x99 6800K Home Server

[guyturner797]

Hi there everyone!

 

I have been tinkering around with Unraid for the last few months now and have been very impressed with its capabilities and its performance on most hardware. I want to take the plunge and build my own home server

 

This build needs to be able to:

1) Support 15tb+ of data

2) Run a few dockers so things like unifi controller, unifi video (this is supported i believe) and all the normal ones,

3) A plex docker with the ability to transcode 1080p (then 4k movies in the next few years) to 2-3 streams

4) Run a few VMs in the background so I want to have a Windows 10 VM, at least 1 linux and then just lots of room to tinker around with new things. These would all be headless so no GPU for now.

5) I did mention unifi video but that is recording 6+ 720p camera streams 24/7 so it does use a fair bit of performance

6)I want it to run MakeMKV and Handbrake (either through a VM or dockers) to automate DVD and BD ripping

 

So this is my current parts list:

cpu: i7 6800k

mobo: Asus X99 A II

ram: HyperX FURY DDR4 2133Mhz 2x16GB sticks 32GB CL14

case: Fractal design define R5

Hard drives: 5x WD Red 3TB (I already own 2, will add more in the future)

Cache drive: Kingston Technology 120 GB SSDNow

GPU for unraid: XFX Radeon HD5450 (cheapest GPU i coud find  )

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15

PSU: Corsair CX 500M Modular PSU Bronze (Is this good enough? I already own it)

Bluray Player/Ripper: Asus BC-12D2HT Blu-ray Combo Drive

USB: Sandisk Ultra 64gb USB 3

 

Questions:

Honestly I don't really want to venture into Xeons and ECC memory as I don't think the extra money would really add any functionality to my build. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Is this a good choice of parts? Could I spend money more effectively on different components?

 

Finally I have been looking at used HBA cards such as the LSI 9211 -8i, would this be better to use than the Sata 3 ports on the mobo or would it just add another potential failure point?

[tdallen]

Just a few comments since this looks like a good build to me (with the caveat that I don't have experience with unifi or hardware passthrough on VMs).

 

Your 120GB SSD seems a little small for a Plex library and several VMs.  They're cheap, why not go with at least 240GB?

 

The Corsair CX line is not well regarded (their higher level lines are well liked) but since you have it I'd probably give it a try and replace it with something better if it doesn't work out.

 

I'd definitely use the motherboard SATA connectors.

 

The SanDisk Ultra USB3 is overkill (though not very expensive these days), you really don't need more than a 16GB USB2 drive.  I like the small SanDisk Fit drives.  FYI, some people have had problems running unRAID from a USB 3 port.  If that happens, try moving your stick to a USB 2 port.

 

I like the idea of ECC RAM in an always-on server but it is optional.

[guyturner797]

Just a few comments since this looks like a good build to me (with the caveat that I don't have experience with unifi or hardware passthrough on VMs).

 

Your 120GB SSD seems a little small for a Plex library and several VMs.  They're cheap, why not go with at least 240GB?

 

The Corsair CX line is not well regarded (their higher level lines are well liked) but since you have it I'd probably give it a try and replace it with something better if it doesn't work out.

 

I'd definitely use the motherboard SATA connectors.

 

The SanDisk Ultra USB3 is overkill (though not very expensive these days), you really don't need more than a 16GB USB2 drive.  I like the small SanDisk Fit drives.  FYI, some people have had problems running unRAID from a USB 3 port.  If that happens, try moving your stick to a USB 2 port.

 

I like the idea of ECC RAM in an always-on server but it is optional.

 

Ah ok thanks for the feedback!

I already own that SSD but I could easily pickup a 240gb or even 480gb one for not much as they are dirt cheap now. Im not worried about having a super fast SSD as my gigabit network wouldn't take advantage of it. Is it better to get a single 480gb or get a couple SSDs for a cache pool? Could I just buy another one of the same 120gb SSDs?

 

I want to buy a Corsair RMX psu in the future but I want to maximise what I can spend on the CPU for now and then upgrade that later down the road in 6 months or so 

 

Ok yeah I only put that USB down as it was £9 on Amazon with discounts and I already used the same one for my testing of Unraid so I know it works well for me 

[tdallen]

By default if you add another SSD to the cache you're going to get a BTRFS Raid 1 cache pool.  If you use your existing SSD and add a 120GB drive, your total available space will be 120GB.  You can also configure for Raid 0 if you don't want redundancy and then you'd have 240GB.

 

Here's a BTRFS Space Calculator to play with.  As you can see, you're better off with SSDs of a similar size in the pool or you get a lot of unusable space.

 

To give you some perspective, my Docker image is 20GB.  My docker data files are another 10GB or so (I'm rounding up).  That includes a smallish Plex library.  If you want a Windows 10 VM you need another 30-40GB image file.  So a 120GB SSD is probably fine to start, but you can see how a lots of Dockers, a large Plex library, or several VM images can chew up the space available on your cache drive (pool).

[guyturner797]

By default if you add another SSD to the cache you're going to get a BTRFS Raid 1 cache pool.  If you use your existing SSD and add a 120GB drive, your total available space will be 120GB.  You can also configure for Raid 0 if you don't want redundancy and then you'd have 240GB.

 

Here's a BTRFS Space Calculator to play with.  As you can see, you're better off with SSDs of a similar size in the pool or you get a lot of unusable space.

 

To give you some perspective, my Docker image is 20GB.  My docker data files are another 10GB or so (I'm rounding up).  That includes a smallish Plex library.  If you want a Windows 10 VM you need another 30-40GB image file.  So a 120GB SSD is probably fine to start, but you can see how a lots of Dockers, a large Plex library, or several VM images can chew up the space available on your cache drive (pool).

 

I didn't realise that all your Dockers and VMs were stored on the SSD? I thought it was purely a cache for faster writes during the day and is then transferred at night. Do you dockers and VMs have to go on the SSD? 

[tdallen]

I didn't realise that all your Dockers and VMs were stored on the SSD? I thought it was purely a cache for faster writes during the day and is then transferred at night. Do you dockers and VMs have to go on the SSD? 

Have to?  No.  But's absolutely the best practice.  98 out of 100 users have it setup that way at least one of the other 2 is in the process of fixing that they used the data array instead .

 

It is better to think of the cache drive as your application drive - where you store the applications you are going to be running on your unRAID server.  Many folks (myself included) don't even use the cache drive to cache writes to the array anymore - writing directly to the array is fast enough for most purposes except Dockers and VMs.  BTRFS was implemented at least in part to get some redundancy for the cache pool given the increasing importance of its role.  Applications are best run either from the cache drive (pool) or from an SSD managed outside the array via the Unassigned Devices Plugin which you can install via the essential Community Applications Plugin.

[testdasi]

Yes dockers + dockers app data + VM vdisk should all be on the cache disk because

(1) faster write speed

(2) faster read speed (in case of SSD as cache)

(3) some dockers need to use symlinks so are unhappy with writing to user shares

 

It's optional but highly highly recommended.

[guyturner797]

A great thats good to know! I will go with a bigger ssd for sure then! If I dont run them in Raid or have redundancy can I back it up to my main array?

[tdallen]

Yep, there's a backup function in the Community Applications plugin linked above.

[WhiteTowerBlackNode]

On 8/25/2016 at 12:35 PM, guyturner797 said:

Hi there everyone!

 

So this is my current parts list:

cpu: i7 6800k

mobo: Asus X99 A II

 

Hello guyturner797,

 

have you ever got this board and CPU running?

 

I have the same board and CPU and today I dismantled my older server and used these two components to build a "new" one, but I cannot get the system to boot automatically from the USB drive. If you got your system running and are still around, how did you manage to automatically let the board boot from the USB drive? I tried various settings, but it still boots into the UEFI BIOS first.

 

Thanks for any pointers.

[guyturner797]

On 12/29/2018 at 2:18 AM, WhiteTowerBlackNode said:

 

Hello guyturner797,

 

have you ever got this board and CPU running?

 

I have the same board and CPU and today I dismantled my older server and used these two components to build a "new" one, but I cannot get the system to boot automatically from the USB drive. If you got your system running and are still around, how did you manage to automatically let the board boot from the USB drive? I tried various settings, but it still boots into the UEFI BIOS first.

 

Thanks for any pointers.

Hi there! I did get it working - been running it continuously since building. But I haven't managed to get the auto usb booting on the mobo to work. I have tried EVERY bios setting and no luck. Not a big issue for me but it would be nice to fix...

[WhiteTowerBlackNode]

On 2/11/2019 at 12:44 AM, guyturner797 said:

Hi there! I did get it working - been running it continuously since building. But I haven't managed to get the auto usb booting on the mobo to work. I have tried EVERY bios setting and no luck. Not a big issue for me but it would be nice to fix...

Thank you for the reply. That is what I was thinking. Since then I switched to Synology as my main NAS (power consumption and ease of use when it comes to personal cloud storage) and the Unraid server as my backup server and just switched out the board and CPU for older parts, which strangely allow automatic USB booting.

 

Good luck.