Silent Build: Silverstone DS380 Build [DAEDALUS]


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I got two 4TB for £238 :D

 

How do I install and setup a VPN to use with UnRAID?

 

Which did you get? Are they 5400 or 7200rpm? Where did you get them? Looking for a good deal in Netherlands. Prices are still rather high though.

 

Just noticed the price you mention is 238 GBP? This is 308 which is close to Dutch price of 156 Euros.

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  • 2 months later...

My server is still going strong, however, I am tempted to run a Windows 10 VM to act as my main computer, so that I can sell my current one and it's monitors etc to upgrade.

 

Please, can I have some advice on this? Is it a good or bad idea?

 

I use my i7, 16GB computer for:

 

- Website/Graphics Design,
- Website/Android Coding,
- Office 365
- Occasional Gameplay,
- Occasional Video Rendering,
- Plex

 

Latest Server Specs:

Case: Silverstone DS380, - Great case but no room for optical drive/graphics card with the current motherboard, so I'd probably transfer everything to a new case.

 

CPU: Intel Xeon E3 1230 v3,
MOBO: ASRock E3C226D2I LGA 1150 Mini-ITX, 
RAM: 16GB Kingston 8GB ECC KVR16E11/8,
PSU: 450W Silverstone SST-ST45SF-G,
UPS: APC BR900GI 540 Watts /900 VA.

 

However, if I combine my two systems I'd probably buy:

 

Monitor: Downsize from 2x 23" IPS to 1x 4K or 1x 21:9? - I am undecided.

 

Case: One of the new Fractal cases with USB 3.0/C on the front.

 

- I would like an SFF or mATX case but I can't find a decent one... I don't want a window or anything.

 

I have no idea on what Motherboard, CPU (I have an i7 3820 atm in my main PC), RAM or Graphics card - should I wait until 2018/19?

 

I'm also looking for a quality 2.1 speaker system as I'm thinking of getting rid of my 5.1 surround sound system.

 

Any and all help is very much appreciated :)

 

Thank you :D

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13 hours ago, Rick Sanchez said:

 

Case: One of the new Fractal cases with USB 3.0/C on the front.

You might want to consider the Silverstone CS380 case as well.

 

https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=709&area=en

 

I recently upgraded from the Lian-Li PC-Q25 Mini-ITX case to the CS380 and quite like it.

 

On the plus side, it can hold 8 HDDs in a front-accessible hot-swap bay and has two 5.25" slots above the HDDs.  I currently have an optical drive for UHD/Blu-Ray/DVD ripping in one and an Athena Power 5.25" to four 2.5" SSD drive converter in the other.  It also has two USB 3.0 ports in the front and it gives you more MB flexibility as it can handle Mini-ITX, Micro ATX and full ATX MBs in a relatively small size considering the disk capacity.

 

On the minus side, you will need to do a few mods to improve airflow.  Fortunately, @dmacias did an excellent job of documenting these mods in this thread.

 

Despite some issues initially with noise due to an Enermax case fan, it is now under control with the Autofan plugin nicely regulating disk cage fan speeds based on drive temps.  Of the three computers in my office, the unRAID server in the CS380 is by far the quietest.

 

Edited by Hoopster
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Your server's E-1230v3 has a Passmark of 9324, and your i7-3820 scores 9000, so the VM could potentially have effectively the same CPU "horsepower" as your current system, depending on what else was going on at the same time in your server.     However, your main PC has 16GB of RAM, and your server only has 8GB -- not all of which can be assigned to the VM -- so you'd need to bump up the server's memory a good bit if you wanted to assign an equivalent amount of RAM to your VM.    I'd probably increase the server RAM to 32GB.    Finally, you'll also need a pass-thru video card with sufficient power to match what you have now in the main PC … which you didn't mention.

 

As to whether it's a good idea or not to do this -- in general I'd say wait until you're actually ready to upgrade your main PC before doing this … the cost of doing all the upgrades is likely a lot more than what you'd get for the 3rd gen PC.

 

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13 hours ago, Rick Sanchez said:

 

I have no idea on what Motherboard, CPU (I have an i7 3820 atm in my main PC), RAM or Graphics card - should I wait until 2018/19?

If you want to upgrade to a modern CPU with DDR4 RAM, you may wish to wait until mid-2019.  DDR4 RAM prices are crazy high right now but they are expected to drop significantly in 2019.

 

Coffee Lake i7/i9 or Xeon E-21xxG would give you a big boost in computing, rendering, transcoding power.  You may also want to consider the Ryzen 2600/2700 or Threadripper if pure CPU power/cores for running VMs is appealing to you.

 

Also, waiting a few months may give Silverstone time to release the CS381 case discussed here.  It is a Micro ATX case with 8 HDD hot-swap bays in a smaller form factor than the CS380 I linked previously.  For my needs, the CS380 is better, but, you may prefer the CS381.

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On 11/23/2018 at 9:54 AM, garycase said:

Your server's E-1230v3 has a Passmark of 9324, and your i7-3820 scores 9000, so the VM could potentially have effectively the same CPU "horsepower" as your current system, depending on what else was going on at the same time in your server.     However, your main PC has 16GB of RAM, and your server only has 8GB -- not all of which can be assigned to the VM -- so you'd need to bump up the server's memory a good bit if you wanted to assign an equivalent amount of RAM to your VM.    I'd probably increase the server RAM to 32GB.    Finally, you'll also need a pass-thru video card with sufficient power to match what you have now in the main PC … which you didn't mention.

 

As to whether it's a good idea or not to do this -- in general I'd say wait until you're actually ready to upgrade your main PC before doing this … the cost of doing all the upgrades is likely a lot more than what you'd get for the 3rd gen PC.

 

 

I have 16GB of RAM. If I wrote 8GB, I made a mistake.

 

What graphics card would you recommend I purchase? I'm going to run a 21:9 monitor.

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8 hours ago, Rick Sanchez said:

 

I have 16GB of RAM. If I wrote 8GB, I made a mistake.

 

What graphics card would you recommend I purchase? I'm going to run a 21:9 monitor.

Actually what you wrote in your description was "RAM: 16GB Kingston 8GB ECC KVR16E11/8"

I noticed the 8GB ECC … I'm not sure what it actually means as you wrote it -- do you have mixed ECC/non-ECC RAM ??  (a bad idea)

 

As for what graphics card -- it depends very much on what you want to do with it.    Assuming your happy with the graphics performance of your current desktop, I'd be sure you buy a card with at least as much "horsepower" as your current card.    There are a lot of different benchmarks for these -- I'd tend to just use the GPU PassMark to compare cards [  https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php ]

 

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  • 2 months later...

Apologies for not getting back to you, work has been hectic!

 

The RAM is the same, it's ECC. I bought it matched to avoid issues. 

 

====

 

I just found this, it is what I want to do:

 

 

===

I'm thinking of upgrading to a Fractal Design Node 804 to house everything (both systems) as I need an optical slot, a RAID card, and a graphics card; hopefully, a Sapphire Vega 64 Nitro+.

 

What do you think?

Edited by Rick Sanchez
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26 minutes ago, Rick Sanchez said:

I'm thinking of upgrading to a Fractal Design Node 804 to house everything (both systems) as I need an optical slot, a RAID card, and a graphics card; hopefully, a Sapphire Vega 64 Nitro+.

I have the baby brother of the Node 804, the Node 304 as the case for my backup server.  Disk access is very difficult when you need to do that.  I don't mind because it is a backup server that I rarely touch.  The Node 804 is certainly a bit roomier, but, disk swapping with those disk hangers is still a big pain.  The optical drive would need to be a slim drive, I believe.

 

I must say that the one thing I really like about the Silverstone CS380 is the front-of-case hot-swapping of 8 HDDs, 4 SSDs and the full height optical drive in my current configuration.  It is a breeze to add/swap disks in that case. Of course, like every case, it has its limitations as well, but it will hold full ATX motherboards and larger graphics cards.

 

The Node 804 is a fine case.  As with any case, it all comes down to your primary needs vs. the trade-offs you are willing to make.

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51 minutes ago, Rick Sanchez said:

Thank you!

 

===

 

Doh, the card I wanted is too long :/

 

http://sapphirenitro.sapphiretech.com/en/vega64le.html#specifications

 

Yeah, the back of the hot-swap cage is close to the edge of the board.  You'd have to go with a case with a lot of clearance behind the MB, one that bottom mounts the MB in a wide case, or one in which the MB and HDDs are mounted on opposite sides in order to get that card in.  That's a big one (like many are these days).

 

My graphics needs don't tend to run to gaming, so I've never needed a monster card.  So far, in fact, integrated GPU has been fine in my server.

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9 minutes ago, Rick Sanchez said:

Any ideas?

Unplug everything from the motherboard except for power button, power cables, cpu, cpu heatsink and fan, and memory. When I say everything but, I mean it.

 

Does it stay running? If not, check for stray standoffs grounding out pins under the board. If it does, plug in one thing at a time and test between each iteration.

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1 hour ago, Rick Sanchez said:

The part transfer has been completed and now it doesn't start lol.

 

The motherboard's LED lights are flashing and the fans turn on, but they all turn off within ten seconds.

 

Any ideas?

Sounds like it could be a PSU or connection/cabling issue.  Do you have another power supply you could try?  It could be a MB grounding issue although it would likely not even start up if that were the case.

 

When I am swapping components to a new case or building a new computer, I always hook everything up outside the case with the MB sitting on a non-conductive surface.  I start with the minimum components to boot and then add other cards, drives, etc.  one at a time to ensure the system continues to function properly. That way, I know before putting it all in the case that every component is functional and the whole system works before going in the case.

 

If there are problems once in the case, then I know to start checking connections, cables, cards/RAM properly seated, etc.

Edited by Hoopster
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Agree that the best course of action is to first set up the basics outside of the case -- be sure the motherboard's on a non-conductive surface, and just connect a memory module, the power supply, the video card, and a keyboard/mouse/monitor.   If it boots to the BIOS okay at that point, then very carefully move the setup to the case. 

 

Be sure you have connected not only both of the motherboard power connectors but also the TWO PCIe connectors to the video card (one 8-pin and one 6-pin).    I don't think the power supply's an issue … although its only rated at 450w rather than the 500 recommended for that video card  (10% difference is very unlikely to be a problem).

 

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On 2/15/2019 at 7:36 PM, jonathanm said:

Unplug everything from the motherboard except for power button, power cables, cpu, cpu heatsink and fan, and memory. When I say everything but, I mean it.

 

Does it stay running? If not, check for stray standoffs grounding out pins under the board. If it does, plug in one thing at a time and test between each iteration.

I will try this tomorrow and I'll build upwards. 

 

On 2/15/2019 at 7:41 PM, Hoopster said:

Sounds like it could be a PSU or connection/cabling issue.  Do you have another power supply you could try?  It could be a MB grounding issue although it would likely not even start up if that were the case.

 

When I am swapping components to a new case or building a new computer, I always hook everything up outside the case with the MB sitting on a non-conductive surface.  I start with the minimum components to boot and then add other cards, drives, etc.  one at a time to ensure the system continues to function properly. That way, I know before putting it all in the case that every component is functional and the whole system works before going in the case.

 

If there are problems once in the case, then I know to start checking connections, cables, cards/RAM properly seated, etc.

 

I think this is the issue. I put the PSU in an old media center and everything started up, whereas, it wouldn't in my new case.

 

-

 

Do you have any suggestions for a new motherboard as I require two PCI slots now.

 

1 for the RAID card

1 for the Graphics card

 

Thanks

Edited by Rick Sanchez
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4 hours ago, Rick Sanchez said:

 

Do you have any suggestions for a new motherboard as I require two PCI slots now.

Assuming you want to keep the same processor and RAM and want a board with IPMI, you may want to look at the SuperMicro X10SLH-F

 

It has 3 PCIe slots.

 

ASRock doesn't appear to have any C226 boards with IPMI in a form factor larger than Mini-ITX.  If you don't really need IPMI, they have several C226 workstation boards in mATX and ATX.

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9 hours ago, Rick Sanchez said:

I think this is the issue. I put the PSU in an old media center and everything started up, whereas, it wouldn't in my new case.

 

Definitely sounds like a shorting issue (or a loose connector -- as I noted earlier, be sure BOTH of the motherboard power cables AND both of the PCIe connectors for the video card are firmly connected).

 

As for a new motherboard with 2 PCIe slots -- that's not likely going to be possible if you want to stay with the DS380 case.    There are a few options you can consider ...

 

1 -- Use the PCIe slot for your video card, and don't use the RAID controller.   Instead you could do one of the following:

=>  Use larger drives so the 6 SATA ports on your motherboard are enough 😊

=>  Swap to a different mini-ITX board that has at least one SATA port that supports port multipliers.   The Intel chipset SATA ports on your current board do not support port multipliers.

 

2 - Switch to a case that will support a microATX (or ATX) motherboard … then you could use a motherboard that would provide more PCIe expansion slots and you could use both a video card and a RAID controller.   

 

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Note:  I spent a bit of time looking and couldn't find it, but I could swear I've seen a mini-DTX motherboard (just slightly larger than a mini-ITX … and supported by your DS380 case) that has TWO PCIe slots (one x16 and an x1).

 

If you could find one of these, you could use a 4-port SATA controller in the x1 slot and possibly have enough drive capacity, providing the motherboard had 5 or 6 onboard SATA ports.

 

I also thought of a 3rd alternative for option (1) in my previous post … use USB v3 connections to add additional drives beyond the 6 native SATA connections.   USB v3 is supported by UnRAID, and the speed of this interface compares favorably to a direct SATA connection.    Your motherboard has 2 v3 ports, and you could use a powered USB3 hub if you need more than 2 extra drives.

 

Personally, if you want to stay with the DS380, I'd either simply limit yourself to 6 drives (thus using the onboard SATA ports), or connect any additional drives via USB v3, and use the PCIe port for your video card.   This lets you keep your current case and your current motherboard, and should work very nicely.

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