X99 itx home server build

[viperbite]

Specs:
X99E-ITX/ac - $200
Xeon E5-2698-v3 16c - $55
2x 64gb Samsung 2133 ECC Rdimms (Samsung 64GB 2S4Rx4 PC4-2133P-RA0-10-DC0) - $80ea - $160
Asus 240 aio - $100
C-Payne PCB Bifurcation riser $120
Supermicro E157872 - 2x intel 10g sfp+ nic $42
1 x 1tb Inland QLC nvme ssd $50
2 x 2tb Inland QLC nvme ssd (raid 0… i’m a monster) $85ea - $190
12tb WD Red+ $200
850w EVGA sfx - $100 (ebay deal find)
Coolermaster NR200P - $100

My buddy was liquidating a bunch of parts he let pile up over the years and I got myself an asrock x99 itx board.

This thing is headless. Unfortunately. I had a hell of a time getting a VGA to work on the built in WiFi slot or the onboard m.2. I couldn’t get video out through the m.2 and the WiFi slot showed video out and even booted to the OS. (albeit, in vga resolution and grey scale) but I could never get into the bios using it otherwise I would have left it configured that way. Its almost like the wifi slot didn’t support uefi or something. Not sure. So yes unfortunately headless. If I have to reset the bios I have to pull the bifurcation riser out and slap a gpu in there.

Yes I am a monster and have this running Windows Server 2019.
I need to learn proxmox or esxi but rather than letting this thing sit around doing nothing now its my primary lab server. Running a few vms, game server, radio station audio ripping server, an AD domain, ddns, Unifi, windows deployment server for network boot os installs, UrBackup server. Ubuntu VM to mess with some linux…

I have a 10g nic in my main pc and was getting 1.10 gb/s file transfers before moving the server across the house. Going to run a fiber line across the house. I am on the fence about buying or building a 10g sfp+ switch. I bought 3 x mellanox connect-x 3’s for cheap on ebay and soon might tackle building a switch using Vyos.

Would I build this rig again? yes. but no. but actually yes.

For the money. roughly $1300 I have 16c, 128gb ecc, 5tb nvme storage, 12tb hdd, dual 10g nics. and it idles at like 75w.

I would prefer to have an ATX asrock board like this itx board which has all the same features. ecc support, overclocking, 128gb dimm support, bifurcation but it doesn’t seem to be common or well documented. This board is a bit of a gem.

Just thought I’d share. Was a fun project and now is in 24/7 use. Photo dump below. Some in progress pics and some during testing.

[viperbite]

Some roadblocks i ran into with this build.

Bios was 1.10 and wouldnt post with xeon when I got it. Had to buy a cheap i7

Somehow I corrupted the UEFI from various flashes / reboots etc. Had to buy a new bios chip to fix this.

Tons of bifurcation hurdles. it hurts

I actually originally planned on running 4x 512gb intel h20 in a 4x4x4x4 riser but i could only ever get 2 to fully show up. Essentially it was allowing me to use 4x4x4x4 bifurcation for 4 devices but there were actually 8 devices since the m.2 in the h20 is split in an x2 x2 config. I planned on raid 0 the Optane together and use them for… whatever I wanted. idk. I wanted that Optane goodness but it was a waste of time.