NEW BUILD MOBO HELP TOO MANY CHOICES


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HI ALL,

 

Finally i am going to build this server. Some of the specs are below. I need help in the motherboard section and processor, as far as the case is concerned and the Power Supply see below.

 

My intention is to build this to 60TB as of right now due to my circumstances of moving states / jobs, I am going to only start with 3 drives. Once i figure where i am going to be settled then the real fun begins. My main use for the server is going to be raw storage, (lets just say my wife loves her camera to much on vacation, and averages 2000 photos a week no joke). We both have Ipads and the Iphone so I would like the Plex app ability, as i am going to be away for three weeks I would like to also like to have IMPI features, i know there is another feature similar to IPMI just not sure. Please see below for the PSU, Case, Flash Drive, HD i am going to use. Any suggestion on the motherboard and processor are greatly appreciated. I would like the i3 but it is very pricey.

 

Case-

ThermalTake Mozart TX- Currently already have one for my home computer (Problem is i cannot seem to find another case like this anywhere, i need suggestions) May have to build my own ;(

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133027

 

PSU-

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153144

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341018

 

HD- TBD Upon recommendations and pricing

 

Location of Build- CA

Main Use- Streaming, file storage and back up of all the home pc's/tablets.

Cost- TBD prefer to build small for now as i will possibly be moving soon.

Any suggestions will help, greatly appreciate it.

 

Thank you

 

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..IPMI you will only get from a server-class mobo and your starting point CPU-wise will have to be an i3 as well...which makes it even more expensive .

 

If you want to start small, with 3 Drives only, I'd go for a budget build (see prototype recommendations from Raj, here: http://www.greenleaf-technology.com/blogs/prototypes/index.php)

and maybe find another use for that box later (maybe adding a GPU and run it as XBMC/Plex frontend).

 

...if you want to start small and with fast-buildtime too, in a server class (no IPMI though), I'd recommend the HP N36 or N40 microserver...just add disks and you're good to go.

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:o

He dirtrunner0519..is that really you?  ;D

 

...that board is like a quantum leap away from what you gave away about your requirements in your first post.

 

If you were worried about the higher price of an i3 in a budget build, this is like switching from a small Toyota to the biggest Lexus,

just because you cannot fit the radio that also plays flac and not only mp3.

 

So if you are serious about that, I'd recommend to tell us more specific about your requirements....and your budget  ;)

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Well my budget is not endless but that mother board just really appeals to me for some reason. I just want an all in one machine with whs unraid and then also maybe win7. They will all have to be virtual machines I am assuming. I am not sure where I want to go with this build anymore. I will give a little understanding of what I will use it for.

 

Storing blue ray movies and streaming them, wife has a huge collection. I have a rather large library of music I have collected since I was about 10 in mostly from cd and they are all on existing hard drives. My wife likes to take tons of photos and I mean thousands. So it will be also a database for this. I have a pc she has a Mac. He hates pc so what ever the solution we will go from there.

 

Any suggestions.

 

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...ok, understood.

 

The number of CPU Sockets will just allow for more cores.

This is not directly related with the number of Systems you are going to virtualize on that box.

I still think that the mobo you listed is an overkill....and you'll need quite a roomy box, since that is larger than Full-ATX.

 

For unRAID you'll need not more than 1 core...maybe less than a half of a XEON core  ;)

..and the other VMs, well it will depend on how much load you'll put on them concurrently.

I gather a single CPU (quad core with hyper-threading) would still be more than enough to drive

a WHS (which is kinda EOL anyway) and a win7 box along with unRAID.

 

This might be more suitable for your needs: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=14695.0

You can find also some variants of it around in this forum.

It all comes down how many physical  accessories you want to support in VMs (besides the HBA card(s) for unRAID).

This will give you the number of PCIe slots you are going to need...and you need to match your mobo with that.

The newest, single CPU mobo with lots of room for extensions just came out: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=21602.0

..but I haven't seen any of that in your requirements (like recording TV via DVB-S or such).

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I did not even think of the DVR thing for tv. I was thinking of running a small nettop of that. But if the server is going to be cable of that then i would be more than happy to use that.  I just dont want to build a computer with a 200 dollar motherboard and two years later it be out of date, as i have done many times. I looked at alot of the Unraid plug-ins do those use CPU usage for downloading the tv-shows you ask it to search for etc. or is it mainly based on your network capability. I have access to a fiber line that i could run straight into the server if needs be. Can i run and i3 to start, and then when i move and build my storage tower upgrade to an i7 on the SM X9srl. 295.99 is not to bad for that board.

 

As far as the case goes, i am custom building it to my specs, i really like the Mozart tx case or the Lian PC cube case. but when i can build something for half the cost and do crazy lazer engraves etc on it. i am all for the custom.

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...I doubt that the X9SRL will take anything less than an E5 XEON ATM.

The X9SCM-IIF board recommended by user mbryanr is also very nice...it also has two NICs that are supported by ESXi and quite some PCIe slots.

 

When it comes to virtualization (a lot of plugins/add-ons/customizations have been developed to make unRAID run extra tasks but in

a vitualized scenario you'd rather have a VM for that and keep unRAID "clean") there are two concepts around

- virztualize an unRAID install

  This would be as "standard" / plain as you wish

  You will use ESXI and a mobo/BIOS/CPU combo that supports the VT-D feature...and physically pass-through the controller from the host to your unRAID VM.

    This feauture you can use to pass-through other hardware, like a DVB receiver to other VMs as well.

    Here an i3 is NOT suitable...there are none with vt-d around

- run a hypervisor in unRAID (virtualbox)

  This will be an non-standard unRAID install and pass-through is out of scope here.

  Here an i3 is a good starting point.

 

As to where the load goes (net or CPU) I cannot tell...I don't run torrents and such.

I gather in a modern chipset the net-traffic is not imposing much stress on the CPU...receive and store is easy.

...searching catalogs and if you need to process the content, like transforming or scanning is more stressfull.

 

Regarding the "nettop" thing, I am not sure if I understand you correct.

Just be informed that, in a virtual machine, providing GPU power (for processing FullHD content) is a problem.

Passthrough of GPU cards is not a standard procedure...only quite a few combinations of motherboards and GPUs (mostly ATI) are known to work.

You should not plan to make that virtualized server your HTPC media frontend as well.

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