u/MerlinTrashMan

Summary

Building a threadripper workstation as my daily. No experience with proxmox, zfs, and currently read, pretend to understand and then execute linux commands I find on the internet because windows has been my existence for the past 35 years. This is what I am hoping to change with this workstation. I want to use windows daily but make it super painless to switch to linux while also having dedicated VMs for my local AI and research projects. I am committed to putting everything together on one box so that I can use all the resources at once if necessary.

My primary question

Assuming I configure everything correctly, what are the pitfalls of using your proxmox box as your daily as well. How great can it be, and when it goes wrong, how bad is it? War stories of how you recovered from a disaster or failure with it (assuming single node) are welcome.

Config suggestions

Since I am still learning about ZFS, I am open to thoughts. Assume that all important files have an off-site encrypted backup that will run automatically. I prioritize reliability and quick recovery in non-catastrophic events so usually I run a local RAID0 dedicated backup drive and then sync that to an off-site. By incredible luck, I timed going on a spending spree in 2022 to build new workstations and got some really cheap enterprise hardware at a bankruptcy sale. Only the ps, cpu, and motherboard are new. Combining these with other items that will be repurposed gives me:

Here is the parts list (only the powersupplies, cpu and motherboard are new):

• Threadripper 9970x
• ASRock TRX50 WS
• MSI MPG Ai1600TS PS
• MSI MPG Ai1300TS PS
• 4x48GB Corsair Vengeance with acceptable timings
• 2x RTX 6000 Blackwell WS (power limit 500W for temperature reasons)
• 1x RTX 3090 (I may not have the airflow to support this one, but I am hoping to have it in)
• 2x Optane P5801X 1.6TB (into slimsas ports on MB)
• 1x Broadcom 9600-24i HBA (Ordering a 2nd to have a spare ready)
  • 12x Micron 5300 Pro SATA 7.68TB (very healthy)
  • 3x IronWolf SATA 12TB
  • 4x Samsung 860evo SATA 4TB
• 1x Samsung 990pro NVME 4TB
• 1x Samsung 980pro NVME 2TB
• 1x Samsung 970pro NVME 1TB
• 1x Highpoint 7101A PCI 3.0x16 to 4 x M.2 Adapter
  • 3x Samsung 970evo 2TB (I really don't like these drives and may just omit them along with the adapter)
  • 1x Samsung 970pro NVME 1TB
• Off the MB chipset
  • 1x 32GB Intel SLC Sata SSD (into chipset

My thoughts were to use the SLC drive as the boot drive for proxmox through a chipset sata port. After that, I am very torn. The way I usually approach storage is: high throughput drives for DBs, durable low-latency for high write scenarios, a monster pool with RAID capabilities for general purpose, and then a spinning disk RAID0 to mirror important directories that then backup offsite to backblaze. Part of me wants to experiment with using the Optane drives for KV Cache offloading and be ready for better MoE offloading in the future, but I know right now I need them for DB logs, and SQL Server temp DB. I also use them for intraday logging on important apps. I rarely come close to saturating them though, so based on the L1T vids, I am guessing they should be apart of the ZFS Journal. This is where my knowledge gap really shows so any help would be appreciated. After that, I am expecting to use the older and smaller nvme ssds to be boot drives for scratch vms and test projects.

A lot of knowledgeable redditors helped answer this difficult question.

Can anyone provide me data about the idle and load power consumption of 9970x (or others) with SMT disabled and a static clock at 4ghz (base clock). No PBO / Core performance boost, no global cstates. While leaving a lot of performance on the table, the long term stability and responsiveness more than make up for it IMO. If I didn't need all the PCIe lanes, I would just use a 9950x, but I have a lot of storage, fiber NIC and two GPUs, so I need all the lanes.

Why I am doing this:

After my second AMD Ryzen chip become unstable and stopped booting, I have decided to no use PBO or any boosting in the future. I currently run my 7950x this way and while it uses more power at idle since I keep the CPU locked at stock frequency at all times, it uses way less power when under heavy load and is significantly more responsive. Also, I am hoping that the static voltages will lead to better longevity. My primary workstation was a 5950x that was amazing the first couple years, then started having strange issues leading me to disable pbo, but after updating my bios to solve a uefi video card reboot issue this weekend, the processor decided it was time die. So a processor I ran with AMD recommended PBO for 2 years, then core performance boost for two years, died in just over 4 years. No other changes. Throwing in an old 3700x works flawlessly so it isn't any other component causing my issue. I had it lying around from when I bought it in a panic at bestbuy many years ago after 3900x died many years ago (undervolted all core overclock to 4.1GHZ killed it in 8 months). It should be noted that had I not done the bios update, the cpu probably still would have been working (though I was getting random lockups) so the newest agesa didn't like something about my chip. The system booted, could do memtest86, and would start loading windows then would hang with a "Core Watchdog Timer Timeout". Trying to fresh install windows thinking it could be a chipset driver issue also was a no go as it hung at the spinning wheel every time.

I don't know what is going on but I haven't changed a thing except the new software and now this thing will mow fine for a while and then yeet itself 3 ft out of bounds and stop. It ends up in flower beds and rock gardens. The only thing that is different besides the software are the days it does this seems to happen are the days in the schedule that I have it set to mid obstacle avoidance instead of max obstacle avoidance. I am planning to modify the avoidance, but the reason I have it down for these two days is that in max it misses certain areas of the lawn even when they are not overgrown and have no obstructions. Anyone else notice these issues?

I recently had a big family photo digitalization done for photos up to 130 years old. There are tons of people that I don't know or I don't recognize as young people in a soft lens. My thoughts were to use an agentic workflow with local models to determine the age of the photos and who is in the picture. Some of the photos have names on them and dates, but with over 9000 photographs I am overwhelmed. I am expecting a flow like this:

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1. Auto color correction (need a model for this)

2. Annotate photos for approximate year taken (Gemma)

3. Collect faces with the approximate photo age (opencv)

4. Run a faceid on all the faces to annotate who is in the picture.

5. use the group of photos for the same person to fix the dates completely for all portraits to have the correct sequencing.

6. Use the perfect dates and the general album folders created the digitilation company to properly annotate and date all non-portrait photos.

7. Use this dataset to classify all the video and slides as well that aren't pre labeled.

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While I have tools for most of it, I didn't know if I am over engineering it. Also, I am looking for the best local models for the color correction and face id. It will be running on my 6000pro. Is this already a solved problem and my googling has been sucking the past two weeks?

What are you guys using to prevent mud from the rear tire? My back was covered today.

I always heard the motor in the YouTube videos and thought it was a little obnoxious, but now that I have mine, it just screams like a banshee. Is this normal? The pitch is so high. Hella fun otherwise.

I have had this itch to pull the trigger on a 775MX for the last year. Give me some slack while I lay out my reasoning for my strange build. Things about me:

1. Former dirt biker

2. Large guy over 250lbs

3. Have a budget of about 7.5k all in

4. Not interested in building from scratch

5. Live in Appalachians with frequent multiple mile climbs with over 15% grade.

Why I can't just buy this bike as is and be satisfied:

1. I want to be able to pedal as a class 3 authentically for exercise and range

2. I don't expect to spend much time in the air or on my old dirt bike tracks in the next few years so 6000w is overkill for me.

Why I really want the Bonnell:

1. Build quality. It was built for people to do crazy fun stuff and take a real beating. Me riding it at 50% will give me the confidence that it is not going to snap underneath me.

2. Built around a powerful motor with a moderately customizable software setup. Should be a fairly future proof frame to evolve.

3. Suspension travel is longer than most to allow me to run a fairly plush setup at my weight.

4. In the future, I can just swap in the old drivetrain and have a blast.

Here is what I am thinking:

In a perfect world, I'd buy a eMTB with nominal motor output of 2000W and peak of 2500W (LXC 64 is too custom and will not age well IMO). Since nothing exists, I plan to convert this bike into that. I know there is more fun to be had, but I am too old and out of shape (right now) to be doing the super fun stuff. To accomplish this setup, I will swap the single speed to the drivetrain being used on bikes that have new M2S motor. Then I will limit all the power setting is the app to have 500w, 1500W, and 2500w modes. I know there is still a chance the drivetrain won't handle the power, but it is less likely to happen at 2500w then 6000w.

Questions I have:

1. Is this possible? Does the rear triangle have the space for a large cassette? Am I forgetting a key detail?

2. Am I setting myself up for failure?

3. Am I missing a bike in the market that already exists that meets my requirements?

4. Is there something I am missing in the motor specs that will make me have a real bad time running it at lower power and speeds?

Edit: I should mention, i.am tired of waiting for something else to come out that checks all my boxes.

2nd Edit: I am aware of the other drive train, but based on the other reviews it seems that it doesn't provide much range.