The hardware the nodes will use
Home Server Cluster 2025 index
Nowadays you have lots of options when building a PC, you can choose between Intel and AMD, within their lineup they have various generations and types (mobile, desktop, prof, server, etc.) and then you have various motherboard vendors, lots of different cases, power supplies, and the list goes on, what combination will get you what you need?
It’s hard to say what *you* need, below is what I think that, at the time of writing, is ideal for my situation to get a good combination of Performance, power usage and expandability.
High performance nodes
For this new cluster we’ll be looking at modern, fairly non-restricted hardware. What that means is that I don’t consider low-cost, very restricted low end hardware like the Intel N100 for instance. Although these are nice in their own right, they won’t allow the performance and options I want for these main nodes. They could however make an interested extra quorum node for the cluster though, since Proxmox does not require all nodes to be equally configured hardware wise.
My budget for the main nodes is around ~$1500 without considering the cost of the HDDs, no matter the hardware you buy, that cost is going to be the same.
High performance but efficient
One of the main goals of making this new cluster is to try and lower energy usage if possible vs my current setup. I’ve already gone into this a bit more in the previous article about how CPU performance vs power used has improved since 5 years ago in a previous article.
One of the interesting options that has become available in the recent years is some manufacturers starting to use Mobile chips in desktop motherboards. This combines great energy efficiency with still a good amount of performance being available.
The nodes I’m building for this cluster are already built around such a setup, most notably the MinisForum BD790i which offers everything we need both in performance and expandability to build some very high performance but still energy efficient nodes for a fairly low budget!
Hardware in a list
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Below will be the hardware used in list form, explanations about why this hardware was chosen will be in a different article where we’ll dive deeper into why exactly this selection. Please read through that well to understand the combination of components and what it does well or where it might be limited.
I will also have some extra articles which dive into some specifics even deeper such as Power usage and for instance, selection of power supply or NIC and how they affect power usage.
Main Hardware
- Motherboard
- Memory
- NVMe SSDs
- Case
- Power Supply
- Fans
- 1x CPU Phanteks T30
- 4x Case Noctua Redux PWM 92mm
Extra Hardware
- 1x PCIe Gen4 x16 Bifurcation card to 4x M.2
- M.2
- 2x NVMe Cooler (when using SE version motherboard)
- PSU cabling (when you don’t want to splice original cables)
- 4 pin cable (no buck converter)
- PCIe cable (using buck converter)
- Fan PWM splitter cables
- 2 pieces
- Fan cable guard
- Fan noise reduction
- Fan mounting washers
- 1x Washer kit (soft and/or hard kit, soft will work better for decoupling, but I used a mix of both)
- M2.5 CPU FAN screws
- 4x 35mm M2.5 screws (for 30mm T30 fan)
- Rubber feet blocks for the HDplex 250w GAN PSU
- Wire blocks
- Depends on using buck-converter or not but the following is good to have
- Buck-Converter (depends, see dedicated HDD power and wiring article)
- 12v to 5v – 15A or 20A model
- 50cm Molex extension cables (great quality!)
Extra hardware for external HDD cage
- 1x ASM1166 6x SATA controller M2
- 1x External HDD cage
- 1x 50cm Molex extension cable
- 1x Molex 1-to-2 splitter cable
- 1x 4/6/8p 1m SATA cable
Add-on NICs
- WiFi slot to 10Gbit adapter
- 1x A+E key to PCIe Gen4 x1 adapter (M52JF PCIe4.0x4, 15cm)
- 1x 10Gbit AQC113C 10Gbit adapter (with x1 Gen4 support, choose Macintosh compatible)
- Xikestor PCIE to Dual 10GbE + Dual M.2 adapter
Why this hardware?
I’ve always had an interest in building “cool” systems, finding the exact right components that fit together for the purpose but also matching them in regards to performance, although not so much looks. In the end to make something magical, something you might not have thought of initially but then think, damn, that’s awesome!
Ok, to read more, please go to do the dedicated hardware explanation article.