General references and recommendations for home server rebuild

[tim11g]

This is my first post here - I couldn't decide if this should go in DIY and Makers, General Chat, or here. I went through Guides, but didn't see anything along these lines.

I'm looking to replace my obsolete home server with a server + NAS combination. Looking for references where I can learn more, and recommendations for sites and sources.

Requirements for new server:

1. Supports a Windows and Ubuntu Linux VM . Thinking Proxmox for hypervisor but open to others

1. The Linux VM would run Ubuntu current version LTS.
2. Will be paired with a NAS running Raid5 for bulk storage. (Thinking Synology 5-bay DiskStation DS1522+)
3. Will support external USB drives swapped periodically to off site storage. Selected data from NAS will be backed up to USB drives.
4. Windows does not need Active Directory - I don't use it. It will not serve DHCP or DNS. These network functions are handled on a Ubiquiti ER-X edgerouter.
5. Uses: The existing Windows Server (to be replaced) runs Postgresql, Grafana, PRTG network monitor, Ubiquiti Unifi AP manager, a legacy home monitoring program, and many scheduled tasks that use Python and Perl. It serves VNC, a UPS, and networked printers. Scripts call BeyondCompare to perform automated backups to the external drives. The system itself is backed up with Terabyte Image for Windows.
6. My goal is to migrate most of these tasks to the Linux VM in the new server, only keeping Windows-specific applications on Windows.

Objectives:
Low maintenance system - I don't want to spend lots of time administrating and debugging issues. Maximize scripting and automation.
I'm not highly cost sensitive - Reliability and long service life are my priorities.
I prefer CapEx (initial investment) over OpEx (ongoing costs - subscriptions are only acceptable with extremely compelling justification)
I would like to be conservative of power use - this is a home and not a data center, and I would like to save energy costs

Questions -

What type of server hardware should I look for? How do I size it appropriately? The existing system runs on a Core2 CPU with 8G of RAM and is overburdened with even simple tasks like copying files for backup. I'd like a tower style because I don't have a rack, and would like to keep it on a shelf. A refurb server would be fine if not a power hog.

I'm not using any of the Windows Server exclusive functions any more, as far as I know. Should I build the new system with Windows Server Essentials because it will run on server hardware? $500 is a lot to avoid the pitfalls of the consumer Windows 11 Pro.

 

[CyklonDX]

From what I read unraid will do fine for you.

Why? Moving usb devices would be much easier over there, and running all those services - on dockers would also desirable.

How much do you want to spend on the hardware? and form factor rack? tower? mini?

 

[tim11g]

From what I read unraid will do fine for you.

Why? Moving usb devices would be much easier over there, and running all those services - on dockers would also desirable.

How much do you want to spend on the hardware? and form factor rack? tower? mini?

I just looked over unraid.net. Definitely commercial product - most of the main page is about pricing and licensing. So for $109 I would get a specialized OS to run a RAID 5 array, rather than buying the Synology box for $600. I would have to find a server that could physically hold the 5 RAID drives, or an eSata cabinet. I presume unraid would run in a separate VM, so I'd have WIndows, Ubuntu, and Unraid under Proxmox? Proxmox would set up a virtual network inside the box, so Unraid would look like a NAS to Windows and Ubuntu?

I'm not highly cost constrained, but don't want to waste money of course. Target for total system price is around $3K. The priority is reliability, quality and longevity. Tower is preferred. I'm going to look into docker and see where it might fit - have not yet.

 

[CyklonDX]

i was thinking of just running unraid as your main os.

*form factor?

 

[6c352e2e-f287-445a-9cd3-d]

Maybe get a Dell r730 for a server --- or pick a new tower like one of those since you have a big budget[1] --- and put Fedora Server or Debian[2] on it. If you find a r730 LFF chassis you don't need an extra NAS device.

Stay away from Ubuntu (use Fedora or Debian instead) and from Ubiquity (use OPNsense and Aruba instead). You can easily run Windows in a VM if you need to.

Dual PSUs can be great to have. If you have multiple UPSs to connect to or if you simply want to be able to change the power cabling without having to shut down the server, make sure you get them. Otherwise you don't need them but it doesn't hurt to have them.

I can't tell if a new machine may be more reliable than a used one because I didn't have any isses with used ones. Fans wear out over time (long! time) and hard disks fail and backup batteries of RAID controllers don't last forever. That goes for both and used machines. Used is way cheaper.


[1]: Intel - Tower Server: Dell PowerEdge

[2]: When using Fedora, you probably get more updates than you would with Debian, and you get two upgrades per year. Debian doesn't say when the next upgrade will be available and tends to use relatively old software which can make people think it's more stable. If you consider to use Debian testing because it's less old use Fedora instead because it's newer and more reliable. --- I'm pointing this out since you're looking for reliability, quality and longevity. For those very reasons (and others), Ubuntu and Ubiquity are deprecated.

 

[CyklonDX]

When using Fedora, you probably get more updates than you would with Debian, and you get two upgrades per year. Debian doesn't say when the next upgrade will be available and tends to use relatively old software which can make people think it's more stable. If you consider to use Debian testing because it's less old use Fedora instead because it's newer and more reliable. --- I'm pointing this out since you're looking for reliability, quality and longevity. For those very reasons, Ubuntu and Ubiquity are deprecated.

There's a reason why servers stay away from rolling release distributions. They invite their own set of problems.
You are looking for LTS for long time - which fedora does not provide. (there's a reason people ran away, and all drama when CentOS became rolling distro and was ended shortly afterwards. *from rhel options only Alma and Rocky are decent options for actual server stuff.

 

[6c352e2e-f287-445a-9cd3-d]

There's a reason why servers stay away from rolling release distributions. They invite their own set of problems.

Problems like?

The only issue I've had with Fedora over quite a long time now was that they managed to break ejabberd with an Erlang update, and usual, bug reports were ignored.

You are looking for LTS for long time - which fedora does not provide. (there's a reason people ran away, and all drama when CentOS became rolling distro and was ended shortly afterwards. *from rhel options only Alma and Rocky are decent options for actual server stuff.

I haven't observed that. When I read about Centos being altered, I found that I don't like some things about the changes that were to come and it meant that Centos is no more.

Debian (LTS) may be the safer bet for production servers while I'd be badly missing some of the conveniences Fedora comes with if I were to use Debian for those.

For the OP, Fedora isn't necessarily bad. Only he can decide what's better for him.

 

[CyklonDX]

Problems like?

Packages/drivers with new/unknown bugs, incompatibilities just to name the few.
Often changes are not checked/tested, until they are. "It works on my computer" comments are best from devs.

If its your home use where you want to play with it - i don't see any issue using latest releases.
I might be getting older as i passionately dislike changes some people try to push in rolling releases.

 

[6c352e2e-f287-445a-9cd3-d]

Packages/drivers with new/unknown bugs, incompatibilities just to name the few.
Often changes are not checked/tested, until they are. "It works on my computer" comments are best from devs.

You can always have that unless you keep all the software unchanged.

If its your home use where you want to play with it - i don't see any issue using latest releases.
I might be getting older as i passionately dislike changes some people try to push in rolling releases.

I already got old and I still remember the trouble from running Debian on servers. The software got so old between upgrades that upgrading sucked because so much had changed. I ended up running testing instead to avoid these problems, and I would not recommend doing that anymore. Perhaps Debian has improved on that; it seems they have decided to do some intermediate updates some time.

OTOH, Fedora has always been remarkably stable, and I can see what's coming at home before anything goes on the servers. I wouldn't see that with Debian before it's too late. That way, I'm finding it extremely difficult to decide what should go on the servers, Debian or Fedora. Add to that that Debian has its ideosyncracies as well as Fedora or any other distribution has, and I happen to be more familiar with Centos/Fedora now than with Debian. That means Debian is more time comsuming, which is also a disadvantage.

For example, last time I tried, Debian didn't even come with network manager by default. Ugh. Sure you can install it, but is it as well integrated as it is in Fedora? The kernel was too old to use an AMD graphics card that had come out a year ago. That was a no-go that prevented me from switching away from Fedora (which I would have liked to do because Fedora people are utterly hostile on all channels). And there's more stuff that's just old. It's not so relevant for servers, but it makes Debian a somewhat annoying experience. And the installer sucked.

And is Debian really more reliable and stable than Fedora? Are there any statistics that would give some insight about this?

There's an amazing change as to what 'stable' or 'reliable' or 'buggy' means which started about 15 years ago. Software used to be way more unstable and buggy long time ago while it kept getting slowly better at a steady pace. Then about 15 years ago, it rapidly got way better and more and more, programs crashing or even whole computers freezing became a thing of the past. I don't know what cause this change; I can only suspect that better tools have become available that help to find problems or even don't let some problems occur at all, and maybe automated bug reporting also helps.

 

[tim11g]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Linux distributions. I've always used Ubuntu LTS, and it has been fine, and I'm very familiar. But I will look into other options too. Any other thoughts on how to "size" server hardware? I guess this is a LInux crowd, so no thoughts on whether I need WIndows Server, or can get away with Windows 11 Pro in the VM for my needs? I've read that Windows 11 might not install on some server HW?

 

[CyklonDX]

Minimal specs for vms that you should take into account

Windows vm
4vcpu
16GB ram
100G for C (SSD)

Recommended
8vcpu
16GB
400G for C (NVME+)

Note1: most of the vm performance results from fast storage ~> so you either build fast storage raids/zfs etc, or try getting more ram and doing ramdisk + frequent snapshots, and optane persistent memory is also good alternative

It all depends on your workload what are you planning on running.
You need to research how much resources each can require - databases typically like ram, and they tend to grow, and fast storage is desirable.

For db's servers should have highest single core performance, and fastest memory (if you can fit whole db in memory - thats the best), and if you can't get a fast storage.
VMS typically benefit from isolation, you wouldn't want to share same cores with other vms, databases, processes.
You need to make sure your vms, processes do not overlap over 2 cpu's - numa cross talk can slow down processes a lot.
Remember heat... can you cool it down? Maybe most cores and most Hz isn't best option... Often you have limited amount of power per cpu for Turbo to give you increased Hz, and depending on load (active cores) you can end up in much lower frequency.


Note2: those 2 as example *scroll down to frequencies

Xeon Gold 6154 - Intel - WikiChip

Xeon Gold 6154 is a 64-bit 18-core x86 multi-socket high performance server microprocessor introduced by Intel in mid-2017. This chip supports up to 4-way multiprocessing. The Gold 6154, which is based on the server configuration of the Skylake microarchitecture and is manufactured on a 14 nm+...

en.wikichip.org

Xeon Gold 6138 - Intel - WikiChip

Xeon Gold 6138 is a 64-bit 20-core x86 multi-socket high performance server microprocessor introduced by Intel in mid-2017. This chip supports up to 4-way multiprocessing. The Gold 6138, which is based on the server configuration of the Skylake microarchitecture and is manufactured on a 14 nm+...

en.wikichip.org

This is same for all modern cpu's (you have certain amount of power they can use - not all are documented though)

Note3: Optane is supported from cascade lake cpu's (skylakes do not support them)

Plan ahead with your storage requirement, if you think you need 2T of storage right now - make sure you have enough free slots to insert more disks later.

I typically get 2x 400G sas ssd (RAID1 for OS) simple hw raid card typically inside the server or if server has option for disk slots in back *(like most poweredge servers), leaving front disk backplane for 'data' either hw raid setup (raid1, 5, 10) or software one.

 

[6c352e2e-f287-445a-9cd3-d]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Linux distributions. I've always used Ubuntu LTS, and it has been fine, and I'm very familiar.

My impression of Ubuntu is that they take Debian and add their own bugs and issues to it none of which you want or need, so you're better off with using Debian instead. If you were to switch to Fedora, you'd have a more extensive learning experience because Fedora is more different from both Ubuntu and Debian. If you're happy with Ubuntu you could just use that.

But I will look into other options too. Any other thoughts on how to "size" server hardware? I guess this is a LInux crowd, so no thoughts on whether I need WIndows Server, or can get away with Windows 11 Pro in the VM for my needs? I've read that Windows 11 might not install on some server HW?

"Size" depends on your workload. CPUs older than E5-26xx are too old. You can get up to 2x18 cores per CPU with that generation.

If power consumption is relevant to you, go for a single CPU machine with a single socket mainboard. If not, two CPUs in a dual socket mainboard is fine, though you probably don't need more than one. With multiple CPUs, you need to learn about NUMA. Other than that it depends on your workload and on how much storage you want.

If you want lots of storage, you probably want a chassis with 8 LFF (or more) drive bays. If you want fast storage instead go for SFF bays. You may be able to get adapters from 3.5" to 2.5" so you can put 2.5" SSDs into 3.5" trays.

Unless you have special requirements, 4GB RAM and two CPUs per VM is enough. Double that to be on the save side, exceeding the minimum requirements. It doesn't matter too much; you can run two VMs on a 2x4 core CPU with 16GB RAM while it performs other services just fine.

If you buy used, memory isn't really an issue. I bought 64GB ECC RAM for my server for EUR 60 a couple days ago after I upgraded it with another board and CPU beacuse I wanted more SATA ports and some other reasons. It's more of a technical issue depending on how memory channels your CPU(s) support. If you have a 4 channel CPU, you want at least 4 RAM sticks, so you end up with 4x16GB because that makes sense considering the price and the desire to have a favourable amount of RAM and because you don't want too many stick because there are only so many RAM slots on the board. (I guess in some years that'll be 64 or 128GB sticks instead and your favourable minimum is 256 or 512GB RAM ...) That means when you have two CPUs, you end up with 128GB which you probably never need. If you do need more just add some more.

For databases, memory can be important as well as fast storage, and you'd probably want to put VMs on SSDs as well. Databases will write data to storage eventually, and that seems to be what slows them down the most, after reading the data from storage. Of course, fast storage doesn't overcome bad database design.

For VMs it doesn't seem to be crucial. I've had VMs (mostly Windows 10) on spinning disks over NFS which are now on SSDs plugged into the server, and that change didn't make much of a difference. If you're daring, you can set 'unsafe' for cache for a VM to speed it up a little ... However, I can imagine that storage matters the more the faster CPUs get. For a Linux VM you can get away with 10GB storage; Windows 10 goes a long way with 64GB. When you don't have so many VMs, you're probably not tight on expensive fast storage, and in that case just make it 128GB. Of course, if your VM needs more storage because it needs to store lots of data and for some reason you don't want to provide that over NFS, you need more storage for the VM.

Windows 11 has ridiculous hardware requirements that prevent it from being installed on most computers. I've seen a video in which someone was able to use the Windows 10 installer instead. I guess it doesn't matter because I expect the hypervisor to take care of that (I haven't tried yet), and it's rather unlikely that I would ever install Windows directly on hardware. Buy a new machine if you want to install Windows 11 directly on hardware.

 

[tim11g]

Thanks for all the suggestions!
I looked at the Dell r730, but it is over $5K which is more that I want to spend. My target is $2-3K. This is a home server with a handful of users, mostly a large file storage system, but databases related to home automation. Also it is only in a 2U Rack format, which doesn't fit my available space. I need a tower.

Existing server has 24T of "internal" drives (in main tower, plus an external eSATA JBOD enclosuere) plus the USB drives used for off-site backup.
Target RAID5 configuration in new system is 5 drives 10T each, RAID 5 effective capacity 40T.

The Dell T340 looks like a candidate. Summary configuration:

Dell PowerEdge T340 8LFF Tower Buy Refurbished DELL POWEREDGE T340 8LFF TOWER Servers | Used DELL POWEREDGE T340 8LFF TOWER — High-Quality, Certified & Affordable
CPU 1x Intel Xeon E-2278G 3.40 GHz 8 Core (One CPU to keep power consumption down)
RAM 2 ea. / 32 GB 2x 16GB DDR4-2666 (PC4-21300) UDIMM
HDD 8 cage 5x HDD 10TB SAS 7.2K 3.5 6Gb/s with Tray caddy 40T effective capacity for file storage.
RAID Hardware Dell PERC H730p 2GB PCIe RAID Controller
Network Card Hardware Dell Intel X540-T2 2x10Gb RJ45 Ports (K7H46)
Remote Administration iDRAC9 Enterprise Remote Administration
BOSS Card Dell BOSS-S1 Card Without SSD (add 2x 1T M.2 SATA SSD to hold OS and supporting files)
TPM Without additional TPM module
Power Supply Capacity: 270W / 495W 2x DELL 495W for Gen Rx13/14
Colocation Without Colocation
Warranty Standard 1-year warranty, including HDD and SSD
$ 2,101

OS environment proposed:
Proxmox hypervisor
VM1 Debian Stable
VM2 Windows 11 or Server Essentials (TBD)

I just ran across newserverlife.com when searching - I'd appreciate suggestions on reputable sources for refurbished servers.

 

[6c352e2e-f287-445a-9cd3-d]

Thanks for all the suggestions!
I looked at the Dell r730, but it is over $5K which is more that I want to spend. My target is $2-3K. This is a home server with a handful of users, mostly a large file storage system, but databases related to home automation. Also it is only in a 2U Rack format, which doesn't fit my available space. I need a tower.

Sorry, I should have said 'a used one'. They don't cost that much:

Dell PowerEdge R730 // 2x E5-2650 v3, 96 GB, 8x LFF, 2x PSU, H730 Mini | eBay

PERC H730 Mini. 2x 750 Watt Hot Plug Netzteil. Es sind keine Festplatten oder SSDs verbaut! Dell PowerEdge R730. Hierbei werden nicht nur Staub und Schmutz, sondern auch Aufkleber und Beschriftungen entfernt.

www.ebay.de

Existing server has 24T of "internal" drives (in main tower, plus an external eSATA JBOD enclosuere) plus the USB drives used for off-site backup.
Target RAID5 configuration in new system is 5 drives 10T each, RAID 5 effective capacity 40T.

A tower: Dell PowerEdge T330 Tower // Xeon E3-1260L v5, 32 GB RAM, H730, 8x LFF, 2x PSU | eBay

The Dell T340 looks like a candidate. Summary configuration:

Dell PowerEdge T340 8LFF Tower Buy Refurbished DELL POWEREDGE T340 8LFF TO
WER Servers | Used DELL POWEREDGE T340 8LFF TOWER — High-Quality, Certified & Affordable
CPU 1x Intel Xeon E-2278G 3.40 GHz 8 Core (One CPU to keep power consumption down)
RAM 2 ea. / 32 GB 2x 16GB DDR4-2666 (PC4-21300) UDIMM
HDD 8 cage 5x HDD 10TB SAS 7.2K 3.5 6Gb/s with Tray caddy 40T effective capacity for file storage.
RAID Hardware Dell PERC H730p 2GB PCIe RAID Controller
Network Card Hardware Dell Intel X540-T2 2x10Gb RJ45 Ports (K7H46)
Remote Administration iDRAC9 Enterprise Remote Administration
BOSS Card Dell BOSS-S1 Card Without SSD (add 2x 1T M.2 SATA SSD to hold OS and supporting files)
TPM Without additional TPM module
Power Supply Capacity: 270W / 495W 2x DELL 495W for Gen Rx13/14
Colocation Without Colocation
Warranty Standard 1-year warranty, including HDD and SSD
$ 2,101

OS environment proposed:
Proxmox hypervisor
VM1 Debian Stable
VM2 Windows 11 or Server Essentials (TBD)

I just ran across newserverlife.com when searching - I'd appreciate suggestions on reputable sources for refurbished servers.

I like what you picked. The configuration looks ok to me and the prices seem fine. I'd add another hard drive and another m.2 slot: You probably want RAID1 for the boot volume; RAID with uneven numbers of disks confines you to certain RAID levels like RAID5. Also, make sure you get the missing trays (not the blanks) because the price is ok and when you have them, you don't need to search for trays later when you want to add more disks.

The CPU is pricy but that's what they cost. The E-2278G makes sense to me because 4 cores is a rather low count now. 6 cores are kinda odd, and the price difference to the E-2288G makes it questionable. And you can always change the CPU later when the prices have come down.

Make sure you get SR-IOV support. I assume this server has that.

Consider the PSUs. If you ever want to put a graphics card in, get the 1100W ones. You'll need to research if you can get suitable power connectors for a GPU for this tower, though. Even if you don't plan on it, maybe still get the 1100W ones because if you want to ever sell this tower, someone else might want to put in a graphics card and it'll sell better. You probably have the option to either use both PSUs at the same time, or to have one as spare, and you can pick which one is the spare. That means that you don't really have to have worry about wasting too much power because of the PSUs running at such a low load. And why shouldn't you play games on it. It's probably fast enough

On a side note: It can be advantageous to use both PSUs simultaneously because when the load increases, a single PSU may get warm and start running its fan faster and get loud. When both PSUs are in use, each of them takes only half the load and doesn't get so warm and remains quiet until the load gets even higher. The estimate says 225W for this tower. If you want keep a PSU as spare, the other one could get loud, so you may go for the bigger PSUs anyway. (I have two 2x1100W in my workstation, probably the same PSU model you'd get, and the fan noise is annoying at about 350W or so when I let a single PSU carry the load. With 465W PSUs and 225W load, it'll probably get loud when only one of them carries the full load.)

I don't know what the reputation of this seller is; I buy things like via German ebay and have great results with that. Gebrauchte Hardware refurbished günstig kaufen | ITSCO is also good. If you're not in Europe it's probably not relevant because the shipping would be too expensive.

If this is what you want you probably can't go wrong. I guess it's total overkill but why not; you can probably run it for the next 20 years without having to replace it

 

[CyklonDX]

The Dell T340 looks like a candidate. Summary configuration:


$ 2,101

For this price you can get r640 from techmikeny

Dell PowerEdge R640 8-Bay SFF Rack-Mountable 1U Server Chassis

Manufacturer: Dell

techmikeny.com

2x Platinum 8168 24c
16x32GB 2666MHz
H730P mini raid controller
2x 400G sas ssd for os
idrac enterprise
intel quad 1gig nic.
2x 1.1kW psu

1 year warranty

for desktop/tower you can find on ebay for similar for 1k usd

Dell PowerEdge T640 Server 2*Xeon Gold 5118 12-Core 2.30GHz CPU 64GB RAM *No HDD | eBay

• (1) - DELL POWEREDGE T640 16-SFF TOWER SERVER. • (1) - DELL 0K5V44 PULSE JACK QUAD PORT 10GB NETWORK ADAPTER. • (8) - 2.5" HARD DRIVE CADDY. • (1) - DVD-ROM DRIVE.

www.ebay.com

(note T340 typically go for below 600 usd)

 

[homeserver78]

I'm looking to replace my obsolete home server with a server + NAS combination. Looking for references where I can learn more, and recommendations for sites and sources.

I'm not highly cost sensitive - Reliability and long service life are my priorities.
I prefer CapEx (initial investment) over OpEx (ongoing costs - subscriptions are only acceptable with extremely compelling justification)
I would like to be conservative of power use - this is a home and not a data center, and I would like to save energy costs

Then I'm going to suggest you take a look at my current dream home server system: EPYC Siena.
E.g.:

• Motherboard ASRock SIENAD8UD-2L2Q
• CPU AMD Epyc 8024P or AMD Epyc 8124P
• 2-6 32 GiB DDR5 ECC RDIMMs

Very expensive IMO, but low idle power (< 30 W reported for MB+CPU+RAM+fans in idle with 8024P here) and a real server platform.

I would also think about not splitting up the server and the NAS to different machines. It's nice to have the backing storage for any VMs on the VM host and avoid the need for very fast networking (although the motherboard above has 2xSFP28 ports; there's also a somewhat cheaper variant with only 2x GbE).

Certainly not sure the above is right for you - just another option to take a look at!

 

[homeserver78]

You could also look at a system based on Ryzen PRO - 4650G, 5650G or similar. These are monolithic CPUs (so low idle power draw) with built-in GPU and they support ECC RAM (UDIMMs). Combined with e.g. an ASRock B550m Steel Legend you have 6x SATA, 2.5 GbE, "inofficial" ECC support, and ... not very many PCIe slots, but a few, at least.

And it's A LOT cheaper than the EPYC Siena system.

(This is what I run today for NAS + VM host home server and it does what I want it to, no complaints! But it's consumer HW and not as fun as the Siena platform. )

 

[6c352e2e-f287-445a-9cd3-d]

for desktop/tower you can find on ebay for similar for 1k usd

Dell PowerEdge T640 Server 2*Xeon Gold 5118 12-Core 2.30GHz CPU 64GB RAM *No HDD | eBay

• (1) - DELL POWEREDGE T640 16-SFF TOWER SERVER. • (1) - DELL 0K5V44 PULSE JACK QUAD PORT 10GB NETWORK ADAPTER. • (8) - 2.5" HARD DRIVE CADDY. • (1) - DVD-ROM DRIVE.

www.ebay.com

(note T340 typically go for below 600 usd)

I wondered about that. Can you get one for about $600 --- or a better price than the $2.1k --- that has the five SAS 10TB hard drives and the relatively expensive CPU?

 

[6c352e2e-f287-445a-9cd3-d]

You could also look at a system based on Ryzen PRO - 4650G, 5650G or similar. These are monolithic CPUs (so low idle power draw) with built-in GPU and they support ECC RAM (UDIMMs). Combined with e.g. an ASRock B550m Steel Legend you have 6x SATA, 2.5 GbE, "inofficial" ECC support, and ... not very many PCIe slots, but a few, at least.

How's the ECC support with these CPUs? I've been reading a while ago that AMD doesn't really support ECC despite you can use ECC RAM with some CPUs. But what's the point when it's not supported?

Only 6xSATA is not enough because you get stuck right away with the 2 system disks and max. 4 data disks. The OP wants to start with a 40TB volume for his data in a RAID5. That won't work out too well with only 6 SATA ports. It's not really fun to plug additional HBAs and 10GB network card(s) into a board that shows it's PCI limitation even before trying that.

2.5GB networking is only for the manufacturers so they can sell you the 10GB stuff you wanted to begin with once the sales of the 2.5GB stuff decline.

This board also seems to be lacking SR-VIO support.

You can get dual PSUs in a standard ATX format if you're lucky. Last time I checked there weren't many, and they started at well over $300. Maybe dual PSUs aren't necessary, but they're sure nice to have.

Board management like IPMI or iDRAC are also missing from this board.

EUR 135 is the lowest price on ebay here for this board. A complete Dell T330 (not T340) costs only EUR 239. Why would someone buy this board?

 

[CyklonDX]

five SAS 10TB

those at most cost 100 usd/ you can get 16TB SAS 4kn disks for 120 usd on ebay.

relatively expensive CPU

its only expensive because there isn't that many in stock, and those cpu's are locked to platforms such as that.
// This cpu is literally i9-9900 with ecc support and half L1 & L2 cache.
~ There's no value in that cpu, unless this system is for games only (then there's also no value -> as desktop zen3/4/5 will be much better for same price, and they also support ecc based on mobo - ryzen ecc support is based on mobo rather than on cpu's.).