Best server hardware for my setup?

[yourzone]

I am going to build a home server to do a lot of things.

 

What the server is going to do:

 

1- A lot of virtualization (type 1 and 2 Hypervisor)

2- 24/7 

3- Gaming server from minecraft to any steam games (probably 2 of them at the same time)

4- Also a storage server

5- web server

6- Test server for things like : SSH, FTP, monitoring router , etc

7- Probably going to do all the above at the same time. 

 

As you can see it will be a CPU demanding server so should i go for a xeon or is it still not worth it?

So what sort of hardware should i get?

For now my budget is under 2000$

 

Little backgroud: has of right now i am going to college in IT management and i am planing to go to university in the same thing. So i sort of know my way around servers and other things related to IT. i am not scared of a hard challenge.

 

Edit: guys don't worry about the OS i already know what i am choosing, my question is more on the hardware side.

 

Edit(1): so far this looks clean:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Xeon E5-2670 2.6GHz 8-Core Processor	$258.30 @ Amazon Canada
CPU	Intel - Xeon E5-2670 2.6GHz 8-Core Processor	$258.30 @ Amazon Canada
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler	$37.50 @ Vuugo
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler	$37.50 @ Vuugo
Motherboard	ASRock - EP2C602-4L/D16 SSI EEB Dual-CPU LGA2011 Motherboard	$399.99 @ Newegg Canada
Memory	G.Skill - Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory	$272.99 @ Newegg Canada
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$73.75 @ Vuugo
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$73.75 @ Vuugo
Video Card	EVGA - GeForce 8400 GS 1GB Video Card	$45.50 @ Vuugo
Case	Phanteks - Enthoo Luxe ATX Full Tower Case	$45.24 @ Amazon Canada
Power Supply	EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$96.99 @ PC-Canada
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$1599.81
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-03 19:46 EDT-0400

 

[GoldenLag]

take a look at threadripper as for 2000$. that is going to be your friend

 

(edit: if you are building yourself)

 

edit2: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/7YDkzY

you can get something cheaper by just grabbing used older serverhardware. why would you need xeon to begin with?

Edited October 2, 2018 by GoldenLag

[beersykins]

Those aren't really defined requirements.  You could run 6/7 of the above test cases on a dusty Goodwill PC.

 

It's probably more cost effective to rent a particular game server and roll something low power for labbing, coming from a guy with a big server in the sig.

[yourzone]

1 hour ago, beersykins said:

Those aren't really defined requirements.  You could run 6/7 of the above test cases on a dusty Goodwill PC.

 

It's probably more cost effective to rent a particular game server and roll something low power for labbing, coming from a guy with a big server in the sig.

 

I know that renting a server is maybe my best choice but i really want to build a server and have acces/admin right to it.

Also i don't think a a Goodwill pc would survive the things i will put it trought.

[NelizMastr]

Considering efficiency comes into play with 24/7 use, I'd look for either a single or dual socket 2011 solution. A Xeon E5-2670 is probably all you'll need. 8c/16t at 2.6 with decent turbo. The V2 flavor (E5-2650v2) is slightly more expensive but consumes less power with higher turbo. 

 

The main benefit is DDR3 ECC registered RAM, which is super cheap. I'd say you'll be fine with 32GB of RAM to start with. 4 8GB DIMMs in quad channel should give you the best overall performance.

 

Storage depends on whether you insist on going custom or "prebuilt". I'm putting prebuilt in parentheses because that's not really how it's seen in the enterprise market. The custom builders are the idiots there, typically. 

 

Tower servers with this generation of hardware include:

- HP ProLiant ML350E G8 (with the E5-2450/2470/2450v2)

- HP ProLiant ML350/ML350P G8

- Dell PowerEdge T620

- Dell PowerEdge T420 (with the E5-2450/2470/2450v2)

[Salv8 (sam)]

16 hours ago, GoldenLag said:

take a look at threadripper as for 2000$.

dude, a threadripper is going to have a challenging time doing all of that.

it will be able to handle it but it will have most of it's utilization taken up (prob 70-85% most of the time) even with the 32 core one (minecraft server is a CPU HOG)

i would recermend having your minecraft server loaded onto it's own virtual machine to control how much resources it uses, the storage, web, and FTP should be in one server mainly because having one server dedicated to a trial task such as FTP and web by itself is a waste of resources and time, a lot of storage servers in workplaces pull double duty of hosting the web server and storage server so the business doesn't need another system for that.

your virtualization needs depend on what you need for your use case, Linux with QEMU is great but is a pain to do via the command line, VmWare's solution requires supported hardware, and Hyper-V is best at a fully windows system environment. QEMU is probably the best for you but test all of the available ones to see what works best for you.

also you will need a lot of RAM, a lot of it

lets start off with the minecraft server first as thats the easiest, lets say you have 20 players on at any time on average. 

https://bukkit.org/threads/ram-per-player.168549/

a couple of users on bukkit say 200-500 MB per player should be the average and with 20 players at worst, is maybe around 10 GB (this is an average, others are reporting different results, you will have to test yourself for the sweet spot as it might be different for you)

add in windows (if running linux just change it to 12 GB) and 14GB is what you should allocate to the minecraft server

your storage server should be find with 6GB for worst cases but allocate more if needed, it's always good practice to be able add more RAM on the fly if the server needs it

now, lets go onto how much ram you should allocate for other virtual machines that don't need much

the sweet spot for windows is around 4-6GB but don't expect to be able to run chrome or something, two cores (without hyper-threading) will be able to also handle it as well to ensure that the virtual machine isn't slow in doing tasks.

you might have 5+ virtual machines running (including storage and minecraft server)

lets the do the math (ram only, i'm not touching core count! minecraft server core allocation is a nightmare for each use case, you can test yourself)

our minecraft server, 14GB

our Storage server, 6GB

our three virtual machines (running windows, linux can work with one core and 2GB of RAM very well), 9GB

all up it's around 29GB for those machines alone, not including the host system

also you want a challenge? build Linux from source with GNU on it and build your server's OS up from that.

i don't recermend this for your server but do it in a virtual machine, it's a great way to learn how Linux works!

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

dude, a threadripper is going to have a challenging time doing all of that.

it will be able to handle it but it will have most of it's utilization taken up (prob 70-85% most of the time) even with the 32 core one (minecraft server is a CPU HOG)

i would recermend having your minecraft server loaded onto it's own virtual machine to control how much resources it uses, the storage, web, and FTP should be in one server mainly because having one server dedicated to a trial task such as FTP and web by itself is a waste of resources and time, a lot of storage servers in workplaces pull double duty of hosting the web server and storage server so the business doesn't need another system for that.

your virtualization needs depend on what you need for your use case, Linux with QEMU is great but is a pain to do via the command line, VmWare's solution requires supported hardware, and Hyper-V is best at a fully windows system environment. QEMU is probably the best for you but test all of the available ones to see what works best for you.

also you will need a lot of RAM, a lot of it

lets start off with the minecraft server first as thats the easiest, lets say you have 20 players on at any time on average. 

https://bukkit.org/threads/ram-per-player.168549/

a couple of users on bukkit say 200-500 MB per player should be the average and with 20 players at worst, is maybe around 10 GB (this is an average, others are reporting different results, you will have to test yourself for the sweet spot as it might be different for you)

add in windows (if running linux just change it to 12 GB) and 14GB is what you should allocate to the minecraft server

your storage server should be find with 6GB for worst cases but allocate more if needed, it's always good practice to be able add more RAM on the fly if the server needs it

now, lets go onto how much ram you should allocate for other virtual machines that don't need much

the sweet spot for windows is around 4-6GB but don't expect to be able to run chrome or something, two cores (without hyper-threading) will be able to also handle it as well to ensure that the virtual machine isn't slow in doing tasks.

you might have 5+ virtual machines running (including storage and minecraft server)

lets the do the math (ram only, i'm not touching core count! minecraft server core allocation is a nightmare for each use case, you can test yourself)

our minecraft server, 14GB

our Storage server, 6GB

our three virtual machines (running windows, linux can work with one core and 2GB of RAM very well), 9GB

all up it's around 29GB for those machines alone, not including the host system

also you want a challenge? build Linux from source with GNU on it and build your server's OS up from that.

i don't recermend this for your server but do it in a virtual machine, it's a great way to learn how Linux works!

One word, formatting.

 

 

On topic, lots of great high spec used servers on ebay for excellent prices. Just focus on the platform/chassis you want then supplement that purchase with the actual CPU/RAM/HDDs etc you want, don't worry about having to take out the orig CPU it comes with if you have to.

[Salv8 (sam)]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

One word, formatting.

 

sorry, wanted to get it done, formatting wasn't much of a priority for me as i think it's more important for me to get the information over then spending 5 mins dicking about with fonts and bolding

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

sorry, wanted to get it done, formatting wasn't much of a priority for me as i think it's more important for me to get the information over then spending 5 mins dicking about with fonts and bolding

It's the lack of paragraphs that makes it harder to read, at least for me. White space really helps readability. 

[Salv8 (sam)]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

It's the lack of paragraphs that makes it harder to read, at least for me. White space really helps readability. 

will this do?

[yourzone]

11 hours ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

dude, a threadripper is going to have a challenging time doing all of that.

it will be able to handle it but it will have most of it's utilization taken up (prob 70-85% most of the time) even with the 32 core one (minecraft server is a CPU HOG)

i would recermend having your minecraft server loaded onto it's own virtual machine to control how much resources it uses, the storage, web, and FTP should be in one server mainly because having one server dedicated to a trial task such as FTP and web by itself is a waste of resources and time, a lot of storage servers in workplaces pull double duty of hosting the web server and storage server so the business doesn't need another system for that.

your virtualization needs depend on what you need for your use case, Linux with QEMU is great but is a pain to do via the command line, VmWare's solution requires supported hardware, and Hyper-V is best at a fully windows system environment. QEMU is probably the best for you but test all of the available ones to see what works best for you.

also you will need a lot of RAM, a lot of it

lets start off with the minecraft server first as thats the easiest, lets say you have 20 players on at any time on average. 

https://bukkit.org/threads/ram-per-player.168549/

a couple of users on bukkit say 200-500 MB per player should be the average and with 20 players at worst, is maybe around 10 GB (this is an average, others are reporting different results, you will have to test yourself for the sweet spot as it might be different for you)

add in windows (if running linux just change it to 12 GB) and 14GB is what you should allocate to the minecraft server

your storage server should be find with 6GB for worst cases but allocate more if needed, it's always good practice to be able add more RAM on the fly if the server needs it

now, lets go onto how much ram you should allocate for other virtual machines that don't need much

the sweet spot for windows is around 4-6GB but don't expect to be able to run chrome or something, two cores (without hyper-threading) will be able to also handle it as well to ensure that the virtual machine isn't slow in doing tasks.

you might have 5+ virtual machines running (including storage and minecraft server)

lets the do the math (ram only, i'm not touching core count! minecraft server core allocation is a nightmare for each use case, you can test yourself)

our minecraft server, 14GB

our Storage server, 6GB

our three virtual machines (running windows, linux can work with one core and 2GB of RAM very well), 9GB

all up it's around 29GB for those machines alone, not including the host system

also you want a challenge? build Linux from source with GNU on it and build your server's OS up from that.

i don't recermend this for your server but do it in a virtual machine, it's a great way to learn how Linux works!

The minecraft server was just a exemple of what sort of gaming server i would host (like the lowest).

And building Linux from source is a little (a lot) out of my skills range and i am also already learning linux.

[Salv8 (sam)]

5 hours ago, yourzone said:

And building Linux from source is a little (a lot) out of my skills range and i am also already learning linux.

can't blame ya.

[leadeater]

On 10/2/2018 at 11:24 PM, yourzone said:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Xeon E5-2670 2.6GHz 8-Core Processor	$258.30 @ Amazon Canada
CPU	Intel - Xeon E5-2670 2.6GHz 8-Core Processor	$258.30 @ Amazon Canada
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler	$37.50 @ Vuugo
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler	$37.50 @ Vuugo
Motherboard	ASRock - EP2C602-4L/D16 SSI EEB Dual-CPU LGA2011 Motherboard	$399.99 @ Newegg Canada
Memory	G.Skill - Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory	$272.99 @ Newegg Canada
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$73.75 @ Vuugo
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$73.75 @ Vuugo
Video Card	EVGA - GeForce 8400 GS 1GB Video Card	$45.50 @ Vuugo
Case	Phanteks - Enthoo Luxe ATX Full Tower Case	$45.24 @ Amazon Canada
Power Supply	EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$96.99 @ PC-Canada
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$1599.81
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-03 19:46 EDT-0400

Looks good to me, you can get used Samsung ECC ram for cheaper (probably) if you want to lower the cost by another $50-$100.

 

Also you don't need that GPU as the motherboard has an onboard GPU (ASPEED AST2300), unless you need it for some other purpose.

[yourzone]

13 hours ago, leadeater said:

Looks good to me, you can get used Samsung ECC ram for cheaper (probably) if you want to lower the cost by another $50-$100.

 

Also you don't need that GPU as the motherboard has an onboard GPU (ASPEED AST2300), unless you need it for some other purpose.

Thanks for the info.