Help me with spec to replace Microserver for UnRaid use

[rorton]

Hi, long time lurker, and looking to upgrade my N40L micros server that's been running UnRAID for the past 10+ years!

Its a dual core AMD Turiton 1500 CPU with 8gb Ram - 4 x 3tb WD Red in the array with parity set, so 9tb usable, and a Crucial MX500 SSD as a cache drive.

Im using it for a number of dockers - Sabnzb, Sonnar, Radarr, Unifi, Emby Server, and a TFTP server, I then have a single Ubuntu VM running LibreNMS as a network monitor for the network.

Its getting long in the tooth, unifi takes a while to push settings to my USG and i wanted to use more VM's, i have a Win10 machine that does a few things that my mac can't do, so doesn't get used a lot, and would like to virtualise that - as a Mac user id also like to run a virtual instance of OSX to mess about with stuff in a VM before making changes to my live system.

Will be looking into using Zabbix to replace LibreNMS - so that will need a VM too.

I used to build PC's about 15 years ago, but not touched one since, just used them (and macs) so don't really know where to start.

Doing some reason, it seems Ryzen seems a good choice - would a Ryzen 8 core 2700x be overkill?

I was going to re use the storage from the Microserver, so would be looking at

Case (its going under the stairs, so didn't want a massive one)
PSU
CPU/Fan
Motherboard
Memory
Possible 2 x M.2 drives (maybe 2 x 512, or 1tb)

Budget was around £500-£600

I was thinking of 2 x M.2 drives as i was toying with running a cache pool in unraid - currently have a single 250gb ssd which has all my app data, my VM, my docker image etc, if was to add a few more VM's, i'll need more space, and i thought that if there was a cache pool, then if one dies, at least the other is still running - i also see people run an 'unassigned' drive for VM's and stuff, wondered on the benefits of that over doing the cache pool.

I was guessing that i need to allocate at least 1 core per VM (can you share them? not well up on the virtualisation side, i have one VM running with one core assigned to it cause it would work otherwise)

Bit of a long post, so i'll not rattle on any more, grateful for any help on what to get, i dont want to buy super fast gear and never get the use out of it, but i also dont want to but something cheap and then see me struggle in the next few years,

Thanks

 

[rorton]

thanks for the reply.

Been doing some more research, and as a starter for 10, I put the following components together as usable:

AMD Ryzen 5 3400G Processor
ASROCK B450M PRO4 (SOCKET AM4) DDR4 MATX MOTHERBOARD (chosen as it has dual m.2 slots to run below m.2 drives in a cache pool)
2 x WD Blue SN500 High-Performance NVMe Internal NVMe SSD - 500GB
Node 804 case

Thats about as far as i got - no idea on a PSU or which is the best memory to get (either 16 or 32gb)

Above gets me to £450 odd quid, so not a lot left for ram and psu.

Am i barking up the wrong tree with any of this?
Board has 4 sata ports to run the WD reds i already have, no where to plug in the SSD i already have but could get a sata card i guess

 

[rorton]

actually i think the NVME drives may be overkill as the board will only run 1 m2 slot at NVME speed, assuming unraid will only work at the slowest speed, so i won't get any benefit of faster drives - can shave a few quid off with just a pair of crucial m.2 500gb SSD's if that's better or doesn't really make a difference

Ram could be Vulcan T Force 16gb kit (2x8gb) which would get me going, the board/cpu only supports 32gb max, so i could put 2 more 8gbs in the other 2 slots at a later date?

is 2400 Ram OK, i wont be overclocking the system - needs too be stable

 

[rorton]

Thanks for the reply

The cache pool was more of a redundancy thing. If i have my vms on there, app data and other stuff, then anything that gets written to the array, my thinking was if I had a ssd failure, I still had one with all the data on, but as I backup the app data to the array anyway, I could do the same with the vms so negates the need for ssd redundancy? Maybe then I just get a 512 NVMe that runs fast?

redundancy of the cache drive just seemed like a good idea at the time!

 

[rorton]

thanks - food for thought then.

You've confused me about the mover function though. I understood it that the mover only 'moves' data that you copy to an array share that is set to use the cache drive - so example, a 'data' share is set to use all disks in the array plus cache. You copy to the unraid NAS, and data gets to the cache drive first, then at a specified time, the mover 'moves' the data to the array, removing it from the cache drive and giving the speed benefit of the faster non parity cache disk.

If the share is set to 'cache only', example 'app data' or vm disk images or docker image, then the mover wouldn't get involved in moving them as they are 'cache only'

You mentioned that your docker data and vm share is cache (and array?) - but if that is the case, doesnt the data get moved from the cache to the array so doesnt exist on the cache for long?
?

In my setup, because my app data share/docker image and vm share is cache only which seemed to be recommend on the unraid forums, i have to use the community applications to backup the app data to a share in the array, and dont yet backup my vm - was reading how to do this, and seems there is a script available on the unraid forum to automate this.

 

[rorton]

some more reading sees (i think) that if i use both m.2 slots on the motherboard, then i have to sacrifice a data port

* M2_2 and SATA3_3 share lanes. If either one of them is in use, the other one will be disabled

so that means I'm down to 3 sata ports, and i need 4 for the 4 WD reds that are going in - is there a cheep/decent option to use a card to add some extra data ports?

 

[rorton]

thanks for the tip on the H310 - looks a good option -

CPU wise, you mention the 1700, 8core 16thread, is that the Ryzen 7 1700? I don't see it for sale for much less than £170 (new) and maybe £120 used on a famous auction site - is that the right CPU and am i just looking in the wrong places? the 3400g i saw was £140 - i dont really need the faster single core performance, the 3400g just looked like a half decent option with it having iGPU and reasonably priced - Ryzen 2400g seems to be about £120, so £20 less than the 3400g - i noted you mentioned on another post its available for £80ish - if i went with a cpu with no GPU, whats the minimum graphics card i can get away with? i did half look before at a std cpu and separate graphics card, but new the cards were around £40+ for something basic and no idea what second hand stuff would work with the board.

PSU seem to be a mine field too - looks like a 'gold' type is best, and something which is at least semi modular? would the ENCLAVE 500W 80 PLUS GOLD MODULAR POWER SUPPLY be OK at £60

 

[rorton]

feel like i have opened a can of worms now - if i go for a passive GPU card, then the CPU line opens up to me - and i could get a Ryzen 6 core 2600 for £120, is that a better bet than the 3400g with iGPU.

Had some time today, so put 2 ideas together.

with an iGPU (so 3400g in this case) could shave £25 off going for a 2400g instead

• CPU Ryzen 3400G £139.00
• Motherboard ASROCK B450M PRO4 £70.99
• Graphics Not required due to IGPU £0.00
• Ram VULCAN T-FORCE 16GB (2X8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHZ DUAL CHANNEL KIT £59.99
• PSU ENCLAVE 500W 80 PLUS GOLD MODULAR POWER SUPPLY £59.99
• SSD MX500 500GB 3D NAND SATA PCIE M.2 x2 @ £59.99 each £119.98
• Case Node 804 £95.00
• HBA Dell H310 £30.00
• Cables SAS to SATA Breakout - any others? £20.00
• TOTAL £594.95

If i went for a passive GPU, and went for an 8 core CPU - could then look at any other cpu within reason, so a 6 core and reduce this by £40, going with a Ryzen 5 2600 6 core

• CPU Ryzen 7 2700 £164.00
• Motherboard ASROCK B450M PRO4 £70.99
• Graphics MSI G Force G710 1024mb PCIE £32.99
• Ram VULCAN T-FORCE 16GB (2X8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHZ DUAL CHANNEL KIT £59.99
• PSU ENCLAVE 500W 80 PLUS GOLD MODULAR POWER SUPPLY £59.99
• SSD MX500 500GB 3D NAND SATA PCIE M.2 x2 @ £59.99 each £119.98
• Case Node 804 £95.00
• HBA Dell H310 £30.00
• Cables SAS to SATA Breakout - any others? £20.00
• £652.94

So in summary, a new 8 core 2700 plus separate GPU is another £55 more than the iGPU solution, but im guessing a much (by how much) better system - can we get a cheeper 8 core cpu?

I can then put in WD reds onto the Dell H310, M.2 drives on the motherboard in a cache pool, and then reuse the current 256gb SSD connected direct to the motherboard with 2 spare SATA ports then

 

[rorton]

Cheers, they seem to hover around £110 at the moment so will keep an eye out. Understood with the graphics, will look for an el cheapo PCIe card in same place. Is that enclave psu ok or should I look at something else?

 

[rorton]

Thanks, I’ll keep an eye out, they all seem to be around £105 at the moment

 

[rorton]

Thanks, I had spotted the sabrent drive and was going in that direction, but then looked on the unraid forums and a few ppl had problem with these drives and trim in Linux, so I put that on one side

I’ve bought all the bits now, got sick of offering people a reasonable price on eBay for their 1700 CPUs when they want £130 for them, so opted for a new 2700

system as it stands


Ryzen 2700
Asrock b450m pro4 matx board
32gb Crucial balistix ddr4 2666
Western digital Sn750 nvme for cache
Crucial mx500 m.2 for other stuff
600w enclave modular psu
Dell h310 Hba
Node 804 case

I did buy a used graphics card from the great auction site but didn’t work, so nipped to OCUK this morning and picked up a 2gb GeForce 710, its cheep, it worked, so it’s staying in the system

everying above is in the case now, flashed the dell card to it mode, and I’m just running memtests overnight to check ram is ok, then will remove the wd reds from the old system, stick them in here and get the rest of the reconfigurations done

the initial reason for the crucial drives, was to put them in a mirror for a cache pool, so with the motherboard only have one fast nvme slot, both would have only run at 550ish speeds.

thanks for everyone’s help

 

[rorton]

Hehe. I go it mine new for 159 quid so it made sense for me. I don’t have access to the board marketplace yet

not happy with the crucial m.2. It running 48 - 50 degrees when the wd nvme is at 34 so I’m getting constant high temp alarms. Loads of space in the case. May return it and buy a wd m.2 (non nvme) as it seems hot to me.

for my setup, I’m gonna put docker, app data and vms on the nvme.

The 250gb ssd will be there as a temp download directory before stuff gets moved off to the array, so when stuff is unraring it doesn’t kill the nvme disk.

The 500gb crucial I was going to put my audio mp3s onto. They are on my Mac at the moment, and cause I have a whole house sonos system, I need to leave the Mac on. I didn’t want them on the array as the Mac is a bit particular with mounted disks spinning up and itunes that manages them goes pear shaped, so an m.2 which is instantly accessible as the iTunes share for my Mac will get the media off the Mac

that’s the plan anyway. I’m sure it will all change.

 

[rorton]

I eventually settled on the below

• Fractal Design Node 804 Case
• Enclave 600w 80 Plus Gold Modular PSU
• AMD Ryzen 2700 CPU (8 core 16 thread)
• 32gb Crucial Ballistix Sport 2666mhz DDR4 Ram
• Asrock B450M Pro4 M/Board (1 onboard fast NVME slot, plus a second on board M.2 slot)
• Nvidia 710 Graphics card (i did buy a £5 cheep old PCIe card from eBay - it didn't work, and needed to get the system running, so bought the cheapest new card i could find!)
• Western Digital BLACK 500GB SN750 M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E GEN3 SOLID STATE DRIVE (used for Cache)
• Western Digital BLUE 3D NAND 500GB M.2 2280 SOLID STATE DRIVE (used as an unassigned drive in the m.2 slot) - i did buy a crucial M.2 drive here, but it ran SOOOO hot, 50degres idle - so sent that back and got this WD, and its a good 20 degrees cooler
• Dell H310 Perc HBA Card, flashed to IT Mode
• SAS to 4 SATA Forward breakout cable

From the old system, i put in my 4 WD Red 3tbs, these 4 disks connected to the Dell H310

I put in my old 250gb Crucial SSD as a 'download' drive for some docker apps to use, connected to the motherboard SATA



All working really well - all the SSD's trim OK (was worried about this, as some reports of some drives not trimming in Linux)



i have my WD reds in the Array - the 500gb NVME as cache, with VMs and Docker/Appdata

the other 500gb m.w SSD is there for all my audio MP3s that were on my Mac - my whole house sonos system accesses them and i always wanted them off the mac - i tried before on the array, and as i have it spun down, its a pain when using it for sonos to have to wait and timeout when it cant access the media, so i decided to put the audio files on an unassigned SSD, and then back this up to the array. iTunes on the mac also connects to this, so again, it needed to be instant.



I also dabble in music production, and have lots of sample CDs, so these are on the ssd too - keeps them off the main PC, and gives me instant access to them - again - backed up to the array



The Dell HBA card will run 8 SATA disks, so room for expansion. The motherboard can run 4 sata drives, but need to reduce that by 1 if using the second M.2 slot (as i am)



Case will house 10 disks, and its quite compact.

 

[rorton]

cheers, was about £550 all in, I had the array disks from the old system - I had my HP N40L since new, and only paid £100 when it was on some offer at the time, many years ago and its done me proud - have you thought about unraid instead of xpenology?

Cant remember where I read it, but one person explained it quite well I thought...

Xpenology is a reengineer of existing code designed to run on Synology hardware - while I'm sure it works well on their hardware, the code has been hacked about to run on other devices.
Unraid, is written from the ground up to be what it is - a decent NAS operating system - would you prefer to trust your data on something hacked about to work, or made for the job.

Above was something like that, Im not quoting word for word

If your getting to grips with dockers and vis and stuff, then I'm sure it will be ok - but personally I'd be a bit wary of sticking your data on it that you want to keep

 

[rorton]

Ive not used it, but Zoneminder seems popular - there is blue iris too, although I think that's paid for,

How many cams are you looking to hook up, as I'm wondering if the CPU will be sufficient in the N40?

 

[rorton]

btw there is a docker for zomeminder - so no need for the vm overhead

 

[rorton]

no problem, you got me curious, so I d/loaded zoneminder docker into unraid and its running with one of my IP cameras connected - GUI isn't very polished like you get with a decent DVR but it works....