Desktop Computers

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Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
9,690
3,201
I have that monitor Crone. Love it. One thing that VA has going for it is colors (dark blacks/vibrant colors) but I do notice a bit of ghost/smudge when dragging dark objects over light backgrounds. Really noticeable in games like POE with the vibrant loot filter shit. Outside of that though haven't really noticed unless I go hunting for it.
It arrives Friday. Trying to figure out what to do with my 27" monitor now. Thinking about putting it on the side, but vertical.
 

Ao-

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
<WoW Guild Officer>
7,879
507
Need a reality check...
My power supply is dying/dead, and I'm looking at a corsair RM850.
I'm in the US, and to get it from anywhere, it's over $200...
example:
But I can order it from Amazon UK for $122 + $32 shipping

Am I going to get some dumb UK version? I have a ton of PDU cables, but would this actually work?
 

Brahma

Obi-Bro Kenobi-X
11,811
41,154
Need a reality check...
My power supply is dying/dead, and I'm looking at a corsair RM850.
I'm in the US, and to get it from anywhere, it's over $200...
example:
But I can order it from Amazon UK for $122 + $32 shipping

Am I going to get some dumb UK version? I have a ton of PDU cables, but would this actually work?

Will need another cord, and the power supply has a 110v/220v switch for Good ol' American vs Euro voltage more than likely. Like a red slider or some shit.
 
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Reactions: 1 user

kegkilla

The Big Mod
<Banned>
11,320
14,738
Have you considered picking up a used server from ebay? Plenty of dual Xeon units to be had for under $250, they usually come a good amount of ECC memory too. Should give you more stability than trying to wring something out of consumer level hardware.
I'm unable to get the thought of server grade hardware out of my head now, even though I'm sure it's overkill for my purposes. I've been looking at buying some used pieces off ebay. Something like:




Would there be any value in this at all for a home server? Am I just pissing money away?
 

Lambourne

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,689
6,487
I'm unable to get the thought of server grade hardware out of my head now, even though I'm sure it's overkill for my purposes. I've been looking at buying some used pieces off ebay. Something like:




Would there be any value in this at all for a home server? Am I just pissing money away?

I'm not versed well enough in server hardware to recommend anything specific. I did find some good info on /r/homeserver and /r/datahoarders earlier this year when I was looking into building one for NAS usage, might want to have a look there.
 

kegkilla

The Big Mod
<Banned>
11,320
14,738
I'm unable to get the thought of server grade hardware out of my head now, even though I'm sure it's overkill for my purposes. I've been looking at buying some used pieces off ebay. Something like:




Would there be any value in this at all for a home server? Am I just pissing money away?
Alright I think I got this one all figured out. The i3-9100 can use ECC ram (10100 can't for some gay reason) so going to build with a LGA1151 server motherboard and a i3-9100 on the cheap. Then when used server component prices get less retarded I'll snatch up a used E-2278g or some shit on the cheap and have an absolute monster of a server. Downside is the server mobo is fucking expensive, but at least it comes with 8 SATA ports, which saves me from having to buy a RAID controller.

Here's how we looking:
CaseDefine R5
120​
CPUi3-9100
85​
MotherboardASUS C246M PRO
227​
RAM16 GB DDR4 ECC
100​
SSD512GB NVMe WD Black SN750
53​
HDDWD Red 12TB
200​
PSUCorsair RMX RM550x
100​
885​


Got a bit more pricey than I intended it to at the start but that's the way it always goes. Oh I'll need a CPU cooler too, any suggestions? Need it nice and quiet.
 

Lambourne

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,689
6,487
I've used the Scythe Mugen 5 cooler for my last two builds and it's great, effectively inaudible. I've been using same case too.
 

Jovec

?
727
279
Alright I think I got this one all figured out. The i3-9100 can use ECC ram (10100 can't for some gay reason) so going to build with a LGA1151 server motherboard and a i3-9100 on the cheap. Then when used server component prices get less retarded I'll snatch up a used E-2278g or some shit on the cheap and have an absolute monster of a server. Downside is the server mobo is fucking expensive, but at least it comes with 8 SATA ports, which saves me from having to buy a RAID controller.

Here's how we looking:
CaseDefine R5
120​
CPUi3-9100
85​
MotherboardASUS C246M PRO
227​
RAM16 GB DDR4 ECC
100​
SSD512GB NVMe WD Black SN750
53​
HDDWD Red 12TB
200​
PSUCorsair RMX RM550x
100​
885​


Got a bit more pricey than I intended it to at the start but that's the way it always goes. Oh I'll need a CPU cooler too, any suggestions? Need it nice and quiet.

What is the use case?

Look into IPMI support. And if you are filling Sata ports and need performance you should consider a HBA (moreso than a hardware RAID card, and definately avoid software RAID cards).
 

kegkilla

The Big Mod
<Banned>
11,320
14,738
What is the use case?

Look into IPMI support. And if you are filling Sata ports and need performance you should consider a HBA (moreso than a hardware RAID card, and definately avoid software RAID cards).
It's just a NAS/Plex server/transcoder/torrent box to start. Would like to find some home automation uses for it as well.

I was actually just looking into RAID/redundancy options. Confused by what you're saying though... aren't HBAs just RAID controllers without the RAID? So if I used one, wouldn't I need a software RAID solution?
 

kegkilla

The Big Mod
<Banned>
11,320
14,738
Think my plan will be to start with two drives, one for use and one for for backup. Have the server run a backup image every night. When that drive is full, add two more drives, one for use and another for backup, and use Windows Storage Spaces to pool the two in-use drives (as JBOD, not RAID) so I can keep everything clean and under one virtual disk and continue adding disks without having to deal with the issues that come with wanting to add additional drives to a RAID array.

Does that sound like a reasonable plan or sound retarded?
 

Jovec

?
727
279
It's just a NAS/Plex server/transcoder/torrent box to start. Would like to find some home automation uses for it as well.

I was actually just looking into RAID/redundancy options. Confused by what you're saying though... aren't HBAs just RAID controllers without the RAID? So if I used one, wouldn't I need a software RAID solution?

HBAs are essentially just higher performing sata ports than the stock Intel, AMD, or Marvell chipset sata ports. Useful if you need the fastest performance from your spinning rust and sata6 SSD drives and larger NVMe configs aren't in the budget. For a home NAS, which tends to have very limited writes (media storage) and few concurrent connections, the onboard sata ports are still just fine.

You may or may not need to use software raid with a HBA. You can always just access each disk individually off of it (like Unraid wants to do). Or use an OS-controlled software raid like LVM, mdadm, or ZFS. These will be much more robust solutions than the fake-raid provided on cheap raid cards with respect to error and failure recovery. Finally, current best practice is to use mirrors (and take the 50% capacity hit) for ease of expansion, rebuild times, and throughput over single and even double parity configs.
 
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Reactions: 1 user

kegkilla

The Big Mod
<Banned>
11,320
14,738
HBAs are essentially just higher performing sata ports than the stock Intel, AMD, or Marvell chipset sata ports. Useful if you need the fastest performance from your spinning rust and sata6 SSD drives and larger NVMe configs aren't in the budget. For a home NAS, which tends to have very limited writes (media storage) and few concurrent connections, the onboard sata ports are still just fine.

You may or may not need to use software raid with a HBA. You can always just access each disk individually off of it (like Unraid wants to do). Or use an OS-controlled software raid like LVM, mdadm, or ZFS. These will be much more robust solutions than the fake-raid provided on cheap raid cards with respect to error and failure recovery. Finally, current best practice is to use mirrors (and take the 50% capacity hit) for ease of expansion, rebuild times, and throughput over single and even double parity configs.
Using mirrors, is it possible to incrementally add more drives to the "pool"?
 

Jovec

?
727
279
Think my plan will be to start with two drives, one for use and one for for backup. Have the server run a backup image every night. When that drive is full, add two more drives, one for use and another for backup, and use Windows Storage Spaces to pool the two in-use drives (as JBOD, not RAID) so I can keep everything clean and under one virtual disk and continue adding disks without having to deal with the issues that come with wanting to add additional drives to a RAID array.

Does that sound like a reasonable plan or sound retarded?

I am not overly informed on Windows Storage Spaces. If it does snapshots or incremental backups than it will be quick and easy to do your backups as most data is static (media files that rarely change). Adding the obligatory "raid isn't a backup" and "have additional backups offsite" disclaimers.
 

Lanx

Oye Ve
<Prior Amod>
60,072
131,369
Need a reality check...
My power supply is dying/dead, and I'm looking at a corsair RM850.
I'm in the US, and to get it from anywhere, it's over $200...
example:
But I can order it from Amazon UK for $122 + $32 shipping

Am I going to get some dumb UK version? I have a ton of PDU cables, but would this actually work?
do you live near microcenters? they have stock in some places
 

Jovec

?
727
279
Using mirrors, is it possible to incrementally add more drives to the "pool"?

Depending on the storage back-end, yes. Most have a way to either replace existing drives in the mirror with larger capacities or add new sets of mirrors to the pool. This process is faster and less stressful on the hardware with a mirror-based config than a parity-based config that needs to read from all drives to rebuild.
 
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Reactions: 1 user

Springbok

Karen
<Gold Donor>
8,970
12,474
So it seems I'm better off waiting to update my CPU (Ryzen 2700x) & monitor (32" AOC 1440p) until years end because we should have more options then, right? Ryzen 4xxx should be out and the best 35" UW monitors (LG in particular) have been out for years now. I don't want to blow $1500 upgrading on shit that is about to be updated, but if that stuff doesn't come out until next year due to delays I was thinking to just take the plunge now.
 
  • 1Solidarity
Reactions: 1 user