Caution: Wall of text incoming
Hi everyone,
my current HP Microserver Gen7 is overdue for retirement. It served me well as a home server/NAS all in one box.
Looking forward, I'd like something more powerful to separate things a bit better - VMs or containers I haven't
decided yet. The Gen10 seems to be lacking in that regard, so I am looking for sth. else (like a Gen10.5 with Ryzen
embedded or Epyc 3000 - HPE pretty please with puppy eyes)
Currently running CentOS: NAS with snapraid on 3x 3.5" HDD, SMB on 2x 2.5" SSD, Owncloud, irc and other stuff.
The machine sits next to my cable modem, so it'll be headless and with strict size limits.
So I came up with following requirements
* low idle power, decent compute power CPU; power efficiency when busy not as important [high power cost, cooling, noise]
* high efficiency PSU; maybe external DC [low idle power]
* min. 4x 3.5" (hot)swap bays [bulk storage]
* min. 2x 2.5" - be it bays or just some volume to strap an SSD into [data storage, cache]
* SATA connectors for all that on the mainboard [low idle power]
* min. 1x Nvme M.2 - on board or via AOC [OS/Vms/containers]
* ECC memory - I doubt I'll exceed 32GB
* x86 with AES-NI [ARM SOCs are too much hassle in terms of SW/long term driver support]
* preferably no IPMI, either IGpu/APU or completely without GFX [idle power consumption; iGPU: transcoding]
* 1G; must be able to disable any 10G [home network won't see 10G the next 5y; idle power consumption]
* reasonably priced [price is not of utmost importance but I hate wasting money]
* available in the EU
* Size: WHD less than 25x45x40 cm - otherwise The Treasury will not approve funding
* build this year for tax reasons
Starting here, I checked the market for available options:
A - Case options
The limited space available limits the case options, which in turn limit the mainboard options.
UNas NCS 810(A) - unavailable in the EU (permanently out of stock at kustompcs.co.uk)
Silverstone CS380 - too big
Silverstone DS380 - thermals, ITX only
Silverstone CS381 - WHD 24x40x32 but not released yet
Supermicro SC721 - ITX only
Ablecom CS-T50 - ITX only, thermals look weak, unavailable in the EU
InWin MS04 - ITX only, SC721 seems better
InWin MS08 - too big
Fractal Design node - no hotswap
Norco ITX S4/S8 - ITX only, unavailable in the EU, 80mm fans
many other - cheap design, bad thermals, unavailable in the EU - or all three
My current favorite: Silverstone CS381 since uAtx gives more options for the mainboard and has more hotswap bays
than required; still unavailable, but Silverstone has decent distribution in the EU, so I am hopeful.
If ITX, I'd go with the excellent SC721 (and maybe swap the PSU).
B - CPU uArch options
The new system will face a 5+ year life time, so I'd rather get some current tech.
Atom C3000
+ RDIMM
+ Storage, network requirements easily met
- with all the delays not really current tech
- basically all mainboards feature IPMI
Xeon-D 1500
+ RDIMM
+ Storage, network requirements easily met
- not really current tech anymore
- basically all mainboards feature IPMI
Xeon-D 2100
- Insane idle power consumption - I don't need to look any further: just no
Xeon E-1200v6
+ wide choice of boards/CPU
+ no IPMI, iGPU option
+ decent idle power
- not really current tech
- UDIMM
Xeon-E 2100
+ Current tech
+ no IPMI, iGPU option
+ more compute power than E1200v6 possible
- UDIMM
- not available yet
Ryzen 2000
+ Current tech
+ Available
+ no IPMI, APU option
+ 2x00G + 4xx chipset gives decent idle power
- not server grade
- UDIMM
- Getting ECC support hard
- Getting enough storage hard
Ryzen V1000
- practically unavailable (Sapphire & Udoo solution exist but lack... everything)
Epyc 3000
- unavailable
C - Putting it all together
From my research above I've come up with the following basic builds that need appropriate memory,
PSU, and discs.
Xeon E-1200v6
* SC721 or CS381
* AsrockRack C236 WSI or Fujitsu D3417-B2
* Xeon E-1245v6
+ can buy today (for WSI)
+ iGPU no IPMI
+ 8 SATA (WSI)
+ good price/performance
+ good performance
+ discounts as Xeon-E is phased in
- no M.2 on board -> via AOC (for WSI)
- wait for case (for CS381)
Xeon-E 2100
Like Xeon E1200v6 but next gen
* Fujitsu D3644-B
* Xeon-E 2146G
+ iGPU no IPMI
+ really good performance
+ CPU upgrade options
o 6 SATA
o price/performance OK
- wait for case (CS381), board(s)
Atom C3000
* SC721
* AsrockRack C3758D4I-4L
+ can buy today
+ 12V-DC only operation
+ 13 SATA galore
o AST2500 (faster and/or less idle power vs the AST2400. Patrick, got data? )
o good enough performance
- price/performance meh
Xeon-D 1500
* SC721
* Supermicro X10SDV-8C-TLN4F or X10SDV-8C+-LN2F if available
+ can buy today
+ excellent performance
o 6 SATA
o 10G, but can be disabled (on -TLN)
- price/performance meh
- AST2400
Ryzen 2000
* CS381
* Asus Prime B450M-AOC (expected to support ECC)
* Ryzen 2400G
+ MAGA
+ APU no IPMI
+ Mobile derived die
+ Excellent price/performance
+ CPU upgrade options
o Good enough performance
o 6 SATA, disables M.2 though
- M.2 via AOC
- wait for suitable mainboard - may not happen
So, yeah, I did my homework. But to no avail, lots of research reading datasheets, but no conclusive solution. My current favorite is the Xeon-E 2100 variant - but if the gear won't become available in time I need a readily available alternative to buy in November.
I'd be thankful if anyone has comments or suggestions. Was some use-case ignored? Did I miss some interesting cases? Is there some technical option I overlooked, is there some concrete hardware that would be more suitable? General suggestions how to make that choice?
If you had the patience to read all this: Thanks for your time!
Hi everyone,
my current HP Microserver Gen7 is overdue for retirement. It served me well as a home server/NAS all in one box.
Looking forward, I'd like something more powerful to separate things a bit better - VMs or containers I haven't
decided yet. The Gen10 seems to be lacking in that regard, so I am looking for sth. else (like a Gen10.5 with Ryzen
embedded or Epyc 3000 - HPE pretty please with puppy eyes)
Currently running CentOS: NAS with snapraid on 3x 3.5" HDD, SMB on 2x 2.5" SSD, Owncloud, irc and other stuff.
The machine sits next to my cable modem, so it'll be headless and with strict size limits.
So I came up with following requirements
* low idle power, decent compute power CPU; power efficiency when busy not as important [high power cost, cooling, noise]
* high efficiency PSU; maybe external DC [low idle power]
* min. 4x 3.5" (hot)swap bays [bulk storage]
* min. 2x 2.5" - be it bays or just some volume to strap an SSD into [data storage, cache]
* SATA connectors for all that on the mainboard [low idle power]
* min. 1x Nvme M.2 - on board or via AOC [OS/Vms/containers]
* ECC memory - I doubt I'll exceed 32GB
* x86 with AES-NI [ARM SOCs are too much hassle in terms of SW/long term driver support]
* preferably no IPMI, either IGpu/APU or completely without GFX [idle power consumption; iGPU: transcoding]
* 1G; must be able to disable any 10G [home network won't see 10G the next 5y; idle power consumption]
* reasonably priced [price is not of utmost importance but I hate wasting money]
* available in the EU
* Size: WHD less than 25x45x40 cm - otherwise The Treasury will not approve funding
* build this year for tax reasons
Starting here, I checked the market for available options:
A - Case options
The limited space available limits the case options, which in turn limit the mainboard options.
UNas NCS 810(A) - unavailable in the EU (permanently out of stock at kustompcs.co.uk)
Silverstone CS380 - too big
Silverstone DS380 - thermals, ITX only
Silverstone CS381 - WHD 24x40x32 but not released yet
Supermicro SC721 - ITX only
Ablecom CS-T50 - ITX only, thermals look weak, unavailable in the EU
InWin MS04 - ITX only, SC721 seems better
InWin MS08 - too big
Fractal Design node - no hotswap
Norco ITX S4/S8 - ITX only, unavailable in the EU, 80mm fans
many other - cheap design, bad thermals, unavailable in the EU - or all three
My current favorite: Silverstone CS381 since uAtx gives more options for the mainboard and has more hotswap bays
than required; still unavailable, but Silverstone has decent distribution in the EU, so I am hopeful.
If ITX, I'd go with the excellent SC721 (and maybe swap the PSU).
B - CPU uArch options
The new system will face a 5+ year life time, so I'd rather get some current tech.
Atom C3000
+ RDIMM
+ Storage, network requirements easily met
- with all the delays not really current tech
- basically all mainboards feature IPMI
Xeon-D 1500
+ RDIMM
+ Storage, network requirements easily met
- not really current tech anymore
- basically all mainboards feature IPMI
Xeon-D 2100
- Insane idle power consumption - I don't need to look any further: just no
Xeon E-1200v6
+ wide choice of boards/CPU
+ no IPMI, iGPU option
+ decent idle power
- not really current tech
- UDIMM
Xeon-E 2100
+ Current tech
+ no IPMI, iGPU option
+ more compute power than E1200v6 possible
- UDIMM
- not available yet
Ryzen 2000
+ Current tech
+ Available
+ no IPMI, APU option
+ 2x00G + 4xx chipset gives decent idle power
- not server grade
- UDIMM
- Getting ECC support hard
- Getting enough storage hard
Ryzen V1000
- practically unavailable (Sapphire & Udoo solution exist but lack... everything)
Epyc 3000
- unavailable
C - Putting it all together
From my research above I've come up with the following basic builds that need appropriate memory,
PSU, and discs.
Xeon E-1200v6
* SC721 or CS381
* AsrockRack C236 WSI or Fujitsu D3417-B2
* Xeon E-1245v6
+ can buy today (for WSI)
+ iGPU no IPMI
+ 8 SATA (WSI)
+ good price/performance
+ good performance
+ discounts as Xeon-E is phased in
- no M.2 on board -> via AOC (for WSI)
- wait for case (for CS381)
Xeon-E 2100
Like Xeon E1200v6 but next gen
* Fujitsu D3644-B
* Xeon-E 2146G
+ iGPU no IPMI
+ really good performance
+ CPU upgrade options
o 6 SATA
o price/performance OK
- wait for case (CS381), board(s)
Atom C3000
* SC721
* AsrockRack C3758D4I-4L
+ can buy today
+ 12V-DC only operation
+ 13 SATA galore
o AST2500 (faster and/or less idle power vs the AST2400. Patrick, got data? )
o good enough performance
- price/performance meh
Xeon-D 1500
* SC721
* Supermicro X10SDV-8C-TLN4F or X10SDV-8C+-LN2F if available
+ can buy today
+ excellent performance
o 6 SATA
o 10G, but can be disabled (on -TLN)
- price/performance meh
- AST2400
Ryzen 2000
* CS381
* Asus Prime B450M-AOC (expected to support ECC)
* Ryzen 2400G
+ MAGA
+ APU no IPMI
+ Mobile derived die
+ Excellent price/performance
+ CPU upgrade options
o Good enough performance
o 6 SATA, disables M.2 though
- M.2 via AOC
- wait for suitable mainboard - may not happen
So, yeah, I did my homework. But to no avail, lots of research reading datasheets, but no conclusive solution. My current favorite is the Xeon-E 2100 variant - but if the gear won't become available in time I need a readily available alternative to buy in November.
I'd be thankful if anyone has comments or suggestions. Was some use-case ignored? Did I miss some interesting cases? Is there some technical option I overlooked, is there some concrete hardware that would be more suitable? General suggestions how to make that choice?
If you had the patience to read all this: Thanks for your time!