What will be talked about?

In this 2^nd blog post I will be a guide and teacher on how to exactly spec out a server system teaching you the reader on the main key differences from any ordinary computer, including the advantages and disadvantages of server grade systems.

What is a Server System?

A server grade system is fundamentally no different from the average computer or device for that matter you and me are reading this blog post on, in a very easy way to understand any device that contains a CPU, Motherboard, Ram, Storage and uses some way to power it is just a computer. A phone even with its form factor and different use case can be still classified as a computer it just mainly will perform different tasks that are more suitable for it. When we talk about server grade systems these systems are built with specific tasks in mind to handle them in the most efficient and effective way possible. These tasks can range from mass storage systems, hubs that act as network solutions for hundreds of devices and systems, CPU and GPU computational compilers. Some of the major benefits of being categorized to do a specific task is the system will be built for a main workload that it will be able to compute very efficiently and effectively. The down side of this on the other hand is that it will not be able to do every single other work load as fast or as well, key reasons being it was not built for a different task or does not work as well as something that was made for that specified work load.

Why use a Server System?

Like I had mentioned in the previous part servers’ systems are built for something that the user had specific in mind. This can be from using the server as a mass storage that can hold up to a petabyte of raw storage or be used a CPU and GPU computational powerhouses that will crunch render times of videos or chew threw heavy CPU calculations and algebraic formulas to calculate the best approach to land a spaceship on mars. For the average consumer being you and me, we will most likely never able to have an actual use case for space ship landings, Hollywood block busters CGI rendering or even data center grade storage systems. These examples are on the furthest end of the spectrum where it will be hit the heaviest and hardest workload companies will throw at it, but even than we can still use systems that have the same key features just with different but the same tasks. The average consumer may want a storage system that can be used as a home plex media center to connect multiple devices to that server so they may consume any form of entertainment streamed to that display or device. Maybe the user would like a render station for videos they like to make for YouTube or like to run multiple virtual machines from a single system. These kinds of use cases are more realistic and can be done by the average consumer such as you and I. The main differences from using a normal computer that is just a desktop system is that the server system does all this from a completely separate room as well as being designed around the specific task while desktops are a jack of all trades while they perform most tasks fairly well they are designed to do bits of everything depending how the configuration is made.

How to configure a system?

Now on to the fun part of configuration of your very own system for creating a server grade system, fundamentally this is very similar to a normal configuration of a desktop computer. To give an example of this the system I currently use is my personal computer with the main focus in mind being playing video games. The reason I configured it this way is I had spent more money and consideration at the time for the graphics card because of its main role in giving me a better experience for more frames per second and higher settings I am able to set games too. Currently it has a 2070 Strix RTX, 3600 Ryzen 5 CPU and 32 gb of ram. We will use this as refence when configuring a server system now for the main idea in mind we will start off with a system that will be capable of what we desire it to be most effective at. For this example, we will be configuring a system that can render videos for this we will need a good pairing basically the same as if we were going to need a good server chassis that will be able to accommodate the amount of space needed. For a 4U Mount is quite large but can accommodate a large portion of hardware. The CPU will be a thread ripper as it is a very capable processor and works well targeting computational workloads that do well with high core counts than that of core speeds. The motherboard will follow suit as only thread ripper suitable motherboards can support this chip, after we will give it the necessary ram for this setup the ram does not need to be ECC (Error Correction Code) as the work load is not that critical enough to need ECC. The ram will consist from 32 gb to 64 gb of ram to ensure that there is enough over head and no bottle neck that will persist in tasks that the machines works on. Power supply may be either proprietary depending what server chassis was bought if this included a power supply it will be integrated within if not a normal PSU can make do but will be needed to be calculated of how many watts is needed depending on what components you intend to power. Lastly the graphics card for this we can use a work specific card such as Nvidia Quadro’s line up or AMD’s Radeon PRO WorkStation cards. In addition, these can be swapped for more consumer grade gaming orientated cards such as Nvidia RTX products and or AMD Radeon RX XT products. The reason being that in some use cases they can deliver the same amount of performance as an Enterprise/Professional grade GPU can output under certain circumstances. After all parts have been selected its just a matter of putting them together into the system chassis for this orientation does matter as the one of the primary features of a server system is that air runs directly from the front and out the back to ensure all parts within the system is cooled evenly.