Building my first box (must be cheap, small, quiet): some general questions

Urraca

Gawd
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Sep 13, 2002
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806
First of all, the purpose of my lab is mostly for spinning up linux boxes, virtual routers and firewalls (and maybe some W2k12 DCs). My priority is not to learn and test all that the VMware eco-system has to offer, although, maybe one day I would like to do that. This is for misc labbing, and won't always be turned on.

Now, I really think I could do most of what I need to do in VMware Workstation, except. I'm waiting for Haswell and the next nVidia generation for my next build. Most of my work is done on a Macbook Air with 4gb of RAM these days as well.

I live in a very, small 700sq ft 1BR apartment in Manhattan (although this is huge for NYC!). So size, noise, heat/power matter. I certainly don't want some monstrosity in my living room.

So, in terms of build, it must be:

1) very small, I want microATX
2) energy efficient
3) quiet
4) have potential for expand-ability

I'm also trying to keep this in the ~$450 - $600 range.

The main components I *think* building around are the following:
  • Intel Xeon Quad-Core E3-1220V2
  • SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F
  • Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600
  • Rosewill U400W 2.2 12V PS R363-M-BK
  • Samsung 840 Series 2.5 inch 120GB SSD

Now, thanks to Amazon Prime, this comes out to $560 shipped. Right in my price range. But I could save > $100 if I went with an enthusiast board and an i5.

Now, finally, my questions:

  1. What advantages would the Xeon give me so over a cheaper i5? I'm really like the 69Watt power on the E3 though
  2. I can always throw in 2x more 8gb sticks down the road?
  3. How many NICs do I really need? I know there is a newer version (more $$) of the Supermicro that has two, officially support NICs. Down the road I could always throw in an PCI-X NIC?
  4. If I go with an enthusiast board over (MSI Z77MA-G45 Mobo) over the super micro, what capabilities will I be missing?
  5. Is the SSD enough space? Or should I go with a 500gb Seagate? I basically plan on storing very little data, and don't have plans on adding a NAS. I chose an SSD for speed/noise reasons. What other advantages are there, besides the obvious faster booting.
  6. Expand-ability: Maybe I want to incorporate a NAS down the road, or a second box. Anything in my current setup that will prevent that?

Thanks in advance!
 
First of all, the purpose of my lab is mostly for spinning up linux boxes, virtual routers and firewalls (and maybe some W2k12 DCs). My priority is not to learn and test all that the VMware eco-system has to offer, although, maybe one day I would like to do that. This is for misc labbing, and won't always be turned on.

Now, I really think I could do most of what I need to do in VMware Workstation, except. I'm waiting for Haswell and the next nVidia generation for my next build. Most of my work is done on a Macbook Air with 4gb of RAM these days as well.

I live in a very, small 700sq ft 1BR apartment in Manhattan (although this is huge for NYC!). So size, noise, heat/power matter. I certainly don't want some monstrosity in my living room.

So, in terms of build, it must be:

1) very small, I want microATX2) energy efficient
3) quiet
4) have potential for expand-ability

I'm also trying to keep this in the ~$450 - $600 range.

The main components I *think* building around are the following:
  • Intel Xeon Quad-Core E3-1220V2
  • SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F
  • Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600
  • Rosewill U400W 2.2 12V PS R363-M-BK
  • Samsung 840 Series 2.5 inch 120GB SSD

Now, thanks to Amazon Prime, this comes out to $560 shipped. Right in my price range. But I could save > $100 if I went with an enthusiast board and an i5.

Now, finally, my questions:

  1. What advantages would the Xeon give me so over a cheaper i5? I'm really like the 69Watt power on the E3 though
  2. I can always throw in 2x more 8gb sticks down the road?
  3. How many NICs do I really need? I know there is a newer version (more $$) of the Supermicro that has two, officially support NICs. Down the road I could always throw in an PCI-X NIC?
  4. If I go with an enthusiast board over (MSI Z77MA-G45 Mobo) over the super micro, what capabilities will I be missing?
  5. Is the SSD enough space? Or should I go with a 500gb Seagate? I basically plan on storing very little data, and don't have plans on adding a NAS. I chose an SSD for speed/noise reasons. What other advantages are there, besides the obvious faster booting.
  6. Expand-ability: Maybe I want to incorporate a NAS down the road, or a second box. Anything in my current setup that will prevent that?

Thanks in advance!

Very small and expandable don't usually mix ...but it depends on your plans to populate the motherboard.

As far as expanding externally ... like adding a NAS ... that really has no effect on anything you build .... just need a way to connect: Network, USB, eSATA, etc.

The server motherboard with Xeon processor will normally support all features available in VMware namely fault tolerance, and you also get management features with server boards that a lot of desktop boards won't have - lights out management for example.

Intel Desktop Boards with Q67/Q77 chipsets may have Intel AMT ..which, when paired with right CPU (vPro capable) that allow for lights out managment.

It's a handy feature ..but if you sit in front/near the machine ... maybe not necessary?

Number of NICs depends on you and what want ... you can run on just one ... whe trying to mimic a production VMware environment, you'll want at least 3 but 4+ is great for separating traffic. You aren't trying to do that though.
You can add multiport NICs (PCIe - not PCIx) as needed (and as your mobo has room).


Get the biggest SSD you can afford. You can boot ESXi off USB and use all space on the SSD for VM storage. The number of VMs, IO, and space requirements determine if a single 120GB will be enough.
 
Think about a slight upgrade to an E3 1230 V2 as it supports hyper-threading where the 1220 does not. This will give you more "CPUs" to play with.
 
  • Rosewill U400W 2.2 12V PS R363-M-BK
Not a good choice since the included PSU is crap. Plus the cooling in that case is bit lacking with only a single 90mm fan. I recommend these other cases instead if you want good cooling:
$55 - Rosewill LINE-M mATX Case
$78 - Silverstone PS07B mATX Case
$102 - Silverstone TJ08B-E mATX Case

Yes none of the above cases comes with a PSU. However there are cheap yet decent PSUs available:
$45 - Corsair 430CX V2 430W PSU

  1. What advantages would the Xeon give me so over a cheaper i5? I'm really like the 69Watt power on the E3 though
Slightly lower power usage and the ability to use ECC RAM with your particular chosen Xeon. However, the Xeons do have a major price advantage once you jump up to the Xeon E3 1230 V2. The Xeon E3 1230 V2 costs $240 and comes with HT. In order to get HT with the regular Core CPUs, you have to jump up to the $300 Core i7 3770. The extra $60 for the Core i7 3770 only gets you an integrated GPU and an extra 100Mhz in clock speed. Considering that most good server class mobos have onboard GPUs or people already have cheap-o video cards ready to reuse, the Xeon E3 1230 is the better bang for the buck choice when you need HT.
  1. I can always throw in 2x more 8gb sticks down the road?
  2. Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600
Supermicro mobos in general tend to be picky about what RAM they support. In this case, you have to use ECC Unbuffered RAM. Those do cost more than their regular desktop counterparts. i.e ~$71 for 8GB:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064Z71NY/?tag=extension-kb-20

As long as you use ECC Unbuffered RAM, preferably from Kinston since they seem to have the highest compatibility rate with Supermicro mobos, yes you can throw in two more 8GB sticks of RAM down the road.

As you can figure out by now, this build is gonna cost you quite a bit of extra money since now you have to get ECC Unbuffered RAM, a better quality and cooling case, and a decent PSU. Not to mention that the build will cost you more in the long-run due to the costs of the ECC Unbuffered RAM. So at this point, you might want to think about just doing a regular Core i5 setup. Note that the Core i5 3470 is $188 on Amazon.com right now.

Netwerkz101 covered the rest of your questions very well.
 
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Not a good choice since the included PSU is crap. Plus the cooling in that case is bit lacking with only a single 90mm fan. I recommend these other cases instead if you want good cooling:
$55 - Rosewill LINE-M mATX Case
$78 - Silverstone PS07B mATX Case
$102 - Silverstone TJ08B-E mATX Case

Those Silverstone cases are great mATX cases, but if you want expandability, I would go with a Fractal Design R4. It is a very quiet ATX case and has 8 drive bays. When/if you want to ever add a NAS, you would only need to purchase a SAS card and more HDDs. Then setup a FreeNAS vm with ZFS.

You can get it at Amazon for $103 but it could go lower. I bought mine in Canada for $80 last week.
 
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Those Silverstone cases are great mATX cases, but if you want expandability, I would go with a Fractal Design R4. It is a very quiet ATX case and has 8 drive bays. When/if you want to ever add a NAS, you would only need to purchase a SAS card and more HDDs. Then setup a FreeNAS vm with ZFS.
Only problem is that the Fractal Design R4 might be too large for the OP considering that his very first requirement is "small"
 
If you're looking to save a few bucks, the X9SCL is cheaper than the X9SCM, and every bit as much a quality board. You're basically just trading 2x 6Gbps SATA ports for 2x 3Gbps SATA ports, and losing a PCIe slot. If you're going to have a monitor hooked up to it, you don't need the -F version, either. Save another $10 and get the non-F version for $160.

X9SCM-F-O: $183
X9SCL-F-O: $170
X9SCL-O: $160

Both NICs work in ESXi on all three boards. You just have to enable the second one with a community driver. It's not a very difficult procedure. And honestly, you don't "need" more than one NIC. It's nice if you want to play with networking or iSCSI, but not at all necessary. Management, host, and guest traffic can all flow through the same port.

You're gonna need that money, too, since you need ECC UDIMMs (not RDIMMs) with your setup. I recommend two of these at $71 per.
 
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I use these in my X9SCM-F without issue, and they are only $52/ea.
Nice find!
$180 - E3-1220v2 (or $240 for the 1230v2)
$104 - 2x8GB ECC UDIMMs
$160 - X9SCL-O
$45 - Corsair 430W PSU
$50 - Rosewill LINE-M mATX case

Damn, you could build an ESXi host with quality components for only $540! That's actually kind of amazing.

Oh, and something I didn't see mentioned by any of the other posters - VT-d support doesn't exist on any of the K-series consumer processors. It's required if you want to passthrough hardware to the VM. So an i5-3570S would work if you go consumer, but an i5-3570K would not.Just something to keep in mind!
 
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Actually, a bit cheaper:

146.99 X9SCL-F-B - Its only $1 more than the X9SCL-B but note that the "B" means its bulk packaging. With the SSD I would imagine you would want a C204 chipset for the SATA3, the cheapest SM boards I've found are in the $180 range though.

Personally I would step up to the 1230v2, you can get them as low as 229.99.

Not sure the community consensus on superbiiz - i've only ever purchased my RAM from them, but no issues thus far and they are ~10% cheaper than amazon/egg.
 
Actually, a bit cheaper:

146.99 X9SCL-F-B
$140 X9SCL-O (No IPMI) It just keeps getting cheaper! (Although, for $7, I'd get the IPMI version. I love the ability to hit the power button or use the virtual console all from the intranet, not to mention loading a CD without being anywhere near the physical computer!)

The only downside I really see with SuperBiiz is their shipping rates. Free 2 day with Prime vs. UPS ground of $12.99 for the motherboard alone!
 
Yeah thats why I generally don't buy from SuperBiiz : They don't have as much free shipping options like Amazon or even Newegg does.
 
Thanks for the great feedback everyone, I'm still fiddling around with my build though as I wanted to keep it in the $600 range. Maybe it's just not time to build it yet though, but I was seduced by Hyperthreading on the E3-1230v2, instead of the E3-1220v2, so that bumped the build up $60 alone. Worth it?

Trying to squeeze out that last bit of $$. I am going away to a bachelor party this weekend, which will involve some gambling, maybe I will be lucky and win my box though!

SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O
$182.99
Samsung 840 Series 2.5 inch 120GB SATA III
$94.99

2x - Kingston Technology ValueRAM 8 GB 1333MHz DDR3 PC3-10666 ECC
$69.24

Corsair Builder Series CX 430 Watt ATX/EPS 80 PLUS (CX430) - Corsair
$44.99

Cooler Master Elite 343 Mini Tower (RC-343-KKN1) - Coolermaster
$39.99

Intel Xeon Quad-Core E3-1230V2
$240

Total is: $741.43 shipped + tax free from Amazon.

Probably > $100 more than I wanted to spend, and I have some concerns:

For running test Linux Boxes, and maybe 1 or 2 Server2k12 VMs, is the 128 SSD enough? I'm thinking 12x VMs @ 8gb a pop each. I won't be storing a lot of data, but who knows...

Also, I chose the SSD for power and noise reasons. If I sacrificed and went with a 500gb Seagate, what negatives will I see?I mean my main desktop doesn't even have an SSD, and I can live with that...for now. But if, 128Gb is enough space I will spend the extra $20 for an SSD. I can always expand to more space down the road I suppose?

Secondly, I'm seeing some people use the Xeon on what appears to be non-server based boards. Specifically, the MSI Z77MA-G45. Is that an option? What do I lose by going to anon-server based board? I assume, that allows me to downgrade to non-ECC RAM and allows me to save even more money?

Thanks again.
 
I was seduced by Hyperthreading on the E3-1230v2, instead of the E3-1220v2, so that bumped the build up $60 alone. Worth it?
In my opinion, definitely worth it. I love the E3-1230v2.

For running test Linux Boxes, and maybe 1 or 2 Server2k12 VMs, is the 128 SSD enough? I'm thinking 12x VMs @ 8gb a pop each.
You're looking at at least 15GB per Server2K12 VM. For reference, I've got 6xVMs, 5 of which are Server 2012, and I'm using 200GB or so. (DC, Exchange CAS, Exchange Mail, Web, Storage) If you want to set up something similar, it'd definitely be possible with 128GB, but you'd be approaching the limit. I'm looking to add a few more VMs to my 256GB SSD, and I have to rebuild the entire domain because I gave each VM a minimum of 25GB.

If I sacrificed and went with a 500gb Seagate, what negatives will I see?
Realistically, in a "I want to practice for my MCSE" type scenario, the negatives are so minor they're practically nonexistant. I had 10x VMs running off a single 1TB drive a year or two ago. They all worked just fine, and were plenty "snappy" for what I was doing.
 
2x - Kingston Technology ValueRAM 8 GB 1333MHz DDR3 PC3-10666 ECC
$69.24

....

Probably > $100 more than I wanted to spend, and I have some concerns:

Save ~$35 of that $100 and get the memory at superbiiz rather than Amazon. Just had a friend get them from superbiiz via ebay for ~$47/ea rather than the $52/ea on the superbiiz site, too. You could also save another $10 by getting the motherboard from them. While I'm not usually one to nit pick over a few bucks, you are only off by ~$100 and can almost cut that in half.

If you do decide on a HDD for your datastore, you could also go with one of the lower cost C202 chipset SM motherboards and save another $30-40, as you won't see the difference between SATA2 and 3. If you get the X9SCL+-F (C202) both NICs will be natively supported, although installing chilly's drivers for the LM NIC isn't particularly an issue for a home server.
 
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