Oct 17 2015 Update - I noticed that Amazon has changed the description for the 15' cable, it used to say " - 4K Resolution Ready" at the end, now it does not. It now only claims to be a 2K (2560x144) capable cable. I'm so sorry about this, I've changed the title of this article to reflect this new information. I've admitted all along that I don't have a 4K monitor to test on yet. Original article appears below.
Now let's also suppose your work area is kinda small. And maybe you'd rather not sit right next to the system, with the inevitable heat and noise. Even a tiny and relatively quiet PC like this will pump out some BTUs, especially if you fill it with 3.5" spinny drives. If you work at home part or full time you'll appreciate just how important such comforts are.
With Supermicro iKVM (or HP iLO), you can use a Web UI to actually power cycle or mount ISO files on this workstation, no sneaker-net required. Who really needs a physical CD/DVD reader anymore?
This theoretical scenario is actually me, although I'm not quite at 4K quite yet. I suspect that soon enough, there will be more double or triple-monitor and/or 4K monitor productivity workers with similar wants and needs. High-bit-rate cables for such displays can get a little iffy at long lengths.
So I cooked up a nice recipe, testing all the ingredients in my home lab "kitchen." I'm now confident that I can assure you that it all "just works." That's right, no drivers, no clumsy USB-based DisplayLink docking stations that mess with your desktop layouts after suspend/resume. Just plug-and-go.
This sort of arrangement gives you a lot of flexibility, and some extra slack if you're blessed with a sitting/standing desk.
If you want to get even more creative, you could even locate the PC behind a wall in a whole different room. That's what I did. You'll need a way to safely route cables to that adjoining room (holes near radiator?), so you can pump those distant pixels right to where you sit.
Here's my existing workstation area, tested heavily, for solid week of full-time use:
Note: bandwidth concerns can happen beyond the DisplayPort maximum spec of 20', so if I get to 4K or past 60Hz someday, I may run into issues at that time, with this particular cable combination.
Oct 17 2015 Update - I noticed that Amazon has changed the description for the 15' cable, it used to say " - 4K Resolution Ready" at the end, now it does not. It now only claims to be a 2K (2560x144) capable cable. I have updated the title of this article accordingly.
To connect part #2 listed above to #3 listed above, these exact cables are not available on Amazon, instead, they're on well known Monoprice, where they let you pay with your Amazon account.
You'll want a good USB 3.0 hub near you and your monitors, so you can easily deal with flash drives, and as a place to plug your keyboard and mouse in. Solid feel, and pricey. But wow, look at the Amazon reviews. This Anker is beloved, and I do a lot of USB stuff. I've tried many cheaper models, and learned the hard way that bad USB can affect Windows stability, especially when it comes to passing devices through to VMs. This thing works, and can charge stuff fast too.
Note: If you're using a 2.4GHz wireless mouse dongle, avoid using the nearby USB 3.0 ports, since you may experience interference. Just a silly USB 3.0 thing, not a hub brand choice thing.
Simply run networking cable(s) from your PC to the Gigabit Ethernet switch you may have near your monitors. Naturally, you may get any length or color you want. I just somehow associate Green with Gigabit, maybe that's just me.
If you have monitors that can use the audio channels the VisionTek provides, you're all set. If you need a mic jack and audio outputs for headphones or speakers, or even coax or toslink digital audio outputs, then this affordable device should work out very nicely for you, as it has for me!
If you really want to be smart about handling thunderstorms and those little summertime power blips, you can go ahead and get an Uninterrupted Power Supply (battery), to situate near your 3 monitors. Works well even with newer Active PFC power supplies. Just plug the UPS USB cable that comes with the UPS into your USB 3.0 hub, and you got yourself power monitoring, and graceful shutdown.
To get the PC hooked up to that same UPS safely, be sure to get a decent PC power cord.
Which UPS? How about the CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD that's affordable, has replaceable batteries, and can easily be permanently muted right from the front-panel buttons. I have 7 of these in my extended family, with a nice LCD display that shows exactly how many watts you're using for all your stuff, at any time.
Remember, if your UPS is located 20 feet from your server, you'll also need another extra USB long USB cable. to get the signal from your UPS to your server. The same one I listed above:
Well, VisionTek it is. Going for the passthrough. I'm just a nVIDIA "fanboy" so was looking at a nVIDIA card solution. :-) Thanks! Just found your site a few weeks ago and I am in the planning stages of building a homelab. Do like the Supermicro Mini Tower solution. You definitely sold me on that. Again, THANKS!
Just so happens I have tried that card, fits nicely, works great, very quiet, won't work for ESXi passthrough, but works fine with Windows. Note, server style BIOS, meaning you might not get suspend/resume working, intended for always on use. Hope this helps!
Looking into Building a SuperMicro Bundle system myself with the Windows 10 Pro. Out of curiosity. Do you know if any other low profile graphic cards work? Such as the NVIDIA Quadro K1200 (http://www.pny.com/nvidia-quadro-k1200-displayport)
Anyone get 4:4:4 chroma with this video card? Not sure which thread to post this on, but I'm getting close to pushing the button to buy a super server and I question the video card. I have a 4k tv that supports 60 hz, 4:4:4 chroma, and I wonder if anyone with the visontek 7750 was able to drive a 4k tv at this max resolution (60hz, 4k, chroma 4:4:4). It should be possible on the displayport output on this card. You get a displayport to hdmi adapter for about $30, and then connect that to your 4k tv.
I also question whether another video card would be better, one that's more powerful. I will probably run kvm or hyper-v instead of vmware, because I don't know much about how to configure vmware, hyper-v server (without the windows os) is free. My ideal scenario is a more recent video card (but still low power), but that works on all 3 hypervisors as a vgpu. That seems to be an impossible task, to understand if you can do that.
For those of us who cannot live with the maximum cable lengths but don't want to pay for a Kvm/ip solution:you could try a cat5 of higher HDMI converter. You need obviously a free cable between your place of work and the desktop/server.
My data room is the attic and my office is on the groundfloor. I've been using this solution for years (first vga) and it is very easy to maintain or troubleshoot as it is not in path. It also stable:I'm currently running a setup for two years and haven't touched it since installation.
So far, so good, as for the Digi. One blip, power cycled the unti, been using it for hours ever since without a hiccup. Not sure I'll have time to publish the unboxing and driver install video, but rather straight forward, installs as a service by default, and autoconnects devices plugged into it by default. Nice!
Thanks for following up with this. I definitely believe it has something do with being idle. It seems to lose it's IP completely I can't ping it when it does lose connection. When it works it's great, I now have it positioned close by so I can power cycle it. I'll definitely look into the Digi line though pricey for sure but it seems to have good reviews.
Also note that my USB extension is working well, and I now have a lot of devices attached to my VM (using both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 controllers in the Windows 10 VM seems to work best).
Chazz, I didn't take the move from the SIIG to the Sedna USB server lightly, and I"m super sorry about the inconvenience to you. When I wrot e the accessory list, it was working great. I made the switch to the 4 USB ports on the Sedna that could stay connected (keyboard/mouse). Also chose it because it was also a little newer device that had gigabit (not that that matters, given how slow USB 2.0 is), at a similar price. The newness seemed important to me, since I was hoping new drivers and/or firmware would be more likely, should I find issues under Windows 10. Both SIIG and Sedna use essentially the same software.
There's something strange here, in that today, I used the Sedna for about 6 hours straight, no issues at all. Perhaps something about a system going idle is killing the service or device when not in use? Not sure yet, and not going to pull the trigger on the Digi quite yet, not unless the Sedna starts giving me issues again.
There's also this gigabit model released in 2015 that uses a different software stack http://www.amazon.com/Device-Server-US-Supply-DS-510/dp/B00U9UDSH8/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1440652827&sr=1-1&keywords=B00U9UDSH8
http://www.silexeurope.com/918ca2abdc1ddab2c1ed0a8f8122aa1a/en/home/products/usb-device-servers/ds-510.html
and windows 10 support
http://www.silexeurope.com/en/home/support/productgroups/common-downloads/device-server-and-virtual-link.html
It's possible moving up to the Digi AW-USB-2 AnywhereUSB/2 will be more stable http://amzn.to/1Vcne1n but considerably more expensive:
https://www.reddit.com/r/vmware/comments/2rz9f8/usb_over_ip_recommendations/
It appears to be targeted at virtualization customers:
http://knowledge.digi.com/pkb_Home?q=vmware&l=en_US
http://www.digi.com/pdf/wp_ESXServer_AnywhereUSB.pdf
and installs as a service by default:
http://www.digi.com/support/productdetail?pid=3747
Without having to go through these hoops to make it into a service:
http://sysnucleus-blog.com/2015/01/16/run-usbdeviceshare-as-service/
Admittedly, over time (now that I'm using it more), I've been struggling a bit with the USB over IP, and moved from SIIG to Sedna:
https://www.amazon.com/SEDNA-1000-Gigabit-Device-Server/dp/B00V2CMRRO/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_mfw?&linkCode=wey&tag=tinkertry-20
but very similar device driver. Still working with the makers on this, and trying to find a way to avoid even higher price units that are rated higher, stay tuned (but upcoming travels likely to impact my ability to progress on this for a while).
Hello, first time poster I really enjoy your articles. I'm looking forward to one day in the future getting my own super server! However, till that day happens I've tried to replicate what you did here with my current server. I'm currently having an issue and I wanted to see if you were having it to. It has to deal with the SIIG USB Server...it constantly drops connection it is not reliable at all. At first I thought it was due to windows 10 default settings (hibernate/sleep) causing disconnection. So I set my power settings to never to counter act this potential issue. But it still loses connection I have to physically unplug the power and reconnect it then wait a little bit for it to connect again. The monitor and console are completely black until I can use some input method to wake it up...luckily I have enabled RDP so I can still access the desktop. Thoughts?
What’s missing is the exact size of the card (dimensions), and/or dB of fan at idle and under load. Will be attempting some informal measurements of my card's dB output soon. As far as power, it seems to never draw more than around 50 watts, even under heavy GPU load. Haven't tried CrossFire yet.
At least for non-Cross-Fire use (non-gaming), this leaves the 250 watt power supply with plenty of headroom left (~1/2 load max, even with 4 drives). It seems their power supply recommendations assume a much more power thirsty mobo than ours ;-)
By the way, prominent solar-powered blogger, somewhat near you:
http://www.vladan.fr/reunion-island/
Most useful article as always. I'm ordering 2 x 40" 4k monitors which means that I wont benefit from the VisionTek 7750 3x4K - I am going to get the 7750 eye 4 to put out 2 x 4k over DP1.2 and I will put out 2 x 1080 on the other ports. I'm really hoping the card dimensions are the same - you have mentioned in your other articles how tight a fit the 3x4k card is. Once my new baby arrives I will look at moving the unit further from me - for now I will want it as close as possible :) eta - Friday. Hold thumbs
John Hoser
Well, VisionTek it is. Going for the passthrough. I'm just a nVIDIA "fanboy" so was looking at a nVIDIA card solution. :-) Thanks! Just found your site a few weeks ago and I am in the planning stages of building a homelab. Do like the Supermicro Mini Tower solution. You definitely sold me on that. Again, THANKS!