Need advice for new build

[Coco]

Hi,

 

Currently contemplating building a new server. Need advice in choosing. 

 

I have 2 options in mind

 

Either buy refurbished dell PowerEdge r730.

 

Or build with an 13900k and regular hardware.

 

Basically I want to know if it would be better to use real server hardware?

 

Wich option would be the most stable.

 

Thanks for your time!

 

[JonathanM]

Server grade hardware as long as you can use a plain HBA instead of a RAID controller is typically more reliable in the long term.

[Coco]

Thanks for the answer, yeah that is what I was thinking too.

 

Since I would like for it to last for a while.

 

Just need to figure out if the H330 that is in this power edge r730 is flashable to IT mode.

 

The one I am looking at comes with redundant 2 x 750w. Think that is enough?

 

Cheers,

[JonathanM]

15 hours ago, Coco said:

Think that is enough?

Most likely yes, but without real numbers of what cards and drives are being powered, who knows?

[doesntaffect]

what will this device serve / act as? Plain File Server? Few Dockers? ... ?

[Decto]

I'm less convinced that a 7-8 year old ex data center server is any more reliable than new consumer class hardware over any future 5+ year period.

They can be pretty noisy and inefficient as they are designed to run in a AC cooled rack at near full load continuously.

In a home location, it will run hotter and noiser than designed, the screamer fans in these can run 50W+ just forcing the air through.

 

I've run various home servers / PC's in the last 30 years for me, the kids etc. and out of it all I had 1 mainboard fail (AMD B450) , and a couple of HDD that threw smart errors.
Everything else was retired / sold  without failure with plenty of it 10yr old. I even have an old Phenom X3 from 15 years ago that boots and runs in the shed, just a litte short on memory in the modern day.

 

Also really depends on the applications you want to run and spec of the server, many low clocked cores with generations old IPC vs modern 5Ghz + and high IPC.

 

My main unraid uses a workstation grade Supermicro ATX board, standard case (10 HDD + 2 SSD)  E5 XEON and ECC.

A few years ago was ideal, though I'd build some different if starting today.

For my use case it really isn't worth the investment to update as it's doing everything I need and only needs the occasion poke for a version update, or to clean the dust from the filters.

 

 

 

 

[Coco]

For cards it would be a second HBA to link to a jbod case, a Quadro t1000 and a 10 gbe nic

[Coco]

Server would be mostly used a a Plex server, with all accompanying dockers, aar family, and file server. Nothing too fancy, maybe a VM or two for testing and learning purposes.

[Coco]

Yeah, currently my server is running on a Asus crossword dark hero, 32 gig of ram, ryzen 5900x,  few we red drive, green and wdnblue sad for cache, 2 we black nvme just for docker/VM cache.

 

Been stable for a 2, 3 years but now it is starting acting up, freeze during party check, docker service crashing for no apparent reason ... Have to reboot the whole server for it to come back to normal.

 

Was looking at the r730 for server grade hardware, plenty of ECC ram and more cpu core. Also for iDrac ....

 

 

I know I want to upgrade, just hesitant on doing it again with consumer grade hardware.

 

If I go consumer grade, I am looking at an Asus pro art z790, intel 13900k and 32 gig of ddr5 ram. .... 

 

So undecided lol

 

 

[Decto]

I'd start with troubleshooting your existing build, seems a good spec for your current workload.

Run with one dimm, then the other for a period to see if you get a crash.

Check / swap the sata cables.

Turn on syslogging and see what errors you get.

 

If you do want to upgrade, I'd still avoid the old servers. You'll be buying someones E-waste at this point. 

 

Here is an equivalent workstation LGA1700 board as an example https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/x13sae-f

Built in IMPI

Support ECC

3xM.2 NVME

8 x SATA 

[Coco]

Thanks I'll take a look