Phence
Legendary Member
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2015
- Messages
- 3,497
- Reaction score
- 1,008
- Points
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Background
I've bought most of these items over time, as they were not available locally or if they are, were difficult to come by as they are niche components that I bought from particular vendors. This is a low power but efficient modern server platform that is extremely versatile. Some examples of what you can do:
- Add a GPU (or any PCI-E device), then pass it through to a Windows VM for GPU acceleration.
- With the 6 Intel NICs, you could run a virtualised firewall, network lab etc.
- With the 8 SATA drives, 2 x M.2 slots and 2 x PCI-E x16 slots, you could make a huge storage array.
- Add another 32GB ECC RAM to make it 64GB as it's 4 slots and currently has 2 DIMM slots populated.
- SGPIO header to connect a backplane
- Thunderbolt add-in card connector
- Run Windows 11 in a VM, with an emulated TPM2.0 device and pass through what storage, network, GPU you want.
- With the extensive network IO and storage, you can use this as the virtualised network (switching/firewall) device which also hosts your network storage (NFS etc). Then other compute nodes can connect to this over the network, so this can be your SAN + virtual network device. You could use Intel NUCs, TinyMiniMicro machines, Raspberry Pis, Asrock Deskminis etc to be tiny compute clustered nodes all connecting to this storage node. Or make this a witness node to create a quorum on your cluster.
Reasons why this is such a valuable platform:
- 6 x Intel + 1 Broadcom NICs available
- 8 x SATA 6Gbps slots (not via a third party controller)
- Official motherboard support for Win 10, Server 2012, 2016 + 2019
- Clean server like BIOS (it is UEFI), not unnecessary OS features or complicated BIOS like gaming boards
- Intel C246 chipset supports Xeon E and ECC RAM, ECC is recommended if you want to do ZFS or other software defined storage in a HCI setup
- Low power system with CPU and DDR4 RAM, unlike older larger servers for home labs. Don't need a dedicated GPU like a server if you want local display outputs. Can upgrade to Xeon E CPU in the future when they drop in price to extend lifespan.
- 6 rear USB, 6 x 3.5mm audio and 3 x concurrent onboard display output give amazing IO to use a virtual desktop if you want to pass ports/controllers through to your virtual desktop.
- Dell H200 PCI-E HBA can add more storage capability with cheap SAS storage
- I'm getting tired of thinking but there is a lot that can be done with this
Base Bundle Items (Must be sold together) @ R5500:
1 x Intel Core i3-9100 Desktop Processor 4 Cores up to 4.2 GHz 65W Supports ECC RAM (unlike i5+ CPUs unless you go expensive Xeon route)
1 x Gigabyte C246M-WU4 mATX Motherboard
2 x Kingston 16GB DDR4 ECC UDIMM
1 x Noctua Chromax NF-A9 PWM chromax.black
1 x Coolermaster MasterAir Pro 3 (I think that's what it's called) CPU Cooler + Arctic Silver 5 TIM applied
8 x Black SATA cables
Age: Various
Price: See above
Payment Method Accepted: EFT, Geopayment
Warranty: RAM, Noctua fan maybe CPU
Warranty Holder: Amazon, Rebeltech
Packaging: No
Condition: Excellent, only missing motherboard backplate
Location: Obs, CPT
Reason: Selling homelab/server as I'm moving
Shipping: Yes
Collection: Yes
Links: CPU , Motherboard
Pics: Will post link just now
FYI
--------
I've bought most of these items over time, as they were not available locally or if they are, were difficult to come by as they are niche components that I bought from particular vendors. This is a low power but efficient modern server platform that is extremely versatile. Some examples of what you can do:
- Add a GPU (or any PCI-E device), then pass it through to a Windows VM for GPU acceleration.
- With the 6 Intel NICs, you could run a virtualised firewall, network lab etc.
- With the 8 SATA drives, 2 x M.2 slots and 2 x PCI-E x16 slots, you could make a huge storage array.
- Add another 32GB ECC RAM to make it 64GB as it's 4 slots and currently has 2 DIMM slots populated.
- SGPIO header to connect a backplane
- Thunderbolt add-in card connector
- Run Windows 11 in a VM, with an emulated TPM2.0 device and pass through what storage, network, GPU you want.
- With the extensive network IO and storage, you can use this as the virtualised network (switching/firewall) device which also hosts your network storage (NFS etc). Then other compute nodes can connect to this over the network, so this can be your SAN + virtual network device. You could use Intel NUCs, TinyMiniMicro machines, Raspberry Pis, Asrock Deskminis etc to be tiny compute clustered nodes all connecting to this storage node. Or make this a witness node to create a quorum on your cluster.
Reasons why this is such a valuable platform:
- 6 x Intel + 1 Broadcom NICs available
- 8 x SATA 6Gbps slots (not via a third party controller)
- Official motherboard support for Win 10, Server 2012, 2016 + 2019
- Clean server like BIOS (it is UEFI), not unnecessary OS features or complicated BIOS like gaming boards
- Intel C246 chipset supports Xeon E and ECC RAM, ECC is recommended if you want to do ZFS or other software defined storage in a HCI setup
- Low power system with CPU and DDR4 RAM, unlike older larger servers for home labs. Don't need a dedicated GPU like a server if you want local display outputs. Can upgrade to Xeon E CPU in the future when they drop in price to extend lifespan.
- 6 rear USB, 6 x 3.5mm audio and 3 x concurrent onboard display output give amazing IO to use a virtual desktop if you want to pass ports/controllers through to your virtual desktop.
- Dell H200 PCI-E HBA can add more storage capability with cheap SAS storage
- I'm getting tired of thinking but there is a lot that can be done with this
Base Bundle Items (Must be sold together) @ R5500:
1 x Gigabyte C246M-WU4 mATX Motherboard
2 x Kingston 16GB DDR4 ECC UDIMM
1 x Noctua Chromax NF-A9 PWM chromax.black
1 x Coolermaster MasterAir Pro 3 (I think that's what it's called) CPU Cooler + Arctic Silver 5 TIM applied
8 x Black SATA cables
Age: Various
Price: See above
Payment Method Accepted: EFT, Geopayment
Warranty: RAM, Noctua fan maybe CPU
Warranty Holder: Amazon, Rebeltech
Packaging: No
Condition: Excellent, only missing motherboard backplate
Location: Obs, CPT
Reason: Selling homelab/server as I'm moving
Shipping: Yes
Collection: Yes
Links: CPU , Motherboard
Pics: Will post link just now
FYI
--------
- For your and my protection please read our guide to safe dealing: https://carbonite.co.za/index.php?threads/guide-for-safe-dealing-on-carbonite.131249/
- A deal is concluded for purposes of feedback when parties agree to a deal
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