Upgrade/Rebuild Path - Does It Make Sense?


moonman

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Background

I previously built an Unraid server in 2012. Since then it's done a champion job, with very little in the way of hardware changes apart from a couple of drive replacements. I recently lost my parity drive and I'd like to take this opportunity to make some upgrades.

 

I have laid out a two possible upgrade paths that I think make sense and would appreciate any suggestions or critiques particularly for Part One as that is the most important now

 


CURRENT HARDWARE:
MOBO: Supermicro x9scm-f

PSU: Seasonic X-560 80Plus Gold 560W

HDDs: Western Digital Green 3TB x 4 (plus one parity drive, currently dead but not removed from enclosure).

CASE: Antec 900

FLASH DRIVE: Kingston Data Traveller 8GB 

 

I also have a couple of old SSDs lying around that I would like to add in for cache/running VMs/apps.

 


PART ONE: Things That Are Essential To Do Now/Soon
 

Step i: Purchase hard drives to restore parity protection and prepare for the increase in demand.

WD Red 8TB NAS WD80EFZX

$353 * 3 = $1050 AUD plus postage. (Two for dual parity, one for data)

 

 

Step ii: Install hardware into a newer case that has bigger "out of the box" drive capacity.

Fractal Design R5

$165 AUD plus postage. Drive bay adapters suitable for the current case are nearly as expensive as a new case so I'm just going to upgrade and use the Antec for something else.

 


Step iii: Install a PCIe expansion card to accomodate more drives.

Very few retail options in Australia that aren't ridiculously overpriced so eBay seems like the the best idea. Ideally I would get a card that I don't need to cross flash, as I don't really have any computers that I could do it in, but any recommendations are most welcome as I'm a bit lost on this.

LSI SAS 9211-8i HBA $85ish new

OR

IBM ServeRaid M1015 $86 AUD 

OR

LSI SAS 9201-8i $90ish new 

OR

Dell Perc H310 $90ish used within Australia, other sellers also ship new stock from China

 

CABLES FOR THESE:

75cm SFF-8087 to 4x SATA Cable With Sideband

OR

SilverStone CPS03-RE 50cm Mini SFF-8087 to SAS/SATA Cable

$50ish

 

 

PART TWO: Upgrades For Improved VM Performance
The second part to this is that I'd like to start running one or two VMs with Linux Mint for light desktop/HTPC use - i.e. web surfing, Netflix, movie watching from server, Kodi, occasionally office applications.

 

This needs to work alongside a couple of dockers - i.e. Transmission, Ubiquiti Unifi Controller, Plex Media Server and probably one or two more in the future.

 

 

OPTION A - keep current motherboard and upgrade CPU and RAM, add video card.

Step i: Upgrade the CPU with a second hand eBay buy that supports Vt-d

Intel E3-1220 V2 can be purchased for around $100 AUD, while the E3-1270 V2 can be found for around $200 AUD (will need to upgrade BIOS to 2.0 or above).

As far as I understand this will be the single thing that contributes most to better performance.

 

 

Step ii install a video card for better video performance on most commonly used VM

Potentially not needed, but would boost performance. This part has me a bit confused though. Any recommendations for something that's still available and would work on my current hardware? 

 

 

Step iii: upgrade RAM if necessary

Could add a pair of 1666mhz Kingston 8GB sticks for a total of 24GB, and potentially add another pair down the road to replace my current RAM and max out at 32GB.

 

 

OPTION B - upgrade motherboard, CPU, RAM etc with newer tech 

 

I understand that I could get much better performance and probably lower electricity use from current tech, however this would essentially mean I was putting together a new build aside from the drives. I'm still trying to figure out what would provide better bang for buck though. Any suggestions?

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I'd definitely KEEP the Antec! Get some of the SuperMicro CSE-M35T-1B (eBay can be a good source, not sure in AUS), and you'll be able to have 15 drives. And having the hot-swap will avoid having to open the server and rattle the cables adding or exchanging drives. This is very important to keeping the drives from dropping offline every time you change out a drive! See picture below. It is what I recommend even for new purchasers.

 

I recommend the 9201 controllers. They do not require to have firmware updated, and work quite nicely OOTB. The firmware update is not hard, but many users struggle with it, especially booting into a DOS environment necessary to do the flash.

 

The CPUs listed, the 1270v2 has a passmark of 9500, while the 1220v2 has a passmark of 6600. I'd have to recommend the former.

 

The video card is needed for a VM that you will directly use. Otherwise you need a different computer to act as the terminal for accessing the VM. Yes you lose performance, but you also need the computer. If you plan to use the VM directly as your daily use machine, you NEED a video passthrough, and very likely a USB passthrough also.

 

Once you have one VM with the passthrough, that VM can act as your "terminal" for accessing the other VMs. Yes, the other VMs video performance will suffer (although not too bad if you use NoMachine), but you are running everything on the unRAID server.

 

I think 24Gig of RAM would do you for one VM and unRAID. I'd split 16/8 (16 for the Windows VM, 8 for unRAID and Dockers). Unless you are going Docker crazy, that should work fine. I have 32Gig and which gives me an extra 8Gig for other VMs. But you could run other VMs too, possibly tweaking the memory allocations. But I like 32G better if multiple VMs are going to be a frequent / continuous need.

 

 

59c90adcd74c4_Antec900with5-in-3s.png.a7babb0a58a441161b0791c9c7dc1d36.png

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23 hours ago, SSD said:

 

59c90adcd74c4_Antec900with5-in-3s.png.a7babb0a58a441161b0791c9c7dc1d36.png

 

 

Thank you for the detailed response, I've had a good read around over the last couple of days using your post as a reference and feel like I'm on a clearer path now.

 

I found an eBay supplier for the CPU that's one step up from the 1270V2, so I'm going to go for that one. Ditto for the highest RAM the motherboard supports.The cheapest way to get a SuperMicro CSE-M35T-1B into Australia seems to be through Newegg at around $125 + $40 postage. All the eBay listings seem to be priced higher, including one hilarious listing for $436. 


Also just a clarification, at least under Option A of my plan, I'm not currently looking to run Windows or do any gaming. The VMs will just run Linux and be used for HTPC duties and web browsing primarily, with light Photoshop use if I was to install Windows at a later date. If I need to do anything more strenuous I think I'd build a new dedicated PC. Also it's fairly unlikely that I'll have more than 2 or 3 VMs running concurrently, and certainly not more than 2 being actively used at once. 

 

The question I had going into this process was: are there upgrades that I can put onto the board I already have in order to get decent enough VM performance for HTPC/desktop use without spending so much money that I would be better off ditching the whole lot and just building a new server with newer gear? The answer would appear to be it's worthwhile to upgrade what I've got. If the motherboard dies on me tomorrow, then I will have sunk $280 into a CPU that I probably can't use elsewhere, the rest of the components can be used on a future build with the possible exception of the RAM. Contrasted with Option B which would require $400+ for a new motherboard and at least $XXX for a CPU.  

 

So with that in mind, here's what I've come up with for my "new old" build:

 

Current hardware:

Motherboard: Supermicro x9scm-f

PSU: Seasonic X-560 80Plus Gold 560W

Case: Antec 900

HDDs: WD Green 3TB*4

FLASH DRIVE: Kingston Data Traveller 8GB 

RAM: Kingston, 1333mhz 2x4GB kit

 

Hardware to be added:

CPU: Intel Xeon E3 1280 V2 $280 AUD

RAM: Samsung 2X8GB DDR3 1600MHz PC3-12800E ECC Dimm server Memory CL9 Unbuffered $160 AUD

DRIVE CAGE: SUPERMICRO CSE-M35T-1B $125 AUD 

HDDs: WD Red 8TB * 3 = $1050 AUD

Expansion Card - $100 AUD

GPU: undecided, choosing between the following: 

EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti $196 AUD

EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti $216 AUD

EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB $260 AUD

EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC 6GB $352 AUD
 

Hardware to be retired:

CPU: Intel Core i3 2120

 

 

As far as I can tell, what I'm saying makes sense, and everything here is compatible with everything else, but I would appreciate any input or critiques. 

 

Cheers

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Struggling to understand where your head is on this. You have an excellent NAS motherboard able to accept a very powerful CPU and 32G of memory. If you beef it up, not understanding why it would not be your one and only computer and satisfy all of your current use cases.

 

The 1270v2 vs 1280v2 are almost identical passmarks - both just under 10K. Excellent performance level. I'd get the cheaper one.

 

If you are doing gaming, you could go for a higher end video card, otherwise might look at something like the 1050Ti, more than adequate for daily driver duty, media, and light gaming.

 

The world is evolving and high core count CPUs are coming. It is not clear whether AMD or Intel will win, but right now AMD is struggling with some issues in passthrough, and Intel's prices are out of sight. This is a great time, IMHO, to invest in a modest upgrade to an existing server that will keep you satisfied for the next year or two, and then look at a 10 or 16 core server with tons of lanes and slots, and do a more major upgrade then. Let the next generation stabilize before jumping in would be my advice.

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