question on build for family needs

nicko3.0i

Dabbler
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
27
Hi everyone

I've been lurking and reading you all for a long time trying to familiarize with the subject, but I'm still a noob, so please be patient :smile:

I'd like to start my first build, my main goals are "high performance", low consumption, low cost.
You can find on ebay lots of rack server for few bucks, the downside is the 700W consumption for something that remains on 24/7.

My researching is primary driven by availability here in Italy, and I think I spotted something interesting...

Mobo: Asus WS C246M PRO
Xeon support, ECC memories, less than 180€. 8 integrated SATA, enough for me, so no need to cross flash external controllers and so on

CPU: Intel Core i3 9100F
ECC memory support, 90€, 4 physical cores :-D

RAM: 16GB ECC for starting should be fine

DRIVES:WD Red 4TB WD40EFRX
I was thinking of raid Z2, since I've read here that as single drive capacity rises, the probability of another drive dying while resilvering a damaged pool is not negligible any more.

SSD: whatever 120GB model as boot drive, I should have 2 free SATA ports if I use 6 drives.

The main utilization scenario is to have all files in one phisical place, so I can backup just this nas to ad old 4bay qnap (rSync?) that is in my lan but not in this same building :smile:
No need for transcoding (plex), but I'd like to install NextCloud.
I work with 30MB raw files from full frame camera, sometimes I do some video stuff, so good speed is needed.
Mellanox Connectx2 card can be found for 35€ on ebay, I think I could install one in the near future

Well... I think I said enough, thanks for reading and see you later :smile:
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2018
Messages
969
You can find on ebay lots of rack server for few bucks, the downside is the 700W consumption for something that remains on 24/7.
Don't forget that frequently the PSU rating doesn't reflect that the actual power draw. For example, my primary server at home uses 900W PSUs but at peak work load (during a full system scrub) it only pulls 400W.

Mobo: Asus WS C246M PRO
Xeon support, ECC memories, less than 180€. 8 integrated SATA, enough for me, so no need to cross flash external controllers and so on
You may be able to get more power for your dollar if you buy used. CPUs, board, and HBAs are pretty reliable purchased used IMO.

RAM: 16GB ECC for starting should be fine
I recommend you go with the largest modules your board supports so that you can increase the total ram later without having to toss any sticks.

I work with 30MB raw files from full frame camera, sometimes I do some video stuff, so good speed is needed.
If you need speed for these kinds of applications you may need to make some adjustments. You're going to see low write speeds if you use sync writes without a SLOG and you're doing a lot of video editing straight off the NAS. If you find you're doing a lot of IOPS you may also want to arrange your vdevs as striped mirrors to increase IOP performance. Alternatively; you could stick with your RAIDZ2 vdevs for your main storage and then pick up a pair of SSDs to use as your working pool to do editing directly off of. I would recommend a mirror pair and regularly backup snapshots of this data to your RAIDZ2 vdev.

If you run low on SATA ports you can just pick up an HBA. :)
 

nicko3.0i

Dabbler
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
27
Don't forget that frequently the PSU rating doesn't reflect that the actual power draw. For example, my primary server at home uses 900W PSUs but at peak work load (during a full system scrub) it only pulls 400W.

Hi!
400W is insane, here in Italy 1 kWh costs approx 0.28$ (I made the conversion €/$ to simplify), scrub usually should take hours... moreover, way lower power consumption while idling is mandatory, as the system would stay ON 24/7, and older platforms aren't so good with that :-(

You may be able to get more power for your dollar if you buy used. CPUs, board, and HBAs are pretty reliable purchased used IMO.

I agree, but unfortunately EU market is very different from the US one :-( In USA you can get old equipment almost for free.... say... analog 20MHz oscilloscopes, old Xeon servers.. here they are damn expensive, to the point that many times it's better buying new stuff, seeing in a long run. Electricity cost destroys the savings in few years.

I recommend you go with the largest modules your board supports so that you can increase the total ram later without having to toss any sticks.

16GB in a single module, leaves room to reach 64GB. I think that if more than 64GB is needed, then it's better to switch to a more powerful whole system

If you need speed for these kinds of applications you may need to make some adjustments. You're going to see low write speeds if you use sync writes without a SLOG and you're doing a lot of video editing straight off the NAS. If you find you're doing a lot of IOPS you may also want to arrange your vdevs as striped mirrors to increase IOP performance. Alternatively; you could stick with your RAIDZ2 vdevs for your main storage and then pick up a pair of SSDs to use as your working pool to do editing directly off of. I would recommend a mirror pair and regularly backup snapshots of this data to your RAIDZ2 vdev.

If you run low on SATA ports you can just pick up an HBA. :)

that's a great idea!
I'm gonna read some ZFS tutorial and see how can I apply :smile:
 

anmnz

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Joined
Feb 17, 2018
Messages
286
moreover, way lower power consumption while idling is mandatory, as the system would stay ON 24/7, and older platforms aren't so good with that :-(

There is quite a bit of info on this if you hunt around the forums. Basically there was a massive improvement in idle power consumption in the Sandy Bridge / Ivy Bridge generations of Intel kit, and improvements since then have been incremental. But that was years ago now, so there is now plenty of used equipment out there that can save you a heap of money without necessarily costing lots of electricity. It's worth a look.
 

nicko3.0i

Dabbler
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
27
There is quite a bit of info on this if you hunt around the forums. Basically there was a massive improvement in idle power consumption in the Sandy Bridge / Ivy Bridge generations of Intel kit, and improvements since then have been incremental. But that was years ago now, so there is now plenty of used equipment out there that can save you a heap of money without necessarily costing lots of electricity. It's worth a look.

Sounds interesting... can you name something worth looking for? ie dell poweredge xxxxx or hp yyyyyy and so on?
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2019
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Hi, I agree on your comments about EU used market. That said I’ve recently seen some (not many and they go quite quickly) decent deals come up from German sellers, and recently bought a used Haswell Supermicro server rack with a Xeon and 16gb of ram for just under the price you’ve listed for mobo and cpu (including shipping cost to UK). NB. The rack also has hdds but i’m not planning of using them as they could have seen a hard life - that said I still thought the deal was an OK price.
 

anmnz

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Feb 17, 2018
Messages
286
Sounds interesting... can you name something worth looking for?

I'd start by looking for Supermicro X9 single-socket boards (X9S...), taking Sandy/Ivy CPUs and DDR3 registered ECC RAM.
 
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