Hi,
I am looking at building an Unraid server to replace an existing W2k12 Essentials Server (AMD Turion II N54L with 10GB RAM) that acts as a domain controller for my home network.
The current server is holding up well for something that is nearly 7 years old, but as my needs have grown it beginning to creak and groan under the load (especially disk IO). It is also not setup in the most ideal way (i.e it is installed bare metal with additional virtual machines running in Virtualbox), but it serves its purpose of running a DC, File and Backup Server, Pi Hole, Plex and a Grafana/InfluxDB VM for logging various IOT device attributes in my home.
I'm usually like to tinker rather than jump in and regret my decisions later, so I have setup a build using an old i7 3770k and ASRock Pro 4 motherboard with 16GB RAM and 1 old 2TB HD to get a feel of how Unraid would perform.
I've configured a new instance of Plex as a Docker container and enabled hardware transcoding through the CPU, I've also installed Win 10 as VM, URBackup and it doesn't really break a sweat, so CPU wise I appear to have enough compute, however as its an unlocked CPU edition it does not allow the use of IOMMU to pass-through a GTX 970 I have lying around.
What I'd like is some suggestions on Motherboard and CPU that would give me full IOMMU support, and some potential scope for the future without breaking the bank. Ideally I'd also look at getting new kit as I plan on building this and letting it run for at least another 7 years.
Thanks in advance
Minimos