Looking for a second opinion on component reuse options for new server.

[aburgesser]

I would appreciate a second opinion before I throw together some hardware...

 

My father recently passed. While he was ill, his NAS fell into disrepair (RAID has some bad SAS disks, it's unclear ATM if the array is lost; I want a offload target ready before I attempt data recovery).

 

I am going to scavenge some of his unused hardware (with some new hard drives) to make a more appropriate sized, URAID based, NAS/light server for my mother that I am confident in remote administration/troubleshooting. I would appreciate any perspective into pro/cons of the different hardware I may have overlooked. Here are the motherboard options (all have suitable processors, but I would need to boot them up to review CPU info.

 

New server will run:

1. Array
   1. 4 sealed WD enterprise 4 TB drives. Will repurpose an old SSD for cache. Considering 1-2 new 6+ TB drives for parity.
2. SMB shares
3. Backup target
4. Plex for streaming to PC and media sticks on local wireless (no live transcode or external hosting for now)
5. BD+DVD MakeMKV to Handbrake auto rip + (CPU) transcode

 

I am thinking the Haswell motherboard is the better pick. It should run leaner, faster, support more drives, and has USB3. The only pro of the Xeon motherboards is ECC memory. Is there a scenario where that can outweigh the cons that come with those systems?

 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

 

• ASUS Maximus VI GENE:
  • Neutral
    • probably has a i7-4770K (stock clock)
    • 8 SATA, 1 M.2
  • Pro
    • Better expected power efficiency than the Xeon systems
    • DDR3 RAM (at least 16GB, probably 32)
    • Most on board SATA ports
    • USB3
    • a i7-4770 typically produces 3.5x the benchmark score of a X5000 processor.
  • Con
    • No ECC

• Supermicro X7DAL-E:
  • Neutral
    • 2 LGA 771 Xeon Processors (X5000 chipset)
    • 6 SATA
  • Pro
    • FB DIMMs have ECC (IIRC)
    • 24 GB RAM
  • Con
    • Power efficiency (65 nm + FB DIMMS)
    • Supermicro branch population is weird. (2 channels only have 1 DIMM each)
    • No onboard USB3
• Intel S5000PSL:
  • Neutral
    • 2 LGA 771 Xeon Processors
    • 6 SATA
  • Pro
    • FB DIMMs have ECC (IIRC)
    • 32 GB RAM
  • Con
    • Power efficiency (65 nm + FB DIMMS)
    • No onboard USB3
• Buy a new motherboard:
  • Neutral
    • I have a spare 2124g
  • Pro
    • checks all the boxes
  • Con
    • Workstation Boards for the 2124g are harder to find these days. Would probably be $500 for board and RAM and the delay would adversely impact the schedule I have.