September 18, 20169 yr Hey All, I'm new to the forum, and I've been thinking about doing this for awhile. I'm essentially going to use this as a Media Server. I'll have an Emby server managed and accessed by Kodi for movies/TV/music. I may add games into the mix in the future, but I'll probably access games throughout the house via SMB shares for now (unless there's a better option I'm not aware of). This server will do some Sonarr/Couchpotato post-processing. I may set up the server to be accessed remotely for when I go on trips, but that will probably be a future endeavor, since hotel internet speeds are pretty slow. I find it easier to travel with a Raspberry Pi and an external HDD for now. I may one day in the future allow my family to access the media remotely, but I think that's something I'll save for later. As such, I'm trying to build a system that can handle my current needs, as well as possible future projected needs, and the list below is what I've come up with. I have an old Antec 1200 v3 case, which I currently use as an overpowered HTPC, that I was considering re-purposing into a server. I was going to reuse my Corsair 1050W power supply and some of the Noctua case fans (marked as purchased in the build below). The 4 Noctua NF-B9 fans are intended to be replacements for the stock fans that come with the SuperMicro CSE-M35T-1b Hotswap drve bays. The Samsung 850 EVO SSD drives are intended to be my cache pool; I was considering buying a couple of 2.5 HDD to PCI enclosures for those. I have two WD Black drives I intended to use for dual parity, and the rest of the 4TB drives would be used for my array. As you can see from the planned capacity, I plan on expanding the array in the future. The chosen motherboard and processor is my best guess at what could handle my current and projected future needs for a reasonable price, I am open to suggestions. Based on my research, I can't imagine needing anything more powerful than this unless I was going to get into VM, but I don't think I'm planning on that at this time. If myself or anyone plans on accessing media remotely, I'll assume they are doing so from a device capable of processing the media on the server. This is also why I'm not installing a graphics card. However, I'm also open to suggestions if you think I might benefit from this functionality, given the needs I've described. I think the cloudiest bit for me right now is the SATA controller cards. Based on what I read, it seems like the SuperMicro cards that have been recommended are having some issues. So it seems like a lot of people are picking either the IBM or DELL cards and flashing them to IT. I still don't really understand what that means, or the process. So if anyone can recommend something out of the box, or point me to a direction with clear instructions on how to do so, I would be much appreciative! Here's my build! PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Xeon E5-1650 V3 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($564.99 @ SuperBiiz) CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($88.33 @ OutletPC) Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste ($11.88 @ OutletPC) Motherboard: Supermicro X10SRM-TF Micro ATX LGA2011-3 Narrow Motherboard ($352.98 @ Newegg) Memory: Crucial 32GB (2 x 16GB) Registered DDR4-2133 Memory ($169.99 @ B&H) Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($94.00 @ B&H) Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($94.00 @ B&H) Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($196.99 @ SuperBiiz) Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($196.99 @ SuperBiiz) Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($157.39 @ OutletPC) Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($157.39 @ OutletPC) Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($157.39 @ OutletPC) Storage: Western Digital Red Pro 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($219.99 @ SuperBiiz) Storage: Western Digital Red Pro 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($219.99 @ SuperBiiz) Storage: Western Digital Red Pro 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($219.99 @ SuperBiiz) Case: Antec Twelve Hundred V3 ATX Full Tower Case (Purchased For $0.00) Power Supply: Corsair Professional 1050W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $0.00) Case Fan: Noctua NF-B9 PWM 37.9 CFM 92mm Fan ($27.78 @ OutletPC) Case Fan: Noctua NF-B9 PWM 37.9 CFM 92mm Fan ($27.78 @ OutletPC) Case Fan: Noctua NF-B9 PWM 37.9 CFM 92mm Fan ($27.78 @ OutletPC) Case Fan: Noctua NF-B9 PWM 37.9 CFM 92mm Fan ($27.78 @ OutletPC) Case Fan: Noctua NF-P12-1300 54.4 CFM 120mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00) Case Fan: Noctua NF-P12-1300 54.4 CFM 120mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00) UPS: CyberPower CP1350AVRLCD UPS ($132.95 @ Amazon) Other: IBM Serveraid M1015 SAS/SATA Controller 46M0831 ($141.36) Other: IBM Serveraid M1015 SAS/SATA Controller 46M0831 ($141.36) Other: 4 x Cable Matters Internal Mini-SAS to 4x SATA Forward Breakout Cable 3.3 Feet ($55.96) Other: StarTech.com MXT101MMHQ20 20-Feet Coax High Resolution Monitor VGA Cable HD15 M/M ($14.42) Other: 4 x SUPERMICRO CSE-M35T-1B 3 x 5.25" to 5 x 3.5" Hot-swap SATA HDD Trays ($399.96) Total: $3899.42 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-18 12:12 EDT-0400
September 18, 20169 yr Flashing IBM SERVERAID M1015 cards is no big problem, the reason for doing it is so that it acts just as a JBOD card and it skips the whole raid bios. Think I have flashed 4 cards. My biggest problem was that i had to do the first part af the procedure on the server motherboard, and second part on my HTPC motherboard some weird thing with both motherboards. Have not read anyone else having to use 2 different motherboards to make it work. https://www.servethehome.com/ibm-m1015-part-1-started-lsi-92208i/
September 18, 20169 yr Author Thanks for the link. I looked on there, and it didn't seem to say anything about flashing to IT mode. I found a zip file on this thread: Link: https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.msg121131#msg121131 Name of Zip File: LSI MegaRAID to SAS2008(P11).zip - 5.87 MB But it looks like these haven't been updated in awhile. It seems like people on that thread as of recently are still using it, so I'm guessing it still works?
September 18, 20169 yr I don't have experience with E5 builds, but from what I can tell it looks great. Only a couple of comments. While that case can certainly hold lots of 4TB disks there's an argument to be had for managing a smaller number of large disks. Consider 6TB or 8TB disks. At the same time, while 7200rpm disks are great many people find that 5400rpm disks like the WD Red (not pro) are just fine for media servers. Still, your plans are fine - these are just suggestions.
September 18, 20169 yr Author Thanks for the feedback, tdallen! I actually first started thinking about going 6TB or 8TB, but I figured that 4TB drives have a lower cost per GB. So considering that, and the fact that my max server size would be about 72TB with the 2 parity drives, I figured that was plenty of space for one tower. Still something I will reconsider though, so thanks! And that's good to know that 5400rpm is sufficient! I don't know why, but I thought that 7200rpm would be a minimum requirement for decent performance.
September 19, 20169 yr Author UPDATE: List was missing 4 Supermicro hot-swap bays Hey guys, I was thinking about putting together an alternate list. Some of it is based on some of the feedback I've gotten so far, and others are based on me rethinking how much of my old parts I can reuse. First things first, I figured my Core i7 should be decent enough with a pass mark of 8,502, for what I'm trying to do. If I can use my old CPU, I can also use my old motherboard and CPU cooler. This board doesn't have on-board video, so I can just use my old GTX 560 Ti. I've also downgraded the array hard drives to 5400rpm drives, since that seems sufficient. I'm keeping the parity drives at 7200rpms. Finally, I'm switching out the IBM M1015 cards with the DELL PERC H310 cards, since they appear to be half the price. With these changes, I get the price down to $2,400! Given what I've mentioned in the OP, do you think this build is sufficient? I'm not opposed to spending the extra money if I'd get some perceived benefit out of it, but there's no point in splurging if I won't receive anything extra for it. Let me know what you guys think! See below for the updates: PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (Purchased For $0.00) CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler (Purchased For $0.00) Motherboard: Asus P8P67 Deluxe (REV 3.0) ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (Purchased For $0.00) Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($69.99 @ Newegg) Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($94.00 @ B&H) Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($94.00 @ B&H) Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($147.82 @ NCIX US) Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($147.82 @ NCIX US) Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($147.82 @ NCIX US) Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($147.82 @ NCIX US) Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($147.82 @ NCIX US) Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($147.82 @ NCIX US) Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($196.99 @ SuperBiiz) Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($196.99 @ SuperBiiz) Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB Video Card (Purchased For $0.00) Case: Antec Twelve Hundred V3 ATX Full Tower Case (Purchased For $0.00) Power Supply: Corsair Professional 1050W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $0.00) Case Fan: Noctua NF-B9 PWM 37.9 CFM 92mm Fan ($27.78 @ OutletPC) Case Fan: Noctua NF-B9 PWM 37.9 CFM 92mm Fan ($27.78 @ OutletPC) Case Fan: Noctua NF-B9 PWM 37.9 CFM 92mm Fan ($27.78 @ OutletPC) Case Fan: Noctua NF-B9 PWM 37.9 CFM 92mm Fan ($27.78 @ OutletPC) Case Fan: Noctua NF-P12-1300 54.4 CFM 120mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00) Case Fan: Noctua NF-P12-1300 54.4 CFM 120mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00) UPS: CyberPower CP1350AVRLCD UPS ($132.95 @ Amazon) Other: 4 x Cable Matters Internal Mini-SAS to 4x SATA Forward Breakout Cable 3.3 Feet ($55.96) Other: 2 x DELL 3P0R3 PERC H310 6GB/S PCI-E 2.0 X8 SAS RAID CONTROLLER ADAPTER ($124.00) Other: 4 x SUPERMICRO CSE-M35T-1B 3 x 5.25" to 5 x 3.5" Hot-swap SATA HDD Trays ($399.96) Total: $2362.88 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-19 12:40 EDT-0400
September 19, 20169 yr Especially since you have it on hand, an 8,500 Passmark server should be fine for a very robust media server. Nice savings!
September 19, 20169 yr Author Nice! Thanks for the feedback! Can't wait to actually start putting this one together! I'll probably have to hold off for another month or 2 because of work, but I'll be looking forward to getting this one going soon! If anyone else has feedback in the meantime, it would be much appreciated!
September 21, 20169 yr Will you be transcoding? How many clients? Simultaneous clients? If you are direct playing mostly then I use an i3t to do what you do above with little problem. Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
September 21, 20169 yr Author I may plan to transcode in the future, but I don't think I plan to right now. The most I plan to do with it right now is remote storage and post-processing. If I ever decide to do transcoding, I can upgrade the Mobo, CPU, and add some graphics cards I think.
September 21, 20169 yr Transcoding needs a good CPU but doesn't use your GPU (well it can, but there are issues and that's not the typical use case). The good news is that an 8,500 Passmark CPU will be capable of transcoding several streams if you decide to give it a try.
September 25, 20169 yr Here is the direct link on how to cross flash https://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/
September 25, 20169 yr M1015 and wow checking your specs.... It looks a bit overbuilt honestly. Also do check out PLEX just even if evaluating. It is the best around for if your trying for a kind of all in 1 approach that grows later.
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