GERMANY / prices in EURO / budget ~800€ (currently higher)
So I was looking to build a server on which I could host one or multiple modded minecraft servers. On top of that I wanted to backup data that I have laying around on three old (7-10y) HDDs (6tb+3tb+3tb) (I know it is way to old) and use the opportunity to build a full fledged NAS. This would also allow me to give access to the data to other family members since it’s mostly pictures and documents and backups which are and which will be on those drives. This is why I’m planing a bit ahead and why I would like to have min 20TB of useable space.
My plan for this was to install Proxmox on the server:
1-2x ubuntu VMs for the respective minecraft servers;
a TrueNAS Scale VM for the NAS (mostly because I don’t want to get into Scale, and I have proxmox for running other apps);
use the remaining resources to run said other apps or other ubuntu vms.
Now my plans for the hardware, which I am planing on buying mostly used, because why not and it keeps things low in cost (except the PSU, because you don’t cheap out on the foundation):
for the CPU I want to go with a 5600x (maybe 5700x, which gives 2 more cores?), because it has enough cores to handle all the things I want the server to do, its single core clocks are high enough to run heavily modded minecraft servers with up to ten people flawlessly (at least I hope so, couldn’t find any data on that), it doesn’t use to much power and its on AM4;
RAMwise I was thinking going with at least 2x32GB DDR4 for max 75€ used, so that I wont have to worry that I cannot utilize my CPU and to have enough for the MC server and so that I have enough (16GB) cache for the NAS, I’ll be sure to check that I get ECC memory;
mobo I don’t know yet, but I’m planning on an AM4 that is under 100€ used, and can host a potential future graphics card if I want to go with media streaming and a has enough SATA ports or another pcie slot for an IBM 1015 HBA card, which I plan to flash to IT mode;
also, I think I will have to get a 2.5GB NIC since the mobo might be too cheap to handle network on its own, and I want it to be a router too, so I’ll need at least 2 (1I/1O) physical interfaces (though 3 would be preferred for allowing a fail-over on my WAN ports).
And for the drives (which is technically also hardware, but the last bullet list is already so long):
two small NVMe SSD drives as redundant boot drives;
potentially 1-2x 256-512GB Sata SSD (for the minecraft server, if I don’t put it on the NVMe SSD and maybe other apps, those maybe as a stripped pool)
start with buying 4x10-12TB HDDs.
Now there still are a ton of things I’m not sure of or simply don’t now enough about, because this is my first build (all my theoretical knowledge is from reading posts here and over on reddit, and tech-related blogs over the last few years and from building my desktop pc nearly five years ago):
should I buy the HDDs used or new? (Buying old is ~100€/drive on ebay, new would mean +~40-60€/drive for a total of about +~160€ on amazon), though I am (naively?) not very afraid of buying them used; also if someone knows a straigthforward checklist for what drives to buy and which not to buy, that would be really helpful;
in TrueNAS what would be the best way to configure my pools (while being safe in terms of data integrity but without losing too much of my space)? (currently RAIDZ2 sounds good, still allowing for 20TB of useable space with my 4x10TB drives and mirrored for the SSD pool);
is there anyway I can cut costs without having to miss out on features? Or is there anything I plan on buying which is outright stupid or at least a beginner’s mistake?
I heard that using consumer grade hardware isn’t my best idea, but I’ve looked at so many options and I couldn’t find any server-grade mbs and cpus that fit my need and my budget; perhaps I’ve run so deep into the rabbit hole that I missed something, if so I’d be happy what alternatives there are.
I’m also happy to take any other advice you would have for me Thanks in advance.
Recommended add in network cards would be Intel i226 for a single port and Intel X550T2 for two ports. Both do 2.5Gbps per the Intel documents. Realtek is not recommended and is usually on consumer motherboards. Works fine for some users. Others have problems with network drops, etc.
You might have trouble with PCI-e slots as Graphics Card, HBA and NIC are all desires. You need to verify what kind of slots those all require.
Proxmox, please read the forums here as it has to be set up correctly or it causes trouble with ZFS and TrueNAS. Usual advice is pass through the entire HBA for the data disks. Boot disk needs protection from Proxmox also, there are a few ways?
Thank you I had already read about this and written this down, I’ll look into it.
Actually (I should have been more precise in my explanation) I plan on installing it directly onto proxmox (in a separate VM to TrueNAS) so I don’t think I’ll run into problems here.
Thank you for the recommendations, I have looked into those and found there to be a problem with the pcie lanes I will require, thanks for putting me on this path I had totally missed before.
I think for what I want, I need a motherboard which can handle two NVMe slots, for the NVMe SSDs I mentioned, one >gen3 x16 slot (with a slot underneath free, because GPUs are big) for the graphics card (primarly for media encodes, if you got any recommendation here I’d be very glad of hearing them), one >gen 3 >x4 slot for the HBA and any other slot for a fitting NIC.
Now how I see it, the mb I chose (b550-gaming-x-v2) does not have all those ports, or at least, cannot drive all these ports, at the speed at which I’d need them. Do you know of a motherboard around the 100€ mark which would be able to do this?
Also what is the difference of a PCIe slot connected directly to the CPU or through the chipset? Does it make a difference in my case?
I think I found a motherboard for 120€ (once again, slightly over budget), which seems to do what I need it to do “X570 AORUS PRO”:
it has ECC memory and the manual does not say that it has to run in non-ECC mode like other boards do
it only supports 32GB sticks, so I don’t know if that will be a problem if I want to upgrade from 2x32gb to 4x32gb
it has an Intel 1GB NIC, which is enough to be my third port which is meant to be fail-over
it got one gen4x16toCPU (gpu) (with clearance), it got one gen4x8toCPU (dual 2.5g NIC), it got one gen3x16toChipSet (HBA) and 2 gen3x1 slots for spare, as well as more SATA ports throught the Chipset (and the chipsets supports 8gbps throughput, where as the HBA would max out at 6gbps already so that should be fine)
Do you think I missed something?
Does it make a difference performance-wise, if I interchange the NIC and HBA slots?
(Now the price is interesting… It used to be less than half of that—and was 55€ with a bundled cooler the last time I posted this link. We have an anti-Black Friday operation here. Feel free to lowball.)
Now you’ve got some build issues. Proxmox is a dangerous hypervisor for TrueNAS. You need to passthrough the drive controller—and that’s still not enough. A HBA, a NIC, and then a dGPU and some NVMe drives is more than what a consumer-grade CPU can properly handle.
If you want to do transcoding, consider going for Intel and use the iGPU. (Otherwise an Arc 310 is small, possibly even single-slot or half-height, but still take some CPU lanes.)
New HDDs are generally preferred: After all, this is about reliable storage so don’t cheap out on the very foundation.
Model: Anything that is NOT SMR (Seagate Ironwolf (Pro) or Exos; Toshiba N300 or MG; WD Red Plus/Pro, WD Gold or the corresponding HGST Ultrastar).
I’d be totally in for a cheap server board and even a server CPU, but after scouting the markets the last weeks, I was unable to find a combination that satisfies my need for pcie lanes, my need for high-single core clocks, for low tdp and for it to be lightweight on my wallet. This is why I went with the combination I described (currently the X570 Aorus Pro and ryzen 5600), because it offers kind of what I want.
Thanks I did not know that, but I’ll be sure to do some thorough testing before copying over my data and to use it “in production”.
I have noticed that, which is why I lastly went with the most advanced chipset (for AM4 that is X570), which according to my calculations (taking into account graphics card, NIC, chipset and HBA bandwith) should be able to do the job about fine. Though as I said, a server CPU would be better suited for the job, if I found one that did it.
What about recertified or refurbished ones, like you can find on Ebay/ServerPartDeals and the like? I only heard positive things on that said, and if I get mostly the same quality for nearly half the price, that sounds too good to make me want to pay the full price.
And thank you for the model names, I hadn’t started to look which drives exactly I wanted, but this will be a lot of help.
TDP is actually irrevant; idle power would be the better metric for a NAS.
And here, indeed, you won’t find a good combination for high PCIe lanes but low idle power.
You realise that all the I/O being served through the chipset goes through a x4 link to the CPU, right? Overloading that is not a good idea.
Explaining what you mean by “server CPU” would be of help…
Thanks in advance.