hardware Recommended Hardware?

[Derpixel]

Everyone is always talking about what "plug-ins" and "Modpacks" they use. But I'd like to know what hardware specs one should have for a decent, Forge based, 100 slot, 24/7 server. With a heavy modpack such as Project: OMNIUS. (Not much known, but it still kicks my processor's ass. Even with 7Gb allocated to java.) Top rendering, and high graphic performance would be preferred.
 I'd advise everyone reads the Global Rules here: http://forums.technicpack.net/forum/16-global-rules/

If you don't know, but have a dedicated PC for a server yourself. What are it's specs?

 

Edited June 16, 2015 by Derpixel
Adding Information

[plowmanplow]

That's a bit like asking, "I'm going to be in a race. What kind of car should I have?" We would need much more details about things like which modpack (and its details), what kind of server process (Forge, Cauldron, etc.), server configuration details (view distance, etc.), what kind of plugins you might have... I'm sure you see my point.

[Derpixel]

That's a bit like asking, "I'm going to be in a race. What kind of car should I have?" We would need much more details about things like which modpack (and its details), what kind of server process (Forge, Cauldron, etc.), server configuration details (view distance, etc.), what kind of plugins you might have... I'm sure you see my point.

​Thanks for reminding me, greatly appreciated. I guess my brain went out on the details. =P

[Random003]

A server with heavy modpack and 100 player slots will require top of the line hardware. Depending on what your players are doing you may still have lag.

 

Intel Xeon E3-1271 v3

32 GB 1600 MHz ECC RAM (You may not need this much RAM. You can start with a smaller amount and work your way up if needed. Lots of loaded chunks/worlds use more RAM. Older worlds tend to have more chunks/worlds forced loaded so you may notice your RAM usage go up permanently over time.)

128 GB SSD (Whatever good model you prefer. Samsung 850 pro is arguably the best. 128 GB is plenty unless your world is very large.)

 

Don't bother with multi-core/multi-processor servers. Minecraft is single threaded and and the majority of the game logic will only run on one core. Multi-core/multi-processor servers only make sense when multiple instances of the minecraft server process are run simultaneously on the same server.

 

Do not sacrifice stability on a 24/7 server. Random world corruption out of the blue is not fun to deal with. For this reason ECC RAM is important. Also plan to have some kind of space available for backups. Bad things happen (hardware failure, mod corrupting your world, plugin corrupting your world) and its important to have a way to rollback the world. The more space you have the more frequently (and longer) you can create/keep backups of the world. Players won't be happy if you rollback the server one week.

Edited June 19, 2015 by Random003

[Roversword]

Well, I will try my best to (anecdotally) add my experience and knowledge (working in IT for more than a decade now as system engineer, for what its worth).
I have my own custom modpack and a server where friends are playing (around 8 at times), so I have no experience in >10 people servers.
I also have only linux server experience, never used a windows server (on the internet) in my life (and never will!).

Processor:
Minecraft is based on Java and I have yet to see a multithreaded modpack. I am not a programmer, but so far I have only seen one single thread taking care of a minecraft/modpack and therefor only one single core on a cpu used for java. This has been mentioned before.
I have yet to see and find out how and IF that can be changed....
So my best bet is, that you need a multicore processor (because you might want and need to run other things as well) which has a very good single thread performance. I will not name any CPUs, I do not want to push in one specific direction. I have only experience with Intel processors, so I do not want outright neglect AMD processor for this task.

My server has a i7-34xx processor.
 

Memory/RAM:
You will never have too much RAM...however, due to the way Java works (garbage collection), it is not always good to allocate as much as you can...rather find out what your sweet spot is.
Starting with 4 to 6 GByte RAM allocated for the server and the scale up if needed.
That being said, your server itself needs certainly enough RAM, because Java is not the only thing...and...if you decide to run everything from a RAM disk rather from a harddisk (or ssd for that matter), you need more.
I'd say you need at least 16 GByte RAM, preferably 32 Gbyte to play with. Again, I have no experience with 100 players or more, so I'd say make sure you have enough and be on the safe side, just in case.
There are plenty of hosts reseller out there where 32 GByte come as standard, so...
As mentioned before, ECC RAM is certainly not a bad idea either.

My server has 16 GByte of RAM, using 3 Gbytes at the moment for the modpack server

Harddisk/SSD:
If you want to have no I/O issues then you need at least an SSD. The size needed certainly varies depending on your needs and the world size. While 128 GByte might be enough at the beginning, you might (and I say MIGHT) find yourself in the tight corner later. So I recommend to have at least 256 GB.
I also recommend to have the operating system and the modpack-server part on different disks (if possible and affordable for you). So you can isntall the OS and setup the partitions/mountpoints accordingly so they do not interfere in case of problems.

SSD are pretty fast, so question is if you rather let it run from there and make regular backups to another disk or location or if you want to run everything in RAM (including the world and the modpack binaries and stuff) while saving it regularly (every 10 minutes or so) to the SSD. With only a few people it certainly makes no difference, but it might do with >100 people.

I am running my modpack from regular disks, and it works fine so far (with <10 people).

Backups:
Where mentioned before....and are unbelievably important
If you use RAM disk, make sure the content of the world (and your players) in RAM is being written to disk in short intervals (I'd say 10 Minutes or so), Using an SSD you should not experience lag.
No matter if you use RAM disk and save to disk regulrarly or using SSD/harddisk (without RAM disk) make sure you have a regular backup. I am using YABM and I am quite happy with it. Others may use different mods, it is up to you to decide and find out what best suits your needs.
In any case, make sure your backups are done and test them! And preferably save them to a different location as well (eg.: Save it to the local disk and then write a script that copies it to somewhere lese as well).
A backup at the same location is worthless if the disk fails...
 

Other topics:
With 100 slots you appear to want run a semi-professional server...meaning that it is unlikely only friends will join, right?
So make sure your server is on a good plan in terms of safety and security (redundant power supplies, redundant disks, preferably redundant network connections at least within the DC, own IPv4 address, om site services, etc.).

Good luck

 

[plowmanplow]

Having 100 concurrent players on a single modded MC server is just not going to happen. As has been previously stated, Forge/MC is largely single threaded so scalability is a huge challenge. Even with a view distance of six and everyone working in pairs you would still have 6000+ active chunks. Once people started building up their bases there would be so many active tile entities the TPS would plummet.

Roversword has it right with the backups. In my opinion, this is one of the most compelling reasons to use Linux as it is very simple to setup true versioned backups without consuming a ton of disk space (rsync hard links FTW). My largest pack's server, which has been running for 6+ months is nearly 8G in size. Using rsync hard link backups I have hourly backups for 24 hours that only consume just over 9G total.

[Derpixel]

This is all amazing input and information. To be honest, I only put a 100 Slot, 24/7 as a basis for really heavy servers to get an idea on top-'notch' (sorry) equipment for such use. I greatly appreciate this, and I'll definitely follow this advice. Point is, I don't know for sure what exact state of a server I'm looking for.

Hardware is my only concern, due to the fact I don't know much about that subject besides basics. But if I know my limit, I'll know what I'm looking for. Because if such a server were to expand, I might need better hardware for such expansions. Everything is subjected to change, but for now. I'm still interested in what other people use for their servers and such.

So learning from other server owners, I can get a great start on creating my very own dedicated server without leaping into the blind.