Potential Build - Opinions on specs please


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Hello All,

 

After having multiple issues with my HP Proliant Microserver (Gen 8) motherboard, I've decided I'll do a custom build and hopefully with fresh hardware ill be up and running again with minimal issues. Below is a link to PCPartPicker where I've listed all components I'm planning on buying for my build. 

 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/kDJD8M

 

Feel free to take a look and make suggestions., any feedback is welcome.. 

 

EDIT: Just for a bit of extra info. I currently run PiHole, Plex, Radarr, Sonarr, SabNZB, LetsEncrypt and DuckDNS. I'm not sure if these specs will be enough to manage the previous..

 

Thanks

Edited by MrMooreIOM
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Seems fine. I don't see a graphics card on the list and the 2700X doesn't have an integrated GPU. You can run Unraid headless but realistically speaking, you're going to need to connect a monitor for setting up and testing. Something like this won't break the bank and is more than adequate for setting up the BIOS, running MemTest, viewing the console and booting Unraid into GUI mode, if you wish to.

 

The only choice I'd query is the four 4 TB hard disks. Have you checked the cost per gigabyte of different capacities? 4 TB used to be the sweet spot a few years ago but I think it's closer to 6 or 8 TB now, so fewer higher capacity disks might be a better buy and leave you with more scope for future expansion as your storage needs grow.

 

I don't personally buy B350/B450 ATX motherboards. In my opinion B350/450 is fine for micro-ATX with only three or four PCIe slots, but a six- or seven-slot ATX board is quite restricted unless you choose one with an X370/X470. I'll try to explain why, though the decision is yours, of course.

 

On a B350/B450-based ATX motherboard you will get one x16 fully wired PCIe slot that's connected directly to the CPU. It works at PCIe v3 speed and it's primary purpose is to take a graphics card. All the other slots are fed by the B350/B450 chipset and share PCIe v2 bandwidth. You usually get a second x16 slot near the bottom of the card that's wired with just four lanes. You also get two or three x1 slots at PCIe v2 speed and you usually get one of them "for free" but if you use the other two they steal lanes from the bottom x16 (at x4) slot.

 

On an X370/X470-based ATX motherboard, you will get one x16 fully wired PCIe slot that's connected to the CPU via a switch. I'll call that the "top" slot. In the middle there is a second x16 PCIe slot that it wired with eight lanes and is also connected to the switch mentioned above. I'll call it the "middle" slot. The rest of the slots are as with the B350/B450 mentioned above - a "bottom" x16 slot wired with four lanes from the chipset and two or three x1 slots that share its PCIe v2 bandwidth.  From the gamer's point of view X370/X470 boards are aimed at people wanting dual GPUs. If you put a graphics card in the top slot and leave the middle slot empty the card runs at x16. If you put graphics cards in both top and middle slots they both run at x8, which is a feature you don't get with B350/B450 boards. It isn't a feature of the chipset per se but the use of a PCIe switch tends to go hand in hand with using the better chipset. As an Unraid user I find having two x8 slots much more useful than having a single x16 slot. And I wouldn't waste one of them on the cheapo graphics card mentioned above. The bottom slot is more than adequate for that, even when running in x2 mode, due to having two of its four lanes taken to feed the x1 slots.

 

Just my opinion. YMMV.

 

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7 hours ago, John_M said:

Seems fine. I don't see a graphics card on the list and the 2700X doesn't have an integrated GPU. You can run Unraid headless but realistically speaking, you're going to need to connect a monitor for setting up and testing. Something like this won't break the bank and is more than adequate for setting up the BIOS, running MemTest, viewing the console and booting Unraid into GUI mode, if you wish to.

 

The only choice I'd query is the four 4 TB hard disks. Have you checked the cost per gigabyte of different capacities? 4 TB used to be the sweet spot a few years ago but I think it's closer to 6 or 8 TB now, so fewer higher capacity disks might be a better buy and leave you with more scope for future expansion as your storage needs grow.

 

I don't personally buy B350/B450 ATX motherboards. In my opinion B350/450 is fine for micro-ATX with only three or four PCIe slots, but a six- or seven-slot ATX board is quite restricted unless you choose one with an X370/X470. I'll try to explain why, though the decision is yours, of course.

 

On a B350/B450-based ATX motherboard you will get one x16 fully wired PCIe slot that's connected directly to the CPU. It works at PCIe v3 speed and it's primary purpose is to take a graphics card. All the other slots are fed by the B350/B450 chipset and share PCIe v2 bandwidth. You usually get a second x16 slot near the bottom of the card that's wired with just four lanes. You also get two or three x1 slots at PCIe v2 speed and you usually get one of them "for free" but if you use the other two they steal lanes from the bottom x16 (at x4) slot.

 

On an X370/X470-based ATX motherboard, you will get one x16 fully wired PCIe slot that's connected to the CPU via a switch. I'll call that the "top" slot. In the middle there is a second x16 PCIe slot that it wired with eight lanes and is also connected to the switch mentioned above. I'll call it the "middle" slot. The rest of the slots are as with the B350/B450 mentioned above - a "bottom" x16 slot wired with four lanes from the chipset and two or three x1 slots that share its PCIe v2 bandwidth.  From the gamer's point of view X370/X470 boards are aimed at people wanting dual GPUs. If you put a graphics card in the top slot and leave the middle slot empty the card runs at x16. If you put graphics cards in both top and middle slots they both run at x8, which is a feature you don't get with B350/B450 boards. It isn't a feature of the chipset per se but the use of a PCIe switch tends to go hand in hand with using the better chipset. As an Unraid user I find having two x8 slots much more useful than having a single x16 slot. And I wouldn't waste one of them on the cheapo graphics card mentioned above. The bottom slot is more than adequate for that, even when running in x2 mode, due to having two of its four lanes taken to feed the x1 slots.

 

Just my opinion. YMMV.

 

Thanks for such a detailed response, After understanding what you said I've changed the motherboard, I'll buy the disks at a later date. Probably once everything has arrived, but In the end i'lll be going for the 8TB Ironwolf Pro's.

 

I've also added a half decent GPU as you mentioned theres no onboard Graphics and It'll help transcoding on plex..

 

I've removed the PSU as I already have the same one as a spare..

 

Please review my changes and let me know what you think..

 

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Yes, the MSI X470 Gaming Plus gives you the option of running the "top" and "middle" slots as two PCIe v3 x8 and it's a similar price to the B450 in your original spec.

 

I only have two reservations. The first is that a double-width PCI card (such as the video card you chose) will block access to a x1 slot. It's a common problem with motherboards aimed primarily at gamers but since the ATX spec allows for up to seven slots and only six are implemented here, they could have arranged the board differently as, for example, Gigabyte did on their X370 Gaming K5. I think PCIe slots are a precious resource and don't like to waste them. You might think it's worth the sacrifice, though.

 

The other is that it has a Realtek NIC. As far as I know, Realtek only supplies driver code for Windows and has made no contribution to the Linux source. So Realtek drivers in Linux are reverse-engineered and have had reliability problems in the past. Broadcom and Intel NICs are much better supported by Linux and tend to have a lower CPU load as some of the checksum calculations are done in hardware. That said, Realtek NICs work well enough with recent Unraid releases and you can always add an Intel NIC later - at the cost of a PCIe slot, of course!

 

The GTX 1050Ti should allow Plex to use hardware transcoding if you use the special version of Unraid compiled by LinuxServer.io. If you haven't read it already, you'll want to look at this thread:

 

 

 

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On 10/19/2019 at 5:34 PM, John_M said:

Yes, the MSI X470 Gaming Plus gives you the option of running the "top" and "middle" slots as two PCIe v3 x8 and it's a similar price to the B450 in your original spec.

 

I only have two reservations. The first is that a double-width PCI card (such as the video card you chose) will block access to a x1 slot. It's a common problem with motherboards aimed primarily at gamers but since the ATX spec allows for up to seven slots and only six are implemented here, they could have arranged the board differently as, for example, Gigabyte did on their X370 Gaming K5. I think PCIe slots are a precious resource and don't like to waste them. You might think it's worth the sacrifice, though.

 

The other is that it has a Realtek NIC. As far as I know, Realtek only supplies driver code for Windows and has made no contribution to the Linux source. So Realtek drivers in Linux are reverse-engineered and have had reliability problems in the past. Broadcom and Intel NICs are much better supported by Linux and tend to have a lower CPU load as some of the checksum calculations are done in hardware. That said, Realtek NICs work well enough with recent Unraid releases and you can always add an Intel NIC later - at the cost of a PCIe slot, of course!

 

The GTX 1050Ti should allow Plex to use hardware transcoding if you use the special version of Unraid compiled by LinuxServer.io. If you haven't read it already, you'll want to look at this thread:

 

 

 

Hello John_M, 

 

Appreciate the feedback, being honest I'd prefer my build to be as minimal hassle as possible. Do you recommend any other boards for under £150.  As for the suggestions regarding the GPU. do all GPU's require a "Special version" of Unraid? 

 

As mentioned I'm looking to run the vanilla install of unraid with minimal hassel

 

I really apprecaite the feedback and support with helping my on my first proper unraid build though... Legend 👌

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Ive just done a similar thing - gone from a HP MicroServer (N40L) and i went with the following spec.

 

Ryzen 2700 (non X)

Asrock B450m Pro 4 motherboard (MicroATX)

32gb Crucial DDR4 2666

500gb NVME (Cache)

2gb Nvidia 710 (just really so i could build the thing)

Fractal Design Node 804 Case

 

Its running great, really pleased with it 

 

I also bought a Dell H310 Perc Raid card from eBay for cheep, flashed it with IT firmware. 

 

I have 4 WD reds from my old system running on the Dell card, an SSD from my old system connected to the onboard SATA

Edited by rorton
mistype
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7 minutes ago, rorton said:

Ive just done a similar thing - gone from a HP MicroServer (N40L) and i went with the following spec.

 

Ryzen 2700 (non X)

Asrock B450m Pro 4 motherboard (MicroATX)

32gb Crucial DDR4 2666

500gb NVME (Cache)

2gb Nvidia 710 (just really so i could build the thing)

Fractal Design Node 804 Case

 

Its running great, really pleased with it 

 

I also bought a Dell H310 Perc Raid card from eBay for cheep, flashed it with IT firmware. 

 

I have 4 WD reds from my old system running on the Dell card, an SSD from my old system connected to the onboard SATA

Very Nice, Funnily enough I was looking at the exact same case, as I wanted something that looks remotely similar to the Microserver. I was scared off by thermals though. I'm curious to know how it runs?

 

Thanks,

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yeah it took me ages to decide on the case for the same reasons :)

 

Thermals wise it fine, there is so much space in the mb area once built that the CPU and board are fine, and i moved the fans around a bit, so i put 2 in the hard disk area, one to bring cold in, at the bottom, and then the existing exit at the top - then just left the cpu side with a single exit fan at the rear. 

 

Everything is ticking over really nicely, 

 

IMG_3319.jpeg

IMG_3321.jpeg

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32 minutes ago, rorton said:

yeah it took me ages to decide on the case for the same reasons :)

 

Thermals wise it fine, there is so much space in the mb area once built that the CPU and board are fine, and i moved the fans around a bit, so i put 2 in the hard disk area, one to bring cold in, at the bottom, and then the existing exit at the top - then just left the cpu side with a single exit fan at the rear. 

 

Everything is ticking over really nicely, 

 

 

IMG_3319.jpeg

IMG_3321.jpeg

Very Nice,

 

Looks ace! What do you use your unraid server for? I originally wanted a build very similar to yours however I run my unraid server as a NAS with 5/6 Dockers (PiHole, Sonarr, Radarr, Plex, DuckDNS and Lets encrypt.) I know Plex can be abit resource greedy at times. I may rethink my spec if you're doing similar with yours.

 

Thanks,

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:) Cheers

 

I run as a NAS, my Mac backs up to it using Time Machine, and then i have 2 VMs, one Linux with LibreNMS running (a network monitor), and then another Windows 10 VM in case i need to do anything windows based (certain mp3 tagging apps dont run on Mac)

 

Im planning on more VMs hence the extra Ram! One for Pi Hole (currently have this running on a Ras Pi, wanted to consolidate) 

 

Docker wise i run 

 

SabNZBd

Radaar

Sonaar

Emby Media Server (the plex alternative!)

Unifi for Wireless and Router controller

TFTP Server for flashing network kit

Krusaider for file management 

 

that's it for now, but my old server was so slow, it was lagging, so will get to play with more stuff now too i think :) 

 

What put you off doing it in a Matx case then - you mention the amount of dockers you run

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2 hours ago, rorton said:

:) Cheers

 

I run as a NAS, my Mac backs up to it using Time Machine, and then i have 2 VMs, one Linux with LibreNMS running (a network monitor), and then another Windows 10 VM in case i need to do anything windows based (certain mp3 tagging apps dont run on Mac)

 

Im planning on more VMs hence the extra Ram! One for Pi Hole (currently have this running on a Ras Pi, wanted to consolidate) 

 

Docker wise i run 

 

SabNZBd

Radaar

Sonaar

Emby Media Server (the plex alternative!)

Unifi for Wireless and Router controller

TFTP Server for flashing network kit

Krusaider for file management 

 

that's it for now, but my old server was so slow, it was lagging, so will get to play with more stuff now too i think :) 

 

What put you off doing it in a Matx case then - you mention the amount of dockers you run

Ahhh, Ace! Tbh I thought with the amount of dockers the thermals wouldnt be great. but seeing you manage makes me no longer worry lol.. I heard that plex transcoding was pretty resource intense and thought of getting a bigger case with more fans and possibly a AIO CPU cooler.

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nah, they don't use hardly any resource - i got a roku hooked up to try, and set emby up on it - and it started to transcode due to the audio, but the cpu hardly broke a sweat - the rest off my media client devices are raspberry pi's so dont need to transcode.

 

Should be fine - there are also sooo many fan positions in this case, that if you did find problems, then you can chuck some more fans in it

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4 hours ago, rorton said:

nah, they don't use hardly any resource - i got a roku hooked up to try, and set emby up on it - and it started to transcode due to the audio, but the cpu hardly broke a sweat - the rest off my media client devices are raspberry pi's so dont need to transcode.

 

Should be fine - there are also sooo many fan positions in this case, that if you did find problems, then you can chuck some more fans in it

Ahhh Excellent, I’ll hold off until Black Friday and see if any of my parts go on offer. 🤞🏼 John_M mentioned above to run a 1050ti you’ll need a special version of UnRAID. Did you need to install this? 
 

 

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I understand it can do, but doesn’t have too. Do you have the premier subscription for Plex? Emby needs that before you can do hardware decoding. Not sure if Plex is the same. That another £100

 

how many simultaneous Plex transcodes will be happening? What end points do you have for clients.  

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You can use a GPU in three different configurations on Unraid.

  • The simplest is to use it to get a video output of the BIOS setup screen, the Unraid console and, if you choose it from the boot menu, the Unraid GUI (which looks like the Web GUI). This doesn't need any configuration or drivers other than what are built into the OS and you can use a cheap, low power GPU for the task.
  • The next level is to use a GPU with a docker container, such as Plex, to do number crunching, such as video decoding/encoding. That needs a driver module, but Nvidia make it difficult so a special version of Unraid has to be compiled to support it. Unfortunately, AMD GPUs, though having support for video decoding/encoding and an open siurce Linux driver, can't currently be used by the Linux version of Plex.
  • The highest level of complexity is to pass the GPU through to a VM. In that case it's ignored by Unraid and the driver you use depends just on the guest OS running on the VM.
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