Hi all. I’m yet another old IT guy building his first server. I’m planning on running Proxmox with the following VMs:
1) Mint, SnapRAID, Plex Media Server and the usual add-ons, to transcode video (from BD rips to youtube) to 5 devices simultaneously, plus act as a Samba share for 5 Windows machines
2) Ubuntu, a Video Management Server (VMS), which will be managing 16-20 2MP (1080p) security camera video streams and requires something like Atom-i3+ 4GB RAM by itself
3) Windows, with a couple light applications (PlayOn, PlayLater) and hopefully nothing more
4) A UTM, probably Sophos
5) Maybe OSSIM, just for good measures
I’m going with a 3U chassis, most likely a Supermicro 836B, as I like the 16+2 drive capacity. I think the X10SRH-CLN4F motherboard is a perfect match, and I’m leaning toward using a E5-2630L v3 with it, possibly with 32GB of RAM, at least to start.
I’ll be using the new HGST 6TB drives (got a deal I couldn’t pass up), and though they are probably unnecessarily fast (7200rpm) with SnapRAID they will mostly be offline so I’m hoping I won’t spin the electric meter similarly.
My goal is to have a system that I won’t have to significantly modify for at least 5 years, so I want to go with capable core components now, but I also want to keep power use down as much as reasonable.
So, Q1: Do my selections look about right for what I’m trying to do? Feel free to suggest changes if needed.
If so, Q2: How do I get the right chassis and backplane? As many hours as I’ve spent on SM’s site, their methodology remains Greek to me. Not that I want to order a new chassis directly from them, I’d much rather grab something off eBay given how much I already have to spend. But I still haven’t found a magic decoder ring that tells me what a T, E, Q or whatever variant is, nor what the numeric portion of the chassis model denotes, and without that I’m not sure what to shop for on eBay.
Then there’s the cryptic note on the MB page that says “To support the new generation Intel® Xeon® processor-based motherboards, Revision K chassis is recommended.” I couldn’t find anything that explains that either.
Q3: As far as heat sinks go, would I be better off with an active one (SNK-P0048AP4), or should I stick with a passive one (SNK-P0048PS)? The MB has 6 fan connectors so it’s easy to go active but it’s 20mm shorter than the passive one and means one more power eater. I also can’t tell definitively if either or both will fit inside the air shroud, guessing the answer is a ‘yes’.
Q4: Ok this is probably a dumb question, but are all SM power supplies interchangeable? I have my eyes on the 740W 80 Plus Platinum 1U (PWS-741P-1R) as appropriate for this build, but again I couldn’t find anything to confirm it would work.
Thanks in advance for your input!
Tony
1) Mint, SnapRAID, Plex Media Server and the usual add-ons, to transcode video (from BD rips to youtube) to 5 devices simultaneously, plus act as a Samba share for 5 Windows machines
2) Ubuntu, a Video Management Server (VMS), which will be managing 16-20 2MP (1080p) security camera video streams and requires something like Atom-i3+ 4GB RAM by itself
3) Windows, with a couple light applications (PlayOn, PlayLater) and hopefully nothing more
4) A UTM, probably Sophos
5) Maybe OSSIM, just for good measures
I’m going with a 3U chassis, most likely a Supermicro 836B, as I like the 16+2 drive capacity. I think the X10SRH-CLN4F motherboard is a perfect match, and I’m leaning toward using a E5-2630L v3 with it, possibly with 32GB of RAM, at least to start.
I’ll be using the new HGST 6TB drives (got a deal I couldn’t pass up), and though they are probably unnecessarily fast (7200rpm) with SnapRAID they will mostly be offline so I’m hoping I won’t spin the electric meter similarly.
My goal is to have a system that I won’t have to significantly modify for at least 5 years, so I want to go with capable core components now, but I also want to keep power use down as much as reasonable.
So, Q1: Do my selections look about right for what I’m trying to do? Feel free to suggest changes if needed.
If so, Q2: How do I get the right chassis and backplane? As many hours as I’ve spent on SM’s site, their methodology remains Greek to me. Not that I want to order a new chassis directly from them, I’d much rather grab something off eBay given how much I already have to spend. But I still haven’t found a magic decoder ring that tells me what a T, E, Q or whatever variant is, nor what the numeric portion of the chassis model denotes, and without that I’m not sure what to shop for on eBay.
Then there’s the cryptic note on the MB page that says “To support the new generation Intel® Xeon® processor-based motherboards, Revision K chassis is recommended.” I couldn’t find anything that explains that either.
Q3: As far as heat sinks go, would I be better off with an active one (SNK-P0048AP4), or should I stick with a passive one (SNK-P0048PS)? The MB has 6 fan connectors so it’s easy to go active but it’s 20mm shorter than the passive one and means one more power eater. I also can’t tell definitively if either or both will fit inside the air shroud, guessing the answer is a ‘yes’.
Q4: Ok this is probably a dumb question, but are all SM power supplies interchangeable? I have my eyes on the 740W 80 Plus Platinum 1U (PWS-741P-1R) as appropriate for this build, but again I couldn’t find anything to confirm it would work.
Thanks in advance for your input!
Tony
