Hello - Need help/input on building a new rig!!

[hoodch]

[This is a re-post, I was told this was a better place for rig support]

Hello,

Was not to sure where to post this, but as I'm a new member this seem like a reasonable place. I'm looking into building a new storage server, been watching Tom on YouTube for ideas and information. After seeing Hayley's build I would like something similar, I've got about £1350 to play with. My current problem is I keep going way over budget when I get quotes for parts on line. I seem to over spend buy a good £500 every time. I'm looking for a good raid 6 system with 8TB of usable storage, keeping the OS on a SSD. It should also be able to handle media streaming, as that will be it's main purpose. Hot swap is a must for swapping out drives and ease of installation. Any guides, tips, suggestions, places to shop, etc. Are all welcome, also Tom are you after a new project

Regards,

hooch

 

[hoodch]

Hi Guys,

No replies yet, but thought I would add some more detail. Been wondering on the best OS to use:

- Windows Home Server

Pros: I'm familiar with windows and the price is good

Cons: May not have all the features I need!

- Ubuntu

Pros: It's free

Cons: Not really used Linux before

- Windows Sever 2008 R2

Pros: Feature rich

Cons: Expensive

Not sure which is the best root, just add this to the pot.

 

[Karlos_the_n00b]

Hi mate. Hate to tell you this but your still not really in the right place yet. Project logs are really for people who know what there building and are doing something more than just assembling all the parts into a standard case. Have a butchers about and you'll get the drift.

Really the question your asking should be posted here: http://forum.overclo...w-build-advice/

Anyway, I've personally not built a dedicated server so I can't help you with that but I have had a play with Linux although nothing at all in depth. What I was going to suggest however is why not download a copy of virtual box (which is mint and free!) and use it to install a few flavours of Linux virtually onto your PC and see what you think of them?

Personally, I would try my damnedest to get it working with Linux before splashing out on windows server. Not to be funny but Linux is used in servers around the world to do much more complicated tasks than what you will be asking of it and there are many IT professionals that prefer it the windows server products for a multitude or reasons so the only thing stopping you from using it on your own server is your own ability's.

Hope this helps

 

[hoodch]

Thanks Karlos, I will give that virutal machine software a try. I've posted in the new build section.

Many thanks.

hooch

 

[tinytomlogan]

Deleted the dupe and moved this to the correct place. Please dont multi post the same thread in future dude.

 

[hoodch]

The legend himself

Thanks Tom sorry about all the duplicate posts. Didn't think I had the rights to delete threads. Guess I should have asked an admin to move it to here for me

I'm burning bridges before I've even started

hooch

 

[tinytomlogan]

The legend himself

Thanks Tom sorry about all the duplicate posts. Didn't think I had the rights to delete threads. Guess I should have asked an admin to move it to here for me

I'm burning bridges before I've even started

hooch

Its ok dude but if I hadnt said about it youd never know

 

[hoodch]

Cool, thanks for being so understanding.

Do you think it's possible to do what I want with the budget I have or am I being too naive in these things?

hooch

 

[hoodch]

Hi Guys,

Thought I chuck in a parts list to give you a general idea of what I'm considering. £266 over budget

, where can I cut the fat to slim down the cost?

Plus this does not include the cost for a OS: Linux, Windows, etc.

• 1 x Intel Core i3 540 3.06GHz Socket 1156 4MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor £77.72
  
• 1 x Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H H55 Socket 1156 VGA DVI HDMI Out 8 CHannel Audio mATX Motherboard £64.63
  
• 2 x StarTech 3.5" 4 Drive Trayless Hot Swap SATA Mobile Rack Backplane £118.84
  
• 1 x Xigmatek Utgard Black Mid Tower Case £53.62
  
• 2 x Kingston 4GB DDR3 1066MHz Memory Non-ECC CL7 1.5V £59.00
  
• 1 x Corsair 650W HX Modular PSU £86.00
  
• 1 x Adaptec RAID 5805 - Storage controller (RAID) - 8 Channel - SATA-300 / SAS low profile - 300 MBps - RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, JBOD, 1E, 5EE, 60 - PCI Express x8 £330.55
  
• 1 x OCZ 120GB Vertex 2E SSD 2.5" SATA-II Read = 285MB/s, Write = 275MB/s 50,000 IOPS £134.97
  
• 8 x Seagate 2TB Barracuda LP 3.5" Hard Drive - SATAII 5900rpm 32MB Cache - OEM £383.68
  
• 4 x Antec TrueQuiet 120 - Case fan - 120 mm £24.32
  

• Shipping £13.79
  
• Subtotal £1347.12
  
• VAT £269.45
  
• Order Total £1616.57
  

 

[Grizzly]

• 2 x StarTech 3.5" 4 Drive Trayless Hot Swap SATA Mobile Rack Backplane £118.84
• 2 x Kingston 4GB DDR3 1066MHz Memory Non-ECC CL7 1.5V £59.00
• 1 x OCZ 120GB Vertex 2E SSD 2.5" SATA-II Read = 285MB/s, Write = 275MB/s 50,000 IOPS £134.97

A few things that could cut the price: however nice it is to have hot swap drive bays do you really need them now or could you not add them in at a later date if you feel you need them?

1x 4GB stick will be plenty, again you can upgrade later if you need to.

And an SSD for a server is only really going to help in boot times as I imagine there aren't many programs you'll be wanting to run on the server.

 

[equk]

If you want a dedicated NAS OS, I'd recommend using FreeNAS as it's based on FreeBSD, is stable and has lots of features built in aswell as a nice remote management UI

Don't think I'd use ubuntu for a server OS

Also wouldn't use a SSD in any type of server, especially if redundancy is needed and also if you're looking at using some sort of RAID.

 

[hoodch]

Hi Grizzly, thanks for the suggestions.

• Hot Swap Drives: Your right that these aren't really needed. Just wanted a easy way to tell which drive has failed should it ever happen. Any suggestions on this one, bank of led’s perhaps?
  
• Memory: The server is intended for file backup and media centre running xmbc (open source media centre software). Would 4GBs be enough for this purpose in terms of HD content, etc?
  
• SSD: I want to keep the OS separate from the storage and have xmbc installed on it. Would a smaller hard drive be a better option?
  

hooch

 

[hoodch]

Thanks equk. Are you saying a standard server would have the OS on the raid, how would this effect the rebuild process in the event of a failure?

 

[Grizzly]

Hi Grizzly, thanks for the suggestions.

• Hot Swap Drives: Your right that these aren't really needed. Just wanted a easy way to tell which drive has failed should it ever happen. Any suggestions on this one, bank of led's perhaps?
• Memory: The server is intended for file backup and media centre running xmbc (open source media centre software). Would 4GBs be enough for this purpose in terms of HD content, etc?
• SSD: I want to keep the OS separate from the storage and have xmbc installed on it. Would a smaller hard drive be a better option?

hooch

Never had to do it before but if a hard drive fails and it's not your boot drive the OS should tell you which drive is faulty, no need for any other indication really.

4GBs for streaming HD video is fine

Yes in your case a smaller hard drive is more suitable than an SSD, any 7200 RPM drive will be good enough.

 

[hoodch]

Never had to do it before but if a hard drive fails and it's not your boot drive the OS should tell you which drive is faulty, no need for any other indication really.

I see, but I assuming the OS would just say something like "Drive 2 in the array has failed". How would I physically know which drive has failed, without some sort of physical indicator how do you determine which drive to replace?

4GBs for streaming HD video is fine

That’s good to know, that will save some cash.

Yes in your case a smaller hard drive is more suitable than an SSD, any 7200 RPM drive will be good enough.

tinytomlogan was using SSD for the OS in his videos, I guess that’s not completely needed.

hooch

 

[Grizzly]

I see, but I assuming the OS would just say something like "Drive 2 in the array has failed". How would I physically know which drive has failed, without some sort of physical indicator how do you determine which drive to replace?

Drive 2 would be the drive connected to SATA port 2 etc.

 

[hoodch]

I see, so raid is sequential in terms of allocating ids to the drives. Makes sense I guess, I think marking the cables and drives with a sharpy is a good idea