Hey,

 

I'm wanting to build a M-ITX server but I'm struggling a bit to find a decent part list.

I'm on a bit of a budget so I don't really want to blow past £400-500

 

I've been looking at the Node 304 and DS380 for cases. I'd like something quite small and I'll be looking at 6 drives ideally (8 would be nice if possible)

 

I see a lot of builds listed recommending ECC memory and Supermicro boards which I can only see for alot of ££ in the UK.

I might well just be looking up the wrong things. But if anyone has some build suggestions using a M-ITX I'd love to hear them

 

Edit:

Should of said. I'll be mainly using this to stream to 1-2 Kodi Machines, Plex maybe, Dockers for Couchpotato/Transmission/Sickrage, and maybe experiment with a Linux VM as well as the NAS

I'd like to also be able to power down and wake from lan as I often travel and do not need access for a week so there is no need for me to leave it running. Just power it up when I need files, or to update coachpotato etc before I get home

Edited May 9, 20178 yr by Uggers

The Lian Li PC-Q25B is another popular miniITX case, if it is available where you are.  ASRock is another well known vendor of server boards.

I'd like to be able to help (M-ITX user), but as I've seen from other people's comments - some of my components are rather pricey

But I went with this route

cheap MINI-ITX board with dual NIC (Broadcom - so stable enough)

cheap PSU (was to only power one "green" drive (cache), the drive controller, and fans - nothing else) - but I replaced this with a left over Silverstone 450w Bronze PSU

regular RAM - 16GB DDR

small case - Cooler Master Elite 110

expensive external controller: LSI 9206-16e (future proofing - single PCIe x8 card for 16 external SAS devices)

expensive external drive case: Areca 3036 (8 bay 6gbps SAS/SATA + Expander to allow a number of enclosures daisy-chained later on)

Drives are a mix of Seagate 8TB Archives, and WD 4TB Reds and a WD 4TB green for cache.

Edited May 9, 20178 yr by ken-ji

As you've seen, small does NOT mean inexpensive.   For a system you want to use fairly extensively (not just as a NAS, but to run Dockers, VM's, etc.) I'd nevertheless bite the bullet and get a quality motherboard, Xeon, and ECC memory.    Might blow a bit past your budget; but it'll be a rock solid system that will last you a long time and you won't be wishing you had a higher-performance CPU along the way.

 

Do you need to do multiple Plex transcodings or ECC?

If not you could go with cheap basic consumer hardware like a G4560, B250 board, 8 GB RAM, and a PCIe SATA card (if needed).

More than enough power to run your Dockers and a Linux VM. 

Do you have the disks aleady? 6-8 disks will not fit in your budget..

 

I should also point out that MITX will definitely limit you to one - count that : one - PCIe card - so take your pick of Graphics for VMs; or more ports for HDDs if your MITX board doesn't have enough SATA ports; or multiple network ports - if you don't have enough on the moptherboard.

Just to confirm

 

I have all the HDD's

Budget is for the Mobo, CPU, PSU, RAM and Chassis

 

I was expecting the onboard GPU to be adequate for my requirements, but does this mean xeon would be out of the question

2 minutes ago, Uggers said:

Just to confirm

 

I have all the HDD's

Budget is for the Mobo, CPU, PSU, RAM and Chassis

 

I was expecting the onboard GPU to be adequate for my requirements, but does this mean xeon would be out of the question

If you want to pass through the GPU to VM you need integrated Intel graphics, or GPU card.

Do you need Xeon, i.e. server grade HW?

I honestly don't know,

 

To be honest the most important requirement for me is small form factor, and the abililty to run sickrage/couchpotato/transmission

 

I'd like to be able to also run a single VM to learn using linux on the side.

A tidy little config for unRAID using current model hardware is:

 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/cyGzxY

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£51.99 @ Ebuyer) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-Z170N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£119.95 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Crucial - 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  (£83.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Case: Fractal Design - Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case  (£61.97 @ Ebuyer) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - ECO 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£44.98 @ Ebuyer) 
Total: £362.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-10 16:51 BST+0100

 

 

I'm recommending that board because I've found it to work great in unRAID, it has 6 SATA ports, an M.2 slot, dual Intel network, good fan controls.  It's also very power efficient.  The G4560 is a great CPU, it's dual core with Hyperthreading, so is about the same speed as the i3-6100.  The boxed cooler is fine.

Edited May 10, 20178 yr by HellDiverUK

On 5/10/2017 at 3:28 PM, Uggers said:

I honestly don't know,

 

To be honest the most important requirement for me is small form factor, and the abililty to run sickrage/couchpotato/transmission

 

I'd like to be able to also run a single VM to learn using linux on the side.

Then the recommended built above (or similar) sounds perfect for you. With the G4560 you get integrated graphics that you can use to pass through to your Linux VM; and you can use the PCIe slot for a SATA card if you need it.

The performance will be more than enough for what you need.

5 minutes ago, _jonte said:

Then the recommended built above (or similar) sounds perfect for you. With the G4560 you get integrated graphics that you can use to pass through to your Linux VM; and you can use the PCIe slot for a SATA card if you need it.

The performance will be more than enough for what you need.

 

Great thanks _jonte and HellDiver

Sorry one more question;

 

Is it worth getting a smaller size PSU? or should it all be comfortable with a normal atx size

For an ITX build I'd absolutely use an SFX power support.    While an ATX unit will fit in some of these cases, it's VERY crowded.   An SFX unit is a FAR better choice.

 

For specifics, both Silverstone and Corsair make excellent SFX units:

 

http://silverstonetek.com/product_power.php?tno=7&area=en

 

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/sf-series-sf600-600-watt-80-plus-gold-certified-high-performance-sfx-psu

awesome, thanks Garycase

Just check beforehand that the motherboard you get supports the Kaby Lake G4560 out of the box. The older 1** series needs an upgraded bios, while the newer 2** works out of the box. Newly produced boards should come with newer bios though, but hard to know for sure.

+1 for SFX

The Gigabyte board can flash the BIOS without any CPU installed, so it's no big fuss if it doesn't work. 

On 2017-5-10 at 6:51 PM, HellDiverUK said:

A tidy little config for unRAID using current model hardware is:

 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/cyGzxY
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-Z170N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£119.95 @ Amazon UK) 
 

 

Great info; thank you.

 

Would it make sense to go for an H270/Z270 motherboard instead?

Some models, such as the Gigabyte GA-Z270N-WI-FI or the ASROCK H270M-ITX/AC, can be bought for the same price.

 

A server-class alternative would be the Asus P10S-I.

Edited May 22, 20178 yr by kifysara

1 hour ago, kifysara said:

Would it make sense to go for an H270/Z270 motherboard instead?

Some models, such as the Gigabyte GA-Z270N-WI-FI or the ASROCK H270M-ITX/AC, can be bought for the same price.

 

A server-class alternative would be the Asus P10S-I.

 

Absolutely, I just recommended this set up because I use it and I know it works.  I don't see any reason why H270/Z270 wouldn't work fine.