Hi, I would like to update my old NAS / Home-Server to newer Hardware. I thought about using AM4 but realized that the PCIe slot configuration will not fit to my needs.
I want to use an Asus Hyper M.2 x16 Gen 4 Card but need also minimum 5-6 SATA-Ports and 10G Ethernet.
My first intention was the AsRock Rack X570D4U-2L2T because of 8 SATA ports and build in 10G via X550-AT2 but if I use an AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5750G all the PCIe is limited to PCIe3.0 and I will have no possibility for future upgrades.
With AM5 Boards I am at the moment limited by the SATA ports, most of them have only 4, so I need an additional HBA which runs then only at x4 PCIe lanes. Not a big deal but I will lose minimum 4 SATA Ports. Also 10G Ethernet via Intel NIC is also not often available, most of them are Broadcom NICs, except one board from Gigabyte the MC13-LE1.
Epyc would work easily but is absolutely overkill and also the power consumption in Idle is too much for a small NAS / Home-Server.
Do you have any other suggestions how I can go further?
First use case is to store privat files but will also run some Docker images (Nextcloud, Teslamate, Dockge, and so on). Also a CentOS VM for my home automation, Windows VM as well for some programs which are not running on macOS and a Debian VM for some other use cases.
At the moment I have 5 2TB spinning drives in a Raid Z2 which I want to upgrade as well and then run maybe only 4 drives with 6 TB each.
Boot drive I have at the moment a small 30GB SATA SSD, maybe I will run in the future a mirror with two.
The Asus Hyper M.2 x16 I want to use for my VMs and docker. I want to run 4x 2TB SSDs (mirror and stripe configuuration)
None of that begs for PCIe 4.0…
5-6 SATA ports would be enough, but in my opinion it does not make sense to use a PCIe slot to add a HBA for so few ports. The issue is the Windows VM (needs a GPU, hence the PRO 5750G I suppose) when you also want 10 GbE and 4 NVMe drives (x4x4x4x4 not possible with APUs). Something has to go to fit all in a Ryzen (or Xeon E) platform with low idle power.
I know nothing of my requirements begs fĂĽr PCIe 4.0 or even higher, this is only a investigation to the future.
what’s with the newer Ryzen e.g. AMD Ryzen 9 7900, this should work also with the APU or?
With the MC13-LE1 board this should work because of build in 10GB NIC but still wasting a PCIe slot for the extra HBA.
AM4 or AM5, desktop CPUs (chiplets) can bifurcate x4x4x4x4 but APUs (monolithic) can only do x8x4x4. But AM5 CPUs also have an iGPU.
So a MC13-LE1 with an ECC-capable Ryzen CPU could host 4 M.2 drives in the x16 slot, pass the iGPU to a Windows VM and manage a 4-wide raidz2 with spinning drives. If “low idle power” is a goal, it doesn’t make sense to add a 15 W HBA for one extra SATA port: Use less drives, but larger ones—and save power on the two counts. (Boot from on-board M.2, and forget about mirroring it.)
Which means that the x4 slot can remain free, and you could use a MC13-LE0, or any other B650 board, with an add-on NIC (possibly SFP+ rather than RJ45).
With a MC12-LE0 you’d have 6 SATA ports, a 10G NIC in the x4 slot. And then you have to choose:
APU for the Windows VM, but only 2 or 3 M.2 drives (x8x4x4); or
CPU for 4 M.2, but no Windows VM.
The good point, however, is that the MC12-LE0 is MUCH cheaper.
The point of my remark about PCIe 4.0 is that you don’t need it, probably don’t need a Ryzen 9 either, and should try do downsize, or “rightsize”, the NAS rather than going for newest, shiniest, and more expensive, components.
So for my understanding:
AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5750G is able to bifurcate x8x4x4
AMD Ryzen 9 7900 is able to bifurcate x4x4x4x4
A 10G NIC I have already in my old system so I can reuse this one, check. A 4-wide raidz2 with bigger spinning drives shoud not be a problem, was also my target for the upgrade.
I will now further read the manuals from differnt boards regarding the spread of M.2 lanes, mybe there are some impairments with the PCIe slots.
Correct.
There are few to no surprises with server boards. The choice is between MC12-LE0 (69€ at piospartslap.de; onboard M.2 x1 for boot only) and B650D4U / MC13-LE0/1 (350-550€, plus the higher cost of CPU and DDR5 RAM).
