Started down a path of trying to consolidate, simplify, save power (?). Decided to build up a big Unraid box to replace my two under utilized HP DL380P G8’s running Proxmox. The Unraid box would be an upgrade to my existing box which I’ve been running for 5+ years on an old AMD Athlon X2 setup.
Biggest deciding factor on LGA2011 is that I have a huge parts bin from these HP G8’s I was gifted. It would mean (at first glance) minimal investment to get a server going … boy was I wrong.
Parts list:
CPU: 2x Xeon E5-2643 v2 (parts bin)
RAM: 256 GB ECC 1333 MHz (parts bin)
Motherboard: Supermicro X9DRH-iTF (eBay - $250 CAD)
Case: Rosewill LSV-R4500U (eBay - $244.99 CAD)
Coolers: 2x Noctua NH-D9DX i4 (Amazon $160.88 CAD)
PSU: EVGA Supernova 750 GT (Best Buy - $99.99 CAD)
SAS: Dell PERC H310 (parts bin)
Drives: 12x misc (parts bin)
When I started down this path I was not planning on buying a case or a PSU as I thought I had adequate parts already on hand. Turns out my Rosewill case was a short depth 21.5" which would not fit E-ATX and my existing Corsair CX 750 PSU didn’t have dual EPS cables.
I discovered the PSU first so I went down to BestBuy to grab a new PSU as they had a good sale on and I didn’t want to mess with splitters.
Then I discovered the case problem and figured I already had all the other parts waiting to go so I was committed … I ordered the new case from Newegg Canada’s eBay outlet.
Case arrived. Built it all up. Farted around with resetting IPMI so it would actually connect - guessing this was an ex-ovh board based on the ovh_administrator accounts present. Popped in my old Unraid USB and fired it up - worked on first boot. Didn’t even have to re-order drives. I love Unraid.
Oh - I also decided to turn my L4500 into an L4412 since I already had 3x of the SATA cages from my previous Unraid box / case.
Internals:
Bench built:
Racked (blinding drive LEDs):
CPU specs (x2):
Memory specs:
Thanks to Discord for helping me identify part compatability issues and find fixes / replacements!