Building a DIY Music Server

[atxkyle]

On 4/19/2021 at 10:49 AM, seeteeyou said:

FYI - for those of us who aren't interested in running both HQP and NAA on the same dual-socket Xeon Scalable motherboard, we could find specific single-socket ones (i.e. Skylake-SP and Cascade Lake-SP) with Sub-NUMA Clustering that's supported by relevant BIOS options

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/page/616/?tab=comments#comment-1014096

 

https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/articles/intel-xeon-processor-scalable-family-technical-overview.html

 

I just DAFS on Google and only found motherboards from maybe a dozen vendors with such BIOS options

• Cisco
• Dell
• EVGA
• Fujitsu
• H3C
• HPE
• Huawei
• Intel
• Lenovo
• NEC
• Oracle
• Supermicro

The vast majority of them could only be purchased as a complete server system (usually the form factor itself ain't even close to SSI-EEB / E-ATX / ATX) instead of a standalone motherboard, therefore I just narrowed them down to these guys

• EVGA SR-3 Dark
• Supermicro X11SPL-F
• Supermicro X11SPD-F
• Supermicro X11SPA-T
• Supermicro X11SPA-TF
• Supermicro X11SPG-TF
• Supermicro X11SPi-TF
• Supermicro X11SPW-TF
• Supermicro X11SPW-CTF
• Supermicro X11SPH-NCTF
• Supermicro X11SPH-NCTPF

IMHO it would be quite interesting to try SNC with a single 20-core Xeon Gold 6138 (125W TDP might not need any fans if we weren't upsampling with HQP?) and see if that were getting anywhere close to a pair of 10-core Xeon Silver

 

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/120476/intel-xeon-gold-6138-processor-27-5m-cache-2-00-ghz.html

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Xeon-Scalable-Gold-6138-SkyLake-20-Core-2-0-GHz-3-7-GHz-Turbo-LGA-3647-SR3B5-b/254921475866

 

---

 

I have no idea if this seller in China were legit or otherwise, though 20-core Xeon Gold 6222V @ 115W TDP could be found below for 4,300 RMB / 660 bucks

 

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=641024936013

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/193962/intel-xeon-gold-6222v-processor-27-5m-cache-1-80-ghz.html

 

This SNC approach with a single CPU is a very intriguing alternative to the dual-CPU approach. Is anyone planning to test this? 

[atxkyle]

RAM Recommendation and a Question

 

Did some server tweaking and listening tests this weekend. For folks that are limited to non-ECC RAM, one noteworthy outcome was that I REALLY like the sound of this RAM from ATP Electronics. Very natural and organic sounding, I literally felt tension release from my head and shoulders when I swapped to it. 

 

I’d been comparing it with this Apacer RAM which is CL19, although not sure how it compares to the most lauded Apacer RAM model numbers. But against this one it was not even close. The ATP sounded light years better. 

 

Unrelated Question: is everyone planning to have music storage onboard your server/player builds vs. streaming from a NAS?  And if so, has the community discovered ways for onboard storage to not destroy the sound quality?  

 

I bought a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro SSD (m.2 pcie) and adding it to my server did bad, filthy, naughty things to SQ. Especially when I had it internally, but even when attached externally via USB adapter. So bad it makes me very curious about how the Extreme and other servers have managed to neutralize the impact. 

[atxkyle]

3 minutes ago, auricgoldfinger said:

 

How were you powering the external SSD?

 

The entire NUC (including the SSD) is powered with a SR7T 19V.

When using it externally, it was just powered by the USB bus. I don't have an adapter that allows for external power right now, but woudl be open to this approach.  

[atxkyle]

57 minutes ago, auricgoldfinger said:

 

There was a time when some people were using external disk enclosures powered by a separate LPSU.  IIRC, the external enclosure was connected by USB.  Perhaps the second LPSU powering the external disk is key here.

 

Hadn't considered that, but I bet it makes a big difference. Does anyone know if most of the top-shelf servers are providing dedicated LPS rails for internal storage?

[atxkyle]

10 hours ago, drjimwillie said:

Hello Music loving Friends,

while we are talking about internal storage for music, Taiko uses the Hyper M2 X16 card, which holds four M.2 cards. 
I looked back in this thread and in 2020 Taiko was using - Intel 665p M.2 PCIe NVMe, when I look online for that card the other specifications are- 2280 3.0 x4 3D3, QLC, 1TB. 

 

Does anyone know if this is the M.2 card that Taiko currently uses?

 

I find it interesting now that people are using solid-state drives in their server. At one point in time everyone was removing the solid-state drives from their servers because of the “noise” it made, as reported by Romaz. 
I had a Samsung 1TB 850 Pro, with a SOTM filter that I removed. 
I never installed the M.2 drive in my Silent NAS For the same reason, using only the spinning drives.  Is it OK to use solid-state drives now 

I’ve done a lot of testing with ssd inside the pc vs using an external enclosure. In my sever the ssd does add a lot of noise when it’s connected directly to the mobo. Sounds much better when connected via an external enclosure and much better again if that enclosure is powered w a good 5v power supply (I use a Farad super3 5v for this).