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Upgrading my home server

earth.li

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Re: Upgrading my home server

#61

Post by amelius »

beatgammit wrote: post #58
amelius wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not go for an RPi or mintbox? Both can be passively cooled. And you can use an RPi to switch on a "real" server in case you need it.

I've been trying to justify that, but it's just too limited for what I want. I basically want to run ZFS, which is a bit RAM hungry, as well as some other processes. So, I basically want 4GB minimum, preferably 8. The latest RPi has 4GB RAM with me option to expand, so it might barely fit the bill for now. I'm not really a fan of the USB interface for driving hard drives, not to mention having to get separate power f…

Perhaps check out up-squared systems. https://up-board.org/

Re: Upgrading my home server

#62

Post by bengerbil »

tiew9Vii wrote: post #39
kyriakos wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my doubts over bedroom quiet if you have hard drives in it. Ssd unfortunately still too expensive for redundant home storage use.

I have a Fractal Design Define R5 case ( https://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/define-ser... ) in my living room at the side of my television where I sit a few feet away in a small apartment and can not hear it unless I put my head right next to it, then I can just about hear the case fans. It's fitted with 4 x 4TB WD Reds, a stock AMD Ryzen 2600 cooler, Corsair RM850x PSU and the cheapest graphics card I…

I have the same case, similar PSU setup. My latest UPS makes more noise than the system it's protecting.

Meanwhile, the low-end atom box attached to the TV has extra fans on it And constantly makes noise. My excuse is that I built it about 8 years ago.

Re: Upgrading my home server

#63

Post by heavenlyblue »

amelius wrote: post #6

What is the best and cheapest way to make a home server available to the internet, using a standard "home use" ISP contract? Can you give it a domain name? How do you deal with the asymmetrical upload/download speeds of most home connections?

>> Can you give it a domain name?

I have set up Google Cloud DNS which is updated every 15 minutes to my current external IP. This ends up costing $0.15/mo.

Re: Upgrading my home server

#64

Post by [deleted] »

fulafel wrote: post #53
neilv wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a built-in UPS. But be careful of cooling, if you want to run it with the lid closed. Also, if you want to run RAID mirroring, a used ThinkPad might only have one 2.5" drive bay, and no M.2. But if it has an UltraBay of some kind, you can buy a SATA adapter. (Personally, the last 24/7 data (not compute) server I built for home, I considered a ThinkPad, and I also previously had IBM 1U and beige box Linux servers,…

Re cooling, its often good to mount them on their side with cover partly open. For a home server, you usually need backups i dependent of mirroring but not the availability optimization and associated operational complexity of raid-1.

[deleted]

Re: Upgrading my home server

#65

Post by [deleted] »

neilv wrote: post #42
fulafel wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For both cheap and easy, pick up a used ThinkPad. Comes witj built in console too, normally a feature only found in high end blade racks!

And a built-in UPS. But be careful of cooling, if you want to run it with the lid closed. Also, if you want to run RAID mirroring, a used ThinkPad might only have one 2.5" drive bay, and no M.2. But if it has an UltraBay of some kind, you can buy a SATA adapter. (Personally, the last 24/7 data (not compute) server I built for home, I considered a ThinkPad, and I also previously had IBM 1U and beige box Linux servers,…

[deleted]

Re: Upgrading my home server

#66

Post by cptnapalm »

At a state auction, I got a dual processor 2009 Mac Pro for $250. I did spend a bit on extra hardware as it's a server and a multiseat desktop. It has 2 low watt AMD GCN cards, 48 GB RAM, 2 hexacore processors, 4 SSDs and hard drives. It's quiet and is good enough to have 1 seat playing Tomb Raider while the other is playing Hitman while having nginx forwarding to Tomcat which starts Guacamole which connects to GDM so I can get my desktop in a browser as well as other more typical stuff like sshd. I read a lot of UNIX oral history stuff and Dennis Ritchie's comments about a community forming around a single computer always stuck with me. Now, I have something like that and am enjoying the experience. If I can figure out how to add more seats, I'll enjoy it even more.

Re: Upgrading my home server

#67

Post by altmind »

effie wrote: post #18

For those wanting a quiet home server for cheap, go for a well-ventilated tower PC, best with passive CPU cooler and a quiet case and power supply fan. You can put that box in a bedroom and almost never see it/hear it. Rackmount server in home people so often brag about on the Internet is a very loud and impractical way to run network services from home, unless you have separate room for it.

There are pretty good pre-built current-gen passively-cooled pcs, for example Airtop 2/3 https://fit-iot.com/web/

Re: Upgrading my home server

#68

Post by finnjohnsen2 »

walterbell wrote: post #52
finnjohnsen2 wrote: post #21

What a clever way that rack was - hanging like that. Love it and my head is spinning how I should do this with both my battlestation-PC, NAS, routers and everything.

Vertical mount may require a change in airflow/fan direction.

Yes, I was initially thinking the same, then I couldn't quite figure out exactly why so?

The first thing that comes to mind is dust build-up, but that happens anyway in standard PC chassis also.

Second is that heat goes up, which meens "forward" in the rack. So I assume blowing upwards/forwards is smarter than blowing down/back, as you're pissing against the wind instead of with it. Other than this second principle, I can't figure out anything else to worry about....?

Re: Upgrading my home server

#69

Post by walterbell »

finnjohnsen2 wrote: post #68
walterbell wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vertical mount may require a change in airflow/fan direction.

Yes, I was initially thinking the same, then I couldn't quite figure out exactly why so? The first thing that comes to mind is dust build-up, but that happens anyway in standard PC chassis also. Second is that heat goes up, which meens "forward" in the rack. So I assume blowing upwards/forwards is smarter than blowing down/back, as you're pissing against the wind instead of with it. Other than this second principle,…

Most rack chassis have front fans which send air to the back of the chassis, with heatsinks oriented with direction of airflow. Air is forced from the front to the back, passing through the heatsink fins.

If vertically mounted with the rack "front" at the top, the forced airflow down will be in the opposite direction of convention airflow up. Fans may have to spin faster/louder to achieve the same level of cooling.

If the front fans are reversed, the fan airflow will be aligned with convection, but will immediately exhaust from the front instead of being aimed squarely at heatsink fins. The intake vents at the back of the chassis will provide sources of air, but are likely not uniformly distributed (compared to the fans) across the width of the chassis.

For a home server that is mostly idle, there may not be much difference, but the safest path is to run some stress tests with different cooling configurations.

Edit: some chassis have back-to-front airflows, http://thenetworksherpa.com/airflow-is-important/

Re: Upgrading my home server

#70

Post by gigatexal »

close04 wrote: post #5
gigatexal wrote: post #2

For my home servers I do everything I can to have as much redundancy and fault tolerance that I can afford and that means insisting on ECC ram to start. It’s not a server if it’s not toting ECC ram in my book.

Depends a lot on what you do with it. ECC might be overkill for Plex or some home automation. But for a lengthy Matlab simulation it’s more than recommended.

Yeah that’s true, Plex doesn’t need ECC. I’d like the NAS that serves the media to have ECC though.
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