Question Building my first home media server because I can. And I want to.

[ezzep]

I tried pcpartspicker and ran into issues with getting a motherboard and case because Newegg is stupid and doesn't have good standards on motherboard specs on their cases. So, this is what I have and this is what I will use.

I have 2 Intel E5-2690-v3 2011 CPUs. Yes, they are power hogs. My power is fairly cheap, so that's not a problem. I have 2 sticks of 8GB TruDDR4. I believe the ram I have should fit. If not, I'll find in about a week. They all came from a Lenovo X3550 M5 that I couldn't bypass the UEFI password on. Thanks to eBay and the seller mntechnology, I found out that the UEFI on these systems has a password set and cannot be cleared without replacing the board. I also learned that this a common practice for most hardware vendors.

So I have a 750 watt PSU that should work with it. I'm thinking maybe add my PNY 1030 2GB or my EVGA 1650 4GB to it just for the heck of it. Might have issues with the 1030 as I don't have the full-size bracket anymore. I have a Supermicro X10DRH-iT board on the way, and I need a tower/case that will fit this puppy. It's an E-ATX board that according to Supermicro measures out to 12" x 13" or 30.48cm x 33.02cm for you folks that like the meter system. I don't care much about flashy lights. I would like something white, or not black, if possible. And since the CPUs I scrapped from the rack server only have heatsinks, I would like some recommendations on some good heatsink/fan combos. I would like to stay away from the Hyper 212 EVO because I tend to tighten the screws down too much and then I end up with a bent motherboard and me cussing at myself.

I probably won't order everything at once, just parts at a time if I have to spend some serious money.

Storage wise....this is another fun part. I have a Dell H310 JBOD card, and an IBM RS25SB008 external SAS card, and an EMC JBOD enclosure I was going to use. I'm not sure if I want to now. I have 4 450/500GB SSDs I can use as a JBOD setup. I want about 8TB for all my ripped content. I think that EMC might be too much as it's freaking loud and puts out some serious heat. I want to go with SAS drives, but I'm willing to compromise there.

 

[mindless1]

I read your post earlier and had a lot of comments but many of them are premature, so take my post with a grain of salt...

Will you be transcoding or just file serving with a front-end app to aggregate media to client interfaces/apps? If transcoding much/all, then just save some time and ignore the rest of this post.

It seems like a high level of hardware complexity you're trying to build into this, based on starting with a couple CPUs and some memory, and only needing 8TB storage, and then even if your power is fairly cheap, seems like over a few years the extra power consumption will add up, enough to cancel out the value of the CPUs and memory you have? I mean relative to the cost of a budget range more modern CPU and only enough memory to get the job done, which if this is for a very limited # of concurrent streams in home use, won't be much unless transcoding and then it's CPU more than memory needed. For example 8GB memory is more than enough for a couple 4K streams.

I don't transcode, so to just reach 8TB media storage, I'd get (I mean years ago I did), something like a low power, SFF board with an embedded CPU, which idles (normal load) around 15W power, boot it from 1 SSD, and have one 8TB HDD in the same case. Such a setup usually doesn't need any fans besides the one in the PSU, not even on the CPU heatsink as long as it's sized appropriate for that. Call that a 40W system, which means you could reuse your 750W PSU for something else that really needs it, instead of this use.

I don't understand why you would need the EMC enclosure for a mere 8TB, unless you have to use several SSDs to get there because you don't want HDDs, and then, unless they are shoehorned in tight against each other, they won't need anywhere near the amount of airflow for cooling that HDDs need, so the loud fan(s) could be throttled back to barely spinning if not shut off entirely, if the enclosure doesn't have some kind of fan failure sensing that prevents shutting fan(s) off.

If it's not actively sending a video signal to a TV (like over HDMI), I wouldn't bother having the video card in it, is just a waste of a video card and the extra power and heat one produces, except that the motherboard you have chosen, only has VGA output so even if it's to be a headless server, occasionally you might want to hook a monitor up and then I can see a need for something other than the VGA output that motherboard has, if you no longer have any monitors with VGA input.

Heh, I had intended for this post to be short until I got feedback telling me that all you want is a case recommendation. IDK the best case for that.

 

[In2Photos]

I agree with mindless. I realize you're asking about case recommendations, but the way you described your setup just seems a little out of sorts. I believe I mentioned in your other thread that a simple used desktop can likely handle your media server use case. I am using a Dell Precision 3630 that has an 8700 in it that I bought for $200 to run my unRAID server with Jellyfin. I have 6 HDD and 3 SSDs in it all powered with a 550W PSU. Before you go spending any more money to try and get your dual Xeon up and running I think I would consider if it truly is worth it. Maybe sell the parts you have and recoup as much as you can and go a different route? Unless there is just some reason you really want the dual Xeon setup? Are you going to run some VMs or something too?

 

[aigomorla]

Most people do not build HTPC's with dual CPU's. Its not just about power, its also in how hardware transcoding works. Video Hardware Transcoding is NOT very efficient on a CPU, hence why most people use a videocard of some sort mostly Nvidia with NVENC, or even a IGP from a lower bin Intel Cpu with IRIS graphics with intel QuickSync.

What people do is make the machine u got into a NAS server or some sort, with JAILS / Dockers, and add plex / Jellyfin / Emby / XMBC of some sort, and allow streaming to a dedicated htpc / phone / whatever device you can install the client for the above on to.

I honestly think your probably better off re evaluating your wants, unless thats the only parts you have on hand, and you absolutely must use them, as that board cpu and ram will require very loud and beefy fans to keep the stuff cool. Enterprise Gear was not aimed at minimizing noise, and the server cases designed for them, always had very loud high power fans in a ducted style case, either tower, or a rack style form factor.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Noctua makes some heatsinks for LGA 2011. The issue you will run into is the case and airflow orientation. That X10 board is really designed for front to rear cooling in a fairly thin 2U or 3U rackmount system using passive heatsinks and relying on a plastic fan shroud/guide from a wall of 40mm high output case fans (i.e. the kind that are like 85db). Most of noctua's heatsinks will be oriented incorrectly on that particular board (i.e. they will be blowing bottom to top or top to bottom) due to the orientation of those LGA 2011 sockets on that board layout (the close location of the RAM slots prevents any kind tower orientation that uses a fan wider than the CPU socket in a front to rear cooling orientation).

I have an older X9 board as my server board. It too had issues finding compatible heatsinks as it used the narrow socket LGA 2011 layout but it's orientation of the CPU sockets allowed for the noctua heatsinks to work in a front to rear orientation.

As for a chassis, if you have not already gotten something, I recommend searching for a Supermicro SC846 if you are going to put a bunch of disk drives in it and use it for storage (and can find one). That case can have the internal fans and fan wall removed and replaced with 3x120mm fans with just a little bit of work and are much quieter than the 92mm ones that come stock. People have removed the power supplies and put in standard ATX with some effort (and the loss of the fan shroud/guide, which isn't as much an issue if you place active cooled heatsinks on like the ones from Noctua). You do not want the 847 or any of the 36 drive models as the internal fan wall can not be replaced with 120mm fans on those and will be very loud no matter what you do.

Previously you could find the 846 gutted on ebay for like $200-300. Heck I bought mine with a barebones setup that I am using about 4-5 years ago for about ~$800 after all my mods and before the cost of disks (it came with dual intel 2x E5-2650Lv3, 192GB RAM, LSI RAID/JBOD controllers, dual power supplies... I added 40Gb network, replaced the heatsinks with Noctua NH-D9DX i4, replaced the internal fans with Noctua's). Have 2x 2.5" SSDs internal mirrored for the base hypervisor install and VM storage, and currently have 6x 14TB SAS drives in my main storage pool in the hot swap drive bays. I can add another 3 groups of 6 disks to this setup (the 6 disks are in a RAIDZ2 setup, which is similar to RAID 6, but using ZFS).

 

[ezzep]

I agree with mindless. I realize you're asking about case recommendations, but the way you described your setup just seems a little out of sorts. I believe I mentioned in your other thread that a simple used desktop can likely handle your media server use case. I am using a Dell Precision 3630 that has an 8700 in it that I bought for $200 to run my unRAID server with Jellyfin. I have 6 HDD and 3 SSDs in it all powered with a 550W PSU. Before you go spending any more money to try and get your dual Xeon up and running I think I would consider if it truly is worth it. Maybe sell the parts you have and recoup as much as you can and go a different route? Unless there is just some reason you really want the dual Xeon setup? Are you going to run some VMs or something too?

Hahaha I forgot to reply to anyone. So I ended up getting a ThermalTake Cerses 500 series case. The mounting screw holes didn't match as I did some research and realized that the board is a different server style board. I decided to mount them and make new holes, which worked for about half the board.
The case came with 3 x140mm fans in front, and 1 x140mm in the back. So I added my 3 x120mm fans on top. Fired it up with just the heatsinks and they keep the CPUs cooled enough for basic tasks, but nothing else. And yes, I realized this system was overkill in terms of performance and power usage. But that's all right. My gaming rig is going to crap out on me eventually, so this will be a good machine to use as a backup if I have to later.
I've put off getting the CPU coolers for right now as this thing was more expensive to build than I thought, especially after I started pricing coolers.