[SOLVED] Server Just Died; Need Replacement ASAP

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Hey all, my server apparently died overnight. I don’t know if it’s the CPU or the motherboard (only two components I can’t narrow down due to lack of alternate parts). Doesn’t matter, though, I was already planning on replacing this build with all new stuff this holiday season or next year…guess my timeline was pushed up substantially and no chance of enjoying seasonal discounts.

Anyway.

I know I wanted to go for ECC this time around. Normally I don’t mind building myself (my older server was a hodgepodge of hand-me-down parts from gaming builds of years and years ago when I used to game), but as I don’t have a functioning server at all right now (which is beyond massively inconvenient…) I was looking at just buying a prebuilt machine with ECC (price premium be damned).

I was looking at the HP Z2 Mini G1a Workstation with Ryzen AI MAX+ Pro 395 and 128GB of ECC RAM.

$3100 + overnight shipping is going to be incredibly painful, but I can figure it out. If there’s an alternative mini PC with 16 cores and I can throw in 64GB+ of ECC RAM, I’m interested in that as well. Please advise. Will be placing an order tonight or tomorrow morning as I need my stuff back online sooner rather than later…

Note: my big HDDs are plugged in via a Sabrent USB Type-C 10-Bay 3.5" SATA III Hard Drive Tray-Less Docking Station so a mini-PC as a server is fine. My non-media data is all on NVMe drives on the server, so my only requirement is 2 NVMe slots on whatever I buy.

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I was pretty sure that the Ryzen AI MAX+ Pro 395 doesn’t offer “real” ECC that even the ECC UDIMMs offer let alone the ECC RDIMMs.

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Interesting, I hadn’t seen anything so far saying it was any different than ECC UDIMMs, but if that’s the case, then I’d definitely like to buy “real” ECC instead, if possible. :sweat_smile:

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I’m not 100% certain, but I was pretty sure it only had the “on-die” ECC that all DDR5 (low power or not) has, and then link ECC which IMO is useless in this application.

The real ECC being side-band ECC where there is actually extra data stored in the RAM and verified by the processor, and most importantly, tells you when your getting memory errors.

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In theory the RAM in the HP system is MT62F4G32D8DV-023-WT-C {2} part detail | Micron Technology Inc. and I don’t see it bragging about ECC…so…you’re probably right in that there’s no real ECC here. :frowning: Big sad.

Edit: source on the exact RAM used based on screenshots in this article: https://babeltechreviews.com/the-hp-z2-mini-g1a-david-vs-goliath-9950x3d-workstation-review/

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Well, if I can’t get ECC anyway…guess I’m best off just picking up a GMKtec EVO-X2 for $2000.

Not sure why their product is listed on Amazon twice[1][2], but :man_shrugging:t2:

I’ve never had ECC in the past, but I’ve been running an old 8th gen i5 and low-speed non-ECC DDR4 for…a very long time. :man_shrugging:t2:

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Hmm…it’s not gonna be Ryzen with 128GB…but I have access to a Dell employee’s discount (don’t know if it applies to business-class stuff)…could throw together a “Dell Pro Max Micro Desktop”:

  • Base + remove everything possible from config
  • Upgrade CPU to Ultra 9 285
  • Buy a 3rd party 2x32GB 5600 ECC SODIMM kit (Dell claims support for 2x32GB max, so best to start there and I can buy more later when feeling adventurous) and throw it in there

That’s like $1700 before any discounts…will have to make some calls in the morning, but this is sounding promising.

I’d been looking at doing a custom build with a 285 or 285K back when my current one wasn’t dead anyway…so this isn’t far off from what I was looking to custom build anyway…much smaller because I don’t have to fit an ASUS Pro W​S W880-ACE​ SE, too, lol

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I’ll update this thread again in the morning after some calls…but thank you @twin_savage for saving me from making a panic buy mistake with the HP! :pray:t2:

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I would be concerned about cooling Ultra 9 285 in such a small case, Intel says max Turbo TDP is 182W which is a lot in such a small case. I had issues with cooling an Opteron 185 with a beefy copper heatsink in a similar sized case and it’s rated 110W TDP. I would also find a technical document that verifies ECC support as it may not be available depending on Dell’s policies and hardware design.

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I just need the thread count. CPU will definitely not be maxed out. If Dell’s BIOS has a TDP limiter, I may even use that anyway. I’m not here for max crazy performance or anything. Just need the threads.

The entire point of Dell’s “Pro Max” line of desktops is that they’re the new high-end Precision desktops. They don’t offer ECC in their configurator for any lower tier of desktop, so I’m pretty sure it’s a safe bet, but I’ll abuse my access to ProSupport to confirm anyway.

Edit: I’ll also point out that the manual[1][2][3] (PDF page 17) specifically calls out ECC support.

  1. https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/dell-pro-max-fcm2250-micro/dell-pro-max-micro-fcm2250-owners-manual/memory?guid=guid-e9d2ea83-38a4-431d-803c-96d63c1dbc34&lang=en-us ↩︎

  2. https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/dell-pro-max-fcm2250-micro/dell-pro-max-micro-fcm2250-owners-manual/memory-matrix?guid=guid-dccdc68a-e27e-458d-9f3a-27e2e619155b&lang=en-us ↩︎

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Just an FYI, those CPUs only support ECC when used with a W880 motherboard chipset. So verify that Dell desktop uses the workstation chipset board.

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You’ll be happy to know the manual specifically mentions it’s the W880 chipset, then! :slight_smile:

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F*** me, though. Earliest Dell can possibly get it to me is the 11th. :sob:

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You don’t have another machine you can boot it up in temporarily? If this happened to me, I think either my gaming machine or an htpc, or maybe just my pile of spare parts and external hdd enclosures, would become a temporary server

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I have no other motherboards with NVMe…and my boot drives are NVMe… :sweat_smile:

I haven’t had a gaming machine or HTPC in eons. Just my server, laptop, and an Nvidia Shield. :man_shrugging:t2:

Edit: server is Debian (x86_64) and laptop is macOS (ARM)…so not like it would even be quick/easy to get things running on the laptop, especially not the ZFS array, I don’t think. :stuck_out_tongue: It’s OK. I’ll figure out how to live, I guess. :grimacing:

Edit 2: I have tons of old parts laying around…but they’re all even older than what’s currently running…all predating NVMe. :grimacing:

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An NVME drive enclosure could boot an old motherboard from USB… available cheap and fast. Perhaps you have something sitting around with enough power to run the essentials?

Just spitballing

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Hmm…I mean, I don’t need very much processing power…I think I still have an i5-4670K[1] and an mITX board[2][3] laying around somewhere (it has mSATA, no NVMe).

I’ve never heard of SSK, but SSK M.2 NVME SATA SSD Enclosure Adapter, USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) to NVME PCI-E SATA M-Key/(B+M) Key Solid State Drive External Enclosure Aluminum Support UASP Trim for SSDs 2242/2260/2280 may work well enough just to limp me along?

Booting might be a little tough. I have 2x4TB NVMe in mdraid RAID1, but I can limp along on no mirror for a bit, if I can get it to boot at all, maybe.

Edit: It would be highly amusing to get RAID1 over USB working, but I’m just tryin’ to live my life in less pain, not go crazy. :stuck_out_tongue:

Edit 2: I’d also be going back to 16GB of DDR3 instead of 32GB of DDR4…but hey, beggars can’t be choosers? lol

  1. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/75048/intel-core-i54670k-processor-6m-cache-up-to-3-80-ghz/specifications.html ↩︎

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I could also just play roulette and order a bunch of random LGA1151 boards and return any that don’t work, but like…meh. Needed a new system anyway…:man_shrugging:t2: $19 on a little adapter is more reasonable. :stuck_out_tongue:

Edit: well…a little bit more to add shipping for delivery before work tomorrow morning…but still. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Good luck!! I’ve never bothered with RAID ( I’m more of an rsync-cronjob-and-pray type), much less tried to do it over USB; though I assume something like zfs would be fine as long as it’s fast enough… I had never pictured doing that to a boot drive! Whew.

I’ll go right on hoarding parts…

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RAID1 for boot (including the EFI partition!) was just so if one of the SSDs dies, I don’t need to reformat and recover from backups. Just a convenience thing. I’ve never had an NVMe drive die on me to date…but I’ve had such a gnarly run of bad luck in life the last week or so…

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