I’m getting more and more frustrated with my current home server that I’m looking for a new base to put it on.
What I have now:
Supermicro X11SSH-F with an E3-1220 V6
2 WD Black SN850X 1TB in a ZFS mirror, one in a PCI-E to M.2 board
5 Seagate IronWolf Pro 16TB in RAIDZ2
SAS3008/9300-8i HBA
Aquantia 10GbE
internal Pioneer BD-RW
Fractal Define 7 XL
Average of 80W with drives default idle (only spinning slowly, not fully stopped standby)
What I don’t like:
CPU is to slow, could upgrade to a E3-1270 V6 for 50€ and get SMT plus higher clocks, but don’t feel like investing because of the other issues
HDDs were always flaky with onboard SATA → Added HBA (which needs additional cooling and power), now much better, no more losing drives
Only two controllable FAN speed zones, but I made it work
No slot available for GPU
Not the main issue of this thread but: Airflow of the case isn’t optimal, maybe going for HL15, but would need external BD-RW case. Maybe Silverstone CS383?
What I’m looking for:
About the same energy consumption would be nice, no problem if its a few watts more on average. Could enable standby on the HDDs now that I’m using an HBA and the flaky SATA isn’t an issue anymore
10GbE on board
8 (or at least 6) SATA on board (directly, via MCIO etc.) or a PCI-E slot for my HBA (it doesn’t support ASPM or I couldn’t get it to work, so onboard preferred)
2 NVMe 2280 slots or a way to get them both connected to the CPU (PCI-E with bifurcation, MCIO adapters and the like)
Slot for GPU for Plex transcoding, maybe AI stuff like speech recognition for my Home Assistant
Needs to have BMC with KVM and Redfish support
The Asrock Rack SIENAD8-2L2T has all the features I want, but EPYC 8024P only goes to 3GHz. And while IPC improvements are a thing, it’s still an expensive platform for not cracking 4 GHz. I’m willing to pay that price, but I still think there could be better out there. I don’t need the threads, I need the clocks.
Going AM5 would be my preferred option, but I couldn’t find a board that does it all. Maybe wait for 800 chipset boards? I have the time.
I’m not opposed going Intel again, as long as the platform is not related to the current “incident”
I thought about going with a Asrock Rack X570D4U-2L2T/BCM and a 5700X(3D), but the “I need the new stuff if I’m buying new” guy in me tells me otherwise. Buying AM4 new now feels wrong. Looked for used board for a month and couldn’t find one here in Germany. Understandable, I wouldn’t sell mine for at least two more years if I had one. But it’s not 600€ worth to me.
Anyone here who would like to add their 2 cents? What am I missing? Am I looking for something that doesn’t exist in the current generation? Is my only option do use a “regular” board without BMC and buy a PiKVM? I would really miss the monitoring I get with redfish right now.
What do you guys think? Ask away if you need more details!
Consider 1st Gen Threadripper instead. This is a German seller (Chemnitz) with a decent offer. Hunt around for better deals.
Admittedly, it’s still DDR4, but a significant improvement over your current guzzler (pun intended ) in efficiency. But: dual M.2, and 8 SATA ports. Mind, those may not all be usable if the 2nd M.2 slot is in use. Read the manual beforehand! There are M.2 NVMe to 6x SATA adapters available on Aliexpress fairly cheaply, as well as PCIe to 1/2/4x M.2 adapter boards. As you alluded to, these require bifurcation of the involved PCIe slot. Again, the manual has your answers
Is BMC really a hard requirement for a home server?
Asus ProArt X670E-CREATOR WIFI is otherwise a well proven and tested platform that many (including here) uses and ticks all the boxes (given you transfer your HBA). It also does ECC if that’s one of the requirements. If you can live with a few less PCIe lanes (beware of sharing) Asus ROG Strix B650E-E Gaming WiFi might also be an option and transfer your HBA and NIC.
A first gen Threadripper isn’t a very good deal given TDP, instruction set and performance. A mid-range 5000/7000-series CPU will be (much) faster, have better instruction set and run much cooler.
A Ryzen 7 7700 or 7900 (keeping the TDP down) with the stock cooler will do perfectly fine.
Have you considered a H13SAE-MF? It should check off most of your boxes, fast single core performance, energy efficient, IPMI + redfish, 2 CPU connected m.2 NVME ports.
It doesn’t however have onboard 10GbE or the 6-8 sata ports (only 4), but it might sort of makes up for that by offering 2 PCIe 5.0 x8 slots and a PCIe 4.0 x4 slot for expandability beyond just a GPU; I’m running a 10GbE NIC, a graphics card and a raid card on mine along with optane in the NVME slots.
That’s Zen 1 architecture, I don’t think the performance per watt can keep up with current or last gen. It’s the same age as my E3-1220 V6, while faster, not really better. I don’t want to buy new something that old.
Yes. Like I mentioned, I thought about a PiKVM, but they start at 300€ for the Mini, requires extra power and cabling while a BMC just needs network plugged in. I also get the sensor data for my monitoring solution. Ever since I got it, I don’t want to miss it! And not that I have any experience with the PiKVM firmware, but I the Aspeed stuff has been super reliable for me every time I needed it because I tinkered to much to late and tired. The server is too tucked away to keep keyboard, mouse and a display available at all times.
That’s what I’m thinking as well, just need a board for it.
No, I haven’t and yes. I like that it has two x8 slots, most B650 just have on x16 with no option to split it. I’ll put it on my short list.
Thank you all for your responses so far. I’m really looking for something that doesn’t exist right now. While 800 series chipsets still have to work with the same PCIe lane counts and probably won’t be much different, I’m hoping they make a board of my dreams then. If not, the H13SAE-MF it is.
I think I just found the perfect board: Asus P13R-E/10G-2T
Only downside would be the 2nd M.2 port is on the chipset, but 8 DMI 4.0 channels should be enough.
Now I only have to wait for availability here in Germany.
Anybody here using a server (board) from ASUS? Happy with it? What should I look out for?
) in efficiency. But: dual M.2, and 8 SATA ports. Mind, those may not all be usable if the 2nd M.2 slot is in use. Read the manual beforehand! There are M.2 NVMe to 6x SATA adapters available on Aliexpress fairly cheaply, as well as PCIe to 1/2/4x M.2 adapter boards. As you alluded to, these require bifurcation of the involved PCIe slot. Again, the manual has your answers 
