Recommendation sought for home server

[krosswindz]

I am looking to build a server which will be running a few VMs. I am thinking of using KVM as the hypervisor to run my VMs on top.

1) A storage server VM. This VM will primary serve my media library over NFS/CIFS. Also I want to run software RAID on this VM to server as my backup server for my personal files. This same VM will also host my central source repository. I am thinking of allocating 2 virtual cores and 4-8GB of memory depending on how much memory I have on my host.
2) A buildbot VM. This VM will serve as CAT system for projects I am working on. I am thinking of allocating 2 virtual cores and 4-8GB of memory depending on my host memory.
3) A Windows VM. I will be needing a Windows system for some s/w that I have which seem to only work on Windows and have no Linux replacements. Will assign this host 2 virtual cores and 4-8GB of memory depending on my host memory.
4) A Linux VM. This VM will host a 32-bit chroot for compiling 32-bit applications natively and a QEMU to build ARM applications. I am thinking of allocating 4-8GB of memory depending on my host memory along with 2 virtual cores.

Most of the VMs will not be active at all times which is my primary reason for building this server so that I can consolidate all my work on to a single server. All this while I have been spoiled by having numerous resources available for me at work and not having to manage any of them.

I was thinking of getting the newer Haswell CPU as that would greatly reduce my power consumption. I am hoping to use a micro-ATX form factor mother board that support upto 32GB of RAM. I might initially start of with 16GB and then move to 32GB of RAM if I feel I need to add more memory. I did some research and figure that only the E3-12x5/8 v3 CPUs have integrated GPU, that will avoid me having to buy a discrete GPU. If I want to use the integrated GPU on the Xeon then I am bound to get a motherboard with the c226 chipset. I see that the other c222/c224 chipset dont support the integrated GPU.

I am still not sure if I should get a Xeon E3 or a Core i7 as the price difference isnt much but on the other hand the Core i7 have lot more option in terms of motherboard when compared to the Xeon E3 and my requirement of trying to use a Micro ATX to buy a smaller case.

In terms of hard drives my plan is to have use a 2.5 Sata drive as the boot drive and to provide the backing storage for the VMs. For my backup RAID system I plan to use my existing s/w raid1 hard drives. I also plan to have a two drives for my media library which would just be s/w raid0 using 2 drives.

Based on this I am still wondering what will be a good choice

CPU: Xeon E3-1245v3 or Core i7 4770
RAM: 16/32GB DDR3-1600
Motherboard: Micro-ATX with 6-Sata ports that supports integrated GPU
Chassis: A chassis that can hold 6 drives.

I really appreciate suggestions. I have never built a server before but I am really interested in building one from scratch.

 

[StephD]

I'd pick the Xeon for ECC memory support. I'd go with one without integrated GPU unless you need that kind of graphics performance. Also, I wouldn't bother running a storage VM.

 

[Patrick]

I think your plan to stay on a mainstream platform is a sound one. One other idea would be to look at a smaller ATX enclosure. That would expand options greatly since you are likely looking at a C226 motherboard.

Also, for what you are doing, have you considered even looking at Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge. Some general league of performance and only slightly higher power but you can sometimes score deals on the parts. Just an idea if you wanted to explore.

 

[krosswindz]

I'd pick the Xeon for ECC memory support. I'd go with one without integrated GPU unless you need that kind of graphics performance. Also, I wouldn't bother running a storage VM.

I am also leaning towards the Xeon for ECC memory support. The main reason I was selecting the integrated GPU was for occasionally re-encoding videos to x264 to prevent my discs from being scratched. Kids tend to scratch their discs a lot, with encoding them to x264 I have the ability to not worry about damaged discs.

Would you advice running the storage servers on the host instead of a VM then?

I think your plan to stay on a mainstream platform is a sound one. One other idea would be to look at a smaller ATX enclosure. That would expand options greatly since you are likely looking at a C226 motherboard.

Also, for what you are doing, have you considered even looking at Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge. Some general league of performance and only slightly higher power but you can sometimes score deals on the parts. Just an idea if you wanted to explore.

I didnt look much into Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge, but if I can get a good deal I am definitely in for switching to it.

 

[mackle]

A cheap low end Nvidia GPU will greatly speed up x264 encoding. Any GPU with Pure Video 5. Nvidia PureVideo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[poutnik]

At home, I'm quite happy running OmniOS with napp-it as my storage platform (NAS). On top of that, I've installed phpvirtualbox which I use to run the few Virtual machines I have. It's the best setup for me. I have also tried virtualizing the NAS with both ESXi and ProxMox, but it didn't work that well. I'm running everything on Intel S1200 board, Xeon E3-1230 (v1), ECC RAM...

 

[StephD]

Would you advice running the storage servers on the host instead of a VM then?

I read virtual storage appliances are only needed to share storage accross VMs in ESX so yes, this would be easier/cleaner/better.

A cheap low end Nvidia GPU will greatly speed up x264 encoding. Any GPU with Pure Video 5. Nvidia PureVideo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That is good to know. Thanks.

At home, I'm quite happy running OmniOS with napp-it as my storage platform (NAS).

This seems like a popular choice. I'd consider this myself if I was out for an AIO config.

 

[rubylaser]

A cheap low end Nvidia GPU will greatly speed up x264 encoding. Any GPU with Pure Video 5. Nvidia PureVideo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just to clear this up a bit... Pure Video provides hardware acceleration to decode videos not to accelerate hardware encoding. This allows lower end hardware to playback h.264 video using only the GPU.

In the past, there were some CUDA based encoders like Badaboom, but those fizzled out. Earlier in 2013, Nvidia announced NVENC which is an onboard h.264 encoder. I have not seen the quality of the encoded video using NVENC, but in the past, GPU encoding has always struggled to produce the same quality as x264. I don't want to get off topic, but I wanted to make sure that StephD knew that PureVideo doesn't not provide h.264 encoding capabilities.

 

[StephD]

Just to clear this up a bit... Pure Video provides hardware acceleration to decode videos not to accelerate hardware encoding. This allows lower end hardware to playback h.264 video using only the GPU.

In the past, there were some CUDA based encoders like Badaboom, but those fizzled out. Earlier in 2013, Nvidia announced NVENC which is an onboard h.264 encoder. I have not seen the quality of the encoded video using NVENC, but in the past, GPU encoding has always struggled to produce the same quality as x264. I don't want to get off topic, but I wanted to make sure that StephD knew that PureVideo doesn't not provide h.264 encoding capabilities.

Well this is appreciated since indeed, I was under the impression encoding capabilities were provided. Thanks !

 

[StephD]

At home, I'm quite happy running OmniOS with napp-it as my storage platform (NAS). On top of that, I've installed phpvirtualbox which I use to run the few Virtual machines I have. It's the best setup for me. .

I did some research as I might be starting some AIO project myself soon and I don't quite understand the need for napp-it since it seems OmniOS itself provides most of the features napp-it does. Could you please explain what you use it for ? Thanks !

 

[rubylaser]

I did some research as I might be starting some AIO project myself soon and I don't quite understand the need for napp-it since it seems OmniOS itself provides most of the features napp-it does. Could you please explain what you use it for ? Thanks !

napp-it provides a relatively simple, web based interface for managing many of the aspects of a ZFS fileserver on OmniOS. For example, creating pool, managing disks, setting up SMART monitoring, zfs scrubs, emailing, etc. If you aren't very familiar with Solaris based operating systems, napp-it can really help ease the learning process. All that being said, it doesn't do anything that you can't manage yourself from the command line.

 

[StephD]

napp-it provides a relatively simple, web based interface for managing many of the aspects of a ZFS fileserver on OmniOS. For example, creating pool, managing disks, setting up SMART monitoring, zfs scrubs, emailing, etc. If you aren't very familiar with Solaris based operating systems, napp-it can really help ease the learning process. All that being said, it doesn't do anything that you can't manage yourself from the command line.

I like the command line a lot and I'll probably be managing the whole thing from it at some point but in the begining, I'll gracefully use all the ease I can get from available mangement tools. Thanks a lot for the detailed answer !

 

[poutnik]

rubylaser nailed it pretty well. In the (3? 4?) years I have used various Solaris flavors starting with opensolaris, I have learned a bit of the command line specifics for solaris (I'm very well at home in linux for more than 10 years), but napp-it makes managing and quickly checking the server easier. It's not needed. If you're happy with command line, than you can stay with it. Also, you could forget phpvirtualbox if you want to stay with command line, and either use omnios' inbuilt KVM virtualization, or disable it and install VirtualBox...

 

[StephD]

rubylaser nailed it pretty well. In the (3? 4?) years I have used various Solaris flavors starting with opensolaris, I have learned a bit of the command line specifics for solaris (I'm very well at home in linux for more than 10 years), but napp-it makes managing and quickly checking the server easier. It's not needed. If you're happy with command line, than you can stay with it. Also, you could forget phpvirtualbox if you want to stay with command line, and either use omnios' inbuilt KVM virtualization, or disable it and install VirtualBox...

I'm new to ZFS but browsing STH forums makes me feel like it's time to take a walk away from Raidsoft/LVM/ext4. I initially had plans for running ZOL, NFS and KVM on a CentOS Workstation for hosting a couple of client systems in a lab environment but now it seems like OmniOS could be my ticket for a nice AIO home server. I guess I just spend too much time at work managing VMware systems and need some fresh Opensource air ! Thanks guys, for building such a supportive and inspirational community !

 

[krosswindz]

I was thinking of just using s/w raid1 and ext4 for storage export it as NFS/CIFS. I am very comfortable managing linux and my plan was to use debian wheezy as my host. How is the performance of ZFS on linux. I am planning to run KVM so Solaris out of the question.

 

[StephD]

I was thinking of just using s/w raid1 and ext4 for storage export it as NFS/CIFS. I am very comfortable managing linux and my plan was to use debian wheezy as my host.

That was pretty much my plan too (except CentOS).

How is the performance of ZFS on linux.

I read it's coming but not quite there. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

I am planning to run KVM so Solaris out of the question.

I think you're looking for OmniOS.

 

[poutnik]

I have never tried ZFS on Linux, but have recently compared FreeNAS (v 9.2) with OmniOS on desktop grade HW (Asus AM3+ board, AMD Athlon 235e, Intel network card, M1015 storage card, 8GB ECC RAM). On this same hardware, FreeNAS delivered worse performance while serving iSCSI discs to one client, NFS shares to several clients, and Samba shares to one client. The transfer rates were noticeably slower, NFS transfers even got stuck for several seconds. I did not do any rigirous benchmarking, though.

 

[krosswindz]

I am curios about the cooling for the Xeon processors. I will be mostly buying a retail package of the processor if they are available. Do the retail packaging come with a stock heatsink and fan like regular desktop processor. Would one need additional cooling or would that be sufficient.

 

[MiniKnight]

I think the retail E3's do. The E5's do not.

 

[krosswindz]

I have decided to go with the E3-1245v3 Xeon processor. I have been looking for suitable motherboards. I am trying to decide on the motherboard. I was looking for a micro atx form factor motherboard as I will not be adding any additional hardware. I figured that since both ATX and micro ATX motherboards come with 5/6 SATA ports, going for a smaller form factor motherboard can help me in selecting a smaller case. When looking for the motherboards in the micro ATX form factor with the c226 chipset I have to either go with the Intel motherboards
1) Intel motherboard comparison ARK | Compare Intel® Products
2) Super Micro X10SLH-F Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10SLH-F
3) Tyan S5535-HE TYAN - Motherboards_S5535-HE_S5535AG2NR-HE

I was wondering which would be recommended. I like the feature set of the Super Micro board. Any recommendation or other boards that I might look into.