Motherboard Selection

[joeschmuck]

Likely the video outputs integrated into the motherboard, lots of PCIe slots with full x16 lanes and additional lanes/ports for NVMe?

If it wasn't $800+ USD, I'd buy one too and the $2000 CPU, and the full 4TB RAM (why not, I'm dreaming anyway), and pack it full of 8TB NVMe's.

 

[Davvo]

I was daydreaming about that too. I wouldn't have an use for that, but still... 4TB of RAM and a crapton of NVMe... alongside 10Gbps fiber networking... sublime!

 

[joeschmuck]

Friday I'm selling one of my cars for $23,100 to a dealership. If I bought my dream system that would leave me with $100.

@Fastline I also prefer Supermicro, I've been quite impressed with the longevity and quality of the products. As for Server or Workstation, I do think they are very similar so it comes down to what features you desire and the amount of money you want to spend. I have no idea what your use case will be but if you are not turning it into a Type-1 Hypervisor (my preference) or using TrueNAS to be a Type-2 Hypervisor, then I think you are wasting your money. While in some ways you can future proof the hardware, that isn't in all cases, and it depends on how far into the future you are talking about. Personally I think 10 years is a good length of time to plan for because in 10 years technology will have advanced and you will feel like you have an old system that chews through power. So my advice, buy for the next ten years, that is doable. But I would also say to buy all the RAM you will need unless it's an ungodly amount like 4TB. Buy the CPU that will last 10 years. Buy the motherboard which has reasonable expansion. The thing to look for these days is PCIe lanes due to NVMe mainly. If you are buying HDDs, buy them to last 3 to 5 years and then think about replacing them with NVMe, because those costs are coming down and the package density is going up. For myself, I am seriously looking into replacing my 4 6TB spinners with six 4TB NVMe drives in less than 6 months. The power savings is pretty significant when you run the system 24/7. You can also cram it into a smaller case.

I hope some if this helps.

 

[Fastline]

That's likely true for rack motherboards only, I had no issues with my front panel connector.

Go with server boards, IPMI is a must have (ie can flash the BIOS in order to support the CPU you have without buying another) and they are more likely to be found used.

I thought that first. Thanks for clearing it up!

 

[Fastline]

Always download the manual for the motherboard and read it completely. Make sure you understand what it offers you and what it does not. With the money you are spending, it's the smart thing to do.

Same for me, no issues.

Sometimes i read the manual before to check the limitations and so on ;)

 

[Fastline]

I don't know what the difference is between a Workstation and Server motherboard for Supermicro but the X12SPA-TF to me could pass as a server board. I too would not need 16 slots for RAM, 8 would be fine for my needs (or 4). I guess a workstation may need that kind of capacity due to what it may need to do, and major development can eat up all kinds of memory. I'm thinking it could be running 4 different OS's on VMWare and those have video editing or virtual modeling, programming, etc. Memory hogs. Maybe that is the difference between Workstation and Server.

EDIT: 4TB of RAM ! Now that is a NAS!

Hehehe. Someday, i'll have the 512GB RAM due to the increasing workload at my end so trying to buy something which will work in future for at least a couple of years for now. More DIMMs gives me the room for future expansion.

 

[Fastline]

Likely the video outputs integrated into the motherboard, lots of PCIe slots with full x16 lanes and additional lanes/ports for NVMe?

Yes, workstation is a bridge between Consumer Grade and Server Grade. It fills the gap, not so much expensive and yet full of room for expansions.

 

[Fastline]

I was daydreaming about that too. I wouldn't have an use for that, but still... 4TB of RAM and a crapton of NVMe... alongside 10Gbps fiber networking... sublime!

Daydreaming are nice. It could be a nice Christmas gift ;)

 

[Fastline]

Friday I'm selling one of my cars for $23,100 to a dealership. If I bought my dream system that would leave me with $100.

I can see a beast now

@Fastline I also prefer Supermicro, I've been quite impressed with the longevity and quality of the products. As for Server or Workstation, I do think they are very similar so it comes down to what features you desire and the amount of money you want to spend. I have no idea what your use case will be but if you are not turning it into a Type-1 Hypervisor (my preference) or using TrueNAS to be a Type-2 Hypervisor, then I think you are wasting your money. While in some ways you can future proof the hardware, that isn't in all cases, and it depends on how far into the future you are talking about. Personally I think 10 years is a good length of time to plan for because in 10 years technology will have advanced and you will feel like you have an old system that chews through power. So my advice, buy for the next ten years, that is doable. But I would also say to buy all the RAM you will need unless it's an ungodly amount like 4TB. Buy the CPU that will last 10 years. Buy the motherboard which has reasonable expansion. The thing to look for these days is PCIe lanes due to NVMe mainly. If you are buying HDDs, buy them to last 3 to 5 years and then think about replacing them with NVMe, because those costs are coming down and the package density is going up. For myself, I am seriously looking into replacing my 4 6TB spinners with six 4TB NVMe drives in less than 6 months. The power savings is pretty significant when you run the system 24/7. You can also cram it into a smaller case.

Yes, i have used one in past, IPMI, the BMC, those are great. Plus the components grade are rock solid. Not really 4TB, but i see mostly 256GB or 512GB or even 1TB but would not need more than that for sure.

NVMe are nice but are expensive when you need capacity like 200-300TB. Yes, that's not so much a major issue regarding the power as it does not always run on full load. But almost 24x7.

I hope some if this helps.

This helps a lot.

 

[Fastline]

If it wasn't $800+ USD, I'd buy one too and the $2000 CPU, and the full 4TB RAM (why not, I'm dreaming anyway), and pack it full of 8TB NVMe's.

Guess what? I've obtained a new legit one for like 300USD

Seems like Christmas is going to be great