Need help with supermicro 4u build

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1

I am planning to buy one of Supermicro 4U 24Bay Chasis. I will change the fan and PSU to 920SQ for quiet mode. Also buy 3 (Host Bus Adapter (HBA) IBM M1015) for 24 drive. Will this prebuild good enough for PLEX (or minimum requirement for 4k? transcode). Will this MB good enough for now and future upgrade? What is your suggestion for a newbie?

The $349 SuperMicro 4U CSE-846 24 Bay SAS2 BP w/ X9DRi-F/2x 6 Core E5-2620 2.4Ghz 16GB IT MODE W/ Rails.

This is a pre-configured server with the following configuration

System Board
X9DRi-F (Supports E5-2600 V1 and V2 Processors)
PROCESSORS
2x Intel Xeon 6 Core E5-2620
MEMORY
16GB RAM (4X 4GB DDR3)
Hard Drives
No HDD Included. Includes 24x HDD trays With screws
Backplane
BPN-SAS2-846EL1
Raid Controller
IT MODE Raid Controller
Power Supply
2x 1200W PWS-1K21P-1R
Rail Kit
Generic Rails Included

2

My understanding is that with that backplane, you’ll only need 1 HBA card, and what you have listed may already have that covered.
Yes it will be good enough for Plex. What requirement for 4k are you asking about? Don’t transcode 4k, only direct stream.
Will this be good enough for now? Sure. The future? Depends on what you’re looking to do with it. :man_shrugging:

4

Buying 8 year old processors/motherboards is just not a great idea IMO. They’re slow and power hungry. A new i3 can outperform one of them, use less power, and support Quicksync to boot: Intel Core i3-9100 @ 3.60GHz vs Intel Xeon E5-2620 @ 2.00GHz [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

Do you want a platform that supports ECC memory? That does impact your options somewhat.

5

Oh gesh already bought it. Will this MB support that CPU? I don’t know, but whatever best for the Server I will buy it

6

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the processor and motherboard you’ve listed above.

You should list what all of your needs are with details of those needs and what future goals you have for your server.You may only need a NAS Killer 4.0 build instead of a SNAFU 2.0 build.

There has also been a push to remove your NAS’s responsibility from handling Plex and to run Plex on it’s own box. This allows for dedicated resources to plex and provide better transcoding (not 4K, don’t transcode 4K).

7
  1. I need a server to keep all the files like google drive.
  2. I like to open files and watch video like an external drive without lag.
  3. PLEX without transcode so it could organize my file, and watch it on TV sometimes.
  4. I plan to UNRAID it instead of NAS, and use 2 large drives for parity.

That is all I need, and I want 24 bay U4 because I have more than 24 drives laying around. If the list above work out, then I will reorder it.

Thank you.

8

What size are the 24+ drives you have laying around? If they’re not at the very least 4TB or 6TB, you should consider buying denser drives as a bunch or 1/2/3TB drives are going to drive (no pun-intended) your electric bill up without the benefit of having that many drives.

9

Only 3 * 1TB, the rest is 3TB-10TB+ which is around 19 of them, and I plan to increase if there are sales. Eventually the smaller drive will die, and I’ll replace it with larger storage. When the smaller drive die the electric bill will be less, but there will always be room for drive expansion. That is what I also want is more room for expansion.