New HP G4900 & DS380B Build - Help

[imcodingideas]

I am going for something like this setup:

[Official] HP 290-p0043w Owner's Thread

Since @LivePono reached out and was curious about my build here is a few photos of what I did with the HP 290 and Silverstone DS380B I’m running 8x8TB shucked WD drives in the Silverstone in ZFS RAIDZ2 with Ubuntu 20.04 installed to an 1TB M.2 drive in the HP 290. There’s also 2x Samsung 860 EVO’s in a ZFS Mirror acting as the storage backend for LXD. The HP 290 was upgraded to an Intel I5-9400 and has a full 32GB of DDR4 2666 RAM. This is running the following perfectly fine in various LXD co…

What are my current needs:

• NAS, of course.
• Running the PLEX plug-in, and the media storage that goes with that
• Samba target for all the Windows machines in the house for Win10 File History.
• Time Machine backup for all my Apple products.
• virtualized Pi-Hole for my network
• a Unifi Controller host via plug-in
• an Ubuntu desktop VM
• Transmission, Radarr, Sonarr, Lidarr, Librarian

I bought these parts I’ve ordered and paid for.

Main Server

Type	Brand	Part	Notes	Price
Desktop	HP	290-p0043w	G4900	148.21
CPU	—	—	Pending
CPU Cooler	Arctic	Alpine 12 LP		9.99
Thermal Paste	GELID	GC-Extreme 3.5g	Paste for Heatsink	13.95
RAM	A-Tech	—	32GB Kit (2x16GB)	116.50
NVMe	ADATA	XPG SX8200	1TB	109.99
Screws	SGTKJSJS	M.2 Screw Kit	Mounting Kit	5.39
SAS HBA	LSI	9207-8e	—	70.92
HDMI Dummy Plug	DTECH			10.98
SATA Cable	Inateck	—	X2 SATA Power Cables & x2 Data Cables	7.99

DAS

Type	Brand	Part	Notes	Price
Case	SilverStone	DS380B	—	279.00
Case Fans	Arctic	P12 PWM PST	x3	12.98
Mini SAS26P	CableDeconn	SFF8088-8088 1M	External 8088 to 8088 cables	16.99
SAS HBA Fan	Noctua	NF-A4x20 FLX	40x20mm	14.95
I/O Shield	SuperMicro	—	I/O Shield	7.59

This is what I think I am missing and have in my eBay / Amazon shopping cart

Type	Brand	Part	Notes	Price
PSU	EVGA	100-BR-0450-K1	80+ BRONZE 450W for DAS	83.16
—	—	—	—	—
CPU	Intel	i7-9700	—	279.99
SAS Cable	CableCreation	2xSFF-8087 breakout	—	14.99
Dual Mini SAS	CableDeconn	—	SFF-8087 TO SFF-8088	25.99
SSD	Western Digital	WDS500G2B0A	X2 500GB raid 0 for HP 290-p0043w	53.99

What I could use help with

I could use help with the hard drives on the DAS. Does the backplate support SAS Drives? They seem the cheapest on eBay.

I have my eye on the i9700. I saw some people say they are using it in the HP. Will my fan support it?

[cobalt]

@imcodingideas

I do have uncertainty about some voltage fix I saw something but I’m not entirely sure if thats for something else?

In the build I did the backplane of the ds380b does not pass the 3.3v connections to the drives so there’s no need for the fix to have the drives power on correctly. Most backplanes ignore the 3.3v so should be a non issue.

Having said that I’m glad my build inspired you. Good luck. Looking forward to see what you come up with

[imcodingideas]

Think you can help me out and give some links on what I am missing, mate?

Some people would say this:

[Official] HP 290-p0043w Owner's Thread

The entire point of the 290 is the onboard encode/decode that performs admirably in an entire box that costs only $100, putting a P2000 in it makes the 290 purchase useless and the 290 makes the P2000 purchase useless. You should pick one and return (or sell) the other, and the 290 is the right one to keep IMO.

While this is 100% true, but I also want something I can have running redis, mysql, server… just to have that running not on my laptop.

I like the “small form factor” of having these two… side by side. with the spinning disks in another case.

Are you using unraid?

For the hard drives, I notice the sas drives are pretty cheap on ebay.

[cobalt]

If you look at my post you linked/quoted again you’ll see I’m more or less running multiple things on mine in LXD containers perfectly fine after the upgrade to the i5-9400. And that I’m using Ubuntu 20.04 with ZFS RAIDZ2 setup on the 8 SATA HDD’s I shucked. You could totally use Unraid or TrueNAS Scale (I dont recommend Core version if you want to use docker or LXD) or even OMV with Snapraid+MergerFS.

The only thing I can see is you’ll either want a pair of 8087 to Forward SATA break out cables like these or if you intend on using SAS drives you’ll need an pair of 8087 to whatever is appropriate for the SAS drives. You’ll also want a pair of the external 8088 to 8088 cables

@imcodingideas

|Case Fan|Noctua|NF-A4x20 FLX|40x20mm|14.95

This is also not right for the case fans. I used one of those to add a fan to the SAS HBA to prevent thermal throttling. For the DS380B case fans if you want to change them out from the stock ones I used these

[Riggi]

My post you quoted is definitely not discouraging multitasking, simply telling someone not to buy two separate components of similar capability for one function.

[imcodingideas]

Ah, Ok. This build started out as an unraid - and now I’m waiting for refunds from Amazon to just buy the right hardware for me.

I’m just really studying and re-reading every post.

[imcodingideas]

Thank you, thank you, and thank you. haha. So I was researching about XLDs and came to the mental model that they are similar to jails.

Question about the 2x Samsung 860… Are you running those in the HP or DS380B?

[cobalt]

those are running in the HP290 from its onboard SATA connections. I had to use a SATA to SATA Y power cable since there’s only 1 full sized SATA power connection in the HP290

And yes LXD is somewhat comparable to jails with much less fuss and a bit more functional capabilities. Though you’ll find a lot more docker resources if your more familiar with it.

[imcodingideas]

What PSU did you buy? I got the EVGA 450 ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DTP6SLJ/?tag=serverforums-20 ) but it seems it doesn’t fit.

Also does the high profile https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-SAS-9207-8e-H3-25427-02G-8-Port-6GBps-SAS-SATA-PCIe3-x8-HBA-High-Profile/193631741214 LSI 9207 8e work for the HP?

[cobalt]

The ds380b takes an sfx psu. I used a 450w fully modular from EVGA.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JFLNG3B/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_FLIcGb09V616N?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

The hp290 needs a low profile card.

LSI 9207-8e SAS HBA 6Gbps PCI-E 3.0 P20 IT mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID low profile...

[imcodingideas]

Awesome I bought it. Things are starting to arrive while I’ve returned some things that didn’t work… or wouldn’t work. So Im just waiting on refunds to process.

I’ll definitely keep this thread up to date on my process. I have my eye on the i7-9700 ( non k version ) but I’m wondering about heat.

Did you do anything special for the x2 SSDs you have there to mount them in the HP?

[cobalt]

Nope. I just tucked them in above the DVD drive that’s not connected