Low Power Home Server Build

[Daniels25143]

Build’s Name: Home Server Build
Operating System/ Storage Platform: ESXi with FreeNAS, pfsense potentially with web cache, Windows 7, and Windows 10 Hosts.
CPU: Need Input,
Motherboard: Need Input
Chassis: Fractal Design Define R4 (Max ATX sized motherboard)
Drives: USB Boot for ESXi, Samsung EVO 850 512GB for Windows 7 and Windows 10 Host, 5 x 3 TB WD Red for NAS Storage to start, plan to add SSD's for ZIL and L2ARC if needed.
RAM: 32 GB ECC
Add-in Cards: IBM M1215
Power Supply: Antec 500W
Other Bits:
Usage Profile:
-NAS using radz2. NAS will only be used for file hosting to 5-10 devices for media playback.
pfsense for router/web proxy/VPN termination for 2-3 devices.
-Media VM: Windows 7 to perform OTA TV Recording, TV Transcoding to mp4, Plex Server, Media Ripping as needed.
-Windows 10 VM to remote into while traveling if I need a windows workstation. Other information… Server will sit idle most of the day, so would like idle power consumption to be as low as possible. My home network is 1 Gb and wireless, no need to go to 10 Gb. I'm currently using a I5-2500K with 16 GB of RAM to do everything listed above with the exception of pfsense, so I know my hardware requirements aren't very high, but existing equipment is starting to give me trouble so time to replace it.

 

[hjfr]

For low power : Atom C2000 (like C2750) (little aging) or if you need more perf: Xeon D-1500.

 

[Patrick]

To me there are a few good options.
1. You could go with an ultra low power Atom C2750 server such as the ASRock Rack mITX motherboard used in the FreeNAS Mini / Mini XL https://www.amazon.com/ASRock-Motherboard-C2750D4I-COLOR-BOX/dp/B00HIDQG6E/

2. Intel Xeon E3 - V3, V4 and V5 are good options. For V3/ V4 the Supermicro X10SL7-F was very popular. It comes with a LSI SAS2 HBA that can work well for disks and cost wise it is not much more than the M1215. If you wanted to go E3 V5, the X11SSH-LN4F may be a good option for you.

3. Xeon D - For your use, I might aim for something around a D-1528 such as this.

4. I think another really cool option could be going low-end E5 v3/ V4. Motherboard wise you could get Supermicro ATX DDR4 LGA 2011 Motherboards X10SRH-CLN4F-O | eBay which has extra NICs and a LSI SAS3008 which is equivalent to the M1215. This will be higher-power but gives the best expandability by far.

 

[PigLover]

Or - if you do want to go the low-power E5 route - take a look at this MB: Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10SRM-F

It keeps you in a mATX form factor (which I really like even if you have a case that can take full ATX). With 10 SATA3 + M.2 x4 it easily covers your current disk requirements without the HBA or on-board LSI chipset and you can still add the HBA later if you need it. You said idle power is is an issue and with this approach you'll save 15-20w just by keeping the LSI chipset out of the build, easily giving you back headroom in the power budget to accept the E5 chip (which actually idles really well). Only downside is that you are limited to 4 DIMM slots for memory, but for your current spec that won't present a challenge.

 

[nk215]

What's your budget? Do you already have the memory or the M1215 card?

if your current I5-2500K setup does almost everything you wanted (but pfsense), would you open to the idea of just getting something very cheap TS140 with an i3 for just pfsense?

Unless current performance is not enough, it's very hard to recoup the upgrade cost via power saving.

I5-2600k does not support vt-d, so you are currently run FreeNAS w/o pci pass-thru?

 

[Daniels25143]

Thanks for the input everyone. I'm a little hesitant to go the Atom route, as I'd like to have a little headroom to do additional VM's as necessary. I'm leaning more towards the Xeon E3 as that looks like that will have plenty of performance without emptying my wallet.

Question, Can you do hardware passthrough of the hard drives on X10SRM-F? I thought you needed an HBA or build in Raid to do that in ESXi.

My budget is about $750 for Motherboard, CPU, RAM, and HBA (if needed). My current setup is starting to get a little flaky, so want to replace what I've got with something that's going to work more reliably. I'm currently using Server 2012 with storage spaces, and it's performance isn't that great at times. I like the idea of using zfs, especially with the built in features to limit the amount of bitrot, as I have a lot of family pictures that I'm backing up to the server that I'd like to not get slowly destroyed over time.
I'd like to keep my setup to one box, as I'm in an apartment and need to keep the wife happy!