New Home Server / Upgrade

[BradleyW-H]

Hey Guys,

Not been around for a while now. But I'm back and I'm looking to upgrade my old server.

Basic Uses:
Media Server
File Server
Web Server

Needs to be:
Quiet
"Dust friendly"

I already have these in my current setup and I want to upgrade the rest:
2x4TB WDD Red HDD's
128GB SSD for boot drive
Hyper 212 CPU Cooler
Corsair RM Series power supply
Windows home server 2012
Already have monitor and keyboard.

So im looking for your suggestions on a new CPU, Motherboard and case for my new server. I've been really bad over the past year and a half keeping up with new hardware and changes.

Was thinking somewhere along the lines of an i3 Haswell CPU, Fractal Designs Define R5 and really not sure what motherboard to go with. Really just needs to be reliable and nice set of features.

Any suggestions welcome. But I don't want to break the bank. Maybe £300 or around there.

Cheers,
Brad.

 

[NeverBackDown]

You can easily get away with an i3. Although the mobo/case are dependent on your needs. If you can fit a regular mid tower then the R5 is perfect for you and a cheaper mobo will do fine. If you need something smaller like ITX then the hardware will change though..

 

[Feronix]

I'd be looking at something like a Prodigy/Phenom/Colossus Mini ITX, which can house up to 7 3.5" HDDs and then a nice i3 (Hyperthreaded dual core) with an ASRock motherboard, as they tend to put more Sata ports on their ITX boards as the others.

You could get a H97M-ITX/ac with 5x Sata 3 ports for around 80 quid, or the more expensive ~£120 Z87E-ITX which has got 6 of them. Both also support built-in WiFi which is a slight bonus for a Home Server imo. Personally I don't think the latter is worth the extra 40 quid for one Sata 3 port, especially since you only have 3 drives for now.

 

[Davva2004]

I'd go for a Pentium G3258 CPU, an MSI H81M-E33 motherboard and a Bitfenix Neos case for the grand total of £111. Meets all the requirements for Windows Home Server 2012, and will handle everything you need it to. Plus the dust filtering on the Neos is great.

 

[Master&Puppet]

Not going to go for ECC? In my book that's basically essential in you are planning to store anything important on it.

 

[Davva2004]

Ecc memory is complete overkill on a home media server. As long as the drives are RAID1 mirrored that's all that's needed.

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

Totally agree on the Prodigy, the case has also 2 SSD mounts which you can use them to install the smaller HDDs. Also the pentium sounds ideal, since you won't be needing to overclock the pentium you could use the stock cooler. It will almost be dead silent