I currently have ~12 3.5” mechanical drives crammed into a desktop tower server for my unRAID setup, and am looking to expand. I’ve built a dozen or so home PCs/consumer-grade servers, but this will be my first time working with enterprise-class hardware. I tried to do my research ahead of time to come at this intelligently, but feel free to direct me wherever I need to go.
I’m currently running this setup on a Phenom II X2 with 4GB ram. It’s borderline-adequate, if a bit slow, so I don’t “need” a huge speed upgrade, but it would always be nice if it can be done cheap.
Needs/wants for an upgrade:
After some eBay searching and some reading here, I came across this listing from CertifiedServers for a Supermicro SC846E1-R900B with X8DTE-F motherboard and BPN-SAS2-846EL1 backplane, which seems like a good ‘starting point’ to ask them to customize something.
I don’t have a particular motherboard/cpu in mind, so I figured I’d buy what it comes with and grab a pair of Xeon L5630’s or X56something’s ($50-$150, depending). Plus a 6x4gb ECC DRR3 pull for $100ish, unless someone has a better idea for inexpensive-but-decent cpu/motherboard
I already have a crossflashed m1015 card -- I believe this will provide the correct interface to the backplane via a single mini-SAS cable? And with the SAS2 expander backplane and mechanical drives, I believe there should be little-to-no bottleneck (simultaneous 100+MB/sec on 20-24 drives)? Please correct me if not!
PSU thoughts:
Additional questions:
Am I missing anything??
Thanks!
I’m currently running this setup on a Phenom II X2 with 4GB ram. It’s borderline-adequate, if a bit slow, so I don’t “need” a huge speed upgrade, but it would always be nice if it can be done cheap.
Needs/wants for an upgrade:
- Lots of 3.5” mechanical drives
- Virtualization with passthrough support
- Don’t need a ton of horsepower, just expect to be doing some light home media/file server and virtualization usage. Dual socket is probably overkill, but not a problem if it’s cheap.
- Reasonable power consumption -- if spending an extra $100-200 now will recoup the difference in electric costs in a year or two (assuming mostly idle), it’s probably worth it
- Low noise levels (server will likely be in the same 12’ x 10’ room as my ‘home office’) -- WifeApprovalFactor is important.
- Don’t need super-insane uptime / redundant everything. This is just for personal use.
- ECC ram -- bad experience with bitrot
- Fairly low cost. Let’s say below $500-600ish all-in?
After some eBay searching and some reading here, I came across this listing from CertifiedServers for a Supermicro SC846E1-R900B with X8DTE-F motherboard and BPN-SAS2-846EL1 backplane, which seems like a good ‘starting point’ to ask them to customize something.
I don’t have a particular motherboard/cpu in mind, so I figured I’d buy what it comes with and grab a pair of Xeon L5630’s or X56something’s ($50-$150, depending). Plus a 6x4gb ECC DRR3 pull for $100ish, unless someone has a better idea for inexpensive-but-decent cpu/motherboard
I already have a crossflashed m1015 card -- I believe this will provide the correct interface to the backplane via a single mini-SAS cable? And with the SAS2 expander backplane and mechanical drives, I believe there should be little-to-no bottleneck (simultaneous 100+MB/sec on 20-24 drives)? Please correct me if not!
PSU thoughts:
- See if they’ll put in a single PWS-920P-1R, or buy the server with no PSU and get one of those or a -SQ on my own
- Or, just buy consumer PSU that’s actually quiet and stick it to the side of the case like this guy
Additional questions:
- What heatsink/fan would you recommend for the CPUs in this build? I saw a reference somewhere to needing a Supermicro-specific heatsink for the mounting screws
- Will the BPN-SAS2-846EL1 expander allow individual drives to be spun down/idled when not in use?
- Are there better values available for motherboard/CPU pulls such that I should just get the bare chassis and order everything else separate?
Am I missing anything??
Thanks!
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