Hello and thanks everyone for taking the time to read through this.
I am looking to build a new VM server for my homelab and its going to be headless if possible. I like the features of the X570S Aorus Master from Gigabyte (M.2 and sata support specifically) but the killer for me is that it doesn’t have IPMI support. I know there are ways around this but would like to just buy it integrated into the motherboard.
I am not really requiring any specific form factor yet or even CPU choice as the motherboard seems to be driving my choices here so far.
Has anyone run across something they could recommend I look at?
IPMI is nice and all, but getting a PiKVM could be the answer and it would open up the possibilities a lot. You can even build one from a raspi for not alot of money if you like tinkering.
Yeah, I watched that video when it came out and I think I need the one after this one. @wendell seems fixed on ITX but I want more than 6 SATA ports. Ideally 4 M.2 and 4-6 SATA, and this video seems to have a lot of thoughts but not much on the “Selections”. YET.
I am sure we will get there but I am still looking for options. I would just buy an old Dell R730 but I am looking for something quieter and more power efficient, ideally mostly if not all solid state.
I need room (I think) for a add in card for 10 GbE (2 ports) if it doesn’t already come with it and possibly a video card for transcoding.
pi-kvm prettymuch ticks the ipmi box for me… I have always historically been an ipmi person… but for shits n giggles I have been running one system with ipmi connected to another via rs232 header, and an rs232 header on that system with a terminal. I used it one time. To update the OS (grub works fine w/serial header). I set the bios to auto turn on in case of a power outage, and the ups has togglable outlets… and… I didn’t really need ipmi on my media box.
rs232 in case of weird network failure was enough… which does happen kind of embarassingly a lot over a 5+ year lifetime. The nic failures have all had to do with major os/kernel updates, vlans breaking or drivers/nic failure in a strange way… and would have probably not been as “dire” had I also attached a slower/more reliable nic in addition to the 10gb/25gb ones. If that makes sense…
anyway with this specific ITX config I could do 10 sata and 4 nvme:
3 onboard m.2:
empty
empty
6x sata 6 on 80mm m.2
2 m.2 on pcie nic w/10gb aquantia (single expansion card, no diy required)
that gives a total of 10 sata (6+4) and 4 usable m.2… two pcie4 and two pcie3.
Acceptable, imho. With some creativity one could use the sata m.2 on the nic pcie card.
There’s another model asus b650 with 4x nvme as well.
I like this because it gives 2.5g+10g, though, and just the right amount of nvme and sata, while being around $220 for the board.
Does anyone know where a pikvm can be found? I looked but haven’t had luck, may have to go eBay route and find a full ip kvm from the likes of avocent or someone else
I’m more or less in the same boat like you and was looking to replace my trusted TrueNAS box with something new and I also need IPMI and stuff as well because this box sits headless in the rack.
I decided on an AMD Epyc 7302P (16C/32T) with a Supermicro H11SSL-i. They are currently dirt-cheap on eBay. I payed ~$400 for the set (board + CPU) and got a nice set of 4x64GB 3200 Samsung sticks on top for ~$120/pc with room to grow memory wise.
If 16C is too much, there are also some Epyc 7F32 (8C/16T frequency optimized) out there, although not as many as there are 7302(P) available. With a bit of luck, they can be had for 200-250 and they are great CPUs as well.
