Home-Lab Server Build for Virtualization and JellyFin

Hardware
1

Hello,

I am currently working in help desk and I am looking to use a home-lab to expand my skill set. I have messed around a little bit with TrueNAS on an old Dell workstation, but I am looking to build something more future proof running Proxmox for Virtualization and JellyFin somewhere therein. Other more minor notes are that I intend to use ZFS and I can’t have a watt-monster of a system due to limited breakers in my apartment.

Looking around the forums for the past few days, I think I have at least settled on using a Ryzen 7900. Outside of that I am not sure. Here is a quick build I put together:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900 3.6 GHz 12-Core Processor ($351.55 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9DXi4 37.8 CFM CPU Cooler ($64.95 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock X670E Steel Legend ATX AM5 Motherboard ($398.37 @ MemoryC)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-5200 CL40 Memory ($174.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Cooler Master N400 ATX Mid Tower Case ($74.99 @ B&H)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS PLUS 850 Gold 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($152.57 @ Amazon)
Total: $1217.42

The parts I am hoping to get some guidance on are the motherboard and the case. I am fairly ignorant when it comes to motherboards. I have built a few gaming computers in the past, but their motherboards were chosen from the bundles at MicroCenter.

Given the usecase would it be wise to go for one of the boards shared elsewhere on this forum to support ECC RAM? I can figure out my particular IO needs, but ECC seems to be a foundational decision.

As far as the case goes I was thinking of one of the Jonsbo N(x)'s but I don’t want to be limited by ITX. From there I chose the Coolermaster N400 mentioned above, but now rack mounted solutions are both appealing and future focused. Do you have any good rack mounted chasis to reccomend?

My apologies if this is a little rambly, but I would appreciate any guidance. Thanks!

2

ZFS doesn’t need ECC, but it is recommended. That is to say you’ll likely find differing opinions on the subject.

Personally, I want all the data integrity I can afford, so I run ECC.

If you have the space, consider an older (DDR4) server or workstation platform that will afford you more PCIe lanes & slots for expansion, unless you’re concerned that the forbidden router will be too much temptation. :grin:

1 Like
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Okay, in the spirit of doing things properly I will go with ECC.

As far as your DDR4 suggestion, I have thought of that. The cool foactor of this bundle was appealing, but its age is worrying to me. I very well may be wrong

7551P Ebay Bundle

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It sounds here that you want two conflicting use cases;

  1. A “production” file server that should not take a deep dive, ever.
  2. A home-lab-in-a-box utilizing a Ryzen 9 7900 and virtualization.

If 1 is a thing or merely a “nice to have” that directly impacts any of my recommendations. Likewise, what are your storage reqs on this thing?

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Nice, I run the same board with a 7351P in a 4U chassis. AMD nailed the CPU name, it really is epic.

If it’s a rev 1.0 board then it won’t take anything newer than the 7001 Epyc, not the end of the world but good to know before you buy.

Also I don’t recall hearing that the Zen 1 C6 bug was ever resolved, so you might still have to disable C6 in BIOS.

edit: C6 bug was “fixed” in an AGESA update, you’ll have to change the default setting of “Power supply idle control” now, more here

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Thanks for the reply. 1 is definitely a nice to have, so I certainly would not refer to it as production.

Storage requirements are in the neighborhood of 40tb as a rough estimate

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Okay cool! What are you running on that box? It would be helpful to have a gage on its real world application

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It runs the (forbidden) router, storage, DNS, home automation, PBX (phones), ARR services, Nextcloud, a couple game servers, and a few other VMs that don’t spring to mind at the moment.

I’m certainly not stressing the CPU in any way. Uptime looks like this right now

09:10:27 up 44 days,  9:56,  1 user,  load average: 2.45, 2.01, 1.88

Yeah so, I probably don’t need all of those cores. If anything, 128GB of RAM is starting to feel confining, lucky I still have some empty DIMM sockets.

I don’t know how the CPU will handle Jellyfin in terms of transcoding. I’m sure it can, just not sure how many streams or how much wattage as I haven’t tried it, but I’d probably use an Intel Arc A310 for that sweet QSV transcoding if I were doing a bunch of it.

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9

I have hit a bit of a snag with my build. Here is the part list:

  • Epyc 7551P
  • AsRock Epycd8
  • 32 GB DDR4 Samsung ECC Ram 2133 Mhz
  • Noctua 140mm SP3 cooler
  • Corsair 1000W Power supply

I do not have a case for it yet, so I had it on my desk hooked up to my router to try to install Proxmox, do a mem test, get used to the IPMI etc. It had not run into any snags until I tried installing Proxmox. It installed successfully but it was getting stuck when booting the first time at “Loading initial Ramdisk”.

I noticed in the IPMI there were reported errors of PCI SERR during the time I was attempting to run Proxmox.

I had tried a few things mentioned on the Promox forums, but threw in the towel that night. Today, two days later, I tried to power on the system to give it another go, but now it won’t POST, but I can still access the IPMI. It will attempt to power on after being disconnected completely from power, but the CPU fan spins for half a second and then nothing.

There is no water damage to the board, and it has remained in one spot

The troubleshooting I have tried thus far is as follows:

  • Reseat both RAM sticks
  • Attempt POST with one RAM stick
  • Attempt POST with no RAM ( exhibited the same behavior of momentary CPU fan spin)
  • Removed all power including the button cell on the motherboard
  • I tried a different outlet
  • I had installed 2 512GB 2280 Samsung SSDs during my attempted install of Proxmox, but they have since been removed
  • When I attempt to power on from the IPMI, it retries 3 times and then says the power on failed

I am at my wit’s end here, and I was hoping any of you more experienced people have an idea of what is causing this snag