New Build Idea - Thoughts?

[skrumzy]

Ive gone back and forth in my head whether to put together a dual xeon server or try to take the consumer approach with something that runs on less power. My latest obession is using the newer mitx miniforms motherboards with a m.2 to sata expansion card. Any opinions on going this route?

 

Motherboard

https://store.minisforum.com/collections/motherboard/products/minisforum-ar900i

 

Expansion

M.2 SATA PCI Express to SATA 3.0 6Gbps 6 Ports Adapter Converter, Uplink PCIE3.0 X2 16Gbps, Downstream SATA3.0 6Gbps x 5, for Thunderbolt Expansion https://a.co/d/epac4dB

 

Case

https://www.phanteks.com/Enthoo-719.html

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by skrumzy

[Vr2Io]

Sound interesting ITX mobo, if you use two M2 for 12 disk, 1st problem was there have some blockage with the CPU fan.

 

As Ethoo-719 offical support 12 3.5", so these in excellent match, but overall not a compact design, so I don't think embed CPU ITX mobo was a good choice.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Vr2Io

[skrumzy]

1 hour ago, Vr2Io said:

Sound interesting ITX mobo, if you use two M2 for 12 disk, 1st problem was there have some blockage with the CPU fan.

 

As Ethoo-719 offical support 12 3.5", so these in excellent match, but overall not a compact design, so I don't think embed CPU ITX mobo was a good choice.

Yea the case is overkill for an ITX setup but it's for future proofing the additional drives, I have 4 now, and the ability to go EATX in the future if I decide to take the server route.  This also has the ability to house 2 systems, which I'm seriously considering setting this on my desk and consolidating my gaming rig and my home server.

I was suspect of the blockage too, but I don't need the fan on the nvme.  This board has an added HS/FAN to sit above the nvme.  Their others are bare IIRC.

I also keep going over costs and everything that I've put together is all around the same price.  The biggest difference between all of them is how recent the tech is.  If I go the server route, I won't have DDR5 and USB 4.  If I go the consumer route, I don't have the core count or native SATA connections.  The other bigger difference is power.

I wish one way was more expensive than the other.

Edited December 10, 2023 by skrumzy

[Vr2Io]

2 hours ago, skrumzy said:

This also has the ability to house 2 systems, which I'm seriously considering setting this on my desk and consolidating my gaming rig and my home server.

That's great.

 

[tankknat]

I’ve been thinking about getting the AR900i as well but I recently saw two reviews on the store page saying that it can’t recognise sata drives via pcie hba cards or nvme sata adapters.

ive had a it of a look around online but can’t find any info on it.

[HOSH]

Well I pulled the trigger on one of the AR900i as they are on sale to use as a lower power compute node on unraid that can scale up in power as it is needed.  I plan to run PLEX, pi-hole, a VM or two, and maybe some other items on there.
One other idea I did see that Erying does have a ITX i9-13900HK D5 with two SATA ports that you could add an HBA card to on the pci-e slot and use the nvme for the cache.

 

I did see from reviews and some others testing that the AR900i currently has no support for SATA devices at all, with the pci-e M.2 slots only being nvme drives.  Which is fine with me, as I will be running 2-256GB USB thumb drives as storage. (I found a few others doing this as well so I meet that storage pool requirement with parity.)  Then the two top nvme M.2 and pci-e slot should hold six pci-e 4.0 M.2 nvme drives for apps, docker, and the VM machines.  They added bifurcation support recently.  I think I can back this setup to a much larger HL15 NAS box I am also building to replace aging C2100s and a R710 only running 2 VMs, otherwise I may need to add another USB HDD storage for backups temporarily.

My main risky/unknown part is that it only has a 2.5GB RJ-45 NIC, but I have a 10GB SFP+ network core, so going to try one of the ADT-LINK risers and use the StarTech 10G PCIe SFP+ adapter off one of the back M.2 pci-e slots.  This would leave me with one more M.2 pci-e slot for future needs.

Edited February 13 by HOSH