Recommended Hardware To Start Or Expand Your Homelab. Budget and Premium Options.

[@User-ec2bh]

Build a new server a few weeks ago. After a lot of reading I chose the R5 4650G. The whole server runs at

[@Jims-Garage]

Thanks, that's some seriously impressive idle figures! How is GPU performance and compatability with common services such as Plex/Jellyfin?

[@User-ec2bh]

@@Jims-Garage I personally don't use these yet so can't say anything about performance. From what I've read people use it without problems for Plex/Jellyfin. Compatability is fine, as it got hardware support for everything but AV1 encoding.

[@berightback1456]

Love this video idea, nice to see Although, I would check other alternatives to NUC in AIO category since there is a lot of options (for example Beelink GTR series or Minisforum UM790 devices that eat NUC in performance part with lower price when you account for ram and drives or their older models like SER5 that are best buy IMO)

[@Jims-Garage]

Thanks 👍 it's hard to fit everything in but I agree, there are some great options out there.

[@PolybiusArcadia]

i saw your video on gluetun and used your arrstack compose. thank you!!!

[@Jims-Garage]

Awesome, you're welcome 😁

[@PicSta]

Personally, I think the budget friendly option you're recommending is more than enough for a few VMs and LXCs. Of course, this won't be a gaming lab for your home. Then I would prefer AMD to Intel, even I am much more an Intel fan. With AMD, you can make use of ECC memory support, what is important if you want to virtualize a NAS with one of the newer file systems, such as ZFS. Although, you mentioned a mainboard that doesn't support ECC memory, if I read correctly. Also, more power often means more power consumption, think of that before your next electricity bill flies in.

[@Jims-Garage]

I agree, the budget option is still powerful. It's amazing to see the advancement of high core counts on entry level CPUs.

[@diacritic8508]

MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk WIFI feels a bit pricey over $300+ for its features, I'd be interested why you would pick the Tomahawk over the PRO MSI motherboards. With the PRO Z690-A WIFI you basically get the same features (one less SATA ports and one out of 4 M.2s being PCIe 3.0) for half the price of the Tomahawk. Even if one out of 4 M.2s being PCIe 3.0 is not good enough, the Tomahawk still costs $100 more than the PRO Z790-A WIFI for that one extra SATA port. SATA ports come cheap with an HBA and not sure if odd number ie. 7 SATA ports are that useful either.

[@Jims-Garage]

It's a good argument, but this is my premium section and sometimes the extra m.2 and sata are worth it, plus I've heard good things about iommu lanes. I'd probably go for the budget mobo or workstation board though.

[@diacritic8508]

​@@Jims-Garage Something to consider: your budget pick MSI MAG B660M MORTAR DDR4 costs about the same as a PRO Z690-A WIFI and those two are night and day in terms of features. In fact I think it's hard to recommend mATX for homelabbing, because mATX is about limiting storage and connectivity and those are arguably the things you need most. For the premium of double price I'd expect something substantial eg. 2 PCIe x16 slots that can both operate at x8, because that allows 2 discrete graphics cards or one GPU along with one 2 port 10G NIC that is actually a game changer for your machine, but not something you find in the $200 Z690 price range.

[@CaseyHancocki3luefire]

show us the fan modification process for the rackmount servers to make them quiet

[@Jims-Garage]

OK, I'll add that to the schedule, thanks.

[@Flon22]

I've been speccing my first proper home server in the past week, so perfect timing, thanks! I've been toying with the idea of putting an r730 in my insulated loft, but it's above a bedroom. Just how quiet can you get one with noctua fans?

[@Jims-Garage]

You can get it pretty quiet using a simple command that sets fans to max 10% speed. That sounds low but it's still surprisingly effective. However, I don't know what you're doing load wise, plus lofts tend to get very hot in the summer. You'd probably be better off buying some cheap sound proof foam, or going for a workstation build.

[@mgproryh]

I feel like if your going Ryzen why are you not taking advantage of the fact that every asrock mobo b550 upwards supports unbuffered ECC. At least thats what im doing. It will cost you extra for the ram for sure. But we're talking a build in the region of £500-800 depending on exactly what you buy, the extra £30 per stick ish, probably worthit imo! Just one to note for those going ryzen. If you wish to pair this with an APU it must be a pro series. Cex has plenty by the way

[@Jims-Garage]

@@mgproryh thanks. I cover these exact points in my Ryzen Pro NAS build.

[@dmbrv]

Awesome video.

[@Jims-Garage]

Thanks 👍

[@Dreamwoodinternational]

Ok, after adding up the cost of putting all new (budget) kit in my old Antec case, the cost is way more than an R730! Then I stumbled on a channel that covers the things I might need to know about the care and feeding of an R730. Here is a link for your followers who may want to use this box: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y17WgIeqZdSpqLssi=g4KZhKPzaSmWX42M

[@Jims-Garage]

Get a v4 with 128GB ddr4

[@Dreamwoodinternational]

@@Jims-Garage I am looking at well spec'd V3 for less than Aus$1k

[@kevinhughes9801]

Very informative video thanks for sharing

[@Jims-Garage]

You're welcome

[@bobsmith-dn1xw]

Where is the next episode in this mini series?

[@Jims-Garage]

@@bobsmith-dn1xw I'm due to do one soon. It's been too long, but many of those items are still valid IMO.

[@Dirizabl]

Great video! Btw, why are you not recommending ZimaBoards? Is it because it is overhyped or something else?

[@Jims-Garage]

I have nothing serious against the device or company, I just think there are much better alternatives. Zimaboards are sugar coated landfill IMO (which I'm all for in terms of recycling), just not at those prices... It's a 7 year old CPU designed for mobile devices. You can pick up whole desktops from that era for the same price with more horsepower and expansion.

[@bradley1125]

Hiya! I’m thinking of buying a dell R730. You may think I’m mad but the only place it can go is in my bedroom. I’ve read online about mods in regards to changing all fans to noctua. Has anybody done this and would this be possible. The guides I’ve seen are using the R510. Kind regards in advanced

[@darthkielbasa]

0:22 what’s this zimaboard you’re speaking about? 😅

[@Jims-Garage]

Haha 🤫

[@raduboboc]

Does anybody know how these asus server enterprise boards handle lots of memory? I want to go with 128Gb of ram or higher and everything I read about this is don't do it, you will have problems with 4x sticks and big capacity. Is there a motherboard recomadation for more than 128Gb of ram?

[@Jims-Garage]

More than 128GB you're going to need enterprise kit. Xeon, threadripper or epyc.

[@raduboboc]

@Jims-Garage Would you be so kind to recommend me something not super expensive? I am looking for a new homelab server that can: - support 4xSata drives of 14Tb each, that I already own. ( some older controllers do not support higher density drives) - support one or two nvme ssd's ( directly attach to the motherboard or via an pcie adapter) - can support more than 128Gb or ram ( reliably, not like end user motherboards that will generate a lot of problems if you populate all slots with high density ram) - doesn't have a high power consumption on idle like many old cpu's have. And that's important because 90% of the time the server is idling and consuming lot's of current for nothing. - doesn't cost more than 1500 Euros that is my max budget. - doesn't sound like a rocket like 1u or 2u servers do :) So far I was looking at a Dell PowerEdge T440 which is hard to find, or kind of expensive, or has kind of a low performance xeon cpu's I just saw your recommended hardware youtube clip and realise that there are other options that I don't know about, so if you have some ideas please tell me what other options do I have ?

[@Jims-Garage]

@@raduboboc lots of options to be honest, that's a really healthy budget. My dell r730 fits the bill mostly. Fans can be settled to an acceptable level, power draw isn't too bad. Has space for loads of SSD and plenty of PCIe lanes. Otherwise look at supermicro workstation boards, 2nd gen epyc.

[@raduboboc]

@Jims-Garage I've read somewhere in Dell documentation that the R730 is not able to see hdd bigger than 8Gb and mine are definitely bigger. Also R730 doesn't have te option to boot from nvme discs natively but only with some tricks like clover/duet-refind, and I wasn't able to acutally verify that they actually work on this system. So the minimum generation that I can touch is R740 or the much quieter T440 that has nvme boot support, bigger hdd drives support, and better hardware in general. Thanks for your recommendation, I will take a look now at supermicro workstation boards and maybe I can find something better that T440

[@Jims-Garage]

@@raduboboc assume you mean drives bigger than 8TB? If so, you'll struggle to find SSD bigger than that anyway, and it has 15 slots. My r730 boots off a mirrored SSD, with all VMs running on quad nvme.

[@vboutique2188]

Would an a9 9400 with 8gb ram and 128gb ssd enough for a home lab?

[@Jims-Garage]

Fine, albeit set expectations accordingly. A couple of VMs max with that much ram and disk space.

[@vboutique2188]

@@Jims-Garage I've never setup servers before. I had thought of Wazuh or pf sense, pie hole, Sage Recipe, and Jellyfin or Kodi. Can that much run on one system?

[@javiesteban4510]

What do you think about i7 8700 processor using for server???

[@AlbertoDeDiego]

What’s the use case ?

[@javiesteban4510]

@@AlbertoDeDiego now I have an Intel gold 5600 using with true nas scale and I want to use the same motherboard so i7 8700k its a good idea.

[@AlbertoDeDiego]

@javiesteban4510 it's going to be a great upgrade, but you might not see any benefit unless your use case is cpu dependant. Are you just storing and serving files? Streaming media and multi user stuff? Want to run virtual machines? The only real drawbacks to upgrading would be wasting money on a better cpu for no reason and drawing more power from the wall.

[@javiesteban4510]

@@AlbertoDeDiego serving files, plex, cliudflare, etc...

[@Jims-Garage]

That's a good CPU for a homelab, it'll be able to run plenty of containers etc.

[@unmesh59]

Intel recently announced they are getting out of the NUC business

[@Jims-Garage]

Yes, I mentioned that in the video. I believe Asus will be the first 3rd party vendor. Interesting to see what they can do.