Thoughts on my new Potential Proxmox Server Build? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 00:44 I'm wanting to build a new Proxmox build around the Fractal Node 304 and was just wanting feedback on the potential components I'd like to use: **Intel Core i5 13500 13th Generation**: [https://www.ebuyer.com/1545013-intel-core-i5-13500-13th- generation-14-core-processor- bx8071513500](https://www.ebuyer.com/1545013-intel-core-i5-13500-13th- generation-14-core-processor-bx8071513500) **Gigabyte H610I mITX Motherboard**: [https://www.ebuyer.com/1883287-gigabyte-h610i-ddr4-mitx-motherboard- h610i-ddr4](https://www.ebuyer.com/1883287-gigabyte-h610i-ddr4-mitx- motherboard-h610i-ddr4) **Corsair Vengeance 64GB RAM**: [https://www.ebuyer.com/974330-corsair-vengeance-lpx-64gb- ddr4-3200mhz-cl16-desktop-memory-black- cmk64gx4m2e3200c16](https://www.ebuyer.com/974330-corsair-vengeance- lpx-64gb-ddr4-3200mhz-cl16-desktop-memory-black-cmk64gx4m2e3200c16) **Corsair RM650 80+ Power Supply**: [https://www.ebuyer.com/1904167-corsair-rm-series-rm650-fully- modular-80plus-gold-atx-power-supply- cp-9020280-uk](https://www.ebuyer.com/1904167-corsair-rm-series- rm650-fully-modular-80plus-gold-atx-power-supply-cp-9020280-uk) **Coolermaster Hyper 212 LGA1700 CPU Cooler**: [https://www.ebuyer.com/1597312-coolermaster-hyper-212-rgb-black- edition-with- lga1700-rr-212s-20pc-r2](https://www.ebuyer.com/1597312-coolermaster- hyper-212-rgb-black-edition-with-lga1700-rr-212s-20pc-r2) **Kinston 1TB NVMe M.2**: [https://www.ebuyer.com/1539954-kingston-1tb-nv2-pcie-4-0-nvme-ssd- snv2s-1000g](https://www.ebuyer.com/1539954-kingston-1tb- nv2-pcie-4-0-nvme-ssd-snv2s-1000g) **Seagate Ironwolf 6TB NAS Hard Drive**: [https://www.ebuyer.com/950863-seagate-ironwolf-6tb-nas-hard- drive-3-5-5400rpm-256mb-cache- st6000vn001](https://www.ebuyer.com/950863-seagate-ironwolf-6tb-nas- hard-drive-3-5-5400rpm-256mb-cache-st6000vn001) I'm limited by some components due to the Case's size. Any Thoughts? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- housepanther2000 · 2023-12-26 00:55 That looks like a really good build! Did you buy the components yet? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 00:57 Thanks! Not yet. Just double checking absolutely is compatible especially with this tiny case as I’d ideally like to be able to stick in 4 NAS drives too. It’ll be a nice upgrade from what I have now. Just looking for any better recommendations/tips if anyone has any before proceeding with purchasing all of this as it’ll be around 1.2k 🤣 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- housepanther2000 · 2023-12-26 01:00 The only concern would be heat in such a small case. You would need good fans and air flow. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 01:05 Yes that’s what I’m scared about to be honest. Especially with trying to fit 4 NAS drives in. There are two front fans and one back fan so hopefully that is enough. The CPU cooler I got is limited also due to the height restriction by the case. Could potentially fit one more outtake fan? Hoping there’s some past Fractal Node 304 user to shed some light on I can’t really change the case as it was a gift. Nor do I want to as I know it’ll be a pain in the arse to fit everything in - it’s a nice simplistic design and is very small. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- darkknightjs24 · 2023-12-26 01:07 If you’re not planning on adding a dedicated gpu then I’d go with an Inwin Chopin (with the 200W psu). It’s a great case and takes up very little room. The stock intel cooler will fit in it as well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- darkknightjs24 · 2023-12-26 01:11 As long as you stick with a tower cooler you shouldn’t have any heat problems with your build. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 01:12 Thank you. I might return the case and have a look for similar ones like that. I’m unsure if I’ll need a dedicated GPU as of yet. I suppose it’ll be great for future projects to have more room to add a GPU when needed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ExcellentSite3678 · 2023-12-26 03:57 I think it's a solid build, should be excellent for streaming media. If I must change one thing it would be the SSD. It has a lifetime of 320 Terrabytes Written with 3 years warranty. I would probably go for this one https://www.ebuyer.com/1416649-wd-black-sn770-1tb- ssd-m-2-2280-nvme-pci-e-gen4-solid-state-wds100t3x0e because it has almost double lifetime in TBW and 5 years warranty for 13£ more. Especially since you don't have any redundancy so a broken disk means downtime at best and data loss at worst. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RlndVt · 2023-12-26 06:39 650W PSU seems like complete overkill. I would look in the 300W range (or lower). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2023-12-26 10:55 [removed] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 11:03 Thank you! Great advice I didn’t even catch that. I’m thinking about using the singular one just for the OS and I might actually end up getting a PCIe card and make a ZFS pool of NVMe drives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 11:03 Good point, cheers I’ll look intobut ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RlndVt · 2023-12-26 11:17 Maybe even look into Pico PSU. 95%+ of the time the system will be near idle, so efficiency in the 10-30W range is nice. You could probably also do with a Alpine 12 Passive for CPU cooling. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 11:30 I think I’ll give a Pico PSU a miss considering a mate of mine had theirs burn out as it has no protection on it. And if I go to have 4 hard drives in the end on 100% usage with the CPU it’ll go well over what any Pico could provide. I will lower the overall wattage if I don’t end up going for a GPU too though. Thank you again I’ll have a look at a better CPU cooler too. The Alpine 12 definitely does look great. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- keeklesdo00dz · 2023-12-26 11:35 It really comes down to what you want to host. I looked at your server case and it's really unsuitable for most uses due to it's strange size and form factor. you can't even fit two side by side in a typical rack shelf, and one takes up 5ru. The i5 is a consumer uP, and doesn't support ECC ram, which is a must if you're running proxmox with local ZFS. 64gb is a bit low, since it leaves you with 32gb ram for VMs and 32gb for ZFS ARC; 128gb is cheap and really the minimum I'd want. SATA disks are a loser for ZFS; SAS are full duplex and just have amazing performance. If you're intending to do SMB/NFS hosting from it, use the NVME for ZIL and l2arc. You may want to look at a special device mirror of NVME to speed up metadata. If you have that 5.4k rust disks are just fine since they don't need to touch the disk for metadata. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 11:47 I’m currently a student and this case would be ideal for me due to its form factor. I won’t be, in a very long time, setup a server rack until I at least buy my own home. That i5 I found has amazing performance and a good amount of cores for the price point I was looking at. I’d like to go ECC but couldn’t find a good Xeon chip for the money. Have you got any recommendations? I was kinda riding on regular backups to remediate using non-ECC memory. I agree 64GB is not exactly a lot, but again currently it’s around my price point. Plus I’d only get two DIM slots with most motherboards that support mITX. Single 64GB sticks are an option I guess. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SuicidalSparky · 2023-12-26 14:48 I have just made a similar build but for Unraid in the 304 with the same motherboard. I'm now currently having regrets so just a thought for you. The mobo has 4x Sata and 1x nvme port. I wanted to use all 6 drive spaces in the case so I knew I'd need to add a PCIE expansion for more Sata ports. Trouble is then once I got started I realised that I actually wanted 2x nvme drives plus the 6 sata drives. Luckily I've found a sata adapter which takes up the nvme port and then can add a PCIE adapter for the nvme ports. Kind of not relevant as this is for Proxmox but just thought I'd mention as maybe it'll factor for you to possibly think about wanting more nvme ports than the board can provide. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SuicidalSparky · 2023-12-26 14:49 Cooling is surprisingly good, I was a bit worried recently, but the 120mm fan does a pretty good job of keeping stuff cool. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 15:08 Thank you very much for your thoughts, I needed them lol. I’m thinking of virtualising Unraid so it does somewhat affect me. I was considering having like 1-3 12TB SATA drives for something like Plex/raw storage, then having a pool of NVMe drives from one of the PCEI ports using a card? A couple of questions about your build as it’s nearly the same as mine: - how hard was fitting 6 SATA drives in the machine/ how hard was building it overall considering the limited space - how’s the airflow/temps of your components? - what’s your overall thought of the case would you use it again? Cheers mate, helps a lot! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SuicidalSparky · 2023-12-26 15:18 I actually don't have 6 drives in situ just now, I have 4 in place and will be grabbing 2 more in the next few months. I have 1x 6tb parity drive, 2x 3tb and 1x 6tb data drives. But I don't expect any issues adding the additional drives, surprisingly easy to get it all in. I have since ordered custom sized sata leads though, not needed but rather than looping leads I wanted them to fit perfectly. I had a 500gb nvme but quickly realised I actually wanted 2x 1tb nvme for a cache pool. Perhaps that's just me, you can certainly do without it but this is what I'm wanting to upgrade to which caused my stress with the ports and expansion cards. I am just using the standard cpu cooler, nothing I'm doing is cpu stressing. I have the i5 12400. 90% of my usage is Plex for friends family and the arrr suite. Very rarely any transcoding so cpu temps never really factored in for me. The only time it gets higher usage is when it's analysing lots of new media. Temps wise, all my HDD sit at 39 degrees, my SSD goes up to about 46 degrees when I'm full tilt downloading, and it's getting written to as the cache drive. Building was fine really, took me maybe a couple hours start to finish but I wasn't speed building. I have built a couple gaming PC's before so I just cracked on with it. I do need to take the ram out however to do any plugging or unplugging of the sata cables. So I'd get them all plugged in before adding the ram just to avoid needing to unplug it again. Overall the case is absolutely ideal for me, I wanted a small as possible case to put on a shelf under my desk in the corner of my room (I have a custom L shaped desk in my office I made from kitchen worktop). Next to my small network rack which is mounted on the underside of the desk also. I would definitely get the same case again, I'm very happy with it overall. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 15:23 Thank you very much. Has helped a lot. I think after your comment I’ll stick with the case as I’ve always liked its simplicity and layout of the SATA drives and PSU (although a lot of people hate the fact there’s a extension from the input to the actual PSU). I know you have 4 in place, when you have all 6, how much space do you have for PCIE cards? I know I won’t be putting in a GPU in this server as intel quick sync will be enough for me. Just thinking for PCIe cards for like an extra 4+ NVMe slots ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SuicidalSparky · 2023-12-26 15:30 Tbh, I didn't even consider the extension for the PSU, I just sort of looked at it and went 'eh that's cool' I did get a Corsair modular PSU, though. I just thought it would help with the cable management not needing to hide stuff I have no use for. I got a 650w 80 gold plus PSU. It's mainly just for future proofing but also because I wanted a PSU that was good quality and doesn't need to run at any sort of high usage as it's a server and will be running forever. With the PCIE you do need a mini card, as in, a 'normal' GPU would not fit. It pretty much needs to stop at the end of the PSU slot. You can find examples of this if you google Node 304 GPU. Not any concern for me, I got the i5 with onboard graphics as I have no plans to put a GPU in. I have a full size gaming PC with a 2070 super which I game on. This project was purely for Plex and some hobby level VM tinkering. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 15:34 I think we’re identical when it comes to this build so this is really helpful. Thank you so much 😂 Yeah was thinking the same with the modular PSU, I was thinking a 600W PSU was a bit much but to be fair it’s future proof and can provide well above what the server will ever need so….meh. Okay, I believe any normal NVMe expansion card will be absolutely fine in this use case then I suppose. I’m planning to use the default m.2 slot on the motherboard purely for the OS and only the OS. Then build a Fast NVMe pool using ZFS and a normal NVMe pool with my SATA drives for raw storage etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SuicidalSparky · 2023-12-26 15:38 Yeah I've ordered a x4 nvme pcie expansion card, hoping it works lol. Will find out on Thursday when it comes. I only need 2x nvme but who knows I may want more in future so now I have space for 4. I'll order the sata expansion card which goes into the m2 slot once I get the next 2 drives on order in a few months. Atm I'm still only at 50% storage use so I'm good for a while. Glad to help bud, enjoy your build. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 15:40 I’ll be asking in two days how your expansion card is going then 🤣 mind sharing the link for it? Thanks very much again! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Global_Shock_1511 · 2023-12-26 15:42 Thanks for sharing ! I'm curious how much money this all cost ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SuicidalSparky · 2023-12-26 15:44 Of course, I'll let you know how it goes. I have got it on a bit of a whim, Amazon is easy returns, so I just grabbed it and will see how it goes. This is the x4 NVME adapter: 4-Port NVMe to PCI-e Host Controller Expansion Card, M.2 NVME to PCIe X16 Adapter, M Key Hard Drive Converter Reader Expansion Card (ph44) https://amzn.eu/d/9J2NAVU This is the M2 > Sata adapter I'm planning to get in future: Adapter Card PCIE M.2 to SATA3.0 Drive Free Hard Disk Converter Uplink PCIE3.0 X2 16Gbps Downstream 5 SATA3.0 6Gbps for OS X for Llinux for Windows https://amzn.eu/d/fdPI31S ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 15:44 Around £1,000 so like $1300 if all components are new. I’m trying to find second hand stuff but that is proving hard to do. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 15:48 Cheers mate, it looks decent so fingers crossed for you. If you report back it being decent then I’ll grab myself one lol Didn’t even know the NVMe to SATA was a thing to be fair lol. I think I’ll still use my slot for a dedicated storage for my OS though ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SuicidalSparky · 2023-12-26 15:50 No, neither did I. This was my dilemma, thinking I'd need to switch to SSD instead of NVME for my cache pool. Do I really need the extra speed? Probably not, but what's the fun in only ever building stuff we need instead of playing with new stuff? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-26 15:51 Exactly. Fair enough could’ve of summed it up better ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Valencia_Mariana · 2023-12-26 22:59 ECC is not a must for Zfs. Zfs doesn't need 32GB ARC... depends on use case. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SuicidalSparky · 2023-12-28 22:19 OK, update is that the nvme card doesn't work. Turns out my motherboard doesn't support Bifurcation to change the pcie slot from x16 to x4x4x4x4 sooooo basically before I add more sata drives I need to replace the motherboard if I want to keep my twin nvme drives. Which I do. So will ping the card back to Amazon and start looking at getting a motherboard which supports x2 nvme slots as well as minimum x4 sata & pcie for sata expansion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-28 22:36 Oh man that’s such a bummer sorry to hear. I reckon your new option will be better and easier for the long term ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SuicidalSparky · 2023-12-28 22:37 All part of the learning curve. I've got months before I need to think about adding more hard drives so got plenty of time to replace the motherboard. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-28 22:38 Well all the best mate. Keep me updated im quite invested! 😂again, thanks for the help