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Processor: (3.40 GHz) 4-Core Intel Core i7-6700 Processor
Memory (RAM): 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4 U Memory (for i-series/Core Processors)
Graphics Card: Integrated Graphics (with i series processors only) +$0.00
Drive 1: 3TB HDD SATA 7.2k 3.5" Hard Drive
Drive 2: 3TB HDD SATA 7.2k 3.5" Hard Drive
M.2 Storage: 512GB M.2 SSD NVMe Drive
Price: $291.95
My main concern with this option is energy usage. The CPU's TDP is 65W, the CPU in my current server's TDP is 35W.
It does have a few advantages over my current setup:
- More RAM 8 → 32
- Better CPU, passmark score 4766 → 8091, threads 4 → 8
- Ability to use RAID, current setup only has the capacity for 1 drive.
Is this a good option or is there a better option? I've also been considering using an external drive enclosure with software RAID, but I heard that could be unreliable.
EDIT: Is the price good? Shipping is quite expensive (about $100), so I'm only planning on buying it if the deal is good.
What are the use cases? More RAM is nice but could be overkill if you're bottlenecked by CPU, and if this is for running a few simple VMs or as storage then you may not need much of this.
RAID is generally a good thing but don't get complacent, follow the 3-2-1 method. I.e. you might be better off saving the cash and using a backup script to push stuff you really care about to the cloud, and pay for cloud fees vice hw.
To expand on that: Redundant drive setup and backups serve completely different purposes. The only overlap is in case of a single disk failure, where RAID (or similar) may save the data.
Redundancy is all about reducing downtime in case of single hardware failures. Backups not only protect you from data loss in case of multiple simultaneous failures, but also from accidental deletion. Failures that require restoration of data almost always involve downtime. In short: You always need backups (unless it's strictly a local cache, and easily recreatable), but if you want high availability, redundancy may help.
3-2-1-rule for backups, in case you're unfamiliar: 3 copies of important data, on 2 different media, with 1 off-site.
Use case is a few simple VMs, Nextcloud, storage, maybe a minecraft server and probably something like Jellyfin later on.
This will be fine. But assume you'll want to swap out the hard drives in the future for more, larger, NAS appropriate disks.
If you're as paranoid as me about data integrity, SAS drives on a host adapter card in "Initiator Target" (IT) mode with write-cache on the disks disabled is the safest. It will degrade performance when writing many small files concurrently, but not as badly as with SATA drives (that's for spinning disks, of course, not SSD). With a good error-correcting redundant system such as ZFS you can probably get away with enabled write cache in most cases. Until you can't.
What's the storage capacity on this motherboard? I know with their office PCs, you only get 2 SATA ports and typically only a single PCIE slot so you're forced to choose between a GPU or LSI SAS card. I have a huge media library so this was one of my primary concerns when I specced mine out years ago. Also consider 3.5" drive capacity. Are you limited to just two HDDs?
I'm currently limited to 1 2.5" drive and 1 m.2 ssd. The 2.5" ssd slot was filled when I bought it. The m.2 slot is still empty.