I've been considering a large upgrade to my home server. Currently I have an unraid setup with a hodgepodge of random disks I've bought over the years and no redundancy at all.
My plan at the moment is to buy a
Stormforge N10 with the goal of eventually having 2x 5 disk zfs pools. I will start with one 5x 14TB pool then add another later on. The problem is that I cannot transplant my existing motherboard into the new setup due to the PCIE layout as I will need to replace a PCIEx1 SATA card to a proper HBA which needs an x8 slot and I already have two cards which have to stay, an ARC A380 (x16) and Intel X710 (x8 ).
Can you guys recommend me a motherboard that is AM4, which supports 4 memory modules and has a x16/x8/x8 slot layout? I don't care about M.2 and the VRM requirement isn't that high as I run my 3900x at 65w. This would be the ideal solution and would let me reuse as much of my existing server as possible.
Alternately do you all have any recommendations for another CPU/Motherboard combo which would have the required slot layout? I'm open to dropping the ARC A380 if the onboard graphics of the CPU supports AV1 encode/decode. Still needs to be DDR4 because I am not prepared to buy ram with how pricing is right now. It will also need to be available in/deliver to the UK.
I am not against buying a rack and going in that direction but I am depth limited with where the server is to live.
The only AM4 motherboard I managed to find that fits your needs would be an Asus Pro WS X570-ACE, unless there are other options I missed. They seem to be over 200 bucks, probably because of the more workstation focused design?
AV1 encode/decode seems to be mainly on newer CPUs like AM5, but I don't have much experience dealing with that, so if you aren't looking for low power consumption it's probably not worth buying them yet.
About the rackmounting, what is the maximum depth that you can afford for a server rack? In my experience, sub 40cm servers are common but they only hold like 2 to 4 LFF (3,5 inch) hard drives. Something with 12 bays like a Dell PowerEdge R720XD is probably too big for you, at almost 75cm in depth.
Personally I would recommend an enterprise server like the mentioned Dell or another brand, they tend to be really loud on every boot and when something goes wrong but their features like ILO/iDRAC modules are a lifesaver (you can literally install an OS without ever plugging in a monitor to the server).
The Stormforge case you linked looks cool and it's probably good enough for your plan now, though (at least in my country) for the price of the case and delivery you can get a whole used server (and not something terribly old, late 2015 models to be exact).
Also, what kind of HBA are you planning to get? Personally, I grabbed an HP H240 HBA from Aliexpress for sub 40 dollars with delivery, not a bad deal for a 12Gb/s HBA.
I've been thinking of running a basic Jellyfin server for a while, but I have some questions with hardware My idea was to get an used Dell Optiplex or something similar on the cheap and throw in a couple 14tb hard drives. I'm assuming 16gb of RAM is enough for memory, and I'm guessing I would need to replace the power supply. The only thing I'm not sure on is if I need a GPU for video decoding. Most of what I'm seeing for used office towers are i5-7500's or something similar and while I'm sure it can handle streaming to one device, I may want to have a few other people access the server. Any advice on this would be helpful
16 Gigs should be totally enough for a media server, though using an Optiplex with more than two drives is probably going to be hard. They tend to have non-standard power supplies, so if you ever wanted to replace one with a standard ATX PSU, you would also need to equip it with an ATX -> Proprietary Dell cabling (shouldn't be hard to find on Amazon or whatever). Thing is, Dell tends to use non standard PSUs in ther computers that are not compatible with ATX ones mounting-wise.
What exact model do you have on mind? Intel 7th gen compatible ones like the Optiplex 7050 (Midi Tower version) use the crappy non standard PSU (so no replacements unless you like MacGyvering stuff) and it also has a single bay for a 3,5 inch HDD, you theoretically could run your drives outside the case itself but not making it a fire hazard would be the main challenge lol.
Anybody else got experience with newer Optiplexes? I know for sure the older models (like 9020) had space for at least two LFF drives, some Dell Precisions also had extra space for hard drives but they are a bit more expensive too.
