Joined
·
144 Posts
I'm looking to build a new server since my old one has been very full for a while and the cpu/motherboard part of the build is proving to be more of a challenge to find something reasonable than the last time I did this so I was wondering if you guys had recommendations for that in particular, but also for other parts of it.
The plan is to have an array of 8 high capacity drives in ZFS on FreeBSD + 2 ssd, one for cache(either automatic with zfs, gotta look more into it or just manual where high demand file go first and get moved to the array later) and one for the OS. Looking into 16 or 18TB seagate EXOS drives but it's scary moving away from WD drives which I have had incredibly good experiences with.
The case will most likely be a Rosewill RSV-L4500U since I want one with 120mm fans and I have the L4500 right now which I really like(once I've replaced the cheap fans which at least half died). Something with at least 18 bays would have been better in case I ever want to double the array capacity but I haven't seen one at a reasonable price anywhere.
The drives will most likely be plugged into a used LSI 9207-8i chip card which is also what I have in my old server(great card, never had any issues) and are much cheaper now.
Not sure what to get yet for a PSU, there's not a ton of them that have the fan at the back which I need for a 4U case if I want to be able to close it. I've had an Athena Power Zippy HG2-6400P 400W in the old server for 9 years with no issues so might look into something similar. Something gold rated would be nicer but I don't think I've ever seen one, especially not available in canada which makes things harder to find and more expensive a lot of the time.
For the cpu and motherboard, I still have no idea what to get. I'd prefer server hardware and something not more than 2-3 years old but looking at the options, it seems to be much more costly than back in the day and 1k+ just for a cpu is about twice the max I'd like to pay(even though I do have a 1k cpu in my gaming rig...).
My current cpu is an Intel Xeon E3-1240 V2 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) which is mostly doing a great job, but is a little slow when it needs to transcode more than 1 video and I want to avoid using hardware encoding with a gpu so a beefier cpu with at least 8c 16t and decent speed would be nice.
As for the motherboard, I'd like something with 2 nic onboard to do LAGG since I want to have 1 available nic to be able to still do network stuff if I'm saturating one with data transfers which is how my current server is set up and I'd prefer not to have to use a pci-e card for it.
For the ram, not too sure what the recommended amount would be for an array of this size with ZFS. I have 32GB in my current one with about a 4th of the capacity(~24TB) and no issues so 128GB would likely be good enough but I might try to get away with just 64 or double it(but really doubt it), depending on the price and I'd prefer to use ECC RAM.
I like to mess around trying new stuff so my old server has more than 12 services running on it in addition to being media storage and having the room to mess with virtualization a bit would be great but that might not be reasonable at current prices. I'm certainly not looking for the cheapest thing I can get or I'd just buy a used server and tweak it but I also don't want to spend an exorbitant amount of money on this since the storage will already be quite pricey.
If you have any good tips or recommendations, I'd love to hear it.
The plan is to have an array of 8 high capacity drives in ZFS on FreeBSD + 2 ssd, one for cache(either automatic with zfs, gotta look more into it or just manual where high demand file go first and get moved to the array later) and one for the OS. Looking into 16 or 18TB seagate EXOS drives but it's scary moving away from WD drives which I have had incredibly good experiences with.
The case will most likely be a Rosewill RSV-L4500U since I want one with 120mm fans and I have the L4500 right now which I really like(once I've replaced the cheap fans which at least half died). Something with at least 18 bays would have been better in case I ever want to double the array capacity but I haven't seen one at a reasonable price anywhere.
The drives will most likely be plugged into a used LSI 9207-8i chip card which is also what I have in my old server(great card, never had any issues) and are much cheaper now.
Not sure what to get yet for a PSU, there's not a ton of them that have the fan at the back which I need for a 4U case if I want to be able to close it. I've had an Athena Power Zippy HG2-6400P 400W in the old server for 9 years with no issues so might look into something similar. Something gold rated would be nicer but I don't think I've ever seen one, especially not available in canada which makes things harder to find and more expensive a lot of the time.
For the cpu and motherboard, I still have no idea what to get. I'd prefer server hardware and something not more than 2-3 years old but looking at the options, it seems to be much more costly than back in the day and 1k+ just for a cpu is about twice the max I'd like to pay(even though I do have a 1k cpu in my gaming rig...).
My current cpu is an Intel Xeon E3-1240 V2 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) which is mostly doing a great job, but is a little slow when it needs to transcode more than 1 video and I want to avoid using hardware encoding with a gpu so a beefier cpu with at least 8c 16t and decent speed would be nice.
As for the motherboard, I'd like something with 2 nic onboard to do LAGG since I want to have 1 available nic to be able to still do network stuff if I'm saturating one with data transfers which is how my current server is set up and I'd prefer not to have to use a pci-e card for it.
For the ram, not too sure what the recommended amount would be for an array of this size with ZFS. I have 32GB in my current one with about a 4th of the capacity(~24TB) and no issues so 128GB would likely be good enough but I might try to get away with just 64 or double it(but really doubt it), depending on the price and I'd prefer to use ECC RAM.
I like to mess around trying new stuff so my old server has more than 12 services running on it in addition to being media storage and having the room to mess with virtualization a bit would be great but that might not be reasonable at current prices. I'm certainly not looking for the cheapest thing I can get or I'd just buy a used server and tweak it but I also don't want to spend an exorbitant amount of money on this since the storage will already be quite pricey.
If you have any good tips or recommendations, I'd love to hear it.