After 1 week of research, I need your help on my new server setup.
Before that, I started with a setup, ignoring the HDD and other stuff, with the following setup:
ASRock Rack E3C246D2I
Intel Xeon E-2246G
Kingston Server Premier DDR4 32GB 266MHz ECC
After some research, I found that socket 1151 was ancient and discontinued by Intel. My plans have changed, and I am here to get a better and more efficient version of the new sockets like 1700 or even 1200. The problem is I have a Fractal Node 304 so need a mini-ITX motherboard.
I found this setup, but Iām not sure if the new Xeon CPUs are worth the money because they seem a little too basic compared with the Desktop versions.
Intel Xeon E-2436
Supermicro X13SCL-IF
Kingston Server Premier 32GB DDR5-4800 ECC
The purpose of this server will be for Plex, with not too much transcode but needs to handle at least one stream which I thought would not be necessary for QuickSync, VMs, a small webserver and an internal VPN.
Also, the more important is that I use the PCI-E x16 with a Bifurcation board to use 4 M.2 NVME x4. I thought that Bifurcation was a motherboard thing, but seems that Intel Ark of the new CPU has something about this.
After this long text, here I leave my questions:
Will be the new setup a good alternative for my mini-ITX server?
I cannot find any mini-ITX motherboard with ECC, there is an alternative to using a Desktop CPU?
Will the new setup handle a bifurcation of x8x4x4 or x4x4x4x4?
Will be the socket 1200 without DDR5 a better deal for my case? Or even older sockets?
Iām afraid of the CPU choice and not really with the motherboard.
I see people in the forums talking about buying an i7 instead of an E-2400 but not sure if the i7 is compatible with this Intel Chipset C262, at least the iGPU would not work.
As you point bifurcation is only possible for x8x8, the 1700 socket would not be a good choice(I didnāt find anything with ECC and mini-ITX).
I tried to look into socket 1200 but would need to use the Xeon E-2300 series with a similar price. Iām not sure if the E-2300 will be better or will handle one stream of transcoding.
This is v interestingā¦ The Node 304 is a Mini-DTX case and has room for a second PCIe slotā¦
You might not be able to bifurcate the x16ā¦ or you mightā¦ sometimes BIOS updates enable thatā¦
BUT it specifically mentions some addition PCIe lanes available via SlimSAS etcā¦ may even be able to convert those into an extra PCIe x4 slot.
Going another way, the venerable X10-SDV range does support x4x4x4x4 birfucation, is mini-itx, has lots of cores, six sata (perfect for Node 304), and supports 10gbe + 1gbe etc, but it really is getting long in the tooth.
I see that bifurcation can be set by a pin in the motherboard. If this PCIe is directly connected to the CPU, will the CPU be the only limitation? Would not be possible to change in BIOS?
I read it too, was just asking because that, maybe, could be managed in BIOS and not specified in the manual. It would be great to have more flexibility.
Unfortunately seems that I will need to change back to socket 1151. Mini-ITX, this socket, seems to have more flexible motherboards.
This goes together. In these LGA1700 generations, Core i5/7/9 can do ECC, but then youāll need a motherboard with the W680 chipsetāwhich, as far as I know, does not exist in mini-ITX size. I would also be wary about cooling an Alder/Raptor Lake desktop CPU inside a Node 304.
So the laptop-derived Xeon E2400 is probably a better choiceā¦ except it does not have an iGPU for transcoding, youād need an Arc dGPU.
Honestly, your initial plan was better: Go back to the C246 motherboard and Xeon E-2100G/E-2200G (or even a Core i3-9100 if 4 cores is enough: these are the last ECC-enabled Core i3).
Alternatvely a LGA1200 motherboard with C256 chipset (you need the ā6ā chipset to pass-through the iGPU) and Xeon E-2300G CPU (no ECC-enabled Core in this generation).
Ignore that these are older CPUs in discontinued sockets: A NAS does not require the latest and (not so) greatest.
None of the Core/Xeon E can bifurcate x4x4x4x4. At best, you can have x8x4x4, and three drives, or two drives and a x8 NIC card.
I was expecting the CPU would be powerful enough to handle a transcode. Is rare, but sometimes my family decide to use Plex and their TV needs a transcode.
I am afraid that I will leave this idea of the Xeon E-2400 because there is no PCIe bifurcation for x8x4x4, that is what I need for now.
That would be a good alternative for the C246 but I didnāt find anything mini-ITX with this chipset, so, one more time, I think I will give up on this alternative too.
As I just need the bifurcation for x8x4x4 (three NVME), for now seems that the best setup would be my initial with Xeon E-2246G. Iām still looking at the @Stux setup but the second-hand market where I live is not very good for this kind of deal.
Ah, could beā¦ Iām not familiar with the C256 lineup.
In this case, you may have a look at Ryzen, in both AM4 and AM5 sockets.
Most desktop CPUs support ECC (the issue is with motherboardsā¦), and can bifurcate x4x4x4x4.
A fast search on Geizhals shows that these motherboards have features that I do not need like WiFi, HDMI and some with RGB and Gaming Stuff.
I need one that has IPMI so I will do a deep search on this AM alternatives and see what is available. Thanks
Correct. Thatās mostly desktop motherboards, some of which should work with ECC, and the odd Ryzen server motherboard AsRock Rack X570D4I-2T, which might not be so attractive due to price and SO-DIMM slots.
Socketed server motherboards are mostly micro-ATX and larger. Mini-ITX server is mostly embedded, but this may not have the computing power you require.
Yeah, it was a mistake to start with mini-ITX but I got my wifeās approval because she thinks that Node 304 is an Air Purifier.
The next house will need to have a server rack to avoid these issues.
Iād say āa constraintā rather than āa mistakeā.
The Node 304 makes a nice little NAS. The natural motherboard for it is a Supermicro X10SDV (or equivalent), or alternatively a A2SDi. But then if you throw in transcoding (<- that one is THE mistake, IMHO), the CPU may lack power and you need a dGPU.
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