Intro
It’s been a while since I’ve built my current home lab. It’s based on Lenovo M910t. In general, I’m quite happy but it’s lacking expansion flexibility.
So I’m looking for a replacement. Below my notes from research and calculations of total cost.
New system components
Cost estimation.
| Component | Description | Price [PLN] |
|---|---|---|
| Case | - Fractal Design Define R5 👍 - be quiet! Silent Base 800 - Phanteks Enthoo Pro | 439 |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X | 3365 |
| Motherboard | MSI X399 SLI PLUS | 1290 |
| RAM | - 48GB from old PC - 16GB - Crucial 2400 Total: 64 GB (with option for expansion up to 128 GB) | 630 |
| PSU | SeaSonic Focus Plus Platinum 650W (SSR-650PX) | 478 |
| HDD | PC - 2x 2TB from the old (ZFS root, RAID1) - 1x 4TB from the old + 2x 4TB new (ZFS storage1, RAID5) Total: 2+8 = 10 GB HDD On-demand backups - 1x 2TB from the old (backup, via old USB dock) | 880 |
| SSD | - 256GB from the old (zfs storage2-ssd) | 0 |
| M.2 | - 256GB from the old (ZFS cache) | 0 |
| CPU Cooler | - Noctua NH-U12S TR4-SP3 - Arcetic Freezer 33 TR 👍 | 170 |
| Video card | Used one from ebay or Allegro | 35 |
| Delivery | 20 | |
| Total [PLN] / [USD] | 7307 [PLN] 1964 [USD] |
Considerations
- Do I really need 16-cores/32-threads AMD 1950X? Perhaps 12-cores/24-threads 1920X for 2699 PLN (1k less!) would be sufficient?
- CPU cooling fans may not have enough clearance to populate all 8 RAM sockets? Answer here.
- Is it possible to use 6 RAM DIMMs? User guide says that allowed configurations are 1, 2, 4 & 8. This forum thread advises that any even number of DIMMs is perfectly supported.
- Cases
- 8x 3.5” HDD case or 6x 3.5” HDD + 3x 5.25” bays for my old Icy Docks bay?
- What’s the min width to fit 155mm-high CPU cooling? Phanteks Enthoo Pro can fit max 193 mm cooling -> OK
References
- Cases
- PSU
- https://outervision.com/b/PoX7fi – PSU calculations, min 500 W
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus
- Cases
Does the CPU cooler has enough clearance for all RAM DIMMs?
Tech It Out was kind enough to provide this response and the photo on the MoBo I’m interested (MSI X399):
And how does it look on the picture:
Sample quotations
From Morele.net
From x-kom.pl
Summary
After deeper deliberations (it’s hell lot of money! And I’m completely self-funded… Also Threadripper 2 is about to be released on August) I decided:
- Immediately buy 2x 4 TB WD Blue disks and replace my Storage1 pool 3x 2 TB → 3x 4 TB which should give me enough disk space
- Wait till August and see how (and if) release of new CPUs and MB chipset X399 change the situation.
Regardless of all, this was quite interesting exercise!
New home virtualisation lab