New build: motherboard, CPU and memory needed

[czamana]

Hello!

Currently I have a very humble NAS server:

Motherboard: Asus P8b75-m Lx
CPU: Intel Core i3 3240
Memory: 8gb Kingston

and I decided to upgrade my whole system. I'll be in the USA in the first 2 weeks of June, in New York and Miami (and Key West, but for leisure only ).

I want to keep my current 8x4TB hard drives, and I just bought an NZXT H440 case to hold the 10 HDDs: those 8 for the data (probably keeping using ZFS), 1 for the OS (an SSD) and 1 for extra stuff. The OS will continue to be Ubuntu's latest LTS release.

The problem is that 'm struggling to find a "combo" with this requirements:

A Xeon CPU and a Motherbord with support for ECC memory.

My budget is around US$ 1,200 , and I intend to buy preferable at Microcenter (they have 3 stores in New York) or at Amazon. I don't think I'll get this kind of stuff at the Best Buys, but who knows? Other stores will be welcomed.

And by following the *How to Ask for New Build or Upgrade Advice* guide, here it is:

Approximate Purchase Date: first 2 weeks of June, 2018.

Budget Range: US$ 1.200 (After Shipping)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: NAS (FileServer, Plex Media Server, Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, Deluge, Samba, AFP)

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: CPU (Xeon), Motherboard (at least 10x sata ports; 8 is acceptable), 32GB of RAM (ECC).

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Microcenter and Amazon (BestBuy?)

Location: New York or Miami/USA

Parts Preferences: CPU: Intel Xeon / Motherboard: no preference / Memory: no preference

Overclocking: No. Never.

SLI or Crossfire: what is SLI? What is Crossfire?

Your Monitor Resolution: N/A; headless system.

Additional Comments: already said in the begining...

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: my current system is running out of space, I'll need to refactor my ZFS, so... I want to take the opportunity that I'll be in the USA to raise it to a next level.

Can you help me to build a "combo"?

Thanks.
Regards.

 

[Doctor Rob]

in ram alone you are going to be looking at $500 just for 32GB of ECC ram.. I just built a system (threadripper system) and the ram alone was almost $900 with tax (for 64 Gigs of ecc ram from Crucial ) I had planned on getting only 32GB but everywhere I checked it was out of stock as I needed for the system 4 sticks to get the 4 channels to work.

good luck but I'm not sure you could find a CPU, motherboard, and ram for 1200 max price..

I could be wrong but just not sure about finding a faster CPU, motherboard, and the ram in your price range that supports what you want.

I have a system that has 2 HDDs, 4 SSDs, and 2 M.2 SSDs in the threadripper and the ONLY ones that are plugged into the motherboard are the 2 M.2 SSDs the others are plugged into an 8 port RAID controller as I tried to use the board but it was too slow for me. SO I got a decent RAID controller that uses a motherboard slot.. you could just do that and get a nice raid controller if your current system is just running out of space.

 

[czamana]

Hi!

Thanks for reply.

By searching a little and with advices from other fora, I reached this kit:

Crucial Technology 32GB (2x 16GB) 288-Pin EUDIMM DDR4 (PC4-19200) Server Memory Module Kit, CL=17, DR x8, Unbuffered, 2400 MT/S Speed, ECC, 1.2V

Supermicro Micro ATX DDR4 LGA 1151 Motherboards X11SSM-F-O

Intel Xeon E3-1220 Processors BX80677E31220V6

US$ 770,48 (before taxes)

What do you think about this combo? Would you change one or more of these components?

Thanks.
Regards.

 

[Doctor Rob]

that would work nicely. but if you get at least the mobo and the CPU on newegg its cheaper (at least right now) they have coupon for the motherboard for $25 off. (ends in 4 days)

though if you can afford it get like the E3-1245 V6 ($100 more but a bit better)

AND do yourself a favor and get a raid controller instead of just using the board.. this one works great for me https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118169 and then just 2 of these https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812117624 (they have longer ones if you need I think)

much better performance for the RAID disks. it would add less then $200 to get a decent RAID controller that would also work with your new setup.

 

[czamana]

HI!

Thanks for reply.

that would work nicely. but if you get at least the mobo and the CPU on newegg its cheaper (at least right now) they have coupon for the motherboard for $25 off. (ends in 4 days)

Yes, Newegg it's an option. Another one that occurred to me now was B&H Photo and Video... But I'll need to check if anyone of them accepts to deliver in hotels addresses... But I'll need to put my order a week or less before my trip, so that it get delivered to the hotel at the right time.

though if you can afford it get like the E3-1245 V6 ($100 more but a bit better)

I'll consider this too. Thanks!

AND do yourself a favor and get a raid controller instead of just using the board.. this one works great for me https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118169 and then just 2 of these https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812117624 (they have longer ones if you need I think)

much better performance for the RAID disks. it would add less then $200 to get a decent RAID controller that would also work with your new setup.

Hummm... It can be just an unfounded fear, but the idea of rely on a specific card to have my raid system working scares me. I grew up listening that "raid by hardware" is better, but nowadays I don't think that's true anymore, or, if true, the difference should be little to nonexistent. I much prefer to be able to throw my disks into any other desktop PC and have my data back instead of depends on a card from a manufacturer. I really appreciate your advice, but probably I'll not follow this one in particular. Don't get me wrong. It's just my opinion.

Thanks!
Regards.

 

[Doctor Rob]

I TRIED to use the ports on my $400 motherboard but the speeds were unacceptable for RAID 10 for me with the SSDs.. so that is why i moved to a RAID card. the nice thing is you can move that raid card to a new computer etc.. without issue (in my experience)

I did though just install the Server OS on the M.2 SSDs (samsung 960 pros) and that one is just software raid. BUT all the data and such is on the hardware Raid card. the software raid on the m.2s on my motherboard was plenty fast.. but the raid for the other drives was pitiful.

 

[czamana]

I TRIED to use the ports on my $400 motherboard but the speeds were unacceptable for RAID 10 for me with the SSDs.. so that is why i moved to a RAID card. the nice thing is you can move that raid card to a new computer etc.. without issue (in my experience)

I did though just install the Server OS on the M.2 SSDs (samsung 960 pros) and that one is just software raid. BUT all the data and such is on the hardware Raid card. the software raid on the m.2s on my motherboard was plenty fast.. but the raid for the other drives was pitiful.

Hi!

To be honest, I didn't decided yet if I will continue to use ZFS or other thing. Anyway, I changed my kit a little bit:

Supermicro Micro ATX DDR4 LGA 1151 Motherboards X11SSM-F-O

Intel Xeon E3-1270 Processors BX80677E31270V6

Crucial Technology 32GB (2x 16GB) 288-Pin EUDIMM DDR4 (PC4-19200) Server Memory Module Kit, CL=17, DR x8, Unbuffered, 2400 MT/S Speed, ECC, 1.2V

Total (before taxes): US$ 957,44

Do you think it's really necessary, in a typical fileserver, to use some form of hardware RAID instead of ZFS or even MDADM?

Thanks.
Regards.

 

[logainofhades]

If this is just a personal home file server, I am not convinced that ECC ram is even necessary.

 

[czamana]

Today I don't have ECC memory, but people that uses ZFS is so stressfull about the importance of ECC, in order to avoid the "silent corruption", that I decided to buy them.

Anyway I'm willing to build a server computer (or as close as I can get), and not a user desktop.

 

[czamana]

Hi!

I'm continue to looking for other options (I guess this will be the last...), and I found this motherboard, that seems better to me, since it has 12 sata ports (so no need for extra PCI-e sata cards at the moment), and better support for virtualization (it can be nice to have some Windows 10, once I use a Mac as desktop):

US$ 282,69
Supermicro ATX DDR4 LGA 2011 Motherboards X10SRI-F-O

and one of its tested/certified memory, as stated by Supermicro itself:

2 x US$ 197,99
Supermicro Certified MEM-DR416L-SL01-ER21 Samsung Memory - 16GB DDR4-2133 2Rx4 LP ECC REG RoHs

The only question is what CPU would be compatible. Supermicro says:
Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 v4†/ v3, E5-1600 v4†/ v3 family (up to 145W TDP **)
Single Socket R3 (LGA 2011)
and that "†" means:

"† BIOS version 2.0 or above is required".

Well, what if the motherboard came with a BIOS version bellow 2.0?

Or, is it better to get the v3 and forget?

Anyway, which Xeon CPU do you recommend for this motherboard?

Thanks.

 

[logainofhades]

I would think that after this long, all boards on the shelves should have the updated bios. This is an old platform after all. I would consider a different board, with better cooling options. You would only get 10 sata instead of 12. You can use an NVME ssd for your OS drive. I forgot to ask, do you have a graphics card for this? CPU suggestion depends on how many cores/threads you are wanting.

 

[czamana]

Hi!

Thanks for reply.

I guess that I forgot to say that I'm building a SERVER, a headless system, and not a Desktop computer. There will be no monitor attached to this system, unless for installing and/or maintenance. So, any integrated graphics card would be fine.

By other hand, as can be Plex transcoding in some situations (4K movies), a quad core processor with some internal GPU would be nice.

As my main goal is to maximize storage without the use of external cases or pci-e cards, I really need the maximum of SATA/SAS ports that I can get.

Regarding CPU, there are lots of options, as long as I stick with the LGA 1151 socket.

After searching the whole weekend, my conclusion is that the most expensive piece of hardware are the ECC memories. Very hard to find a pair of 16GB for less than US$ 400 in decent and reliable stores.

Thanks.
Regards.

 

[logainofhades]

That supermicro board you listed isn't LGA 1151. You are not going to get the high SATA port count on 1151 either. The most you are going to get is 8. You could use an NVME SSD to free up sata ports though.

For example
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Xeon E3-1245 V6 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($281.59 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus - P10S WS ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($209.69 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston - ValueRAM 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($436.56 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Storage: Western Digital - Black PCIe 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($89.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1017.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-07 11:28 EDT-0400



This would get you 10 ports, and 8c/16t.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Xeon E5-2620 V4 2.1GHz 8-Core Processor ($424.98 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG - H5 Universal 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($46.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock - X99 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($198.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Kingston - 32GB (4 x 8GB) Registered DDR4-2133 Memory ($408.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital - Black PCIe 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($89.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1169.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-07 11:19 EDT-0400