Proxmox v4.x mini home server with less than 10 watts of power consumption

I have just built a home server using Intel Celeron J1900 CPU (Baytrail chipset) and Asrock Q1900 mini ITX motherboard, loaded Proxmox 4.x virtualization environment.  I picked this hardware configuration for low power consumption and low maintenance.  This intel Celeron J1900 CPU is soldered on the Asrock Q1900 motherboard, it has Quad Core, runs at 2.0Ghz and consumes less than 10 watts (about 8.9 according to Intel's specifications).  Awesome.

I bought the motherboard on Ebay for only $80 including shipping. And it came with 8GB memory module (what a deal!).

For storage I am using a single Intel 320 80GB SSD drive and 2 x 4TB Western Digital hard drives in software RAID1 (mirroring) mode.  I am betting on the Intel SSD's long lifetime to provide me trouble free operation.

NO moving parts!  well actually I have a fan in the power supply and obviously the 2 4TB hard drives are moving inside. Haha... well nothing I can do there, but at least the CPU and SSD drive have no moving parts.

SILENT!  I can not hear anything from this new server. It runs almost completely silent which I love and makes my wife happy. :-)

Okay enough with the introduction, let me give the specifications and describe how I managed to install Proxmox and what virtual servers I have loaded on this new mini home server.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Motherboard Asrock Q1900

1. Intel^® Quad-Core Processor J1900 + Mini-ITX Motherboard
2. All Solid Capacitor design
3. Supports DDR3/DDR3L 1333 memory, 2 x SO-DIMM slots
4. 1 PCIe 2.0 x1, 1 mini-PCIe
5. Graphics Output Options : D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI
6. Built-in Intel^® 7^th generation (Gen 7) graphics, DirectX 11.0, Pixel Shader 5.0
7. 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec)
8. 2 SATA3, 2 SATA2, 4 USB 3.0 (2 Front, 2 Rear), 4 USB 2.0 (2 Front, 2 Rear)
9. 1 x Print Port Header, 1 x COM Port Header
10. Supports A-Tuning, XFast LAN, XFast RAM, USB Key

Extra NIC (gigabit lan card) for PFSense WAN PORT:

As I mentioned, I bought the parts above from Ebay and it came with 8GB SO-DIMM already included. Nice!

OPERATING SYSTEM:

I tried to install Proxmox 4 by dowloading its ISO directly from Proxmox, from this page.  But it did not work well with this motherboard because it failed to enter VESA graphic mode that Proxmox installer required.  After some googling I decided to follow one of the advice of other users with similar issue to install Proxmox via Debian.

So I downloaded Debian Jessie (minimal ISO version), loaded it into USB thumb drive, and installed it on my SSD boot drive.  Please make sure you choose LVM partition management.

This is the guide I followed after I have installed Debian to install Proxmox flawlessly:

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Install_Proxmox_VE_on_Debian_Jessie

Once Proxmox has been installed I started to install the following software:

1.  Software Raid

     see my other post here about how to install software raid to Proxmox

This image below will show my RAID1 partition mounted and being used as Proxmox storage:

2.  Download templates from Turnkey Linux

3. File Server  (samba)

    Even though I am not a fan of Samba, it is one of the most popular and most used network file sharing system. So I have decided to use Turnkey Linux's appliance called "File Server".  It works quite well and it installed as LXC (linux container) which saves a lot of resources. Nice!

4. Plex Media Server

     I have also installed a Free Plex Media Server and let it scan through all my home videos and family photos.  Plex Server is free for you to install on your server.  I was able to install it inside a Debian LXC with just one install command.  Very easy, just sign-up for free as a Plex user and find the instructions to download the Plex Server and install into Debian LXC.  Works perfectly.

Article I wrote about how to install Plex Media Server.

5. Torrent Server

    I don't use torrent much, but sometime it is handy to have a torrent server that does not need a computer to be on during the long file transfer. So the Turnkey Appliance for ruTorrect from Turnkey Linux was perfect. And again, it is an LXC!

6. My family like to use Roku, so I used to have roConnect (a web appliance to serve and play movies via browser) running on my Macbook which was annoying to need to have a LAMP running on my Macbook.  This mini server finally free me up to not have to worry about this anymore.  I simply install a Turnkey Linux LAMP appliance, load up roConnect, configure it, and Voila. roConnect 24/7!

7. Failed to install LXDE, I wanted to have a simple and lightweight Linux desktop (headless), something that I can remote into using VNC or Teamviewer, but it failed to work.  I have not had time to troubleshoot why, maybe later.  I have an XCFE working with OpenVZ before and I think LXDE on LXC should work also.  I will create a post with why it did not work and how I worked around it later.

8. PFSense firewall, I would like to install PFSense next, using KVM (QEMU).  This will replace my Tomato USB Asus Router (which has served me well for 5 years).   Having a real firewall like PFSense at home would be overkill, but what the heck I have a server for it anyways.  Haha

I will post another article about how this goes also later.

SUMMARY:

Overall I am very happy with my mini server plan, I have 5 LXC containers running so far:

    

      a.  File Server

      b.  Torrent Server

      c.  roConnect

      d.  LXDE (running but can not startx yet)

      e.  Plex Server

Plus 3.5TB of mirrored storage for my family all less than $450.00.   The 4TB hard drives cost the most at about $140 each.  What I love most about this server is that it will cost me only about $10 being powered on 24 / 7 for a full year.  Yes, $10 / year!  WOW!

I am waiting to install another 8GB memory, but the CPU and Memory utilization has been modest and very reasonable, see image below:

Thanks for reading I will post more articles about PFSense and LXDE how to later.

--Andrew