[OpenIndiana-discuss] Any hardware snafus in this lineup?

[Harry Putnam]

Philip Robar <philip.robar at gmail.com> writes:

> On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 7:20 PM, Harry Putnam <reader at newsguy.com> wrote:
>
>> These hardware specs are for a planned home lan zfs NAS
>>
>>
>> CONFIGURATION
>>         CPU : AMD 64 CPU AM3/AM3+
>>         AMD FX-8350 Piledriver (Vishera) 4.0GHz (Eight Core) 32nm,
>>         AM3+ 8MB Cache
>>
>>         Cooling Fans : AMD 64 CPU Fans
>>             Coolermaster GeminII S, 5 Copper Heat Pipes, Extra Quiet
>>             140MM CPU fan
>>
>>         Motherboard : AMD 64 AM3/ AM3+ Motherboards
>>             ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 AM3+,AMD 760G, Onboard video,HDMI,
>>             USB3.0
>>
>>  NOTE: I'm pretty sure this ram can be ECC.
>>        Most asus boards accept both.
>>
>>         Memory : DDR3 Dual Channel memory
>>             32GB (4x8GB) PC14900 DDR3 1866 Dual Channel (high
>>             performance memory)
>>
>
> From your description you're building a dedicated home single purpose, i.e.
> file, server. Unless you have other plans in the back of your mind the
> parts you chosen seem inappropriate or gross overkill from, respectively,
> either an energy efficiency or compute power standpoint. I suggest that
> instead you consider an Intel socket 1150 CPU and a real server motherboard.

First off, thank you so much for the very helpful reply.  Its full of
concrete ideas and that was just whats needed.
 
I have no doubt you are right about overkill... comes from not knowing
poop about what is needed and etc.

There are some plans stirring around in the back of my head.  Possibly
something like running several (4-6 )vms of various OS's just
to tinker with.  And possibly streaming movies, sound etc... the
streaming is least likely to materialize.

> Even the lowest end Haswell Celeron has more than enough compute power for
> a home file server and all Haswells have much lower TPD than the AMD and
> probably also idle at a much lower wattage too.
>
> Haswell Celeron G1820 - $40 at Microcenter.
> Haswell Core i3 4130 - $100. If you need AES-NI support for file system
> encryption.
> Haswell Xeon E3-1200 V3 - Starting at around $200. If your server is going
> to do something like video transcoding.
>
> A server motherboard will have ECC support, Intel NICs and IPMI for remote
> management. Supermicro is most people's server board brand of choice, but
> there's also Tyan, ASUS and others to choose from.
>
> One of the new Intel Atom Avoton (4 or 8 core) server motherboard/CPU
> combos from ASrock or Supermicro are even more attractive from an energy
> cost standpoint. (This is a serious consideration for a system that runs
> 24x7.) (http://www.servethehome.com has reviews of several of these.)
>
> Since you said this is a home server I assume that that means that there
> will be at most a handful of connections at any given time. In that
> situation even 16 GB of memory will be more than you need, but in any case
> get ECC RAM. It costs so little more that it just doesn't make sense not to.

You nailed it again.

All the above sounds like very good advice and I'm convinced. However,
one thing that was partly responsible for my choices was that 'Magic
Micro' (Where I put together those specs [http://www.magicmicro.com/])
has limited stuff on offer for its customizing schemes for shmoo's
like me to work with.

I guess its possible the building of a machine could be all DIY, but
it would much more likely need to be some kind of supervised DIY. 

Do you have any idea where one can go thru a customizing scheme where
most of the hardware you suggest would be on offer?   And further,
have folks on hand who can keep you from making down right
incompatible choices.

Or for that matter... no schemes would necessarily be involved if the
outfit just puts it together for you or at least promises to guarantee
that mobo and cpu or other similar possible tragedies are looked out
for by knowledgeable folks.

Do you know of any URLs for either kind of setup?