New Build - All-in-One

[pH-Wert]

Hi There,

 

i am getting closer to the end of purchasing mostly new equipment (Reusing a few HDDs for storage) for my 24/7 Unraid Server, where the priorities are as following:

1. is flexibility (to run NAS, docker and VMs as needed),
2. is silence,
3. is low or minimal energy consumption while idling,
4. is long "durability" for performance (next 5-7 years it should do his job),
5. is price (ending up with +/- 2k€ is acceptable, if it is cheaper, i am fine😆)

In the first place i do not need an extra graphic card, as I want to have one display connection on the board, but if you can recommend a passive GPU with 3 (or more) HDMI ports (each 4K) for office/music applications i am happy to take recommendations.

 

I have 2 open points on my list

1. Passive vs. active Power supply. What do you recommend? I do have two options in the list below. (Note: Overall consumption of devices used should be around 550W (without GPU), which i calculated with Enermax calculator.) I am not going to overclock.
2. How to split pools for cache, vsdisks and docker apps (Open Thread here) :
   1. 2x 1TB M.2 SSD for cache and 1x 2TB M.2 SSD for vdisks and docker or
   2. 2x 2TB M.2 SSD for cache, vdisks and docker shared?

Now here is the list, any feedback welcome:

• CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K, 8C+16c/32T, 3.00-5.80GHz, boxed ohne Kühler (BX8071513900K)
• RAM: G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB silber DIMM Kit 64GB, DDR5-6400, CL32-39-39-102, on-die ECC (F5-6400J3239G32GX2-TZ5RS)
• M.2 SSD: 2x Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD 2TB, M.2 (SKC3000D/2048G) (See discussion above, I would buy the 1TB versions of the same brand)
• Parity HDD: Toshiba Cloud-Scale Capacity MG09ACA 18TB, 512e, SATA 6Gb/s (MG09ACA18TE)
• HDDs: Some old ones I already have
  • 2x 14TB WD Red Pro
  • 2x 8TB WD Red Pro
• Mainboard: GIGABYTE Z790 Gaming X AX
• AIO Water cooling: Alphacool Eisbaer 360 (11286)
• Power Supply:
  • PASSIVE: Seasonic Prime Fanless TX-700 700W ATX (SSR-700TL / PRIME-TX-700 / PRIME-Fanless-TX-700)
  • ACTIVE: be quiet! Straight Power 11 Platinum 1000W ATX 2.51 (BN309)
• Server housing: Fractal Design Define 7 Black Solid, schallgedämmt (FD-C-DEF7A-01)

 

I had to post it even that the list is not 100% best components, but to really remove my doubts I should start now, otherwise I will never buy new hardware. 🥵

Edited July 13, 2023 by pH-Wert

[Lolight]

22 hours ago, pH-Wert said:

(to run NAS, docker and VMs as needed),

1. is silence,
2. is low or minimal energy consumption while idling,
3. is long "durability" for performance (next 5-7 years it should do his job),
4. is price (ending up with +/- 2k€ is acceptable, if it is cheaper, i am fine😆)

Way over the top for your use case - there's no need to overspend on powerful components.

 

If power consumption is a priority, then you might want to visit the below-linked thread for references and general trends on power saving settings and component selections.

 

AIO water cooling is neither recommended or needed for a quiet home NAS.

 

The vast majority of power-consumption estimators are designed to mislead by grossly overstating power consumption requirements.

 

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by Lolight

[pH-Wert]

thanks a lot lolight! I definitely do not want to spend money on components i do not need.

 

But what do you mean by "Way over the top for your use case - there's no need to overspend on powerful components."? Do you refer to all (mainly i guess CPU) components or only  to the Power Supply? For example performance wise, if I do want to run an Audio Workstation as a VM, i would "need" a strong CPU, but also to be comfortable the next years (5-7). Not to mention the Plex and other dockers running in parallel  And buying a slower CPU would maybe save me 300€ (out of 2k€), but I might miss the top performance when using performance VM. Or am i wrong? 

 

Looking at an 13900K, I thought there is no silent Fan to cool that CPU down if 100% performance mode? But i am happy to switch to a silent fan

 

[Lolight]

30 minutes ago, pH-Wert said:

if I do want to run an Audio Workstation as a VM, i would "need" a strong CPU, but also to be comfortable the next years (5-7). Not to mention the Plex and other dockers running in parallel  And buying a slower CPU would maybe save me 300€ (out of 2k€), but I might miss the top performance when using performance VM. Or am i wrong? 

 

Looking at an 13900K, I thought there is no silent Fan to cool that CPU down if 100% performance mode? But i am happy to switch to a silent fan

 

Sorry, know nothing about Audio Workstations and their processing abilities and requirements.

Are they designed and capable of taking advantage of all available to a VM cores?

 

That's something that you'd need to look into specifically without making assumptions.

You haven't mentioned that software in your original post hence my understanding that you don't plan on anything particularly intensive.

 

If you plan on stressing your CPU to the fullest, with minimal acoustical noise then yeah, the use of AIO would be justified.

btw, modern HDDs when in use can also generate quite a bit of noise on their own.

 

Also, no need for an expensive multi-rail PSU (be quiet! straight power 11)

[pH-Wert]

Thanks Lolight, and sorry for implicitly thinking about you understanding my "performance" use case.

The Audio Software (ableton live) is able to handle 60 cores, so i guess that should be sufficient.

 

Do i understand your right concerning Power Supply, you say, going for the fanless 700W is good enough? 

[Lolight]

16 hours ago, pH-Wert said:

Do i understand your right concerning Power Supply, you say, going for the fanless 700W is good enough? 

Should be OK. https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/

 

You might also want to check the linked in the prior post power consumption thread, the last page, where they discuss PSUs that are found to be the most efficient at idle (in highly optimized systems).

Edited July 15, 2023 by Lolight

[JonathanM]

On 7/14/2023 at 5:27 AM, pH-Wert said:

if I do want to run an Audio Workstation as a VM

Be sure to do your due diligence with respect to the hardware and interfaces needed for accurate audio processing in a VM. Something in the back of my brain is telling me to warn you about VM's with respect to audio processing. I could be wrong, but I'd hate for you to spend a bunch of time and money chasing something that won't produce the results you need.