Bought all the parts; will build my first server next weekend!

[ExistNY]

Hello all,

 

While I have built many computers before, I've never built a "server" and have very little experience with this.  But I'm willing to learn.  To this end, I took advantage of a few black friday deals and bought the following components (each at a discounted price):

 

Case: Fractal Design Define Mini

Mobo: SuperMicro x10SLH-F

CPU: e3-1230-v3

RAM: 32gb total: Crucial 4x8GB ECC unbuffered

PSU: Seasonic ss-460FL2

Data drives: 4 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB

Cache drive: Seagate 240mb SSD

 

Total: ~$1400

 

I would like to use this build as a central file server, a media server for my tv and mobile devices, a printer server, and as a personal data cloud so that I can access my documents from anywhere.  While I originally planned for this to be solely a unRAID server, I purposefully splurged for the beefier processor and more RAM so that I had the option to install WHS or to run both WHS and unRAID via virtualization.  Given these various functions, should I consider WHS or WHS and unRAID via virtualization?  Is this something a newbie like myself could reasonably accomplish?  Or am I better off just sticking to WHS or unRAID and applicable plug-ins? 

 

Any and all other tips are of course welcome.

 

Thank you!

[garycase]

Excellent board and one of my favorite low-cost cases.    This will be a VERY nice system.

 

While it would support virtualization very nicely, you'd need to add a controller card for the UnRAID drives so you could pass the controller through, as I don't believe you can pass the motherboard ports through.  But with as much memory as you have, plus the superb CPU, you may want to consider going that route.

 

If not, it may make more sense to simply go with WHS ... or forego fault-tolerance altogether and just make it a Windows 7 or 8 system with a single large dynamic volume (use the SSD as the system drive; and combine all the large drives into one volume).  You'll still need a backup, of course, but that's true whether or not your server is fault-tolerant.  That approach would certainly make the rest of your goals much simpler -- remote access; print serving; etc. ... and your write speeds would consistently be well above what you could provide via a Gb network.

 

 

 

 

[Helmonder]

Hello all,

 

While I have built many computers before, I've never built a "server" and have very little experience with this.  But I'm willing to learn.  To this end, I took advantage of a few black friday deals and bought the following components (each at a discounted price):

 

Case: Fractal Design Define Mini

Mobo: SuperMicro x10SLH-F

CPU: e3-1230-v3

RAM: 32gb total: Crucial 4x8GB ECC unbuffered

PSU: Seasonic ss-460FL2

Data drives: 4 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB

Cache drive: Seagate 240mb SSD

 

Total: ~$1400

 

I would like to use this build as a central file server, a media server for my tv and mobile devices, a printer server, and as a personal data cloud so that I can access my documents from anywhere.  While I originally planned for this to be solely a unRAID server, I purposefully splurged for the beefier processor and more RAM so that I had the option to install WHS or to run both WHS and unRAID via virtualization.  Given these various functions, should I consider WHS or WHS and unRAID via virtualization?  Is this something a newbie like myself could reasonably accomplish?  Or am I better off just sticking to WHS or unRAID and applicable plug-ins? 

 

Any and all other tips are of course welcome.

 

Thank you!

 

I woudl advise installing the system as a pure unraid system at first and do virtualisation as a next step.. The nice thing is that you will not have to change -anything- with respect to unraid the moment you virtualise it...

 

So:

 

- set up system as unraid only;

- see if everything works nicely (it should);

- if you want virtualisation invest in another sata card so you can passthru it

- install sata card

- run unraid as unraid only again (but with the extra sata card, no configuration necessary, will just work)

- virtualise !

 

Should you ever want to switch between virtualisation and pure unraid all you need to do is change the boot order in your bios.. Have it boot from the unraid usb drive to start unraid only, boot from the esxi usb or ssd for esxi.. This is also why you need another sata card, you need to keep the onboard connectors for the virtualisation platform and use the  extra card for unraid..

 

SHOULD you have a motherboard with two sata controllers, then it might be possible to pass thru one of them to unraid thru esxi, but in the end you will not have enough ports and it makes more sense to invest in a sata card (see the ones I use, happy with them)

[ExistNY]

Thanks, all.  I have a few follow-up questions:

 

(1) What's a good, QUIET, small CPU fan that won't block my 4th RAM slot?

(2) If I want to run ESXI with unRAID and WHS 11, can I do so with just a cheap 4 port SATA III controller, or do I need fancier hardware?

[garycase]

(1) What's a good, QUIET, small CPU fan that won't block my 4th RAM slot?

 

No need for a 3rd party fan => the stock Intel cooler runs very quiet.  I used to routinely replace the stock coolers with better units; but the Core architecture chips are much lower power than their Netburst predecessors, and the Intel stock coolers are fine with them.

 

 

(2) If I want to run ESXI with unRAID and WHS 11, can I do so with just a cheap 4 port SATA III controller, or do I need fancier hardware?

 

As long as your motherboard and CPU support Vt-d, you can pass through whatever controller you want.  I'd be cautious about the performance, however => a 4-port controller in a PCIe x1 slot will somewhat reduce your performance in certain scenarios (notably parity checks).

 

[ExistNY]

Garycase, thank you for this and your earlier reply.  Very helpful.  I am intrigued by the prospect of virtualization, but am really new to this, so any advice you have is very much appreciated.  I just checked on SuperMicro's website, and it indicates that ESXI is not supported by the x10-SLH-F.  Seems strange, since the x10-SLH-F uses a C226 chipset, a true server-grade chipset that according to intel supports VT-d.  My Xeon processor also supports VT-d, as per Intel.  Should I be concerned that SuperMicro says my board isn't compatible with ESXI?

 

Is there a sata/sas controller that you recommend to use in an unRAID/virtualization setup that would not compromise performance too much?

 

Am I crazy for even considering this? 

 

 

[BobPhoenix]

It may not be the case this time but often they say it is NOT compatible because they don't want to provide support for it.  What they are probably taking about in this case is that some of the chipsets used on the MB are not compatible with a stock ESXi install.  The nic is usually the first thing that has problems as it seems to get upgraded to newer chips more frequently then some of the others.  Often times you can get patches that will make things like the nic incompatibilities to work.  I had to do that with ESXi 5.0 and the X9SCM-F.  Once I did that both nics on my X9SCM-F worked and the rest of the board is fully compatible.

 

I would check on the VMware forums for anybody using your MB first before buying or attempting virtualization.  Normally you don't want to be first unless you know your way around ESXi intimately.

[garycase]

Agree with Bob's comments.  I'd be very surprised if ESXi won't work with that board, but it may require a bit of "fiddling" -- either to get a driver for an unsupported component (likely, as Bob said, the NIC);  or an actual add-in NIC card.

 

Note that Supermicro also shows that the X9SCM-F board that Bob is using for ESXi is NOT compatible with ESXi 

 

If ESXi compatibility is a major factor, I also agree you don't want to be "first" in the queue to figure out the tweaks needed to use it with this board.    The system you've spec'd is a VERY good system, and will run exceptionally well ... but if you want a "hassle-free" experience with ESXi you should buy a board with known and documented compatibility.