Tower Server Hardware Advice Wanted
I'm looking to build a tower server for all sorts of game servers such as Minecraft, ARK: Survival Evolved/Ascended, Project Zomboid, etc. It will also be used for minor home lab stuff. Basically, I just want a hunk of a server all to myself.
However, my main use case for it will be hosting custom modpacks for Minecraft. I plan on having a peak player count of 24-32, and the packs tend to have roughly 150-200 mods, with a fair amount of time dedicated towards optimizing with the standard optimization mods and scripts. Although, the occasional ATM8+ pack might be thrown in for giggles.
Part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VQX9wY
I do plan on adding more RAM to it, for a total of 192GB in the future, as well as more storage as needed.
I do like the idea of having a 9900X for big flex power, but I'm wondering if it's a little overkill.
As for my general knowledge, I'm rather inexperienced when it comes to messing with server hardware and software, and I'm currently learning about server stuff like Plex, Pterodactyl, Virtualization, and other terms I'm learning by the day.
Does anyone have any positive/negative opinions on this list or my logic/methodology?
I am looking for any feedback, as I wish to learn as much as I can before making any purchases.
Part List - AMD Ryzen 9 9900X - PCPartPicker
Part List - AMD Ryzen 9 9900X
108 Replies
do you have the bandwidth for that many players?
i’d suggest a better cpu cooler
9900X under load can get hot
What kind of bandwidth would I be looking for? I currently have 300mbps down and 40mbps up
And it's mostly unused, as it will be in a different building than my home
:thonk: i’m not sure tbf
:WipingSweat:
maybe 500 would do on upload
the upload iirc is what matters a good amount
o boy
I seem to be nowhere near that amount
yeahhh
large home labs aren’t suggested
small ones are fun
but this
you’d rather get a dedicated machine
or colocate
What do you mean by dedicated machine and colocate? My first thought is that dedicated machine would refer to just the server
dedicated machine = server = what ur building
colocate = putting your machine inside a datacenter that handles
- electricity
- bandwidth
- other stuff you’d need
and you pay the cost + some fees they add
roughly 80-100 a month based on what you want
I didn't even know that was an option 👀
very much is
but you can’t just chuck a regular pc in there
Quite the cost for someone like me, though, since I don't plan to profit off of the server in any way
https://elcrodigital.com/
this place would be good for you if you’d go with anything
Elcro Digital
Your trusted provider of premium hosting solutions. Explore our wide range of services designed to meet your needs.
that’s fair
Darn, I guess my plan isn't really too feasible then. Just lacking the bandwidth.
somewhat yes
but
depends what your kw/hr cost is
you’d probs be paying that fee either way lol
It's pretty low, from what I can tell. 0.12 USD per kwh
let’s test then
:ExuStare:❓
22.70 a month
Notbad
yes you are buying a 650 for 300 watts. but it’ll still need 650 watts as the PSU has capacitors to charge
Ah, I see
if for any reason it ran 100% it’ll cost 56 a mo th
if it’s running at 100% pray
Sounds spooky
I assume that, if I were confident in the power ceiling, I would be better off with a lower wattage PSU?
you would be, since you dont really need so much power, unless you are going to add a gpu if you wanna run jellyfin or something
jellyfin = homebrew streaming service. very Legal :hmm:
but fun tool
I don't plan on streaming things, but it sounds interesting
i run one, its pretty fun ngl
no lag, no downtime, not a ton of Buffering etc
all from germany to nyc lol
Oh that's wild
free software
That looks pretty cool
Though I still don't really watch movies/shows
very anyways back on topic
Yes yes :NODDERS:
same i just have it for fun and other people
the knowledge things your going to be learnign is good
Pterodactyl is great,
Plex is eh if you really want their features its good but jelly fin better :RemWink:
virtualization is good to learn too, docker is important to learn. but also learn things like reverse proxies mainly Caddy and Nginx
192gb isnt really overkill either, i was gonna get 192 for my home :lol:
If I downscale some of the power (9900X lmao), I could probably get a good low cost homelab going. It seems like my plan for a Minecraft server hosting machine seems rather infeasible, though.
Unless I somehow pull several hundred mbps upload out of nowhere
i dont assume your isp offers mirrored speeds?
mirrored being if you get 300 down, you get 300 up as well
my isp (Verizon) offers that so i have 500/500
I use Spectrum and Spectrum Business, so I doubt it
i see
your milage may vary by a ton 😭
Sounds like it lol
btw odd quesiton, how did you join admincraft?
It was a bit of a rabbit hole for me, being interested in playing modded packs with friends. I then started talking with some friends more knowledgeable in server stuff, and the idea of acquiring my own hardware came up.
Eventually they started showing off their setups at home, and I became rather taken by the idea of having a generalized server with the performance available for higher-end use cases.
Lots of reddit thread and forum searches didn't have inquiries or discussions close enough to my specific needs, so I ended up finding admincraft from a google search, since I figured it would have experienced and knowledgeable people I could learn from
interesting
let me bug you rq
Shor
Doesnt sound business, most isps are not happy about hosting on residential plans
Oof 💀
Also selfhosting has more issues with routing than with servers in a dc
This
And security issues
Modded ddos prot also isnt fun
These people are crazy, you see a lot of people with homelabs but it's not really as much a homelab at their stage
Most of them have redundant power and have hired at the minimum a dedicated line at verizon, which alone is like $300/m minimum, so colocating is cheaper
Eh just recieving real ips part ig
Wild, here dedicated line is 170 for 10 gbit
With who?
Tdc erhverv
Keep in mind verizon is a T1 so
Wth is that
Not us*
Ah
Well i mean you can probably find some scuffed reseller of a reseller offering similar prices in US
But yk verizon is like the most popular because it's a T1 and has big coverage
Not sure if 10g is $300 or less tho, id have to check
10gb uplink for only 10usd extra
Would you explain the difficulty and why would it matter? I'm a bit of a young grasshopper when it comes to network stuff.
You might be right. One of them has a few racks from their job, and has performed an experiment in the past where they became a service provider for a few households.
Not a super good one, I don't think, but it was something
Connection issues basically
Ah
I should probably check later today what the actual speeds are for the other building
Been years since I've checked
pretty cheap ngl
would i really need 10gbps, maybe not. would it be cool. absolutely
Gta 5 download test on it 🧌
Not necessarily, and in reality probably not. A PSU rated for 650 watts isn't constantly drawing 650 watts, that 650 is the amount it can safely deliver into the computer. It can be drawing anywhere from 0 to around 800 from the wall. A decent amount of power is lost as heat in a PSU, the 80+ marking on them and various efficiency levels are all about how efficient the PSU is, how much power is lost between drawing it from the wall and getting it into your computer
As a general rule of thumb most PSUs are most efficient when running at around 50% load and worst efficiency is below 10% and above 90% loads. Generally I don't worry much about this but for something you want to run 24/7 it's worth looking a bit deeper IMO, you can end up with surprising differences in your electricity bill. For a 300W expected draw something in the 550-650 watt range is probably going to near the top of the efficiency curve, and it might be worth going for a reputable gold+ PSU over something cheaper. It's all math, you can figure out when you'd break even on a bigger upfront cost and so on. Tom's Hardware has a long guide on this if you're curious https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/psu-buying-guide,2916-3.html
ty Koth explained it better then i ever could :SCbopflower:
I will look into this. Thank you for the info.
Update: ISP is dumb and didn't give me the proper router. I should be able to have 400 up and down within the next few days. :hypeE:
Its still residential
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oop, I meant for residential yeah
My business seems to have 1.5gbps up and down, and I have no idea where I got my other numbers from
Networking isnt all about the Speed
I'm a bit lost
Please bear with me, as I'm new to this and still learning
wait a sec i cant find a speedtest server that can handle my uplink
okay gsl is close enough
If this were singlehomed cogent, the speed wouldnt really matter
I see that there's something about jitter being high in the download, but I'm not sure what to get from this
Nah i was just flexing dual 40G uplinks, but i meant Speed isnt the only important thing, if this was using a Single T1 or so... 5/10g elsewhere would be better
let me try a better example
o
What would I be looking for other than speed? I didn't know there were other important factors
Gimme a sec
for an example
im trying to find a mc server that isnt on cloudflare
Here, see... this is the same destination (Cubecraft) from different providers, as you can see the path your traffic takes is different
By default residential isps already add like 3-4 hops due to being behind nat
every hop more is a "stop" your traffic takes and an extra oportunity for something to go wrong
Ah, I can sort of see how that would be undesirable
Are there easily accessible methods to control this?
No you dont really control it, thats why we are saying speed isnt everything
o no
your internet provider doesnt have access to the entire world of internet as you can obviously assume
so they purchase traffic from T1's (defined as a network that can reach the entire internet without paying for transit)
So if you have a lot of hops, you're just stuck with the iffy pathing?
"Cheap" or "Budget" providers love Cogent and HE (because they are cheap... and bad)
So basically they purchase all their traffic through a single provider which is not good
Yeah kinda, which is why we are saying its still residential
Ah, I see
residential networks have NAT, (over)shared bandwidth, (over)shared routers, (over)shared switches and usually very bad connections to T1s
They dont have any SLA, they limit packets, they will just drop/change upstreams with no regard for the customer going for the cheapest one, which results on added hops and bad routes that add latency/cause packet loss
So even if you have one of those ISPs that provide 10gbit/s residential service, it is likely you will end up having network issues
Yikes
I'm hoping it's not a major issue for smaller scale servers between 12-20 friends
Specially those ones with 10gbit for like $20, because to provide so cheap pricing they usually purchase transit from resellers that resell from resellers
Bruh.
Yeah it certainly wont really
your friends wont complain about spikes/high ping/etc
well.... wait
Are your friends from like your area or from another states/countries? @Mantax
Across the country (US), with some overseas in the general UK area, with one guy in freakin' Japan
Ah bruh
Yeah that japan guy is gonna get 600ms+ if he tries connecting to a residential ip
ouch
Just like put a proxy on top
you should anyways to prevent like ddos attacks and stuff
I've always wondered how proxies worked/helped
They're something I'm still studying
Would a proxy help noticeably for the guy in Japan?
Or is it just a precaution thing
definetly, specially anycast
Anycast?
Imma use our network for example.
>Guy in japan connects to proxy (Anycast)
>Gets routed to Tokyo PoP (<10ms)
>Tokyo has backbone connection to New York (See image)
>New York connects to backend server (<10ms)
I see o:
So right here your Unstable residential connection's are only really being used for a small bit, most its going through Enterprise connections that are miles more stable and faster / lower latency then whatever your $30 ISP provides
advertising same IP address across the globe
Try pinging 2.57.240.0 from mulitple locations, ping will be low for any as they connect to the closest one instead of just having 1
O neato
I should definitely look into those then
Yup
personally i wouldnt recommend our service for your usecase, it wouldnt really be in budget
but you can try playit
its basically a solution for home hosting for your friends
and u dont have to open ports
Double neato
It seems to use tunnels?
ye
So if I'm not butchering the interpretation too much, it seems to be a pretty easy way of creating a point for others to connect to the server
Oh it's the literal definition of a proxy lmao
I'm learning many things today
ye
they have quite a few networking issues from what ive seen/heard