Unneeded home server upgrade I don't need but want to do

[Octopuss]

What do you need/want to know about getting XCP-ng up and running? I haven't read the entire thread, but getting this going is no big deal at all, especially if it is just a single host on a single network.

Migrating your VMs might be the harder part in this process.

I have the official documentation bookmarked somewhere, but what I know for a fact I will struggle with is configuring the networking. I know this took me a few days with ESXi (a ten minutes job for someone who knows what is he doing).

I will be redoing everything from scratch. I don't trust importing anything over to a completely different platform. That's not going to happen.

 

[Greg_E]

How complex is your networking and how many physical interfaces are you using to achieve this?

I haven't really gone too wild on my systems, so might not be of assistance, but getting from installer to having Xen Orchestra from sources running on the management network is pretty easy, I have some guides I wrote for myself. Still working on a new one using XO Lite to get things going.

 

[Octopuss]

It's almost ridiculously simple.
pfSense router->managed switch->everything. The server is connected to the switch via a single port just like anything else. But I vaguely remember the ESXi hell where I had to configure something called management interface and whatnot, and nothing made any sense to me (which is not that surprising, because I really am struggling even with networking basics).

 

[Greg_E]

Sending you a PM for XCP-ng

Yes you need the management interface up first to mange the hypervisor, you can also attach your VMs to this interface so that you only need a single "network" (vlan). It's not ideal in a production environment, but for a lab or home it can be just fine and normally is just a starting point while you learn.

[edit] attached a couple documents that will help, my config using XO Lite seems to be too big to attach

 

[Octopuss]

I am a total AMD convert, but seeing the lack of options in this area, and being completely out of the loop in the Intel ecosystem, can anyone more knowledgeable tell me whether there is something interesting out there, CPU-wise, that doesn't cost a kidney, is relatively low power (at least somewhat lower than the current Xeon E-2136) at the same core count, and there is decent amount of server-like motherboards (meaning IPMI is present at least) to choose from? I'm totally not against second hand stuff btw, but I don't want to buy something just as ancient as the server runs now. The goal would primarily be to have lower power consumption and have PCIe 4.0 lanes. In Micro-ATX form factor.

 

[nexox]

I think there are LGA1700 Intel CPUs that can get you what you want (there's a big thread) but I'm mostly familiar with the full-size Xeons, which aren't particularly low power if you want PCIe 4.0.

 

[Octopuss]

The Xeon 2136 has 80W TDP, and I guess you can't get much lower in this class.
And holy shit, Intel is not shy of introducing new socket every two months or something. I tried looking at some wiki pages and got dizzy within a minute. Totally lost.

 

[nexox]

TDP doesn't tell you anything about actual power consumption, home servers are idle or nearly-idle most of the time, where they will consume far less than the rated TDP, also there are some i series CPUs that support ECC, you don't need a Xeon.

 

[Octopuss]

Well yeah, but you can still kind of compare them if one has TDP 80 and one say 65. But yeah, desktop Ryzens do support ECC and are much cheaper. After a quick google Intel is the same story it was several years ago. I'll stick with the original plan. It's just sad the motherboard options are pretty much limited to two right now (maybe three? - there was a Gigabyte board I believe)

 

[kapone]

I’m lost. Where’s this going??

 

[Octopuss]

In several hypothetical directions, some of which might be eventually realized. I was just browsing throught some hardware and got curious what current Intel low core Xeons situation looks like. Turned out not in any way that would interest me. That's all.

 

[nexox]

Well yeah, but you can still kind of compare them if one has TDP 80 and one say 65.

Not really, there have been plenty of CPUs with lower TDP and higher real-world power consumption, even within the same processor family / generation. TDP helps you select a PSU and CPU cooler and that's pretty much it.

 

[kapone]

In several hypothetical directions, some of which might be eventually realized. I was just browsing throught some hardware and got curious what current Intel low core Xeons situation looks like. Turned out not in any way that would interest me. That's all.

What do you mean “low core”?? 4/6/8/more??

You seem to be chasing a ghost.

- Intel‘s idle power consumption hasn’t really changed in the last 10 years, regardless of the number of cores.
- AMD’s idle power consumption has… arguably become worse over the last 10 years, but…their core count has gone up within the same envelope.

so, the question (and where I’m lost…) is, what are we looking for ??

 

[nexox]

I think if I was interested in a system with so few PCIe lanes and the inevitable messing around with ASPM to actually achieve low power consumption with a high speed NIC and such I would go for a Core Ultra 5 235, but that seems awfully expensive compared to the Xeon Gold 6262 I have in my ebay cart.

 

[Blue4130]

What do you mean “low core”?? 4/6/8/more??

You seem to be chasing a ghost.

- Intel‘s idle power consumption hasn’t really changed in the last 10 years, regardless of the number of cores.
- AMD’s idle power consumption has… arguably become worse over the last 10 years, but…their core count has gone up within the same envelope.

so, the question (and where I’m lost…) is, what are we looking for ??

A mythical computer that doesn't exist.

 

[nilfisk_urd]

You could use a ASRock Rack W880D4ID-2Q or W880D4U-2L2Q with an Intel Core 2 Ultra 235/245/265 CPU.
Then you have dual 25GbE Ethernet with ASPM support, low idle power, up to 256 GB ECC RAM and you can connect up to 9 nvme-drives.

 

[Octopuss]

What do you mean “low core”?? 4/6/8/more??

You seem to be chasing a ghost.

- Intel‘s idle power consumption hasn’t really changed in the last 10 years, regardless of the number of cores.
- AMD’s idle power consumption has… arguably become worse over the last 10 years, but…their core count has gone up within the same envelope.

so, the question (and where I’m lost…) is, what are we looking for ??

Yes, exactly that. More like 6 cores max.
Basically, the baseline is the current Xeon I have from 2017 or what. I would like - if it's possible (it might not) - to achieve lower power consumption than that while maintaining the core count. And while having faster PCIe (then the limited amount of lanes wouldn't really be a problem).
Remember I primarily wanted to upgrade the SSDs, but the PCIe 3.0 bus makes it a bit of a pointless (even if not impossible) procedure.

 

[etorix]

So is there any such card that doesn't cost more than say $100 equivalent that lets me connect 4xM.2 SSDs?

Yes. If you only need 4 M.2, an Asus HyperM2, or the Shenzen "no-name" equivalent ,will just do that, together with a Ryzen CPU (or EPYC 4000) which supports x4x4x4x4 bifurcation on the PCIe x16 slot.
Active cards with a PCIe switch let you use any CPU (including Intel or Ryzen APU, which can only do x8x4x4), put these 4 M.2 in a x8 slot and/or connect more than 4 M.2.

you can still kind of compare them if one has TDP 80 and one say 65

Not even. You can compare across AMD CPUs because they have some consistency: Maximal power is 135% of TDP. Intel CPUs used to have max. powet at 150% TDP, but now there are some which top at 250-300% TDP, which is totally insane. No comparison was ever possible between Intel and AMD because the two actually define "TDP" differently.

Now, as said, max power is largely irrelevant; what matters most to a NAS is idle power, and idle power is totally unrelated to TDP.
On this metric, Intel CPUs are actually excellent: Your E-2136 (and pretty much any Core or Xeon E) idles lower than any Ryzen CPU—because the I/O die has high idle power. For low idle power on the AMD side, you have to look at Ryzen APUs with a monolithic die, which then brings two caveats: Only the PRO APUs support ECC UDIMM (which may or may not matter to you), and bifurcation is limited to x8x4x4 (meaning you do need a PCIe switch card for your 4 M.2, coming with extra cost, say $200 for PCIe 3.0 or $800 for PCIe 4.0, and extra power draw).

 

[nilfisk_urd]

Yes, exactly that. More like 6 cores max.
Basically, the baseline is the current Xeon I have from 2017 or what. I would like - if it's possible (it might not) - to achieve lower power consumption than that while maintaining the core count. And while having faster PCIe (then the limited amount of lanes wouldn't really be a problem).
Remember I primarily wanted to upgrade the SSDs, but the PCIe 3.0 bus makes it a bit of a pointless (even if not impossible) procedure.

Why limit yourself to a Xeon? On a mainboard with a W680 or W880 chipset you get ECC support on "normal" Intel core CPUs.

 

[nexox]

Yes, exactly that. More like 6 cores max.

Core counts from 2017 aren't the same as 2025 - my ultra-light laptop has 12 or 14 cores (I can't remember if some are SMT) of three different flavors in a CPU that draws something like 15W peak. Those E cores really help on a home server because the P cores can go into the deepest sleep under normal workloads and save more power.