So would using a NK6.0 would allow for multi VMs, such as for Unifi, Smart Home, Cloud storage, minecraft server, allowing for testing with VMs, dockers, running Genesys on a test lab, and for learning programming and data learning, storing home family videos pictures docs, as well as some of our movie DVD and Bluray collections as well as music… just looking at your mention on power cunstumption. As mention this will be my first build and part of my learning…I have built a PC, many years ago.
Any recommendations as I would like as much Cores as possible as well as, in your mention memory
An NK 6.0 should be able to handle all that you mentioned and more without any issues.
If you actually need as many cores as possible then the E5 Xeon is going to be the way to go, you can configure a server with up to 44 Cores / 88 Threads and at least 1TB of RAM. You would be paying for all that in the form of a higher power bill, I would just check your assumption that you actually need that many cores.
An NK 6.0 maxes out a 8c/16t and 128GB of RAM but to really hit the value sweet spot you would be shooting for 4c/8t and 32GB - 64GB of RAM. That might not sound like a lot compared to a dual E5 system but I think you will be surprised by what a fast 4 core CPU can do in a home server.
A possible middle ground you could consider is the AMD AM4 platform. For a very reasonable price you can put together a system with an 8 - 16 core Ryzen CPU which is more modern and will out-perform the 2011-3 E5 Xeons in many scenarios. You won’t find a guide for them here though as the main focus on these forums are media servers and Intel Quick Sync is pretty considered ideal for transcending. Although the Ryzen G processes have surprisingly good iGPU’s, video transcoding a major weak spot for them so you would still need a GPU or an external Quick Sync box if video transcoding is a something you care about.
Cheers Ian, AMD was not an option I thought of… something I have seen is from ArtOfServer on youtube, they built Hybrid system into one case. I am rethinking the build.
The AMD to support the video streaming, would buying a GPU be useful…when not in use for movies etc, it could be used also for gaming off a VM???
Yes you should be able to pass a GPU through to a VM on any platform you choose. You could also game on it, but that would probably be outside of the scope of what the NK 6.0 build is meant for, or any of the builds on this site. If you want to play current games you would basically need to build a gaming PC then install Proxmox on it or something like that.
You might consider building a low cost, low power, home server to run VM’s, Docker, store your files, etc and separately build a more powerful workstation PC running Windows to use as a workstation / gaming PC.
I bought 3 of the RTG 12tb seagate drives. 2 were DOA and the last had a corrupt superblock that I tried everything under the sun to fix but nothing worked. I might try again though because I’m in the states so shipping was a non-issue. The deal is so good if they worked. Any luck on your end?
I really want to build a NK6, but I’m having a few problems with parts.
I’m in the UK and I’ve been looking at a Supermicro X11SCA-F on eBay. I found a seller that has one for £102, but he has another for £169. I’ve asked what the difference is and he says the expensive one is retail and the cheaper one is customised. Not sure what this means, can anyone help please?
Also, I can’t find the CoolerMaster N400 cheap. The best I’ve found is £120 new from Amazon. Is this worth it? I’m going to have to keep this NAS in my living room, so it needs to be as quiet as possible. Any extra advice on how to keep this build as quiet as possible would be appreciated.
The guide has several motherboards that are fine. The pricing has changed on the example build and now that board is quite a bit more - probably not worth it but it’s up to you. Not sure what customized might mean though when it comes to a motherboard.
The N400 is our recommended case, but if you can find a case that can accommodate your parts and is to your liking you can just use that.
Typically, cases don’t make any noise though. Fans do, though, as well as the other moving parts. We recommend Arctic P-series fans.
My Chenbro bit the dust (solid red led next to CPU and hardware is old) a couple of days ago and really going nuts without my server.
I ordered the X11SCA-F from China 2 days ago but it still hasn’t shipped and I know it will take time once shipped. Is there a current recommended ATX board shipping from US?
I already have (accepting criticism before I open the boxes)
I have
1 parity
1 500gb ssd
6 drives 60tb
Will need one more drive soon. I probably add a drive every year.
Using it to store media and running
Adguard
krusader
Guacamole
Firefox
Cloudflare DDNS
Home Assistant
jackett
Nginx
NodeRed
radarr
resilio
shinobi
sonarr
unifi-controller
Nah the seller didn’t respond to my last message asking them for clarification.
From what I could tell the ‘B’ at the end of mobo model # is for Bulk, and that perhaps they’re OEM. Tbh, I wish I’d gone for that board, I just didn’t find the seller very helpful.
Not sure what the references to “Engineteh” in the auction are about, at the time it was identified as “Supermicro”. The board is a Supermico X11SCA-F and I have been running it about 6 months now without any issues.
I wanted an ATX for expansion reasons, so was looking at ASROCK Z370 OEM ATX motherboard from the list, but the closest I could find was the ASROCK Z370 Extreme 4. Thought it would save me getting an HBA card as it has 8 x SATA onboard, but unfortunately I think you lose 2 when you use the 2 M.2 nvme slots. I managed to get an LSI 8i from eBay though.
Here are the UK listings we’re referring to. The cheaper £102 version looks to be the one you’ve got (at least from the image). But that is listed as MBD-X11SCA-F-O whereas the other one is MBD-X11SCA-F-B
This guide lists 3200MHz RAM which I purchased. I checked my mobo which supports 2666 but can support up to 4333MHz overclocked. Now I’ve just been reading that 8th gen CPU’s only support up to 2666MHz RAM. I’m presuming the memory will just run at 2666MHz, but out of interest, is there any advantage to installing 3200 vs 2666 MHz RAM? Thanks.
DDR4-3200 will run just fine at 2666 Mhz. There is even a good chance that there are additional SPD settings that will tighten up the timings when running under-clocked.
I’m currently using DDR4-3200 running at 2666 Mhz in my server as DDR4-3200 was actually less expensive than DDR4-2666 at the time I was building it.
Also a couple of questions, the motherboard supports 128GB so should I buy 1x32GB to make it possible to upgrade to 128GB in future, or 2x16GB and limit myself to a maximum of 64GB in future (without replacing what I already have).
What are the benefits of having the dual NIC, can I combine them and have faster data transfer speeds?
You likely could bind the two nics for increased bandwidth so long as your upstream switch supports it. Typically you would use the 2 nics to segment network traffic; So Management / IPMI can be kept on one physical interface and the other interface can be used to serve traffic on your public network.
You haven’t really told us much about your intended use case so it is a little hard to say how much RAM you might need either now or in the future.
In general 128GB is quite a lot of RAM. Most home servers probably won’t make use of more than 32GB and being able to expand up to 64GB or even 96GB is pretty solid IMHO. I wouldn’t sweat the RAM density and just go with what ever costs less now. Worst case you replace the 16GB sticks later when you have a need and DDR4 is cheaper.
What is the reason you have chosen the Supermicro motherboard? You will be paying a bit of a price premium over the consumer motherboards of the same generation and for that the 2 things you really get are ECC support and IPMI. From the rest of your build it doesn’t look like you need ECC so that just leaves IPMI. If IPMI is not a requirement in your case you could save some money with one of the more consumer oriented boards in the guide which may also be a bit more user friendly than the Supermicro.
Thanks for your help! Interesting about the usual case for the 2 nics, I will consider my needs here.
Server use case will not be too intensive, I will be running Plex, Channels (HDHomeRun), the 'darrs, pihole. I would like to be able to transcode 2-3 streams for remote users, but the vast majority of viewing will be direct play over ethernet to a couple of Apple TV’s around the house so not taxing at all. This will also be the main NAS / file server for a Mac and Windows laptop, and a backup destination.
This will be an upgrade from an ancient Core 2 Duo 6600 machine so anything at all will be an upgrade!!
Supermicro board is really down to UK availability (and a leaning towards atx). When searching for most of those motherboard models on UK ebay you don’t really find many results. I thought it would be a good option and I also like how many SATA ports it has onboard.
They have the same look and interface, the bios of the cheaper motherboards will not show the model number, the more expensive ones will show the model number.