Build’s Name: To Be Determined
Operating System/ Storage Platform: Windows Server 2016
CPU: AMD EPYC 7401P
Motherboard: Gigabyte MZ31-AR0
Chassis: Rosewill RSV-L4500 (Replacing all fans with Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 3000 PWM)
Drives: Re-using a few drives I have (4 x 3TB WD Reds in RAID 5), 8TB WD Red for backups, 2 TB Samsung something or other for surveillance footage, 1 TB Samsung 860 Pro SSD
RAM: 8 X Crucial 16GB DDR4-2666 RDIMM (CT16G4RFD8266) - 128 GB total
Add-in Cards: To Be Determined
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 850 T2, 80+ TITANIUM 850W
Usage Profile: I use this box for three main purposes. The first is a Plex Media Server. I was having some difficulty transcoding 4k content with my old system, a 4790k, so decided to build something better. The second primary use is for a security camera surveillance system running Blue Iris. The third purpose is that it serves as my NAS. I currently have nine Hikvision hard wired network cameras in and outside of my house. Blue Iris eats up CPU cycles pretty good unless you are willing to write direct-to-disk and lose some of the benefits such ash re-encoding and text / timestamp overlays. The cameras all do this, but I am picky about how the text looks and each camera does it a little differently.
I also will be running a variety of VM's on this machine, one for layer 2 VPN access to my home, a Nagios XI VM, and hopefully sometime soon, a PFSense VM that I can use to route gigabit+ internet speeds. Just waiting for Comcast to pull the trigger on either their 2 Gbps offering or docsis 3.1 in my area. I'll also be setting up a full development environment to do my software development from (day job).
For the case, I was searching for something pretty generic and specific. I wanted a lot of space and cooling, no backplanes to reduce failure points and increase future flexibility, support for standard ATX power supplies, and rack mountable. I have a small rack I plan on mounting it in. I'll be making some minor modifications to the case as there are a few things I don't like about it, but that's what you get for the price. Custom cases were going to run $800 to $1000, money I'd rather spend on the hardware inside at this time.
For the motherboard, I really love Gigabyte motherboards and I primarily purchase from Gibabyte. I was lucky to see that they have released what I consider a perfect board for my wants and needs. the standard E-ATX form factor and dual SFP+ modules on-board are huge wins to me.
For the CPU, I was trying to balance cost vs performance and from all the info out there thus far, the 7401P seemed to be the best bang for the buck. Given the amount of cores they are cramming into a single CPU now, I was not really on the market, or interested, in a dual-socket system. I've built them in the past but of course that was over a DECADE ago when two cores on a CPU was a pretty cool thing to have.
For the memory, that was a hard one for me. There wasn't a lot of information out there but I got some help from a few people on this site and decided on what was the best memory to use. I found a good deal on what I purchased and decided that it wasn't worth anymore research time given the minor difference I might see for my workloads.
Everything is all ordered except a few small parts. I'll post pictures and updates as I go through the process. Merry Christmas to me!
Operating System/ Storage Platform: Windows Server 2016
CPU: AMD EPYC 7401P
Motherboard: Gigabyte MZ31-AR0
Chassis: Rosewill RSV-L4500 (Replacing all fans with Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 3000 PWM)
Drives: Re-using a few drives I have (4 x 3TB WD Reds in RAID 5), 8TB WD Red for backups, 2 TB Samsung something or other for surveillance footage, 1 TB Samsung 860 Pro SSD
RAM: 8 X Crucial 16GB DDR4-2666 RDIMM (CT16G4RFD8266) - 128 GB total
Add-in Cards: To Be Determined
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 850 T2, 80+ TITANIUM 850W
Usage Profile: I use this box for three main purposes. The first is a Plex Media Server. I was having some difficulty transcoding 4k content with my old system, a 4790k, so decided to build something better. The second primary use is for a security camera surveillance system running Blue Iris. The third purpose is that it serves as my NAS. I currently have nine Hikvision hard wired network cameras in and outside of my house. Blue Iris eats up CPU cycles pretty good unless you are willing to write direct-to-disk and lose some of the benefits such ash re-encoding and text / timestamp overlays. The cameras all do this, but I am picky about how the text looks and each camera does it a little differently.
I also will be running a variety of VM's on this machine, one for layer 2 VPN access to my home, a Nagios XI VM, and hopefully sometime soon, a PFSense VM that I can use to route gigabit+ internet speeds. Just waiting for Comcast to pull the trigger on either their 2 Gbps offering or docsis 3.1 in my area. I'll also be setting up a full development environment to do my software development from (day job).
For the case, I was searching for something pretty generic and specific. I wanted a lot of space and cooling, no backplanes to reduce failure points and increase future flexibility, support for standard ATX power supplies, and rack mountable. I have a small rack I plan on mounting it in. I'll be making some minor modifications to the case as there are a few things I don't like about it, but that's what you get for the price. Custom cases were going to run $800 to $1000, money I'd rather spend on the hardware inside at this time.
For the motherboard, I really love Gigabyte motherboards and I primarily purchase from Gibabyte. I was lucky to see that they have released what I consider a perfect board for my wants and needs. the standard E-ATX form factor and dual SFP+ modules on-board are huge wins to me.
For the CPU, I was trying to balance cost vs performance and from all the info out there thus far, the 7401P seemed to be the best bang for the buck. Given the amount of cores they are cramming into a single CPU now, I was not really on the market, or interested, in a dual-socket system. I've built them in the past but of course that was over a DECADE ago when two cores on a CPU was a pretty cool thing to have.
For the memory, that was a hard one for me. There wasn't a lot of information out there but I got some help from a few people on this site and decided on what was the best memory to use. I found a good deal on what I purchased and decided that it wasn't worth anymore research time given the minor difference I might see for my workloads.
Everything is all ordered except a few small parts. I'll post pictures and updates as I go through the process. Merry Christmas to me!
