I'm looking to build a small factor server around the ASRock Deskmini X300M-STX. My uses cases are running VMs for learning Kubernetes and machine learning, storing files, web development and running a couple of services I need for myself such as Plex or Jellyfin.
The components I've come up with are the following, with the reasoning behind it:
Thanks in advance for any input and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
The components I've come up with are the following, with the reasoning behind it:
- ASRock Deskmini X300M-STX
It seems like the best alternative when trying to minimize cost and physical volume. - AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G 8 cores, 16 threads, Radeon Vega 8, 7nm
Many cores and threads useful for running a bunch of VMs. Somewhat powerful integrated GPU for GPU based workloads. Will undervolt the CPU. Ryzen Pro has DASH for remote management which I'm interested in trying out combined with Pi KVM (see further down). - Alpenföhn Black Ridge CPU cooler
Already had this one. Hopefully it'll be able to cool the Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G without a fan once undervolted. Otherwise I'll get a larger cooler. Will require some modification to the X300M-STX case. - 2x Micron MTA18ASF4G72HZ-3G2B1 DDR4 3200 MHz ECC SO-DIMM
ECC for protection against data corruption. 3200 MHz is the fastest ECC SO-DIMM memory I could find. Hopefully I can overclock it a little bit at least. And even more hopefully it'll work with the X300M-STX, will be interesting to try out. - SAMSUNG 970 Plus NVMe SSD 2TB
Found it cheap during Black Friday. Samsung seems to be good enough at making SSDs. - 2x SAMSUNG 870 QVO SATA3 SSD 4TB
QLC may not be the fastest SSDs around, but they are cheap and quiet. Good enough for me! Not sure if I'm going to mirror these or rely solely on 3-2-1 backup and running these striped or as individual disks. - Intel X520-DA1 10GbE SFP+ via ADT-Link M.2 Key M to PCI Express x4
I have both of these already, so I might as well make use of them. Intel X520 seems decent enough and ADT-Link seems to be the go-to for M.2 to PCI Express adapters. - Google Coral M.2 Accelerator with Dual Edge TPU
Low power, low cost dual TPU for machine learning inference. Makes use of the M.2 Key E slot on the X300M-STX. - SAMSUNG FIT Plus USB 3.1 Flash Drive 128GB
Small and simple USB boot drive. - Raspberry Pi Zero based IPMI
Since the X300M-STX obviously has no IPMI support, I'm going to add it using PiKVM running on a Raspberry Pi Zero. I have a Lusya HDMI to CSI-2 adapter I'm not using, and I'm interested in trying to develop a plugin to make PiKVM work with the DASH based remote power management features of the AMD Ryzen Pro. That way I can skip all the soldering.
Thanks in advance for any input and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.