Server/Workstation Parts recommendation

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SpeedyVV

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Sep 14, 2007
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1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Running lots of Websites. Each web server will have to be in their own VM. MySQL servers in their own VMs. VMs combination of Linux and Windows Server.

Will also be running some HPC applications on an ad hoc basis.

Don't worry about redundancy, backups, NAS, etc... Just this Server/Workstation

Might run some game servers for fun, or might even throw in a GPU down the road for gaming shits and giggles.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
No budget, but looking for Bang for the £ quality parts.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

London, UK

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
Motherboard, PSU, RAM, Storage, CPU HSF, GPU.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
CPU: 2 x E5 2699 v3

6) Will you be overclocking?
No

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
1920x1200

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAP

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Windows Server 2012 R2 (Might multiboot Windows 8.1 on occasion, or Linux for HPC)


Potential Parts
£420.00 Z10PE-D8 WS Xeon Series S2011 v3 Asus Motherboard
£599.57 ECC Registered 64GB DDR4 Server RAM 2133 MHz Speed 4x 16GB Kit from Crucial
£160.92 Corsair HX1000i 1000W Full Modular Power Supply
£267.01 2 x Samsung MZ-7KE512BW 850 PRO 512GB SSD SATA 3
£131.28 2 x HGST H3IKNAS40003272SE 4TB Deskstar NAS HDD 24x7 Use 3.5" 7200rpm Retail Box

Might get a Radeon HD 285 for shit and giggles and to try PLP Eyefinity. Recommendation?
 
How many websites is "lots", and why does each website need its own VM? That seems very wasteful. At that point you're not hosting websites, you're hosting virtual servers. Also, why DDR4? I would think with VMs, and especially website VMs, you would want more RAM rather than faster RAM.

I just buy used C1100's on eBay. They may not have top of the line specs, but I can buy FIVE of them with 72GB of DDR3 RAM EACH for the 1578.78 GBP that your parts cost.
 
wizdum said:
How many websites is "lots", and why does each website need its own VM? That seems very wasteful. At that point you're not hosting websites, you're hosting virtual servers. Also, why DDR4? I would think with VMs, and especially website VMs, you would want more RAM rather than faster RAM.

I just buy used C1100's on eBay. They may not have top of the line specs, but I can buy FIVE of them with 72GB of DDR3 RAM EACH for the 1578.78 GBP that your parts cost.
Click to expand...

Good point. I agree the service I am selling is more of a Virtual Server Hosting. The fact that the customers are running websites, is almost irrelevant.

Why DDR4? Well maybe I am wrong, but does my CPUs support anything else?
 
SpeedyVV,
You need DDR4 because your Xeons are the newest v3 chips and they work solely with the C612 chipset / DDR4. Sadly, no cheaper DDR3 allowed in your case. On the bright side, your box is gonna have some absolutely monster bandwidth to play with.
 
If your doing this to host your customers, they are OK with the downtime for when you..

'Might multiboot Windows 8.1 on occasion, or Linux for HPC'
*or*
'Radeon HD 285 for shit and giggles and to try PLP Eyefinity'

?
 
dbwillis said:
If your doing this to host your customers, they are OK with the downtime for when you..

'Might multiboot Windows 8.1 on occasion, or Linux for HPC'
*or*
'Radeon HD 285 for shit and giggles and to try PLP Eyefinity'

?
Click to expand...

This is right now, my backup server ;-)

Already have one server, with AWS as a backup.

So, back to the original question? Any comments on the parts or better recommendation?
 
Last edited:
Switch to Intel S3700 SSD.

All research I've done points to Intel and specifically their enterprise feature drives having the same reliability throughout their workload, and queue depth where other drives start to fall flat, or over time they slow while the Intels keep chugging, and at the same performance as when you installed them.

I also wouldn't run an ASUS motherboard for a server/workstation but that's just me.

Those CPUs are an absolute beast! I would think to fully utilize two of them you would want a lot more RAM. I am using 64gb RAM for 1 server that hosts MySQL only, and that's my starting point for RAM.

I can't imagine hosting "lots" of websites and various mysql instances with only 64gb unless they're all tiny sites, and seeing as you mentioned Windows I would imagine even more RAM is needed for each VM to run smoothly without any other applications running.
 
Thanks for the SSD pointer!

But man, 64GB of RAM not enough???
 
When you have 36 real cores and 72 threads. 64 gig of ram is like running 4 gig on your new i7 :p

256 would be as low as I would go with all the compute. If the goal is running VMs. Most vm farms I've seen are running out of ram with idling CPUs
 
DeChache said:
When you have 36 real cores and 72 threads. 64 gig of ram is like running 4 gig on your new i7 :p

256 would be as low as I would go with all the compute. If the goal is running VMs. Most vm farms I've seen are running out of ram with idling CPUs
Click to expand...

When you put it like that, it is hard to argue :-(

I'll start with 128, and wait for next round of funding.
 
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