MGone
Dabbler
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2022
- Messages
- 20
Hi there, I've been looking for parts for my first server build and have a few questions.
Firstly, the purpose! I'm looking to run a file sharing server for up to 4-10 concurrent users, 2-4 local and 2-6 remote working. I did consider cloud services but have found manipulating CAD and Media files (large Photoshop, Premiere and InDesign) painful unless copied locally.
I was considering a pre-built unit such as the 6-8 bays offered by Synology or Qnap, but would like to keep the unpopulated cost to under £800 if possible. Also, I enjoy PC building and the challenges of putting together a suitable server! :) I have been leaning towards ZFS for its snapshot functionality. (Backup is separate to this discussion...being handled onsite and via cloud services, OneDrive and SharePoint)
So, these are my thoughts so far and I'd appreciate any feedback from folk who have been doing this for a while.
Which is where things get more uncertain for me and I could do with some help assessing priorities and what I should look for being on the board vs what I can add in with PCIe.
Motherboard Requirements (budget ~£200)
There's loads of Xeons out there and I lack the experience to fully understand the benefits of increasing cores/threads and cache except that I'm assuming higher is better? So I chose to base my decision around CPUMark scores and felt the E5-2660v3 seemed a good starting point at 13,080. This fits within budget too...but again, I'd love to hear the thoughts of you folks!
It also feels like there are some great bargains to be had with non ATX format boards, some of them more 'proprietary' than others, and I may consider one of these as a workbench project, but unless there are some easy to comprehend guides to the higher end enterprise sockets and boards I will have to skip those for now.
Finally, after such a long post I'd like just say thank you to anyone who has taken the time to reach the end. There's so much information out there it's a real privilege to be able to come to a forum like this and pick the brains of those who've already invested a great deal of time working through problems to help others. So, many thanks and I look forward to hearing any suggestions you have.
Firstly, the purpose! I'm looking to run a file sharing server for up to 4-10 concurrent users, 2-4 local and 2-6 remote working. I did consider cloud services but have found manipulating CAD and Media files (large Photoshop, Premiere and InDesign) painful unless copied locally.
I was considering a pre-built unit such as the 6-8 bays offered by Synology or Qnap, but would like to keep the unpopulated cost to under £800 if possible. Also, I enjoy PC building and the challenges of putting together a suitable server! :) I have been leaning towards ZFS for its snapshot functionality. (Backup is separate to this discussion...being handled onsite and via cloud services, OneDrive and SharePoint)
So, these are my thoughts so far and I'd appreciate any feedback from folk who have been doing this for a while.
- £117 - Case: Fractal Design Define XL R2 Titanium - (I'm not too worried about looks or footprint, but do not have a rack. So a headless box is my aim, ATX or smaller but if e or ee ATX is required it's not a problem)
- £528 - Storage Disks: 6x 4TB Ironwolf Pro/WD Red Pro/Toshiba N300 (SATA III)
- £37 - Boot Disk: Crucial BX500 480 GB (SATA III) (would probably switch to M.2 SATA or NVMe if not needed for Slog/L2ARC)
- £124 - SLOG M.2 NVMe: 2x 500GB Samsung 970 EVO PLUS (not 100% sure this is needed nor how I achieve power loss prevention)
- £134 - Memory: 2x 8GB 3200MHz DDR4 ECC at fastest speed board and budget will allow (DDR3 or 4)
- £80 - PSU: Seasonic Focus GX 550W, Full Modular, 80 Plus Gold
Which is where things get more uncertain for me and I could do with some help assessing priorities and what I should look for being on the board vs what I can add in with PCIe.
Motherboard Requirements (budget ~£200)
- CPU support
This seems to boil down to socket and chipset with the later pretty much determining the board functionality with regard to the other requirements below. At the moment I'm currently focusing my searches around FCLGA-2011-3 sockets and e-5 2600 chips, but the majority of 'affordable' boards seem to run the X99 chipset with lots of bells and whistles and waaaaay too much RGB! :P Would I be better aiming for the C612, even if that means higher cost boards like the Super Micro MBD-X10SRL-F-O? The other option would be something like this HP Z420 Workstation motherboard, but I'm concerned about the availability of drivers for FreeBDS. Is this something to worry about or are they easily found online? - ECC Memory Support
My main question here is if this is CPU dependant? Some of the X99 boards state they do support ECC, but I'm assuming that this is only with the E3-xeons and not i7's that also fit this 2011-3 sockets - IPMI support
A function of the Chipset? I noticed there are a few X99 boards with IPMI support, but is this the same as that provided on the C612 boards? - Storage support (possibly extra cost ~£90-400)
I've noticed that there is quite a variety of SATA III support from 4 to 12 drives (although I'm guessing that some of those you would loose if you utilise on board M.2 sockets and multiple PCIe slots. Is there any advantage to adding a PCIe expansion card such as this LSI SAS 9207-8i and if so, should I really be looking to SAS 12Gb/s and drives to match? I'm guessing that these more expensive 4TB Seagate Exos 7E8 SAS Hard Drives would work, but would you benefit from the full 12Gbs speed via the PCIe lanes? - M.2 NVMe support or M.2 SATA (possibly extra cost ~£15)
How important is it to have M.2 NVMe? I'm guessing M.2 SATA would be absolutely fine for SLOG & L2ARC if needed?
Do you loose much if anything by utilising a PCIe board? Something like this Sabrent NVMe M.2 SSD to PCIe X16/X8/X4 Card - Networking (possibly extra cost ~£90)
I currently run a 1GbE over CAT5e but hope to upgrade the cabling to cat7 in the next 2-3yrs. So initially 2x or 4x 1GbE ports would be fine as I have managed switches. This needs to utilise Intel controllers. If the board doesn't support 2.5GbE I could add this via PCIe with something like this QNAP Card....I'm not sure I trust the nonbrand ones, but that could just be me worrying so again all suggestions welcomed. - Video support (possibly extra cost ~£6)
I'm unclear if it is better to go for an on chip solution or simply add a cheap second hand card like this Nvidia Quadro NVS 290
There's loads of Xeons out there and I lack the experience to fully understand the benefits of increasing cores/threads and cache except that I'm assuming higher is better? So I chose to base my decision around CPUMark scores and felt the E5-2660v3 seemed a good starting point at 13,080. This fits within budget too...but again, I'd love to hear the thoughts of you folks!
It also feels like there are some great bargains to be had with non ATX format boards, some of them more 'proprietary' than others, and I may consider one of these as a workbench project, but unless there are some easy to comprehend guides to the higher end enterprise sockets and boards I will have to skip those for now.
Finally, after such a long post I'd like just say thank you to anyone who has taken the time to reach the end. There's so much information out there it's a real privilege to be able to come to a forum like this and pick the brains of those who've already invested a great deal of time working through problems to help others. So, many thanks and I look forward to hearing any suggestions you have.