Will this be enough for temporary server ?

[SilkyDistress]

Hello, 

since my server ordered got delayed for 21st of April I need a server to store bunch of stuff cause we cannot open our company computers.

This is what I got spare until my EPYC server arrives : 

CPU : AMD A8-3870K

MOBO : GIGABYTE GA-A75M-UD2H

RAM : 2x 8 GB & 2x 4 GB DDR3 1333 MHz

GPU : Integrated in CPU

PSU : EVGA Supernova G2 550w (Our IT guy in company gave it to me cause it was spare PSU)

CASE : Silverstone CS380B

RAID Controller : LSI MegaRAID SAS9261-8i (I got it from refurbished company server that later got sold without RAID card )

NIC : 2x TP Link TG-3468 

 

Drives that I am gonna use are 3x 6 TB WD Purple.

Idk if this would be good for server and which OS should I use ?

I can choose between Linux (Ubuntu, CentOS) or FreeNAS since security has to be high

 

Any suggestions ? 

[hconverse02]

I would go ubuntu and yes it will work, but don't expect speed out of it.  What are the specs of the incoming server?

[Sa1tama]

I think it's ok and  I suggest Linux

[SilkyDistress]

11 minutes ago, hconverse02 said:

I would go ubuntu and yes it will work, but don't expect speed out of it.  What are the specs of the incoming server?

CPU : EPYC 7281

RAM : 48 GB's of ECC RAM @ 2666 MHz

MOBO : Gigabyte MZ31-AR0 (Got deal for $379 instaed of $550)

GPU : Tesla K80 (It is refurbished and I have been tasked with AI learning)

CASE : SUPERMICRO CSE-825TQ-563LPB (PSU will be swapped with something around 600W-900W)

RAID Controller : LSI MEGARAID 9440-8I

NIC : 3x Intel X540T2

I am not paying for server, our company is paying, its gonna be for 10 of us.

[dalekphalm]

5 hours ago, SilkyDistress said:

Hello, 

since my server ordered got delayed for 21st of April I need a server to store bunch of stuff cause we cannot open our company computers.

This is what I got spare until my EPYC server arrives : 

CPU : AMD A8-3870K

MOBO : GIGABYTE GA-A75M-UD2H

RAM : 2x 8 GB & 2x 4 GB DDR3 1333 MHz

GPU : Integrated in CPU

PSU : EVGA Supernova G2 550w (Our IT guy in company gave it to me cause it was spare PSU)

CASE : Silverstone CS380B

RAID Controller : LSI MegaRAID SAS9261-8i (I got it from refurbished company server that later got sold without RAID card )

NIC : 2x TP Link TG-3468 

 

Drives that I am gonna use are 3x 6 TB WD Purple.

Idk if this would be good for server and which OS should I use ?

I can choose between Linux (Ubuntu, CentOS) or FreeNAS since security has to be high

 

Any suggestions ? 

What are you actually doing on the server? Whether this will be suitable as a temp server entirely depends on use case.

 

Also what does "we cannot open our company computers" actually mean? Be specific.

[SilkyDistress]

42 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

What are you actually doing on the server? Whether this will be suitable as a temp server entirely depends on use case.

 

Also what does "we cannot open our company computers" actually mean? Be specific.

We cannot take off side panel and swap or add or remove components

Its gonna be used for storing files and running 2-3 VM's.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, SilkyDistress said:

We cannot take off side panel and swap or add or remove components

Its gonna be used for storing files and running 2-3 VM's.

Oh you mean you cannot physically open the computers - so therefore you cannot expand/upgrade components.

 

So in terms of the A8 SoC:

It'll be absolutely fine for running a File Server on Ubuntu or FreeNAS.

 

In terms of running 2-3 VM's, that entirely depends on the VM's, what performance they need, and what they will be doing. You could certainly assign each VM 1 vCPU (virtual CPU), and the host is left with one dedicated CPU core.

 

But if one vCPU isn't going to be enough performance, you're gonna run into issues, since the A8 is only a 4c4t CPU, no SMT (simultaneous multi-threading - aka Hyperthreading, which is what Intel calls SMT). They're also pretty weak cores to begin with.

 

The CPU itself supports Virtualization, so hopefully Gigabyte didn't do something stupid, like artificially lock out the feature in the BIOS.

[SilkyDistress]

13 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Oh you mean you cannot physically open the computers - so therefore you cannot expand/upgrade components.

 

So in terms of the A8 SoC:

It'll be absolutely fine for running a File Server on Ubuntu or FreeNAS.

 

In terms of running 2-3 VM's, that entirely depends on the VM's, what performance they need, and what they will be doing. You could certainly assign each VM 1 vCPU (virtual CPU), and the host is left with one dedicated CPU core.

 

But if one vCPU isn't going to be enough performance, you're gonna run into issues, since the A8 is only a 4c4t CPU, no SMT (simultaneous multi-threading - aka Hyperthreading, which is what Intel calls SMT). They're also pretty weak cores to begin with.

 

The CPU itself supports Virtualization, so hopefully Gigabyte didn't do something stupid, like artificially lock out the feature in the BIOS.

Ik CPU is weak cause its 2011-2012 and its only until EPYC arrives.

I am gonna run 1 VM just to tinker around some stuff with 2 cores. I really hope EPYC is gonna be strong with ESXi on bare metal and bunch of Linux VM's & Windows Server VM (Domain Controller)

[dalekphalm]

Just now, SilkyDistress said:

Ik CPU is weak cause its 2011-2012 and its only until EPYC arrives.

I am gonna run 1 VM just to tinker around some stuff with 2 cores. I really hope EPYC is gonna be strong with ESXi on bare metal and bunch of Linux VM's & Windows Server VM (Domain Controller)

Considering the EPYC CPU you went with is the 16c32t variant, that will crush ESXi with ease. It'll be great.

 

That's assuming that you don't run into any stability/optimization issues - though I don't see why you would.

 

With that many cores and threads, you could easily run dozens (or more) VM's.