Hardware Recommendation for Backup Server

[bent98]

If you don't give us a budget or a size target it's hard to correctly point you.

Lets figure on $1500 for NAS without drives

 

[Davvo]

How is the airflow on the Node 804?

Good enough but could be better. The Fractal R7 is a great choice if you want ATX, and it comes in several sizes.

 

[Constantin]

Case should be driven by how many hard drives you plan max to accommodate. Some of those fractal nodes in the past did a good job of cooking hard drives in their own juices while undergoing hard loads like scrubbing or a resilver. I hear more current ones are OK.

eBay has no shortage of inexpensive supermicro cases that have excellent air flow, low prices, and lots of room. But redundant PSUs and high density come at a price, ie noise.

 

[bent98]

Case should be driven by how many hard drives you plan max to accommodate. Some of those fractal nodes in the past did a good job of cooking hard drives in their own juices while undergoing hard loads like scrubbing or a resilver.

eBay has no shortage of inexpensive supermicro cases that have excellent air flow, low prices, and lots of room. But redundant PSUs and high density come at a price, ie noise.

I dont need redundant PS. The first post details my current build. 8 drives and 1GB/10GE speeds with ECC memory and server based mobo is fine. I need something with good airflow so drives stay cool. I was thinking R7 wince my R5 is good. If there is something better in the same or cheaper price range, LMK.

Ill never go more than 8 drives. I really would have like to stay at 4 or 5 big ones.

 

[Davvo]

Ill never go more than 8 drives. I really would have like to stay at 4 or 5 big ones.

With the following you could totally go with six 22TB drives in RAIDZ2 and basically forget about it.

Used X10SDV-2C-TLN2F for less than 250 USD: you will need a Networking card for SFP+ but besides that you could easily stay under 350 USD with plenty of RAM, letting you spend more on the drives; for a low-power backup server it will be enough.

If you want something more powerful you have to either leave behind SoC or spend substantially more (at least around 700 USD).

About the CASE, if you want to go tiny and remain Fractal look at the Node 304 for up to 6 HDDs (you can go more with a 3D printer).

 

[Constantin]

Even if you want to limit the data drives to 5 you still should have 8 or so SATA ports on the motherboard in order to accommodate a boot drive, the data drives, and at least one spare slot for bad block cold-storage pre-qualification. But, you can reduce SATA requirements substituting NVME or like SSDs.

I'm not a fan of using mini-ITX motherboards in a file server because it's so limiting re: expansion. The board I mentioned in the beginning of this thread is significantly larger than the by @Davvo but it also offers two PCIe 3.0x8 slots, twenty SATA ports (incl 2 SATADOM), a m.2 mSATA, a NVME x4 slot, two SFP+ cages, and up to 128GB of RAM. It's a large board but you're unlikely to ever outgrow it. But everyone has different use cases / desires, and a motherboard with a removable CPU can be very useful if you ever decide you need to transcode or whatever.

So, best of luck!

 

[Davvo]

I'm not a fan of using mini-ITX motherboards in a file server because it's so limiting re: expansion. The board I mentioned in the beginning of this thread is significantly larger than the by @Davvo but it also offers two PCIe 3.0x8 slots, twenty SATA ports (incl 2 SATADOM), a m.2 mSATA, a NVME x4 slot, two SFP+ cages, and up to 128GB of RAM.

It's a great board but looking around I wasn't able to find it at reasonable prices. From a price/value standard since it's a backup server that will likely see little activity it makes more sense to go with a good low-price board than a great expensive board. Had it been under 500 USD I would have reccomended as well, but I only see prices over 650 USD + at least 50 USD of shipment... at that price we can buy a new x11/12 board.

I live in europe though, so you will definitely know more then me about the right places to look for things there.​

 

[Constantin]

Wired-zone is a reputable reseller and they have it for $551. If you can find it used, it would likely fall into the same price category as the mini-ITX board you mentioned.

 

[bent98]

Wired-zone is a reputable reseller and they have it for $551. If you can find it used, it would likely fall into the same price category as the mini-ITX board you mentioned.

thats not bad,. I could go with Fractal R7 case. What do you recommend for memory? Do I need to buy a cooler or video card?

 

[Davvo]

Do I need to buy a cooler or video card?

Neither. You can do things from IPMI.

 

[bent98]

Neither. You can do things from IPMI.

does it have an intergrated gpu in the event you wanted to hook up monitor? I see it has a VGA port

 

[Davvo]

does it have an intergrated gpu in the event you wanted to hook up monitor? I see it has a VGA port

It doesn't. You need to use IPMI.

 

[bent98]

It doesn't. You need to use IPMI.

Ive never used IPMI, can you see the sever booting up just like with a monitor hooked up?

 

[Davvo]

Ive never used IPMI, can you see the sever booting up just like with a monitor hooked up?

Yes. It's basically a remote interface.

 

[bent98]

X10SDV-2C-7TP4F clock speed on process is lower than my current i3-6100. I paid $137 for that HP server in 2018. Man how things have gone up since then. Is there anything with the specs of the X10sdv-2c-7tp4F with higher clocks comparable to my i3-6100?

 

[Constantin]

I’m sure SuperMicro has file server oriented boards with removable CPUs. You can run the x10 board from VGA port and/or IPMI. I have the higher-core count version with the D-1537 but for the time being I regret the purchase as the D-1508 version works better for my use case. The key thing with super micro is to stick exactly to the memory they have qualified, down to the last sku character.

 

[Davvo]

X10SDV-2C-7TP4F clock speed on process is lower than my current i3-6100.

It has half the power consumption of the i3-6100 as well.
If you want comprable speeds you have to either leave SoC or get more recent ones.

 

[Constantin]

If you want a board with less of a file server focus and better expansion options for the future, consider x11spm-tpf. It has built-in SFP+, a removable processor (LGA-3647), six memory slots, 12 SATA slots, 2 SATADOMs, etc. It will cost you somewhat more than the embedded solution but is very practical as well.

I have found the motherboard product finder at wiredzone to be a better tool for finding boards than the one at SuperMicro. Your preferences should be the guide here towards the best fit for your use case, not mine. Just because I like boards with gobs of SATA ports just to prepare for the possibility of a second 8-drive VDEV in my pool does not mean you should too.

 

[bent98]

It has half the power consumption of the i3-6100 as well.
If you want comprable speeds you have to either leave SoC or get more recent ones.

Ibguess

If you want a board with less of a file server focus and better expansion options for the future, consider x11spm-tpf. It has built-in SFP+, a removable processor (LGA-3647), six memory slots, 12 SATA slots, 2 SATADOMs, etc. It will cost you somewhat more than the embedded solution but is very practical as well.

I have found the motherboard product finder at wiredzone to be a better tool for finding boards than the one at SuperMicro. Your preferences should be the guide here towards the best fit for your use case, not mine. Just because I like boards with gobs of SATA ports just to prepare for the possibility of a second 8-drive VDEV in my pool does not mean you should too.

but the cpu $$$$$

 

[Constantin]

Depends really. Performant CPUs from reputable resellers are quite reasonable on eBay.