New OMV Server Hardware Advice needed

  • Dear Community Members,


    I need your advice to build a cheap and reliable server to run OMV (and alternatively in the future NextCloud). I tried OMV on my RPI for a few days and I like it. Now I would like to pump it a bit more up. First I thought I should take the old HP notebook laying around here. But it is way too loud have it run 24/7 (and might consumes too much power). Here is what I already have:


    3x 2,5" 1TB SATA HDD in cases (1x USB 2.0, 2x in USB 3.0 and same model)
    1x 2,5" 250GB SATA HDD (old one from MacBook)
    2x DDR3 1GB SO-DIMM


    and the old notebook that I can take apart: HP Pavilion (1x 2,5" 320GB HDD; 2x 1GB DD2 SO-DIMM, Charger)


    I really want to keep it cheap and therefore use the old components here. Best the 3-5 harddrives (in any Raid combination) and the 2 GB DDR3 memory. My thought was to find an ITX case for the drives, get a cheap used ITX board with a soldered on CPU where I can put in the DDR3 SO-Dimms and a PSU.


    But maybe you have better ideas for me (in direction of less power consumption and less noise)?
    Thanks for your help!

  • My thought was to find an ITX case for the drives, get a cheap used ITX board with a soldered on CPU where I can put in the DDR3 SO-Dimms and a PSU


    Good luck with finding a motherboard that can cope with the RAM. Also I would compare prices of an ODROID-HC2 combined with a new 4TB HDD with what you want to assemble.

  • Get a Dell Optiplex 7010 full tower, has i5 supports 64GB ram dual channel, and GB Ethernet full size supports up to 4 or 6 sata 3 drives and uses Intel matrix storage controller, supports raid and uefi, I have a 7010 small form factor with 4GB ram DIMM not SO DIMM, BUT you can use a so dimm to dimm adapter

  • Do yourself a favor and get an itx mobo with an i3 or i5 or a Pentium G series which is probably the best value chip for an OMV box

    What the hell are you doing with OMV? Number crunching 24/7 or do you use OMV as NAS?


    In case it's the latter can you please do me a favour, download LanTest and provide a screenshot testing with 10GbE settings against your OMV box?

  • Thanks everyone of your replies. Sorry for the delay. was waiting to get an email for new responses. Dunno if I missed to subscribed to the thread. Anyway:


    Point is, I want to use the hardware I have laying around here. Otherwise I guess I will pump too much money in this project. I agree that a i3 or i5 would be too powerful and power consuming for an OMV, but offers the option for later upgrade to an NextCloud. I like the idea of assembling an ITX with an Pentium G. I think for me would be best to assemble an ITX in a not too big case with silent fans. Then I would be flexible for later upgrade (maybe I want to powerup the system to a whole server, when I build up more linux skills.) Any suggestions in that direction?


    Thanks alot!

  • Any suggestions in that direction?

    ODROID-HC2 with a new 4 TB HDD


    Assembling something more expensive wasting way more energy for no reason and being slower is an option too of course :)


    I bet 99.9% of all x86 based OMV installations are slower than this 'below 5W setup' and waste an awful lot more energy at the same time: http://kaiser-edv.de/tmp/gaaPo…09-01%20um%2009.08.22.png


    @jollyrogr: what about your tests? Any evidence for 'needing a beefy x86 CPU'?

  • @tkaiser, I have not run any tests. If I wanted to run a server on a SBC I guess I would have done so. I think trying to run multiple VM's and do snapraid (number crunching) on a SBC would be pretty frustrating. Is it possible to run 8 HDD's off an odroid?

  • I have not run any tests

    It's easy to test. Get LanTest and report back. Is your expensive x86 PC able to beat an el cheapo and energy efficient HC2? Most probably not :)

    Is it possible to run 8 HDD's off an odroid?

    No. There exist other ARM SBC that can do so (see here for example) but why would you want this? What's the purpose of 8 times spinning rust wasting energy?


    The thread starter talked about less than 4TB. You know that HDDs with that size are available for a long time?

  • The thread starter talked about less than 4TB. You know that HDDs with that size are available for a long time?

    guess I missed that part. I'm running lots of spinning rust for capacity. Maybe one of the SBCs can work for my NAS when cheap 30TB SSD's are available.

  • I really want to keep it cheap and therefore use the old components here. Best the 3-5 harddrives (in any Raid combination) and the 2 GB DDR3 memory. My thought was to find an ITX case for the drives, get a cheap used ITX board with a soldered on CPU where I can put in the DDR3 SO-Dimms and a PSU.

    You don't say where you are? If you are in the US/Canada, I know EBay is a likely place to find the older parts you'd need. Be aware that most ITX with soldered on CPUs have only two SATA connectors. To get the 3-5 connectors you want, a board with a socketed processor is more likely to have the SATA capacity you want.


    Be aware that your DDR3 is a limiting factor here, and isn't worth much in the first place. To reuse all your parts economically, I'd suggest you look for the Intel Ivy Bridge generation parts (known as Socket 1155 or H2) These parts aren't very expensive at the moment. The next newer generation (Haswell, known as Socket 1150 or H3) is still costing quite a bit more, especially the CPUs, Anything newer than Haswell probably won't work with the DDR3 you have. Intel offered G Series Pentiums in Ivy Bridge, along with i3, i5 and Celeron. You'll find the Pentiums are very inexpensive, with i3s and i5 not much more for this family at this point in time. There are, AMD options available in this older generation as well. But, I've found that the AMD options that are both ITX and have the number of SATA ports you need are not very energy efficient or economical to buy when compared to Intel of the same generation.


    That said, I agree with @tkaiser that a new SBC (Single Board Computer) solution may be more economical overall for both initial purchase and operation. Even though the SBCs have CPU and Memory included, so you wouldn't be able to use what you have on hand, the price of many of them can be less than a used x86 Motherboard and CPU. Plus, you have the advantage of new hardware. Something to at least heck prices on.

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