Couple of X99 Questions

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So... I'm possibly getting an older xeon v2/3 chip and some memory, and I'm considering moving my current plex / file server to this platform.

Currently my server is an i5-4590/z87 with a raid 5 setup using the on board intel RST (4x4TB) with 1 4TB spare.

I'm looking at picking up a used X99 2011-3 board, can I move my raid over to the new machine without having to destroy and rebuild it?
 
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X99 owner here... Since nobody else has chimed in I'll give answering a stab. If you are running a Xeon CPU, this thread seems to give a pretty comprehensive list. My X99-A/USB3.1 supports ECC when using Xeons as well, glancing at the compatibility list.

Before you migrate your array you should back it up if at all possible. X99 and Z87 most likely do not use the same core RAID implementation, so you may have to rebuild your array from scratch.

Hope I've helped!

EDIT: Try building a simple RAID 0+1 from some spare drives and test before pulling over everything for real!
 
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Make sure you are buying the right stuff:

E5 v1/v2 = X79/C60x = DDR3
E5 v3/v4 = X99/C61x = DDR4

Consumer board + E5 Xeon = Asrock. Lots of experience behind that statement.

Look for deals on supermicro as well, C612 is basically the same thing on a single socket board. Dual socket is a waste of electricity and extra caveats for most home servers.

RST aka hybrid or fakeraid might lift and move, it technically should with the same software but who knows for sure. Actual software raid will move to any compatible OS. Hardware raid...is dead jim.
 
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Aluminum said:
Look for deals on supermicro as well, C612 is basically the same thing on a single socket board. Dual socket is a waste of electricity and extra caveats for most home servers.
Click to expand...

I will vouch for SuperMicro, I have experience with their boards. The level of engineering on these boards and the care & attention to detail gives me a stiffy.

And, not trying to thread-jack, but I was actually looking into using an older 2S Opteron setup for file-serving & firewall duties. Power is an obvious issue, but I was wondering what exactly the extra caveats were besides that...
 
Ran an Asrock X99 WS board for over two years with a Es Xeon, loved that setup. Asrock tends to be the go-to for Xeon +ecc.
 
The caveats are pcie assignments, ram population (right now ram is typically the biggest cost factor in duty server builds) lower clocked skus and "big" numa access - this combined with a overestimating actual need of cores means multi-socket is generally a bad pick for a sit-n-run home server.

Everything is going "little" numa these days though, HCC xeons started it, Zen finished it. Hell even arm has it with heterogeneous cores now, but they hide and leverage it (power) well.
 
Aluminum said:
The caveats are pcie assignments, ram population (right now ram is typically the biggest cost factor in duty server builds) lower clocked skus and "big" numa access - this combined with a overestimating actual need of cores means multi-socket is generally a bad pick for a sit-n-run home server.

Everything is going "little" numa these days though, HCC xeons started it, Zen finished it. Hell even arm has it with heterogeneous cores now, but they hide and leverage it (power) well.
Click to expand...

Good to know going forward, I was under no aspirations that I would need anything more than 2 2.4-2.8GHz Opterons with 8 or 16GB of RAM (8 if I can get away with it). Purely to serve as just a curiosity with (the occasional) disposable income, to be sure.

I know that even with Threadripper there is a significant hit to performance in NUMA mode in gaming titles. Latency I am guessing is the murder culprit here...
 
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