Home Server Build

[mdre83]

Hi Guys,

I've only just come across your channel/site as of yesterday, and so pleased I did. Love the work you guys are doing.

I've been working in the IT game for around 12 or so years now, although the last few have been more so on Avaya telephony programming and Web Development.

I'm looking for some advice on a personal home server build.

I should probably start off with the reasons for the build;

General back up of home machines - Win7 Laptop and iMac at the moment. Possible additions later down the line.

Streaming of DVD/BluRay rips (At the moment to/through the PS3 as MKV files) Music & Photos.

OS wise I was set on WHS2011 however, now contemplating unRaid. I know Tom is running Server 2008 R2 in his latest server build video.

What are peoples your opinions here?

The equipment I'm looking to get is all really based around the AMD Athlon II X4 631. Mainly because of it's price and capability given it's a Quad Core. A bit overkill for the purpose I know, but having said this, it's around the same price as the AMD Dual Cores at the moment … So why not

I must admit, I've always been an Intel man but the price of the AMDs is what is attracting me.

Planned Equipment:

Case: Fractal R3, although I have looked at the Fractal Array R2 Mini ITX NAS case. Love the clean finish and overall design of these.

CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 631 (Supplied with fan / heatsink)

Motherboard: Asus M5A97 PRO 970

Memory: 4 or 8GB DDR3 1333 (Corsair or Crucial)

HDDs: Undecided

PSU: Really liking the Silver Power Fanless Passive PSU Tom reviewed around a month ago.

[sub]I had planned the following build last year and but never got around to building it;

Fractal Design Define R3

Gigabyte GA-H67M-UD2H-B3 Intel H67

Intel CPU i3 2100 Sandy Bridge Dual Core

4GB kit (2GBx2), 240-pin DIMM, DDR3

Coolermaster Elite PSU 500W[/sub]

Any recommendations and comments are appreciated.

Cheers,

Martin

 

[hmmblah]

Moved to New Build Advice

 

[sheroo]

I currently have a Home Server but am in the process (I'm always in the process) of speccing an upgrade. I'm going down the i3 2100 route. Mine will be built for functionality and not looks. I'm looking to put a 400W Gold rated PSU in mine & will be using a rackmount case. I personally wouldn't put a fanless PSU in a server - but that's just me. 8GB is overkill unless you're going to be running VM's. The first thing you need to do is plan out your HDD requirements, and work out what backup strategy you'll be using. The new version of Home Server, 2011, has had drive extender removed, which means that the OS won't automatically keep duplicate copies of folders - so you'll need some sort of raid or a backup solution to make sure you have at least 2 physical copies of your precious data.

If you have any other questions, give me a shout - I have done some quite extensive research, and been running my current home server for 3 years now.

 

[Rastalovich]

sheroo - you tried something like FlexRaid with WHS2011 ?

 

[sheroo]

sheroo - you tried something like FlexRaid with WHS2011 ?

No, I just think that raid for a home server is overkill. RAID 5/6 is about uptime and is not a backup solution. My current server based around WHS v1 runs DE so at least my data is on 2 physical disks should I experience a HDD failure. What I plan on doing is building a new server based on WHS 2011 and then use a third party tool to sync my folders to my current v1 server (which I'll remove folder duplication from).

Out of the box WHS 2011 won't backup a volume that's greater than 2TB and will split a drive larger than 2TB into seperate volumes. It does however support advanced format drives out of the box, which v1 doesn't.

 

[Rastalovich]

I was thinking as a pool replacement for de rather than backup.

 

[mdre83]

Thanks for the replies however, what are peoples thoughts on the above spec I listed?

AMD or Intel and why your choice?

Don't quite understnad how RAID5/6 is overkill...

What are peoples views of unRaid rather than WHS2011?

 

[jimbojames]

Personally, I'd look at a synology or qnap nas box as you only mention streaming and backup.

These nas boxes use little power and have some amazing features on them including media streaming, FTP server, raid, they're quiet and can also turn on and off at scheduled times (saving money on electricity). Then with the backups, either use something like x-copy or the windows 7 backup options (both built in and free) and backup directly to the nas.

I love the idea of my own server at home (I'm a super geek) but unless you're hosting a website (and some nas's will even do that) then there is no point even considering a server.

Only my opinion

Hope that helps?

 

[Diablo]

I've built a server for my girlfriend's mum. I thought about AMD, but considering the efficiency of intel's i3 SB chips I went for one of those in the end as you don't need huge computational power. Remember the more you spec the PC, the more it costs per year to run.

In terms of OS, I've used Server 08 R2, but to the uninitiated (i.e. me) it took a while to get used to, and occasionally would go insane and use 50% CPU for no reason for hours on end. Maybe it was a bug, but "system" was doing it. My own server and the one I built both run Windows 7 ultimate, which does pretty much everything needed. If you are running windows 7 home premium at home, you will need your own backup program as they will not backup directly to a network drive. I'll probably lose all my geek cred for advocating W7 but whatever, it works.

I went for 8GB of RAM because it's so cheap at the minute. I agree with sheroo, PSUs for servers should have a fan, even if they are low power systems. The newest server has a Corsair 650W unit in it, which was on a deal from scan, and very efficient. I think the total draw at idle at the wall was about 30W, and at load (file transfers whilst priming) it was about 250W at the wall.

You can get a NAS box, but frankly it's nice to have your own server, they are more versatile, easier to work with (plug in a monitor for the initial config etc.) and more easily upgraded. Additionally for things like FTP servers, especially on residential broadband the IP can change without warning, but a full PC can email you the new IP automatically.

RAID 5 or 6 should only be attempted with a proper RAID card, or you may as well bang your head against a wall. A proper RAID card (adaptec or similar) will give a RAID 5 read/write rate of 270/220MBps on three drives, onboard RAID will give about 5MBps, which is ridiculous.

 

[sheroo]

I was thinking as a pool replacement for de rather than backup.

I'm still in the planning stages for my WHS 2011 build, but I want it to be an all in one unit that will run a mediaportal server and have tuner cards etc to distribute tv via the network. I don't want to complicate it further by having another piece of 3rd party s/w. Just want to keep it as simple as possible, and as I've got an old server I may as well use that for backup - this is the way alot of people seem to have gone if they are migrating from v1 to 2011.

AMD or Intel and why your choice?

i3 2100 or if you intend to transcode on the fly maybe a quad core. The grunt from these chips and idle power is amazing.

Don't quite understnad how RAID5/6 is overkill...

RAID 5 or 6 should only be attempted with a proper RAID card, or you may as well bang your head against a wall. A proper RAID card (adaptec or similar) will give a RAID 5 read/write rate of 270/220MBps on three drives, onboard RAID will give about 5MBps, which is ridiculous.

Totally agree with this. RAID 5/6 is about uptime for critical business data, its not a backup strategy.

What are peoples views of unRaid rather than WHS2011?

WHS 2011 has lots of nice built in features such as the backup and lots of addins you can use to add functionality to your server - making it instantly useful with very little effort and for only £35 its a snip. The only thing that it misses is the duplication of your data - using on board raid 1 is an option.

 

[mdre83]

Also been looking at the Javelin S4 NAS Box...