Asking for some advice on consolidating our home IT


AdmiralVanGilbert

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Hello everybody,

I'm using UnRaid for three weeks now, so my trial period is about to end, and I'd like to consolidate my home IT infrastructure. Yes, I consider myself a newbie in terms of KVM, UnRaid and everything around. I mean, I know how to do things in Linux, I can edit fstab and mount drives, but I failed recompiling the kernel some years ago.

 

That's basically me. Hi - I'm Daniel.

 

So, here is what I'm starting with:

 

My Gaming Rig (2015 Build, with upgrades)

 

Our NAS

 

Our living room HTPC

 

Then we have an old (2010-ish) HP laptop that my mum used to use, and now my little sister is using, and a medium gaming rig (i5, GTX 1060) that my girlfriend is using.

Or household consists of my girlfriend, my sister (Teenager) and me - so the media consumption is basically YouTube + Netflix. Adding snapchat & co on top, we have round about 500 - 800 GB of outside Traffic per month.

 

(Hope you are still with me after this wall of text, I'm sorry)

 

My plan:

Keep as much things as possible, try to sell the stuff I don't need.

 

What should the new server do?

  • Host my Gaming Rig as a Virtual Windows-Machine with the Radeon as dedicated GPU (I do 1080p / 60fps for at least the next 3 years to come, if my 3 monitors don't die before that. I'm not yet into 144Hz or 4K Gaming)
  • Host our Home-Assistant instance (Docker)
  • Of course, "normal" NAS capabilities (SMB-Share)
  • UrBackup-Server for the attached Windows PCs (although I wouldn't need that for the virtual machines any longer)
  • Host a more capable virtual Windows-machine for my little sister (instead of replacing the old laptop). I might add a small, dedicated GPU some day.
  • Maybe Plex or similar?
  • pfsense would be good - or something related. We currently have a router + modem from our cable provider, but I cannot change the DNS-server on this one, so I'm unable to setup a network wide ad filter instance like pi-hole without tinkering too much with the overall infrastructure (double natting, for instance)
  • Maybe it could serve as an access point for our mobile devices, but I'm not sure if this makes any sense. Otherwise, I'd need an extra access point.

 

Parts I can re-use (I think...):

- Case: Anidees AI6V2
- GPU: Sapphire Radeon R9 390
- Array: 1 x 6 TB Seagate IronWolf + 1 x 6 TB Seagate Iron Wolf (Parity + Data)
- Cache: 2 x 120 GB Kingston SSD (Cache-Pool)
- VM-Drive: 500 GB M.2 Samsung MZ-N5E500BW 850 EVO (just an idea)

 

I would like to keep the Mainboard, but I don't think that makes any sense. Judging from the market prices at least here in Germany, a i7 4xxx (4 cores, 8 threads) costs nearly as much as a ThreadRipper 1900X. o.O 

 

Which brings me down to the main question I have:

-It looks like a need a new Mainboard, CPU, RAM and power supply, because none of the old stuff seems to be powerful or recent enough. I consider AMD for this task, because the Ryzen-CPUs seem pretty capable - and they are good if you are on a budget.

 

Speaking of budget: The lesser the better. I cannot afford a 1800 US-$ CPU with all the bells and whistles. The whole project shouldn't cost more than 600 US-$. However, I could calculate with the stuff I'm selling. So, if we end up with a pricetag of 850 bucks, and I can sell my old stuff for 250, everything is ok.

I think, I need a good blend of cores and single-core performance. Maybe a 12 core Threadripper could fit? But then I need a matching mainboard, which is quite expensive? Or would a Ryzen be sufficient? All in all, the build should run decent for at least the next 3 years to come. 

 

Love to hear your thoughts, suggestions and ideas on this one!

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  • AdmiralVanGilbert changed the title to Asking for some advice on consolidating our home IT

Ok, so maaaaaybee, this wall of text was a little too much - but I like to provide as much info as possible.

 

However, my plans got me thinking: Maybe a i7-4790 or i7-4770 is enough as an upgrade for my current mainboard? I‘m currently on a i5-4670k.

 

Used ones come at a price of around 150€ (~174 US-$), and both my mainboard and the psu are still pretty ok-ish, I guess.

 

As an alternative, this is what a Ryzen-Build would cost: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/user/MrGilbert/saved/zLn8YJ

 

(I‘ve read the warnings on the page)

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Hi,

 

2 hours ago, Benson said:

If you plan NAS+Gaming under Unraid then I won't agree upgrade CPU from i5 to i7. But you need dealing problem coming from NAS+Gaming or many in one.

 

So personally, you would stick to the current configuration? Despite the expected workload I outlined above? Switching the Platform altogether means a difference between 400 Bucks, roundabout.

 

2 hours ago, Benson said:

Ryzen would be good choice. https://de.pcpartpicker.com/user/MrGilbert/saved/zLn8YJ  as warning, no reason 1st gen MB + 2nd GEN CPU.

 

From what I've read, the X370 and X470 don't differ that much. I could order it with a BIOS-Update, so I wouldn't have problems here. On the other hand, I guess the manufacturers could have learnt from mistakes the made on the first gen boards, and could have fixed them on the second gen. So it would make sense to switch to a 2nd gen board anyway.

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1 hour ago, AdmiralVanGilbert said:

So personally, you would stick to the current configuration? Despite the expected workload I outlined above? Switching the Platform altogether means a difference between 400 Bucks, roundabout.

That depends on your need and planning, in fact I agree Gaming+NAS in one because that means utilization, I just point out new challenge on VM / GPU passthrough / storage .... setting.

 

But I won't put networking in same box, networking need all time available, so difficult for a busybox haven't downtime.

 

Why don't just try in current hardware first, I think you will got better knowning and found what new hardware you need.

Edited by Benson
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1 hour ago, Benson said:

That depends on your need and planning, in fact I agree Gaming+NAS in one because that means utilization, I just point out new challenge on VM / GPU passthrough / storage .... setting.

I guess that's part of the fun - see what's possible. I like to tinker around, so... I'd give it a shot. :)

 

1 hour ago, Benson said:

But I won't put networking in same box, networking need all time available, so difficult for a busybox haven't downtime.

Seems legit, yes. The current NAS-SoC could do this job. A second ethernet card (intel) is already inside.

 

1 hour ago, Benson said:

Why don't just try in current hardware first, I think you will got better knowning and found what new hardware you need.

I don't know - maybe the main reason is / was that I think I won't be able to game on the cpu as before. I mean, we are talking about Forza Horizon 4, GTA V, etc.

 

But you are right, I should just give it a try. I'll report back. :)

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Ok, so.... Bummer.

 

I double checked to see if it's possible what I'm about to try, and with my current setup, it's not.

 

The i5-4670K doesn't support VT-- so no pass-through for the GPU, I guess. Well, it wouldn't be that bad at all - just get a matching CPU (the i7-4790K does indeed support VT-d. Oh, Intel... ), and off you go. It's not that easy - the ASUS mainboards also do not support VT-d.

 

Back to the sketchboard, I guess. We upgraded our old living room TV to a newer model (2013 vs 2017) - I was surprised that todays TVs run a full-fledged Android with Play Store on them. Haven't been doing much in terms of TVs since the old days.

 

Anyway - the old living room pc is, strictly speaking, not needed any longer. So I got another idea:

 

I swap the two mainboards, and try the build on the Pentium G4600. Yes, I know, I'll face only 2 cores (4 thanks to HT), but I was running GTA V on the HTPC without a dedicated graphics card. So the Pentium might not be that bad at all. And, the B250 supports VT-d!

 

One headache: I need to keep the old BeQuiet PSU, as the one in the HTPC is not capable to supply enough wattage to the GPU. However, the old one is this model: BeQuiet System Power L7 500W. It's rather old, so I'm likely to swap it anyways for a modern one.

 

@Benson: That's the tinkering I was speaking about. :P 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi folks,

 

I thought I might post a follow-up here on what I've done so far. First and foremost: I've bought an Unraid license. This OS is worth every penny.

 

Other than that, here is my current setup:

  • OS: Unraid 6.6.2
  • Case: Anidees AI6V2
  • Mainboard: Gigabyte X470 Aorus Ultimate Gaming
  • CPU: Ryzen 5 2600
  • RAM: 2x8GB RAM, DDR4 2400.
  • GPU1: Sapphire Radeon R9 390 8GB [For Gaming VM]
  • GPU2: ASUS GTX 750 2GB [For BIOS, soon to be replaced with a cheap passive one]
  • GPU3: Gigabyte HD7750 1GB [For fun?]
  • Gaming-VM-Drive: 500 GB M.2 Samsung MZ-N5E500BW 850 EVO
  • Array: 1 x 6 TB Seagate IronWolf + 1 x 6 TB Seagate IronWolf (Parity + Data)
  • Cache: 2 x 120 GB Kingston SSD (Cache-Pool)
  • Powersupply: "be quiet!" Pure Power 10 600 CM

As the RAM prices are currently falling, I'll upgrade it maybe mid next year to a lot more. We'll see. 

 

The "Kill A Watt" says:

  • 90 Watt in Idle (Drives spinning)
  • 160 Watt with Gaming VM running (3 Monitors attached)
  • 270 Watt while playing Forza Horizon 4
  • 530 Watt with Prime 95 (max Heat) + Furmark

In terms of energy consumption, I haven't calculated yet. However, considering that I use my rig round about 4-5 hours a day, going down from roughly 220 Watt to 160 Watt makes quite a different where I live, so the upgrade was worth the money.

 

Next up is the software part. Once I'm finished with everything (including lighting :P ), I might open a thread over at the UCD-Forum.

 

Thanks everybody for your input, it really helped a lot!

Edited by AdmiralVanGilbert
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