Custom build to replace my Microserver N40L

[Thomas_VDB]

Longtime FreeNAS-lover here.
Also sysadmin at a small business, where I'm using a Supermicro server with Freenas as SAN (iSCSI) for 2 ESXi hosts.

At home, I've been using a Microserver N40L for ages, and although it has been running rock-solid, it's time for a replacement.
I'm using it mainly for SMB, Nextcloud (jail) and PiHole (Ubuntu VM)

I want to switch the 4x 3.5" 2TB disks from my old server to the new server.

Requirements are similar or less power consumption than N40L, more cpu power, and a pricetag that doesn't break the bank.
I like the Microserver 4x hot swap disk-feature, so I'm thinking of a similar setup.

I was thinking of this :
- Motherboard + atom processor : SuperMicro A2sdi-4c-hln4f (https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/A2SDi-4C-HLN4F)
- Casing : Fractal Design Node 804 (https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/node/node-804/black/)
- Memory (non ECC) : 2400MHz DDR4 Non-ECC CL17 DIMM 2Rx8 (KVR24N17D8/16) (https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/KVR24N17D8_16.pdf)
- Power supply : Silverstone SFX Series ST45SF (https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=253&area=en)
- Boot drive : recover my 80 GB Intel Sata SSD
- Data drives : recover my 4x 2TB Western Digital Red 3.5" Hard disks

As I see it, this build will be a lot more powerful and will consume less power.
Don't know if it is the best bang-for buck.

Suggestions are welcome!
Thomas.

 

[Inxsible]

I like the Microserver 4x hot swap disk-feature,

I don't think the Node 804 has a hot swap feature at all. Secondly, your chosen case can support mATX, why go for a mini-ITX board? They don't allow much in way of expansion down the road as they are limited to 1 PCI slot.

Memory (non ECC)

Why?

and a pricetag that doesn't break the bank.

Have you considered going the used route -- especially if you are in North America?

Finally, if you are bent upon a mini-ITX, then why even buy a new case? Just replace the motherboard and RAM in your existing N40L. That would keep your costs down (since no case and PSU needed) and also keep your hot-swap feature available.

 

[Thomas_VDB]

I don't think the Node 804 has a hot swap feature at all.

=> You are correct. I mean I like the cube-design.

Secondly, your chosen case can support mATX, why go for a mini-ITX board? They don't allow much in way of expansion down the road as they are limited to 1 PCI slot.

=> I was looking for a mATX board with a similar Atom-processor in the same price range, but couldn't find one...

Memory (non ECC)
Why?

Price I guess. 40€ extra. But you're right. Better be safe...

Have you considered going the used route -- especially if you are in North America?

Yes, but I am in Belgium. More difficult, expensive to get used hardware. also less offerings.

Finally, if you are bent upon a mini-ITX, then why even buy a new case? Just replace the motherboard and RAM in your existing N40L. That would keep your costs down and also keep your hot-swap feature available.

=> Thought of that, but I keep reading that some have tried but not succeeded. Not a standard Mobo. Proprietary form factor.

Thanks for your advice!
Do you perhaps have a suggestion for a mATX motherboard and CPU?

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

Yes, but I am in Belgium. More difficult, expensive to get used hardware. also less offerings.

@Thomas_VDB - Take a look at Morten Hjorth's (he's Danish) YouTube channel. He mentions a company that sells used equipment in his videos (last few ones, anyway). He also has a shop with used hard drives, CPUs, etc. that might be cheaper than eBay... (Morten has more sh*t that my wife would ever tolerate...)

 

[Thomas_VDB]

Thanks, I'm already looking at it.

But if i go for new HW, do you have some advice?

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

Personally, I'd go with the used marker. I'm in Canada (but the CDN$-US$ exchange rate sucks and the shipping costs are beyound outrageous...) but I still stick to used enterprise servers. My current FreeNAS box uses the Supermicro X9DR3-LN4F+ with dual Xeon E5-2630 V1 CPUs. Waaaayyyy overpowered and draws too much power my use case (Emby DLNA servers without transcoding, SMB and NFS for my VMware ESXi box). That said, I like the fact that it is a package.

Eventually, I'd like to replace that motherboard and CPUs with something that uses a little less power (e.g., a single Xeon). I'll probably go used on that too.

 

[Inxsible]

You are correct. I mean I like the cube-design.

Fair enough.

I was looking for a mATX board with a similar Atom-processor in the same price range, but couldn't find one...

What is the power consumption on the N40L? Have you measured it? A google search and a cursory glance seems to indicate that it's around 55W. You could probably get a mATX board and use a Pentium processor for around the same power consumption.

Price I guess. 40€ extra. But you're right. Better be safe...

If you had the RAM lying around, I would say just use it. But since you will be buying new RAM anyway, the better bet would be to put in the extra cash and get ECC RAM.

Yes, but I am in Belgium. More difficult, expensive to get used hardware. also less offerings.

True. I have heard that Europe doesn't have much in terms of used server market unfortunately.

Not a standard Mobo. Proprietary form factor.

Oh, I didn't realize that. Scratch that idea then. It might be more of a hassle to fit a square peg in a round hole !

Do you perhaps have a suggestion for a mATX motherboard and CPU?

I do, but I usually scour ebay for great deals. Since you are in Europe, you could have it shipped-- but then not sure how it would affect your budget. What is your budget?

Personally I use Tyan S5533 -- a mini ITX which I bought new -- which is why I tell people to not make the same mistakes that I made. I use it as a file server and my Emby media server. All my other services are on a separate Proxmox box, so I don't need too much power or grunt in the FreeNAS box. I use a Pentium G3240 with 16GB of RAM.

SuperMicro X9 based boards are quite cheap on ebay ($45-$50). Adding all those components and having them shipped might still be cheaper than buying everything brand new. And even though it's a couple generation old, it will be more than capable for your use case of file-server, PiHole and Nextcloud. And as long as you use a pentium based processor, your power consumption shouldn't be too high.

 

[Thomas_VDB]

Thanks. I'll have another look at refurbished servers, but as you said, the market here in Europe is quite small.
Budget is around 500€.
I'll keep browsing...
Indeed I don't need a lot of horsepower, that'ts why I went Atom. Don't know however how much the difference in price/performance/power consumption is compared to Pentium celerons or other low powered intels...

 

[kiriak]

I'm also from Europe (Greece) and looking for a small home build (2-4 data disks).
I think in terms of cost and size, it is difficult to achieve reasonable (if any at all) savings going the DIY route.
And besides that, I am not sure about things like thermal efficiency, parts matching etc.

Maybe an entry level server is a better idea.
Something like a Dell T40 (but only 3 internal 3,5" hdds) or the previous Dell T30 (4 internal 3,5") if you can find one (was on sale for 450 €).
With a little more money you could have the new HP microserver Gen10 plus (4 not hot swap disks) or for even more the HP Proliant ML30 gen10 (can have 4 3.5" hot swap or not hot swap disks).

Workstations are sometimes good alternatives, some of them have quality hardware, are silent (important if you live in an apartment) and have low consumption. Most of them can take ECC RAM. But thet are usually more expensive. But offers or used can be found. I bought an open box HP Z2 for less than 500 €.

Unfortunately used equipment in Europe is not usually bargain as in US, but sometimes cheap enough hardware can be found.

If you go the DIY route, check also the Chenbro SR301 case, there are some last pieces in ebay in Europe, for about 150 €. A little expensive but has 4 hot swap bays if you want them and the best space management I found in a small case.
On the other hand, for the most home setups, the hot swap feature is a useless luxury.

 

[Basil Hendroff]

Have you considered the HP Gen10+? https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/hpe-microserver-gen10-is-back.82153/

 

[Yorick]

Is expansion down the road really a thing, though?
This mITX board can handle 8 drives, as much as fit in the case, and has an M.2 slot which can be used for booting from.
There is one expansion slot, so if mGig networking ever becomes desirable, there's room for that. I doubt this setup will need to connect to an external drive cage via HBA, but it could if so desired.

I have an mATX board, all slots free, and I expect all slots will remain free. What, realistically, would I need? I won't go over 8 disks, I am at 8 TiB unused with just 5 right now. 1 Gb/s networking is fine, my house isn't set up for anything faster. I could do mGig eventually, but that'd mean replacing the switching infrastructure and updating the PCs, and for what? So backups are marginally faster? Not compelling.

That mITX board is fine for file serving, I'd say. It won't transcode Plex and it won't do a lot for VMs and jails, though. There I can see the allure of a Kaby Lake Pentium or i3-7100, on an mATX board w/ C236, rather than this Celeron. That ups the price, however.

 

[Inxsible]

That mITX board is fine for file serving, I'd say. It won't transcode Plex and it won't do a lot for VMs and jails, though.

Precisely. If I am spending good coin on new hardware, I would like to have the flexibility of changing things up even 5 years down the road. Otherwise, your existing boards etc just become something that you have to live by OR invest in a separate server for everything else like VM server etc (like I have)

My Pentium G3240 doesn't support passthrough so there's no way I can use that as a VM server. But I bought that cpu and board -- brand new -- knowing that I already had a used 1U server with X9SCL-F that I could use as a VM server. Having said that though, I still feel that if I had gone the used route at that time too, it would have saved me even more money.


It's very tricky to say what cost is justified and what is not. I like to use my machines to the max capability (given due precautions of not over exerting them -- for eg. using more than 80% of your ZFS space etc.). While others like to build something with headroom available for future "enhancements" in terms of services that they might add. And you should plan for at least 5 years ahead. I don't transcode much, so my Pentium G3240 is more than capable for a file server and a 2-3 streams of non-transcoded Emby media serving. I don't use that box for anything else. So Pentium was actually a better choice than say a Xeon -- which my board can definitely accept.

At this point, the only thing I see myself adding is a JellyFin container in my Proxmox -- for which I'd need to upgrade the VM server to add more RAM to it. And if JellyFin ever completes it's roku app, I'd remove Emby from FreeNAS too which means my FreeNAS will solely be a file server and nothing more. But I am in no rush to do that now.

 

[Yorick]

=> I was looking for a mATX board with a similar Atom-processor in the same price range, but couldn't find one...

Maybe. Could be done. All US prices and all assuming new hardware, nothing eBay.

Your mITX board is $330 here. So that's what we have to play with. 8 SATA, one M.2, four (!) GBit Ether, one IPMI, one PCIe, Atom CPU. The four Ether are Complètement fou for home use, so I'll consider anything with one or two Ether. Otherwise, try to match the specs while doing better on being able to expand. No need for a powerful CPU now, but the ability to add one if/when VMs/jails are desired (and the CPU might be available used) is a plus.

uATX X11SSH-F: $237. 8 SATA, one M.2, two GBit Ether, one IPMI, three PCIe, C236 chipset, Celeron/Pentium/i3/Xeon CPU. This one because I like the idea of booting from M.2 and having all 8 SATA free for drives, but also consider X11SSM-F: $217, no M.2, four PCIe, otherwise same as X11SSH-F.
CPU: We have 93 to 113 bucks to play with, depending on motherboard chosen, and assuming our goal is $330 total.
- Pentium G4560 Kaby Lake Dual Core 3.5 GHz w/ HD610 graphics. Can transcode a 4k movie at roughly 30% load, see thread on hw transcode. $65. ECC memory covered price-wise, sweet!
- i3-7100 Kaby Lake Dual Core 3.9 GHz w/ HD630 graphics. Likely in the 4 to 10% CPU range per 4k movie transcode, a little more oomph than the Pentium for VMs. $130 - maybe not, but I've heard EU members say they found these on eBay for 60 to 70 Euros used, that might be a good option over the Pentium new.
- Xeon E3-1225v6. Quad-core Kaby Lake, not available for a reasonable price right now. Let's just say "no" to that one.

Fits into the budget, has room for later expansion.

X11SCH-F with a Coffee Lake generation Pentium or i3 would also be an option. I didn't see a compelling price for the X11SCH-F, but if you can find a deal somewhere, then it's a great choice. Edit: Just to not discount it out of hand, the board is $285 and a Coffee Lake Pentium G5400 is $60, for a total of $345. We're a little over budget now, but the E-2xxxG Xeons are easier to find and way more affordable than the E3-xxx5v6 Xeons, and will likely stay easier to source, so that could sway you that way if "I'd like a quad-core Xeon down the road" is a goal.

All boards chosen for the ability to hardware transcode Plex (1080p or 4k), and to have enough "oomph" for a few jails and VMs.

 

[Thomas_VDB]

Okay, thanks for the tips.
but what would be the power consumption of this last suggestion?
would it be more than my N40L which uses 60W (including 4x 3.5" Sata disks)?

 

[Yorick]

I’m assuming that’s idle draw, measured at the wall with something like a kill-a-watt? That sounds right in line with what people have reported for idle draw of these entry xeon builds, 45 to 60w. Keep in mind that for the PSU, you need to allow for roughly 30W of startup power per drive. There’s a good guide in these forums on how to size the PSU.

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

I think one other consideration would be to look at the efficiency rating of your PSU. I don't think that going so far as having a platinum rated PSU is really necessary. Take a good look at what your overall load, in watts, versus your rated PSU rated output. I'd personally go with an 80 Plus Silver or Gold since a NAS will be running 24/7.

You can find some additional information in this article What is PSU Efficiency and Why is it Important? (Of course, there are other sources out there ;))

 

[Thomas_VDB]

Thanks for the tip of the PSu.
I am really looking for something that idles around 50W.
Now I've read that I shouldn't be concentrating on low power CPU's, as the idle power consumption of most cpu is always low. The low power CPU's will however throtle at intensitive tasks to avoid conuming much.
So perhaps a ryzen or an I3?

 

[Yorick]

I3 or Pentium would fit that bill, and some ryzens, sure.

Consider your use case. My suggestions assumed that hardware transcoding was desirable, and that a well-tested ECC implementation was desirable. That’s why Intel and Supermicro, respectively.

Ryzen will work. Hardware transcode is no longer on the table, which may be perfectly fine for you. ECC implementation is currently broken even with the only vendor who cares about it, AsRock Rack. They will fix that eventually, no doubt.

 

[pschatz100]

Is your Microserver N40L and Gen 7 or Gen 8 model? According to the specs, the Gen 8's have socketed CPU's that can be replaced. If you happen to have a Gen 8, maybe you might consider upgrading the CPU and cooling. That might give you the jump in performance you want at the lowest price.

 

[Thomas_VDB]

Bad luck, processor is not upgradeable on my n40l.