Motherboard Advice Required: Use my existing DDR3 h/w or migrate to DDR4 for low cost, low power homeserver?

ssouthall6

Trash Compacter
Original poster
Jun 18, 2020
50
18
Hi all

This forum has been great in helping me put together a nice little Deskmini A300 build which I'm now happy with. Nice to see a welcoming forum for noobs!

On the server side, I currently have an HP Microserver N40L that is starting to creak a little and is my next upgrade project. It runs Data Centre 2019 surprisingly well but I've more or less decided I need to go down the Debian route, learn Docker etc, and no longer need Active Directory and Hyper-V, which is why I had WHS 2019 DC running in the first place.

Is there any mileage in a DDR3 build? I'm thinking ITX mobo/APU combo (DDR3 equivalent to the J4105-I/-M), or even individual combinations with an ultra low TDP I can chuck in there just for backups, DNS + DHCP server, HASS, web server, etc? In my spares box I have a Kolink Satellite, a load of crucial SSD's and about 16gb of DDR3, so wouldn't mind putting them to some use, as I can't seem to shift them on Ebay. There's no requirement for transcoding, although I do run Plex and Axis Device Manager amongst other things on my N40L currently.

Or option 2, am I best off holding out and upgrading to DDR4? Option 3 - I'd get, and am open to, a Pi4, but the lack of storage profile means an SFF is probably the best bet.

I lost track of AMD builds between FM1 and Ryzen, and am completely new to Intel builds, my last non-AMD build being a 486 DX2/66, so please bear with me.

Any advice or guidance appreciated. Thanks!