Building a DIY Music Server with custom made parts

[dminches]

6 hours ago, bobfa said:

Is anyone thinking about putting Music Storage in the box?  What kind?  SSD? HD?

 

 

 

When I eventually move to a full size case my plan is to utilize one or 2 of these to hold m.2 cards.

 

https://www.asus.com/Motherboard-Accessories/HYPER-M-2-X16-CARD-V2/

 

[Hauser]

Thanks for the replies.  I've found plenty of PCIE cards that will accomodate an M.2 SSD but the only card with supplementary power being a large MSI card.  This uses  6 pin power (12V).  The M.2 cards use 3.3V  so the voltage gets reduced on board by step down switching which defeats my purpose.  The Samsung Evo 960 can take up to 3A which seems better to apply directly rather than through the CPU/PCIE slot.  The closest I have come to sorting this is by using an ADT link riser and hoping to power the extension.  Their X1 mining risers have power pins installed but this requires an X4 riser.  These look to have four holes that may take power But I'm not sure if they are enabled.  I was hoping to have a lot of these doubts allieviated by someone who may have already accomplished this.

 

Martin,

[Nsxturbo]

dminches,

 

FYI, I’m using the Asus Hyper M.2 X16 V2 with four Intel 665 M.2 drives in RAID 0 with Intel’s VROC on processor #2’s PCIe X16 slot of my WS 621E Sage MB, (copying Taiko’s Extreme usage of this setup😉). It is by far the best local storage setup I’ve heard and better than NAS and as good as RAM drive.

[Nenon]

27 minutes ago, Nsxturbo said:

FYI, I’m using the Asus Hyper M.2 X16 V2 with four Intel 665 M.2 drives in RAID 0 with Intel’s VROC on processor #2’s PCIe X16 slot of my WS 621E Sage MB, (copying Taiko’s Extreme usage of this setup😉). It is by far the best local storage setup I’ve heard and better than NAS and as good as RAM drive.

+1 from me on that one!

[Downtheline]

4 minutes ago, Nenon said:

Asus Hyper M.2 X16 V2

Any reason not to use this with the h5 case using a riser card? 

[Nsxturbo]

I’m using this right now with the Hyper X card: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiM-ZuOgeLpAhXQnuAKHYBgBqkQFjABegQIBhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thermaltakeusa.com%2Fgaming-pci-e-3-0-x16-riser-cable.html&usg=AOvVaw0lEx4Hjb7HnLPvacCO-34U

But the card is sitting outside of the open topped HDPLEX H5 case. I really think it would be to tight and add to the overall thermal load inside a finished H5. I really think a full-height case with it directly in the PCI slot is preferable. 

[Nenon]

15 minutes ago, Nsxturbo said:

I’m using this right now with the Hyper X card: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiM-ZuOgeLpAhXQnuAKHYBgBqkQFjABegQIBhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thermaltakeusa.com%2Fgaming-pci-e-3-0-x16-riser-cable.html&usg=AOvVaw0lEx4Hjb7HnLPvacCO-34U

But the card is sitting outside of the open topped HDPLEX H5 case. I really think it would be to tight and add to the overall thermal load inside a finished H5. I really think a full-height case with it directly in the PCI slot is preferable. 

Yeah, using riser cables is far less than optimal. Hopefully we'll have a full height case solution soon, either here or on the other thread. 

BTW, I don't think Taiko is using VROC. Never seen a VROC hardware key inside the Extreme. Have you? 

[Nsxturbo]

1 minute ago, Nenon said:

BTW, I don't think Taiko is using VROC. Never seen a VROC hardware key inside the Extreme. Have you? 

 I’m not sure if they are or not. You can get by without a VROC key with Intel drives and RAID 0 and still configure VROC, but I went ahead and got a key myself.

[dminches]

I assumed they are using PCIe bifurcation with the card.

 

[Nsxturbo]

VROC with the HYPER X card uses the full 4x4 bandwidth of PCI so 4x2000 Mb/sec for the Intel 665’s
 

So yes it is bifurcated.

[dctom]

On 6/1/2020 at 5:58 AM, bobfa said:

Is anyone thinking about putting Music Storage in the box?  What kind?  SSD? HD?

 

 

I have been using a 2TB NVMe in my Asrock ITX Z390  for local music storage, OS ram root AL. It has improved SQ over my synology NAS and gives much faster access to music files in HQplayer.

[bobfa]

I am building a test system for myself that will allow me to play around a bit more.  As the pieces arrive I will document and publish my ideas.  

[bobfa]

On 6/1/2020 at 8:06 PM, Nsxturbo said:

dminches,

 

FYI, I’m using the Asus Hyper M.2 X16 V2 with four Intel 665 M.2 drives in RAID 0 with Intel’s VROC on processor #2’s PCIe X16 slot of my WS 621E Sage MB, (copying Taiko’s Extreme usage of this setup😉). It is by far the best local storage setup I’ve heard and better than NAS and as good as RAM drive.

Could you run with something other than RAID 0?  I have not read the manual for the card but I wanted to try a spanned array so we could have more disk space??

[Nsxturbo]

Hey Bob,

 

You can run other RAID options with the Hyper X but you must have the VROC key if you want to run them in VROC directly controlled by the Xeon Scalable processor. Also, Emile from Taiko noted that anything other than RAID 0 impacted the sound quality. 
 

I always keep multiple copies of my digital music, since a drive failure in RAID 0 would be catastrophic 😉

[bobfa]

39 minutes ago, Nsxturbo said:

Hey Bob,

 

You can run other RAID options with the Hyper X but you must have the VROC key if you want to run them in VROC directly controlled by the Xeon Scalable processor. Also, Emile from Taiko noted that anything other than RAID 0 impacted the sound quality. 
 

I always keep multiple copies of my digital music, since a drive failure in RAID 0 would be catastrophic 😉

I treat my music server as an appliance.  The music on the server is only to be consumed it is fungible. The cost to me is the time to transfer and sync it to the server.  I am going to be running on AMD for my testing.  OF course Raid 0 means I need Four 2TB drives.....  (Pretty soon we are into real $$$)

 

I have multiple copies of the library.  And two of them are Offline!  My offsite one is “not up to date”. (Better fix that soon)

 

So I will test with my NAS and then with the X16 card and a subset of my library.  

‘

I think that I will run into other issues that may “Hide the differences”.   

 

[Peter Avgeris]

Hi guys!

After some days of absence, I am back for some discussion.

I am waiting to receive the ASUS motherboard along with two Xeon Silver scalable CPUs.

I will have plenty of time to measure the current that these processors will draw, along with the current that the motherboard will require.

 

Judging from your comments, I assume that we need to go for full height and not for the plain 'n good solution with HDPlex H5 chassis.

 

I think that most will agree here, right? The full height chassis will definitely have increased cost but if somebody wants to go to the end of the road regarding SQ, the full height chassis seems to be the only choice.

 

I would like to have some opinions on this...

[Nenon]

55 minutes ago, Peter Avgeris said:

Judging from your comments, I assume that we need to go for full height and not for the plain 'n good solution with HDPlex H5 chassis.

 

I think that most will agree here, right?

+1

 

56 minutes ago, Peter Avgeris said:

I will have plenty of time to measure the current that these processors will draw, along with the current that the motherboard will require.

Not sure how this is relevant to the chassis, but you are looking at around 150-200W (closer to 150W here) total depending on how you use the two CPUs. In my case, its drawing around 6-6.5A continuous for the CPUs EPS connector. Around 40W for the motherboard. And my LPS dissipates a double digit number of Watts in heat. 

I hate giving such numbers, because from an engineering point view they are never accurate. If you look at the CPU current draw at a millisecond or nanosecond level, you will find it very bursty - and easily tripling the numbers above. That's why a more powerful power supply helps. Also, fill this motherboard with PCIe cards and memory, configure for low latency / high computation, and run some complex calculations (i.e. HQP) and watch it easily draw 350W-400W. 

 

 

[Peter Avgeris]

2 hours ago, Nenon said:

+1

 

Not sure how this is relevant to the chassis, but you are looking at around 150-200W (closer to 150W here) total depending on how you use the two CPUs. In my case, its drawing around 6-6.5A continuous for the CPUs EPS connector. Around 40W for the motherboard. And my LPS dissipates a double digit number of Watts in heat. 

I hate giving such numbers, because from an engineering point view they are never accurate. If you look at the CPU current draw at a millisecond or nanosecond level, you will find it very bursty - and easily tripling the numbers above. That's why a more powerful power supply helps. Also, fill this motherboard with PCIe cards and memory, configure for low latency / high computation, and run some complex calculations (i.e. HQP) and watch it easily draw 350W-400W. 

 

 

Hello nenon

The reason I need to motherboard and the CPUs is of course their dimensions, as they are required for mechanical drawings. Besides this, I need the full setup in order to measure the current with utmost precision. I will plug the switching power supply rated at 750 watts with specialized cables, through which I will be able to measure the current on the oscilloscope. I will be able to check if there is any burst mode of current as you write. 

I find all this story as totally silly. It is ridiculous to provide so much current. But from the moment you wrote with emphasis on all this, then I am so curious to measure, check and listen carefully. Of course you verified already all this craziness and most likely you are right. You did so good to warn me about this enormous amount of current,at least I am now prepared! 

[OAudio]

Some good points being made here.

 

Personally I ended up spending months and months on the characterisation of motherboards power behavior to be sure of capturing complete requirements (mentioned a little of this is the earlier post). As well as longer duration trace recording its important look extensively, in both time and frequency domains, at real time behaviours. Understanding dynamic behavior and relating it back to what is driving it in the PC is very important.  Some systems for instance will throw out a mSec transient current spike as POST completes and processors are initiated, easy to miss but similar in size to maximum draw on the EPS rail at maximum CPU load. 

 

You could almost weld with some of the LPS prototypes I made up during development. I tried a variety of designs based on different devices types and topologies to understand what works best. It was lot of work but,  but important to properly understand what actually delivers optimal SQ. I'm glad to say (at last) that the supplies are finnished on smart PCBs.

 

OAudio

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gavin1977]

1 hour ago, OAudio said:

Some good points being made here.

 

Personally I ended up spending months and months on the characterisation of motherboards power behavior to be sure of capturing complete requirements (mentioned a little of this is the earlier post). As well as longer duration trace recording its important look extensively, in both time and frequency domains, at real time behaviours. Understanding dynamic behavior and relating it back to what is driving it in the PC is very important.  Some systems for instance will throw out a mSec transient current spike as POST completes and processors are initiated, easy to miss but similar in size to maximum draw on the EPS rail at maximum CPU load. 

 

You could almost weld with some of the LPS prototypes I made up during development. I tried a variety of designs based on different devices types and topologies to understand what works best. It was lot of work but,  but important to properly understand what actually delivers optimal SQ. I'm glad to say (at last) that the supplies are finnished on smart PCBs.

 

OAudio

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are these PCB's / linear power supply a commercial offering?  Would be nice to have a new supplier.

[Hauser]

Still busy researching but have some ideas for the LGA3647 heatsink: sketch attached.  Studied Taiko's version and I'm sure its weight exceeds Intel's spec. of 600g.  Suspecting its supported from underneath.  For those with a lower DIY interest, maybe me included, I'm also considering a simpler version.  Cooltex on Aliexpress sell a skived copper heatsink.  Removing the fins provides a suitable base.  Using solder paste to attach a 58 x 94 x 1/4 inch copper plate would only leave some cutting, drilling, tapping and U slotting for the upper parts; typing this, still doesn't sound that simple.  Peter may have some more ideas.

 

Martin.

[RickyV]

🥳 I have found my way to Sean Jacobs’s regulators 🎉. Bought two. .

[Peter Avgeris]

Guys,

I have good news to announce.

Just received everything to start the experiments for building the chassis for the beast.

 

As a preliminary comment, I have never hold such a monstrous motherboard in my hands. You don't really know if you don't have first hand experience!

 

Let's go!!!

 

[elan120]

22 minutes ago, RickyV said:

🥳 I have found my way to Sean Jacobs’s regulators 🎉. Bought two. .

Cool...but no ReCap modules?  Will you be building power supply from those?

[RickyV]

12 minutes ago, elan120 said:

Cool...but no ReCap modules?  Will you be building power supply from those?

No, I’ll bring my own “ideal” rectifier and Mundorfs.

Wondering what would happen if you put 2 regulators in series 🤪