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WALL-E Build – My Ultimate Backup Server


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Objective:

With my main Plex server now complete (link in the Links section), I decided to upgrade my dinky Optiplex 7010 DT (i5-3570) to something a little more modern and rack mountable. I knew I wanted to go with something lower powered since this server would primarily be a small backup of my most important pictures and files and would be a backup Plex server for my kids in case I had to take the main one down for maintenance or upgrades. I had planned on just filling it with old, smaller hard drives that I could easily and cheaply replace when they failed. I wanted this to be a server that I could play around with a little more and experiment with in Unraid. The pressure to keep it up and operational was going to be far less.

 

What I came up with:

 

Case – Supermicro CSE-835TQ-R800B (Modified) (~$220, eBay)

--> I had been checking out the 835’s in case I couldn’t find a 836 for my main Plex server. I came across this 835 when I was just messing around on eBay. It came with a Supermicro X8DAH+, 2 x CPU’s, 8 x 3.5” HDD’s, and a LSI 9750-8i for $220 shipped. It was too good to pass up. Sadly, most of the hard drives were small capacity (< 2TB) and starting to fail, but at least a couple were okay and everything else was easy to gut and sell off. I took out the 2 x PWS-801-1R’s out and replaced them with 1 x PWS-501P-1R (very quiet) and a blank (CSE-PT0130L). Since this build would be a lower powered, backup build, the 500W platinum PSU would be more than enough. I then put in my old Icy Dock MB994SP-4SB-1 in one of the 5.25” bays to provide 4 x 2.5” bays and added a Silverstone FPS01 to give me some easy-to-access USB 3.0 ports at the front of the case. For the time being, I decided to forgo upgrading the fans to the quiet setup I had on my 836 (3 x FAN-0074L4’s on the fan wall and 2 x FAN-0104L4’s on the back). Although the server is louder than my 836 build, it’s not overwhelmingly so and all the fans sit at the lowest possible setting 100% of the time.

 

CPU – Intel Core i3-8100 (4 cores/4 threads) (~$95, eBay)

--> Although the Intel G5400, G5500, and G5600 were all good options, the G5400 had lesser iGPU and the G5500 and G5600 were roughly the same price as the more powerful i3-8100. This processer is definitely far more powerful than I needed but it still idles very low and can get through most tasks faster than some less powerful CPU’s. It was under $100 and can transcode a whole lot, so I consider this a steal.

 

CPU Cooler – Arctic Alpine 12 Passive (~$20, Amazon)

--> Even though this cooler is only rated for 45W, I figured putting it in my server with a fan shroud and lots of airflow, it wouldn’t matter. I was right. Even with the fan wall fans sitting at their lowest settings, the i3-8100 stays very cool and usually hovers between 25C and 30C. I can’t believe the Supermicro SC836 air shroud fits perfectly over the Alpine 12, but it does and man, is it cool.

 

Motherboard – Asus WS C246M Pro (~$70, eBay)

--> Besides the server case, finding this motherboard really jumpstarted the whole build. This is probably one of my best finds ever trolling eBay. It was an Open Box auction where the seller didn’t have a CPU to use to test it out. I’m guessing everyone else was scared to bid on it, so I won it at an insanely low amount. I figured if it failed, it would only be $70 out of pocket and would be worth the time to test it out. Amazingly, it booted right up and was perfect by every stretch of the imagination. It might not be the best in terms of PCIE lanes or other bells and whistles, but it did have two strong qualities that I was looking for. It had the RAM arranged for server airflow (important to be because of the fan shroud) and had the C246 chipset where the iGPU could be passed through to a docker container and utilized in Plex. The lack of IPMI wasn’t a big deal.

 

Memory – 8GB Samsung M391A1G43EB1-CRC 2400mhz ECC UDIMM (~$60, eBay)

--> This RAM was on the QVL for the motherboard and was at a decent price. I memtest’d it when initially setting up the system and had no issues with it. Since this server is only going to run Plex in rare instances and spend most of its time in an idle state, I decided that 8GB was more than enough RAM.

 

HBA – LSI 9211-8i (IT Mode) (~$65, eBay)

--> After buying and testing the HP H220 I used in the 836 build, I simply moved my previously purchased 9211-8i over to this build. I’ve used it for the last two years, and it has been nothing but reliable. I probably paid too much for it, but it came already flashed and had the latest firmware. I highly recommend checking out the Art of the Server’s eBay store, if you’re just starting out with HBA’s and want a genuine one that has everything you need to simply plug-n-play in your system. His HBA’s cost a little more but he does offer a lot of support, the cards have up to date firmware, and you’re never going to end up with a cheap, low quality Chinese knockoff.

 

Notes from using it for several months:

- I setup Unraid to run in UEFI instead of Legacy. It was very simple to do and something I hadn’t done in any of my previous builds. There weren’t any changes in the BIOS that I needed to make.

- I haven’t really needed to test out the i3-8100’s iGPU in Plex so far, but the initial tests I ran looked like it could do quite a bit (has the same iGPU as my E-2278G).

- With all the drives spun down, it doesn’t draw that much power, but I haven’t checked to see how much it is actually pulling. It’s connected to my UPS through the network and the UPS isn’t providing the power draw numbers.

- Regardless of what happens with upgrading my other server or not, I’m going to keep this one the way it is for a very long time. The iGPU and processing power is more than enough for my needs, and I see no reason to upgrade the CPU/motherboard for years to come.

- Possible future upgrades for this build: change out the fans like I did on the 836 build, add in another Icy Dock cage to the remaining 5.25” bay, add in a 10Gbe card?

 

Let me know if you have any questions about this setup. I’m more than willing to share everything I know.

 

Links:

Baymax Build: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/92596-baymax-build-–-my-ultimate-plex-server/

 

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