a 2U 8 bay NAS in my garage which sounds like these (pretty identical fan setup in it actually), through a brick wall from my bedroom I can still hear the damn thing