Need Input/advice on New Server Build

Dark_Falcon

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 30, 2006
Messages
67
Hi All,

Looking for help/advice on a Server Upgrade...

It looks like my server (in sig) is on it's last legs. Sometimes it boots, sometimes not so much. Anyways, as it's been a while since I've built a server I'm a bit out of the loop and would appreciate any advice/input the community can provide....

I'm currently running Windows Server Essentials 2016 to primarily handle my backup/restores/file shares and Stablebit Drivepool for storage pooling etc... However, with this new build I'm considering rebuilding everything from scratch, which will include a new OS and will consist of a number of VMs and perhaps something like FreeNas, Proxmox, Plex, misc. docker containers, home automation and whatever else gets me curious.

What I'm keeping:
Server Chasis : Norco 4220

What I'm replacing :
Pretty much everything else....I'm very open to a complete replacement of hardware with the exception of the Norco Case. For my purposes, it's been rock solid and just works. Although I'm currently utilizing Intel specific hardware, I'm open to exploring AMD solutions as well. I would REALLY like to keep the IPMI functionality of the SuperMicro boards, but I understand that I 'may' need to sacrifice that to get a really robust CPU/Board combo.

If I could get a starting point recommendation for the CPU(s), Motherboard, memory and Graphics Card that would be a big help....

My overall budget is 500-1500 (unless there is a solid reason to have a bigger budget).

Any help/thoughts are very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Current Setup:
Case:Norco 4220, PSU:Corsair 650HX(CMPSU), MB:Super Micro X8SIL-F, CPU:Intel Core i3-530, RAM:Kingston KVR1333D3E9SK2/4G, CNTL Cards: LSI00301 SAS 9207-8i (2), Fans:Scythe 120mm, OS: WSE 2016, HD's:Hitachi/Seagate/WD 7200RPM drives, SysDrive: WD Blue 3D 500GB, Graphics Card: NONE (built into CPU only)
 
Are you looking for a "server" grade MB because you need the potential better stability, or is there any other reason why you have Supermicro right now?
As for VM stuff, you may need to decide which hypervisor you'll be going with. Some, like whatever WMware offers, work better with specific hardware, so that may dictate your CPU choice.
You could probably get away with keeping the PSU and LSI cards, storage HDDs. For system, go with NVMe drive - that's pretty much the standard these days.

I personally was in a similar situation about a year ago, replacing Intel i3 6300T based system w/ PERC H700. I ended up with Ryzen 5 3400G/32G RAM/NVMe SSD for system. I have base OS as Win10, and it is running HyperV with several VMs: FreeNAS, Win10 dev box, centOS dev box. FreeNAS has direct access to 2x4TB WD Reds. While I initially considered a boot level hypervisor, that would have required me to install an external GPU for my HTPC purposes. I didn't want the increase 10w+ power draw of that, so I went with Win10 to be able to play light games (WinServer does not support DirectX as I leaned...). Win10 does not support simultaneous RDP sessions, and that's about the main differences b/w the consumer and server OS'es. (I know there's more, used to run Server 2010/2016 before, but for my purposes that's it). You can install most features of server on win10 via features and whatnot.

No issues at all, other than windows updating at will. I know I can disable all that, but it's not causing me any issues to bother me enough to do anything about it, lol. I have the FreeNAS VM on auto-boot based on last state, and it comes back every time without me ever noticing.

With that Ryzen chip and B450 MB, my upgrade path is wide open.

Without more detailed requirements, it would be difficult to recommend anything to you. Unless you're just looking for a general discussion, in which case here you go. :)
 
Are you looking for a "server" grade MB because you need the potential better stability, or is there any other reason why you have Supermicro right now?
As for VM stuff, you may need to decide which hypervisor you'll be going with. Some, like whatever WMware offers, work better with specific hardware, so that may dictate your CPU choice.
You could probably get away with keeping the PSU and LSI cards, storage HDDs. For system, go with NVMe drive - that's pretty much the standard these days.

I personally was in a similar situation about a year ago, replacing Intel i3 6300T based system w/ PERC H700. I ended up with Ryzen 5 3400G/32G RAM/NVMe SSD for system. I have base OS as Win10, and it is running HyperV with several VMs: FreeNAS, Win10 dev box, centOS dev box. FreeNAS has direct access to 2x4TB WD Reds. While I initially considered a boot level hypervisor, that would have required me to install an external GPU for my HTPC purposes. I didn't want the increase 10w+ power draw of that, so I went with Win10 to be able to play light games (WinServer does not support DirectX as I leaned...). Win10 does not support simultaneous RDP sessions, and that's about the main differences b/w the consumer and server OS'es. (I know there's more, used to run Server 2010/2016 before, but for my purposes that's it). You can install most features of server on win10 via features and whatnot.

No issues at all, other than windows updating at will. I know I can disable all that, but it's not causing me any issues to bother me enough to do anything about it, lol. I have the FreeNAS VM on auto-boot based on last state, and it comes back every time without me ever noticing.

With that Ryzen chip and B450 MB, my upgrade path is wide open.

Without more detailed requirements, it would be difficult to recommend anything to you. Unless you're just looking for a general discussion, in which case here you go. :)
Thanks for the response/advice slavie...
I was out of town for a while so only now have had the time to respond. Just to add a little more clarity to my request, here is a little more info....

I currently have 3 primary machines that I want to roll into one (onto my Norco Case).
1) Dedicated Plex Server running on Windows 10 OS. It gets me by, with VERY old everything (Intel I3-4130 CPU, GTX-460 Video and 32GB memory). Oddly, I have had no issue streaming 4k, with multiple streams. However, it does suck power and I would like to consolidate space/resources etc....
2) Old Linux Box that I currently utilize for media management (tagging/ripping etc...). I currently run several docker containers on it and was just getting started with Home Assistant when I got the bug to consolidate everything.
3) My Norco FileServer (as described previously and in my sig).

My goals :
1) I want to combine all 3 of the boxes above into a robust solution, with the possibility of adding even more services via Docker Containers and/or additional VMs (on the same box, if possible).
2) I really want to keep the Norco box, but I'm willing to strip/replace everything in it. I originally chose the server board (supermicro) route because it offered the stability AND IPMI functionality (I think it was one of the only boards to offer it at a reasonable price at the time).
3) I do not need to do gaming on the server as I have a dedicated machine for that. However, I assume I need a decent CPU w/ Video onboard OR a dedicated GPU (which I don't have now) on the server (for plex transcoding etc...).
4) I would like it to have enough power to run multiple VMs (Proxmox/VMWare/HyperV currently looking like the best hypervisor options) - I'm new to the Hypervisor landscape so I'm not sure what is going to meet my requirements. I don't mind tinkering, so I may have to do some exploring. I'm also always open to input/recommendations from others.
5) One more thing, I'm in the process of installing cameras on my home and would like to allocate one of the VMs on this box to monitoring/recording from those cameras (via BlueIris).

In summary, my goal is... One box w/ FileServer, Multiple VMs, Plex, FreeNas/Stablebit, Home Assistant, Misc Docker Containers for Media Mgmt and Blue Iris Camera Mgmt.
Budget is about $1k - $2K, but flexible for the right solution

I don't know if this is overly ambitious to try to fit all these services into one box or not, but it sure would be nice to have everything consolidate onto a single place.

Thanks again for the input/feedback! If you have any more input/advice based upon the above additional info, please share. In the meantime, I will take a look at the Ryzen chip and your other recommendations. As I stated above, it's really been a while so I'm slowly reeducating myself.

Q. Could you please tell me what MB you would recommend for the setup you described?
 
Last edited:
I have a 45TB FreeNAS server (or TrueNAS CORE as-is call now) and a 90TB Unraid server. You're better off sticking with proxmox/VMware if you're planning on running multiple VMs. TrueNAS (FreeNAS) VM support via behyve is extremely bad and a complete mess. Yes, it will run but god forbid there's a TrueNAS update, it will most likely break your VMs among other things. I have been running FreeNAS since 2016 and every incremental upgrade is like playing Russian roulette with your server, something will break, just go over Reddit and read every update thread for a good laugh. There's also no docker support under FreeNAS you will have to run something like RancherOS or Ubuntu VM with docker-compose deployed inside the VM, or do it like me and stick to iocage containers and you will be fine. There is also TrueNAS SCALE which is pretty much FreeNAS running 100% native under Linux / Debian so docker/kvm/clustering support should be as good as proxmox/vmware/Unraid but is still in early beta.

Another option is Unraid, which runs dockers and VM perfectly fine, you can even pass through USB controllers, GPU, sound card, or whatever peripheral you have and run an entire pc off the same Unraid box, has a huge community and their forums are very helpful you will always find help on their forums. The FreeNAS forums, on the other hand, are pretty much there to laugh at you and tell you how much elite hax0r skills they have, for FreeNAS (TrueNAS) stick to Reddit for help, if you decide to give Unraid a try their forums are super helpful and very friendly.
 
Last edited:
A bit late, but have you checked the CMOS battery on the motherboard? Super Micro motherboards are known to have a no-POST condition if the CMOS battery is low or dead. If the battery is right at the cutoff voltage, it could cause intermittent no-boot issues.

I've had several such boards come to me where they were deemed dead by whoever checked them, only to have flat CMOS batteries.
 
Back
Top