I have a server with desktop hardware (microATX motherboard and Core Ultra 7 265K CPU) which I use to run a Minecraft server. Its current physical location isn’t ideal, so I’d like to put it in a rack mount chassis and move it to a server room I have access to through my university. However rack space in the room is limited, so it would be best if I can fit it into a 1U space.
From what I’ve heard the biggest issue with 1U is cooling, especially as the 265K can draw up to 250W. It seems like 1U microATX chassis do exist, like this one, but they don’t look like they have good airflow, and I’m not sure where I would get a short enough heatsink. Could I realistically make 1U work, and if so what should I look for in terms of hardware? Or am I going to have to go with 2U?
The 1U system I had, the heatsinks have been fanless and not the extruded aluminum block one usually thinks of, but an assembled stack of much thinner, more rigid fins. It relied on airflow from fans mounted in the middle of the case, between the mobo and disks, shrouded to focus that airflow. I want to say 2x40mm fans per processor.
You should expect a 1U system to run hotter than a desktop, and definitely hotter than cooler advertisers want. CPUs are designed to operate up to 100°C or so, and the constraints that lead people to use 1U form factors generally include replacing those systems regularly, basically because of burnout.
I’ve been down this rabbit hole and it’s not a good option for standard matx or mini itx. Best I did was get a supermicro board and a supermicro 1u half-depth chassis. It was OK for a while, but the HDDs did not cool off very well.
I’ve now not got a nas just as fast with a radxa rock 2a, a penta sata hat, some FPC cables between them and some cable bodging in a jonsbo n1 case. Drives are happy, less power consumed.
In all my research most cases for standard hardware are 4u and when you try to get down to 1u or 2u you spend a lot of time/money trying to fit it. I would look into buying dedicated server like a dell r6xx series box and going from there you’d honestly save money and headache.
A typical server unfortunately won’t work for my use case, as Minecraft servers are highly single threaded workloads and desktop CPUs are just far better than server CPUs in that regard.
You must have a lot of people and/or some heavy mods. I haven’t had much issues with 3-4 people on a VM with a Xeon E5-2690 2.90GHz
Is it doable? Probably. A quick search shows that your
professorprocessor appears to be an LGA1851 socket type. https://www.newegg.com/p/0SS-0236-01835This should work, but please verify your own details first!
Otherwise, if you have a chassis in mind already, go for it. If you feel comfortable moving it to actual server-grade hardware,
www.labgopher.com(turns out that site is gone, a place called rack rat had taken its place, but I have not used it) can help you find something hopefully very cheap that you could scrap or repurpose.The biggest advantage with server-grade components is the fans and power supplies are designed with that environment in mind. The 40mm fans in 1u racks are very nearly airplane levels of loud. 20k rpm kind of fans. That’s how they solve the airflow problem, they don’t have noise rules.
Hope that helps!
I would hope you are not putting a professor in a 1u chassis, that sounds kinda mean
I think servers in 1U config are called blades. CPU and all. Pretty sure they’re loud.
No blades are different they are small full compute modules that go into a large backplane chassis https://www.supermicro.com/sites/default/files/2018-11/8U_SuperBlade.png
That heatsink says it’s rated for up to 125W, which I’m not sure will be enough for the 265K (Intel says 250W at max boost). I don’t have a specific chassis in mind; the one I linked was just one I found with a quick search. I haven’t purchased server hardware before so I’m not really sure what to look for. Do you think buying a generic microATX compatible chassis and a similar heatsink (higher rated power if I can find one), then adding a ton of high RPM fans and possibly some custom airflow guides to get very high airflow through the heatsink would work?
I can’t go with a server grade mobo/CPU as Minecraft servers need very high single threaded performance which you can only really get with desktop CPUs (at least at non-insane prices).
The main limitation in a 1U chassis is the size of the heatsink + fan. They’re typically 80x80mm width/length, and the height is very small. You get 45mm for the whole case so you have to work with a slim (15mm) 80x80 fan and a tiny heatsink that’s 10mm or so. So they have to work at 5000rpm and put out 60dB of noise but even so they’re typically only rated for 80-100W.
I other words I really don’t think it’s worth bothering for a 250W draw. If you can get a 2U space yeah, that gives you much better cooling options.
A water cooling block will fit 1U, but you will need to attach the other side of the water cooler outside of the rack most likely. Furthermore, it is unlikely that other people using the same rack space will appreciate you adding water cooling due to spillage risks.
Don’t even suggest it to the datacenter people. They will laugh at you.
So you’re saying that the current Minecraft servers are all running on desktop hardware and not on standard U-chassis servers in racks in data centers?
If anything I’d expect them to run virtualized on standard rack servers.
Something here doesn’t add up. I don’t buy that enterprise server hardware that can out-perform desktop hardware by orders of magnitude can’t do what you need - especially since that’s surely how the existing servers run.
If this single-threading performance is really an issue, run some kind of virtualization on a rack server, build a VM with the exact hardware config you need, and the host hardware will make it happen (which I’d bet is exactly how current servers are run, because then they can be moved/Load balanced dynamically without missing a beat).
I currently have both single-core, single-cpu VM’s and multi-core, multi-cpu VM’s running on the same host for test purposes. The VM has no idea it’s virtual hardware is actually run on a different multi-cpu/core host.
Check out xcp-ng - it’s arguably the best open source virtualization platform today. VMware server can definitely do this, if you have a license.
