Future-proofing

[outsider]

I'm in the market for a new build for my unraid box, and I'm curious what everyone;s take is on future-proofing your system.

 

Do I look at an LGA1366 socket server mobo with a xeon 5500/5600 CPU (near the high end of the performance for those chips)?

Or do I spend double and get a LGA2011 mobo with a low end E5 cpu (with similar performance to the 55/5600 chips) but have the option to upgrade just the CPU to a faster one in a couple of years?

Or spend a little more still on a dual socket mobo to allow for even further expansion in the future?

 

Is it worth buying more expensive components (like a dual socket mobo) where one socket stays empty for a while in the hopes/plans to add something there later, or just buy a new system "later" that fills the needs at that point in the future?

 

What do you think?

[ashman70]

I think it really comes down to what are you using your UnRaid box for? Do you use it just as a NAS, do you currently have any dockers, do you plan to? Do you have any VM's, do you plan to? If you have future plans for your UnRaid server that require hardware your current setup does not have, then sure, but if not, why upgrade? There is no such thing as 'future proofing' the rapid rate at which technology changes means whatever you buy today is obsolete a year later as there will be something faster.

[tdallen]

I think of an LGA1366 system as a way to get a bargain, but not a future proofing strategy.

 

An LGA2011 system with a low end E5 is a good strategy with an upgrade path.

 

The availability of pulled CPUs on eBay can extend the life of a system.  If you need an upgrade or have an open socket and you can't buy retail anymore, there's a healthy market for those parts on eBay.  That said, is it "worth it" to buy a dual socket motherboard and only fill one socket?  I'd say no, it's an expensive defensive strategy and I wouldn't do it unless I had clear upgrade plans.

[outsider]

Thanks for the input.

The strategy has always been to buy as much used equipment as possible off ebay.

Pulled Xeon CPUs seem to be significantly cheaper then their consumer brethren likely due to a smaller market to offload those CPUs?

 

I've seen hardware that is current (LGA2011) and going on ebay for considerably less then new so I'm keeping an eye out for supermicro mobos and E5 CPUs.

 

That said, is it "worth it" to buy a dual socket motherboard and only fill one socket?  I'd say no, it's an expensive defensive strategy and I wouldn't do it unless I had clear upgrade plans.

I guess the better plan is to just buy a low end CPU now (on a single socket mobo), upgrade the CPU when the time comes that I need more horsepower, and then later if more horesepower is needed then move up to a dual socket... by which point there will likely be some better, more energy efficient socket/CPU which I'd likely want to be on anyway.

Makes sense.

[00b5]

I don't think you can future proof that well, unless you are already planning on spending a lot for a current generation of higher end equipment (like, you are willing to drop $1000 on a mb/cpu combo, then ya, you should make sure its going to last, or you have some path to take with it down the road).

 

Buying too old means that you are using more electricity that you probably need, but if that isn't an issue (ie power is cheap for you), then its a fair idea.

 

Right now, if you wanted consumer hardware, I'd get a haswell setup of some sort, go cheap on the cpu if needed, then swap in a faster one as the rest of the world upgrades to newer skylake/etc/etc.

 

If you wanted server hardware, i'm not as sure, since even an entry level e3 haswell still has good value. You could always get a nice server mb, and if it supported something like an intel G3258, use that until you get a good deal/etc on a nice e3-xxxxv3 cpu to swap it, etc.

 

Since DDR4 is out there, unless you are buying something very new, you aren't future proofing, since any major upgrade right now means new RAM (from ddr3 to 4 by the time you upgrade).

 

At least with unRAID, you can do a mb/cpu/ram swap and other than maybe a new nic or order of your hdds, its pretty easy to swap it all out. Can't do that in windows