Would the Supermicro H11SSL-i be a great Base for a Unraix Box?

[Drikani]

Hey all,

on eBay there are currently a lot of Supermicro H11SSL-i Boards with different Epyc Chips and RAM Bundles for less than 700€.

Is this a good deal if I buy a case like the Inter-Tech 4U-4416 and add a normal beQuiet Pure Power 11 PSU and a SP3 compatible Cooler?

Is there a catch that I do not get?
Should I not trust those eBay listings from China even though I can pay with Paypal and have a 60 Day return period?

Could it be that those boards where used for mining and would there be anything bad about them?

I already have a unRAID System but soon my SATA Ports are all full and because I installed a GPU for transcoding in Plex and tdarr I cannot add another Controller.
I thought that I could upgrade with that kind of deal and really expand on my Server.

 

Any input would be really appreciated.

[SirReal63]

Your system is already configured well, just the drives are too small.  I started with 1,2 and 3 tb drives and now am using 4tb and 8tb HE drives.  I have always used retired HGST 7200 rpm server drives but there is no shortage of 6tb and above drives out there.  Your issue isn't hardware, it is storage, so swap out smaller drives for larger ones.

[Drikani]

I have one SATA-Port left to input a new HDD so I can add one more 4TB as of now and also I can add more RAM if needed.  

Would you then simply replace the 2TB Drives with larger ones as I need more storage?

Would you go for used Drives or new ones?
I do not really trust used Drives as I already had a few I had to replace in my System.

 

I thought on changing my Motherboard so I could have more PCIe Slots to install a SATA HBA for more Slots?

With my GPU and the two m.2 SSDs I only could install a single 4-Port Sata Card in a PCIe x1 Slot...

The one thing I will definitely replace is my Case, I got a old Case I modded to fit all my HDDs but I want to go with something nicer like the FractalDesign Define XL R2.

 

With the Epyc and Supermicro Board I thought on going with a Rack-Case from Inter-Tech (4U-4416) but if this is overkill I will rethink it.

 

Thanks for the input.

[SirReal63]

Replace the 2tb drives with larger ones.  Either new or used, that is up to you and your budget.  If your goal is to increase storage space the solution is to replace old smaller drives with newer and larger drives.  Replacing drives in Unraid is about the easiest function there is to do.

Edited December 8, 2022 by SirReal63