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Joe
11-10-2010, 12:29 PM
For the helluva it I thought I'd post something.

I recently went to another tier in my home server setup. Being that I do still focus on virtualization as part of my job... and am expanding into desktop virt and such I needed a bit more horse power behind the scenes.

So after watching and pricing out a billion configs on Newegg, I finally pulled the trigger and built myself a hot lil rig.

The machine runs Server 2008 and Hyper-V only, no other roles/services are on it and everything else is in various VMs. This server complements my existing 2 host Hyper-V cluster for demo purposes.


My previous rig was a Q9300 @3Ghz with 16GB of ram, it did well, but this new righ is f'n ballistic compared to it.

The rig:


Case - Lian Li PC-A70F Chassis. This thing had the room I needed to expand storage later on, and also fit what I needed to put in there.

Mobo - SuperMicro X8DT3-LN4F - Dual Xeon W/ onboard 8 port LSI SAS headers, 4 Gbit NIC's (Intel Server class offloading NICs that support VMq), and 12 ram slots. Sporting the Intel 5520 chipset.

CPUs- 2x Intel Xeon E5620 (Westmere-EP) processors. Running at stock speeds (2.4Ghz) 4 core w/ HT. So 16 logical threads. Running Intel HSF's that are PWM'd by the Mobo and are almost silent most of the time. I went with the Westmere due to the fact they are cool running and still fast as hell. (and 12MB cache)

Ram -24GB Kingston (4GB chips, 6 of em, ECC, Registered) much room for expansion!


Everything else was recycled from the old server.
Internal storage is 6x 1TB hd's (4 in a RAID 0 array, 2 in a RAID 1 array), and then there are 6x 250GB 2.5" drives in a RAID 10 array.

Then 5x 3.5" bays filled with 3x 250GB drives in a RAID 0, and 1x 750GB for a library disk, and 1x 1TB drive for nightly backups of some important VM's and data.

Disk controllers are:
Areca 1230 12x SATA hardware RAID controller with 1GB cache and BBU.
Adaptec 1430SA - 4x SATA controller (this was put in because there were issues with the intel onboard SATA ports, the mobo is being RMA'd to fix that)
LSI 1680 oboard SAS controller 8x SAS/SATA ports.

Oh and an unused CrystalFontz 635 was put in just for shits and giggles. Shows some fun stats like data flow through the VM switch, current per CPU averages for all the cores utilization and the current CPU Mhz at any given time. The machine is stashed in a closet so I never see the CF display anyway ;)

I have an iSCSI SAN also running in the env leveraging a small Foxconn Atom nettop PC running Windows Storage Server 2008 R2. Works OK, but is a bit slow.

ben333
11-10-2010, 12:41 PM
Holy shit Joe... that's quite a machine you've built there... Very impressive, i'm sure that gets the job done.

You wouldn't by any chance be wanting to sell your old parts from the previous build, would you?

It's kinda funny, I haven't been on here in a good while but I just came on and saw your last post (this one) was 10 mins ago.

Joe
11-10-2010, 01:45 PM
Nope all the hardware shuffled around and down through my other systems. the Q9300 is my workstation now, my workstation board is now my HTPC board, and the only hardware I have left that is unknown on where it will end up is a Core 2 Duo E5200 on a Gigabyte P35 Mobo.

the jew (raven)
12-05-2010, 11:40 PM
A most impressive rig. Though, benchmarks of some kind are most certainly in order :drool:

Joe
12-06-2010, 12:55 PM
Possibly... the machine is already handling a good bit of virtualization work, so not sure when I'll get around to benchmarking anything.

It is a beast though. The machine runs like a clock, and hasnt given me the least of issues no matter what I throw at it!

Joe
12-06-2010, 12:58 PM
Oh and the next upgrade for the box is going to be a new Video card... something that has some punch to it. Reason is, I want to leverage the RemoteFX capabilities in the Hyper-V env. VM's can access the GPU and CUDA cores of the vid cards as of SP1 for Windows 2008 R2. Killer cool tech for doing some desktop virt at that point.

Joe
11-12-2014, 06:56 PM
Hey I was seeing if the website was actually running anymore or if some chineese hackers had taken it over yet and figure I would post that I upgraded that server to new CPUs.

http://www.jk720.net/post/94759096859/today-i-did-one-of-the-first-performance-upgrade

it is now rocking X5650's , It also has 48GB of ram right now (looking at doubling that coming up), and roughly 25TB of disk in it, with 2 Areca raid controllers. It's nice how this box just keeps getting more capable as time goes on.

zoson
01-08-2015, 08:23 PM
I see you forgot the following absolutely necessary components:
Radiator
Pump
Waterblocks
Tubing
Hoseclamps
Coolant

ben333
02-01-2015, 11:51 AM
I see you forgot the following absolutely necessary components:
Radiator
Pump
Waterblocks
Tubing
Hoseclamps
Coolant

:nod:

What's happening Joe? Nice hardware! I wish I had a need, or even use for more than a core 2 duo lol.

My main box is an i5 CPU (don't even know which one haha, maybe a 750), 4 GB RAM, 250 GB SSD, and a Radeon HD 6850... more than I need.

Had to rekindle an old fantasy... building me another dual athlon MP rig...

MSI K7D Master
2x MP 2200+ chips (both NEW IN BOX, for $35 shipped)
4 GB Registered DDR
Dell PERC 4
2x 15,000 RPM 36 GB Ultra 320 drives
And, a GeForce 7800 GS

And yes, I'd like to liquid cool it... Sorry for the thread jack