Home server

[FN-Boba]

small server that will expand disks as needed
primary use is hosting a Plex server with no more then 2-3 local steams and maybe 1 or 2 web streams in 720 and 1080

already have 8g of ddr4 ecc, and im preferring something in 1151 c326

i cant decide on one of 2 CPUs or the mobos. at first glance any configuration of these will do what i need but this is my first FN box

Xeon e-3 1220 v6
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XX2KWCX/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

i3-6300
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015VPX3G6/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_3?smid=A1COA7PWTAABOP&psc=1

and i'm looking at a couple of mobos

x11sae-m-o
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018AX449G/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A29P93PKVXFSE3&psc=1

SM x11ssh-LN4F-B
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GX9RVX0/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_4?smid=A2I4D0WO1JEMBA&psc=1

Asus p10s V4L
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BQ8QJE0/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_8?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

cost wise i really like the Asus but i can tell SM seems to be highly suggested here.

anyone had any issues with Referb CPUs or used ones from ebay?

 

[Velcade]

anyone had any issues with Referb CPUs or used ones from ebay?

eBay has great buyer protection. I was a little leery when building my server as I'd never bought used before but everything worked great.

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

Just some thoughts below. I'm sure other folks may have different thoughts than mine.

SM x11ssh-LN4F-B

Not everyone around here agrees with me but I think this board is not quite ideal. It is nice that it has the 4xLAN ports if you need them. But it uses 2x PCIe lanes for an M.2 slot rather than giving you a 2x PCIe 3.0 slot. For FreeNAS I personally think PCIe lanes are more flexible in PCIe slots. You can put a boot device in that M.2, of course but that is a waste of the speed of 2 PCIe lanes. You could put a SLOG on there but its only 2x rather than 4x speed. I tend to think the board with the built-in LAN you'll actually use and the rest as PCIe lanes are more flexible.

x11sae-m-o

That at least has a 4x M.2 slot if you wanted to put a SLOG in there, but you'd want to make sure it has PLP. The Do you have any need of the 1 PCI-E 3.0 x41 - 5V PCI 32bit slot on there? The 16x PCIe 3.0 slot is super fast and will easily handle 10G NICs or an HBA but you've only got one such port so if you ever need to add another card you'd be hard pressed due to space.

Asus p10s V4L

Do you have any need for those legacy PCI slots? If not I would suggest a board without them.

primary use is hosting a Plex server with no more then 2-3 local steams and maybe 1 or 2 web streams in 720 and 1080

Will you be transcoding at all? That'll just help determine whether you need a beefier CPU. If you're not doing 4k I suspect you can get away just fine with a board that is only single socket. A good way to check is to look at the passmark score of your CPU and what passmark score Plex suggests given your needs.

anyone had any issues with Referb CPUs or used ones from ebay?

I've purchased a few and had great luck with them.

How many disks do you plan to use and do you think you'll ever want to upgrade to 10G?

 

[FN-Boba]

SM x11ssh-LN4F-B
Not everyone around here agrees with me but I think this board is not quite ideal. It is nice that it has the 4xLAN ports if you need them. But it uses 2x PCIe lanes for an M.2 slot rather than giving you a 2x PCIe 3.0 slot. For FreeNAS I personally think PCIe lanes are more flexible in PCIe slots. You can put a boot device in that M.2, of course but that is a waste of the speed of 2 PCIe lanes. You could put a SLOG on there but its only 2x rather than 4x speed. I tend to think the board with the built-in LAN you'll actually use and the rest as PCIe lanes are more flexible.

i probably do not need 4xLan ports, but i would like 2, to tinker with Link Ag. i do like the Idea of a SLOG but again, it might be overkill for my application. do you have a board that you would suggest?

Asus p10s V4L
Do you have any need for those legacy PCI slots? If not I would suggest a board without them.

i dont really need the PCI slots, but i figured they could hold addon cards for more sata or whatever later on.

Will you be transcoding at all? That'll just help determine whether you need a beefier CPU. If you're not doing 4k I suspect you can get away just fine with a board that is only single socket. A good way to check is to look at the passmark score of your CPU and what passmark score Plex suggests given your needs.

i currently have Zero 4k displays in the house so Transcodeing, probably not. i'm not really upto speed on when plex trancodes and when it doesn't, but from what little i do know, everything on the LAN is set to stream in original. the only transcodeing that might happen is the web streams going out having to get transcoded down to a smaller bitrate? at this point i'm leaning twords the xeon, so far what ive seen nothing i would do would push this, my bottlenecks are going to be RAM and disk speed.

How many disks do you plan to use and do you think you'll ever want to upgrade to 10G?

Disk wise, starting out 3min and growing to whatever i need but i would like to grow to 5 to 6 in short order to make sure the RAID has enough fail protection while still operating enough free space to handle the growing media collection. as far as 10g goes, not anytime soon but maybe oneday.

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

i probably do not need 4xLan ports, but i would like 2, to tinker with Link Ag. i do like the Idea of a SLOG but again, it might be overkill for my application. do you have a board that you would suggest?

My bias and personal use speaking here says the X11SSM-F is a good option. It has 2 1G ports, 4 PCI slots, takes up to 64GB RAM, and avoids the annoyingness of the M.2 slot.

i don't really need the PCI slots, but i figured they could hold addon cards for more sata or whatever later on.

They can, but they will only support older legacy cards. If you need to add more ports later I think you'd wand an HBA into PCIe2.0 or 3.0 slots rather than a SATA card.

Disk wise, starting out 3min and growing to whatever i need but i would like to grow to 5 to 6 in short order to make sure the RAID has enough fail protection while still operating enough free space to handle the growing media collection.

It is worth keeping in mind knowing how you plan to grow your storage. Keep in mind if you build a RAIDZ1 vdev you cannot expand it by adding more drives, you'll have to either remake the entire vdev and deal with the data migration or you can add another vdev alongside it in the same pool.

 

[FN-Boba]

so then this looks like what i'm going with

SUPERMICRO MBD-X11SSM-F-O Micro ATX Server Motherboard LGA 1151 Intel C236
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813183013

Xeon E3-1220 V6
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XX2KWCX/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

Supermicro Certified MEM-DR416L-SL01-ER21 Samsung Memory - 16GB DDR4-2133 2Rx4 LP ECC REG RoHs
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MDZL2B6/ref=ox_sc_mini_detail?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=AZKLXYM5EYHLT

sending that 2x4gig back to get a single stick of 16 for cheaper, and the CPU on order. i did go with your ebay option, hoping that works out, i'll order the mobo this weekend. that board you suggested does look like the best fit and i somehow over looked it. i guess i'll report back once its running.

 

[FN-Boba]

anyone have a suggestion for a low profile cooler for that CPU under 50$?

something like this?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005OYEU7G/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_5?smid=AEELF2HAVZFED&psc=1

 

[Stevie_1der]

If you're going to need transcoding, think about a CPU with iGPU, for example E3-1225.
GPU-enabled transcoding is on the way during the next months or so, at least rumours say so.

How many of those DIMMs do you own?
Minimum recommended RAM size is 8GB, but more RAM is always better.

Regarding the cooler, in what type of chassis will the system be running?
1U, 2U rack mounted?
The smaller the chassis, the louder it will be...

 

[FN-Boba]

I don't think that 1225 is the right socket unfortunately. For better or worse I'm set on 1151 board.

I don't think I transcode enough to warrant the cost at this point in time. The local network stuff is all wired and streams in original format. I rarely have anyone who connects in remotely but I'll have to check the settings and logs again.

I currently have 2x4gig sticks in hand, but I can get the 1x16gig sick for less, seemed like a no brainier, and I can't (or shouldn't) afford both.

I'll be running it in a spare room so I'm not worried about fan noises, but I'm hoping to get it in a 4u case eventually. In the meantime it's going in an ancient Antec SOHO full tower.

 

[FN-Boba]

https://www.amazon.com/Noctua-NH-L9x65-Premium-Low-Profile-Cooler/dp/B00VB3Y89E

Seems like it might be a good fit for me?

 

[Stevie_1der]

To be precise, I meant the Intel Xeon E3-1225 v6 of course (sorry for the confusion), which is only about $20 more than the E3-1220 v6.
The E3-1220 v6 is not capable of transcoding a single 4k source to HD in real-time.
So if you have mobile devices with lower resolutions (HD or less) and 4k source material (or plan to have that), it could be worth thinking of.

A16GB stick sounds better, if you plan more jails or VMs you could even consider 32GB.
But this could also be done later on, if you encounter performance issues.
Because of that, you should always go for the highest capacity sticks that are supported by the mainboard.
So you don't have to exchange the sticks later on, but just add more instead.

For the CPU cooler, I would pick a tower cooler, because of the undisturbed front-to-back airflow.
For example a Noctua NH-U9B SE2 (EOL, could be available on ebay) or Noctua NH-U9S.
Cryorig M9i or Cryorig M9 Plus should also fit (not 100% sure on RAM slot clearance), and are way cheaper.

4U chassis should have a heatsink clearance of 154mm, so anything below that should fit.
So you could use a heatsink with up to 150mm height, but I don't think this is really necessary.

 

[FN-Boba]

The E3-1220 v6 is not capable of transcoding a single 4k source to HD in real-time.
So if you have mobile devices with lower resolutions (HD or less) and 4k source material (or plan to have that), it could be worth thinking of.

thanks, yea thats something i'll have to look into later once i start acquiring 4k content. i have a feeling that the 1151 socket is going to be around for awhile so upgrades shouldn't be troublesome later.

A16GB stick sounds better, if you plan more jails or VMs you could even consider 32GB.
But this could also be done later on, if you encounter performance issues.
Because of that, you should always go for the highest capacity sticks that are supported by the mainboard.
So you don't have to exchange the sticks later on, but just add more instead.

my thoughts too, glad to see i'm on the right track here.

For the CPU cooler, I would pick a tower cooler, because of the undisturbed front-to-back airflow. For example a Noctua NH-U9B SE2 (EOL, could be available on ebay) or Noctua NH-U9S.
Cryorig M9i or Cryorig M9 Plus should also fit (not 100% sure on RAM slot clearance), and are way cheaper.

4U chassis should have a heatsink clearance of 154mm, so anything below that should fit.
So you could use a heatsink with up to 150mm height, but I don't think this is really necessary.

good to know, i'll have to look into those and see what i think might work. any time i build a system, coolers are always my hardest judgement call. i've been running an AIO block for awhile, so air coolers that arnt just stock are kind of new territory.

 

[pro lamer]

Supermicro Certified MEM-DR416L-SL01-ER21 Samsung Memory - 16GB DDR4-2133 2Rx4 LP ECC REG RoHs
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MDZL2B6/ref=ox_sc_mini_detail?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=AZKLXYM5EYHLT

Registered memory is not compatible with Xeon E3 (edit: and with the mentioned motherboard in general)

Sent from my phone

 

[FN-Boba]

Registered memory is not compatible with Xeon E3 (edit: and with the mentioned motherboard in general)

can you please explain?

I choose that stick of memory specifically because it was on the SM tested list.
The SM site lists EEC as a key feature and the Intel Ark lists the e3-1220 as supporting EEC

am i missing something?

 

[pro lamer]

can you please explain?

I choose that stick of memory specifically because it was on the SM tested list.
The SM site lists EEC as a key feature and the Intel Ark lists the e3-1220 as supporting EEC

am i missing something?

Check Registered memory (RDIMM), vs UDIMM (ECC or non-ECC) difference.

Sent from my phone

 

[pro lamer]

BTW SM X11 motherboard are told in our forums to be memory-picky. We even have some sticky... TL;DR - memory from motherboard QVL recommended.

Sent from my phone

 

[pro lamer]

RDIMMs are for Xeon E5/E7/Xeon D/Pentium D15xx/Xeon W-21xx/Atom C3xxx/Epyc/Opteron/Xeon scalable and similar motherboards...

Edit: the simplest way is to check the motherboard specification. This example

The SM site

states:

Memory Type

• 2400/2133/1866/1600MHz ECC DDR4 SDRAM 72-bit, 288-pin (UDIMM) gold-plated DIMMs

While this one

Memory Capacity

• Up to 2TB 3DS ECC RDIMM, DDR4-2933MHz; Up to 2TB 3DS ECC LRDIMM, DDR4-2933MHz, in 8 DIMM slots

Memory Type

• 2933/2666/2400/2133MHz ECC DDR4 RDIMM, LRDIMM

DIMM Sizes

• RDIMM: 64GB
• LRDIMM: 128GB
• 3DS LRDIMM: 128GB, 256GB

But they are even more tricky (SM has even some memory guides for motherboard families)

Sent from my phone

 

[FN-Boba]

Check Registered memory (RDIMM), vs UDIMM (ECC or non-ECC) difference.

i'm glad you caught this UDIMM vs RDIMM, thank you, that would have been a huge headache on build day