Hi, Everyone!

 

Pretty new to this, but I have currently a build that we've just been testing a couple things on. What I'd like to get now is some recommendations on what hardware to expand to moving forward for our current/future needs.

 

Current Parts:

CPU: Intel Core i5 650

Mobo: Acer Veriton (not carrying forward)

RAM: 8GB DDR3 (random assortment that we had lying around)

Case: Antec P70

PSU: Thermaltake 750W Gold

HDDs: 3TB WD Redx2 + ADATA 128GB SSD(Cache)x2 + a random assortment of other drives

 

Our Needs:

 

We probably will be only ever using something like 5TB - 10TB for the next couple of years, and I'd say probably lower then that like 2-4TB on average. We also have about 4-6 people accessing the server throughout the day (however I'd say only 2-3 heavy users).

 

 

Users: 4-6 (2-3 heavy)

Storage Needs: 4TB - 10TB

VM Needs: 2-3 Windows VMs + 1-2 Linux VMs (Max 3 VMs at a time, 2 Windows + 1 Linux (Web Server))

 

 

VM Need Details: We currently use 1 Windows VM on our current unRaid Box for rendering / converting video files + checking email and testing a couple applications, we also have an ubuntu server set up for use as a web server and development environment. Going forward we will probably create a couple more VMs (Primarily Windows) to test applications on but these won't be on all the time. At max we will probably need 2 Windows + 2 Linux VMs to run. Everything that we have running, runs pretty good on our current CPU + 8GB ram but I assume to need a bit more horsepower going forward.

 

VM Note: I'm not really familar with docker, but I would probably want to switch to using docker for my webservers and have wordpress and my other environments setup that way.

 

unRaid Plugins: Will most likely only use rsync and maybe bittorrent sync (for backup of client machines).

 

 

My current idea for the build is as follows:

 

Mobo: ASRock E3C224

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231V3

RAM: Kingston 16GB (2x8GB)

 

 

To add to my current parts (although replacing the old memory as not ECC)

 

 

Budget: $800 (minus drives, we currently have probably enough for our needs)

Hi -

 

A couple of thoughts.  I'd go with a case that supports more 3.5" drive bays, have you looked at Fractal Design Define?  The P70 only supports 4, after that you have to get creative with 5.25" bays - maybe better to just get more to start?  Or, consider buying higher capacity drives like 4TB or 6TB so you can fit your storage needs in the 4 bays that case has if you already have it.

 

Are you going to be passing through devices into the VMs?  Also, 16GB may be a little light given your plan to have several Windows VMs, but the motherboard supports more if necessary.  Using 2 RAM slots is generally more stable than 4 - though that is more true of non-ECC RAM.