To RAM or not? (Supermicro X9SCM-F-O)

[ccruzen]

Here's the situation, I've got the following:

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X9SCM-F-O
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1240
Memory: Kingston KVR1333D3E9SK2/8G (x2)
 

I'm at the point with dockers and such that I need more RAM.  As you can see, I've currently got 16GB, I've been shopping around and the cheapest I think I could possibly get up to the max (32GB) would be for $225 or so.  This is based off of the Supermicro recommended RAM guide.  

Would it make sense to do that, or would it be better served toward a new setup?

 

Also, for all of those with this mobo, do you have different working RAM I could try to source cheaper?

Thanks for any/all help.

[ashman70]

I guess the question is how long do you think 32GB will last until you'll need to go beyond that? If 32GB will suffice for the next year or two, then I'd spend the money and do it. However if you think it might only last you six months to a year, then you may want to consider a new board that can take a lot more RAM.

[ccruzen]

3 minutes ago, ashman70 said:

I guess the question is how long do you think 32GB will last until you'll need to go beyond that? If 32GB will suffice for the next year or two, then I'd spend the money and do it. However if you think it might only last you six months to a year, then you may want to consider a new board that can take a lot more RAM.

Thanks ashman.  I've been getting by with 16GB for the last few years so doubling that I would definitely think could get me a couple more.

That said, for a couple hundred more, I'm tempted to do something like this.

I'm assuming that would be a major upgrade over what I'm currently running.  Thoughts?

[tdallen]

12 minutes ago, ccruzen said:

Would it make sense to do that, or would it be better served toward a new setup?

Hard to say.  What is driving the RAM usage, and how does CPU usage look?  If you max out you'd be at 32GB and a 4 core hyperthreaded CPU at 8,000 or 9,200 Passmarks (depending on whether you have the v2).  I haven't seen many setups running exclusively Dockers that needed more than that... If you are getting into VMs, different story.

[ashman70]

5 minutes ago, ccruzen said:

Thanks ashman.  I've been getting by with 16GB for the last few years so doubling that I would definitely think could get me a couple more.

That said, for a couple hundred more, I'm tempted to do something like this.

I'm assuming that would be a major upgrade over what I'm currently running.  Thoughts?

If you can see yourself taking advantage of dual sockets and over 64GB of RAM then sure, but if not it would be a waste of money and resources. Remember, nice to have, need to have. I think in your case moving up to 32GB is the right move.

[ccruzen]

8 minutes ago, tdallen said:

Hard to say.  What is driving the RAM usage, and how does CPU usage look?  If you max out you'd be at 32GB and a 4 core hyperthreaded CPU at 8,000 or 9,200 Passmarks (depending on whether you have the v2).  I haven't seen many setups running exclusively Dockers that needed more than that... If you are getting into VMs, different story.

 

4 minutes ago, ashman70 said:

If you can see yourself taking advantage of dual sockets and over 64GB of RAM then sure, but if not it would be a waste of money and resources. Remember, nice to have, need to have. I think in your case moving up to 32GB is the right move.

 

I've really only played around with VMs currently, as I've felt very contrained by the RAM situation.  That said, I would ideally be able to run at least 1 if not 2 Libreelec VMs (I know they don't need much ram) and 2 or 3 other VMs mainly just to play around in.

 

[tdallen]

I typically run 6 or 7 Dockers and unRAID + Dockers needs about 3-4GB, with 4GB available for caching on my 8GB setup.  So you must be running a lot of Dockers, or some really big ones.

 

VMs are a different beast.  You're going to want to dedicate specific RAM and CPU allocations to them.  If you are just playing around or running a single VM or two an E3 with 32GB is fine.  If you want to run several VMs, big VMs, or performance sensitive VMs you are going to want a good chunk of RAM and dedicated cores - i.e. something like the E5 setup you linked.