Tips on hardware for a simple home server?
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_SiN_
Megatron



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PostPosted: Mon, 24th Jan 2011 18:09    Post subject: Tips on hardware for a simple home server?
So I was thinking of bulding a home server - mATX maybe with a mATX case, a dual-core cpu and maybe 4 gigs of DDR3 RAM? RAM is so cheap anyway Smile

But what do you guys recommend? I'm thinking of throwing in two 2TB disks, then having it download all the stuff me and the GF get from usenet - TV shows, HD movies, X360 & PC games etc. Of course it would handle the unraring and maybe renaming/sorting/tagging etc. Also, I'd like to store my graphic design projects and files for easy access whenever I'm not home.

I can skip buying a graphics card right? Just use the Intel Integrated Graphics if i get an i3 or whatever.. What about AMD? I haven't read anything about them in the last 2 years or so Razz

Anyway, any info is appreciated Smile


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Werelds
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PostPosted: Mon, 24th Jan 2011 19:24    Post subject:
Will you be using it *just* as a server, or as an HTPC as well? Smile
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_SiN_
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PostPosted: Mon, 24th Jan 2011 20:31    Post subject:
I'm planning on hiding this one in a closet or something like that, so server only Smile


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Paintface




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PostPosted: Mon, 24th Jan 2011 21:00    Post subject:
AMD fusion is perfect for you, those mobos support USB and SATA3. E-350 mobos will be out in a week or 2, roughly 120-130 euros for mobo+cpu+video
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fugzczo




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PostPosted: Mon, 24th Jan 2011 22:46    Post subject:
don't buy anything, find some old box with sata ports and throw it in the closet..
athlon xp ~1.6ghz 1gb ram is bottlenecked by wd green 1tb while doing par/unrar
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Spazmotic
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PostPosted: Mon, 24th Jan 2011 23:04    Post subject:
Agreed... Have a server doing this in our datacenter, you'll really only need the HDD, anything beyond that is just going to increase the rate which you unpack them really.
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Werelds
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PostPosted: Mon, 24th Jan 2011 23:32    Post subject:
Yeah don't waste too much money on a download/fileserver Smile

Everything gets bottlenecked by your hard drives anyway unfortunately.
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Spazmotic
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PostPosted: Mon, 24th Jan 2011 23:41    Post subject:
Not sure if you've looked into it much but here a couple of nice applications to handle the Usenet downloading:

http://hellanzb.com/hellanzb
http://sabnzbd.org/

Both also have firefox extensions that you can just autosend an NZB over to the server for download.
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_SiN_
Megatron



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PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 08:52    Post subject:
Yep, I was planning on using SABnzd actually, with that Sick Beard that Horror was talking about Smile


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Werelds
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PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 12:16    Post subject:
I've put up a guide for it in that thread as well, I might expand it to a full Sab+Sick guide Smile
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_SiN_
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PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 12:22    Post subject:
Please do if you have the time, I've never bothered to use SAB because it seemed like a bit too much hassle when Alt.binz works so good out of the box Smile


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Werelds
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PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 12:37    Post subject:
I'll type it up tonight, it's really not as hard as you might think and it is so good to be at work, and log in to a web interface to add some downloads Very Happy
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_SiN_
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PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 13:30    Post subject:
Nice, thanks Smile

Anyway, I threw this one together, just 335 EUR Smile

Trying to keep the noise and heat down as much as possible Smile
MSI G31TM-P35 mATX mobo
Intel Celeron 430 1.8GHz, 800Mhz
Cooler Master Elite 341 mATX case
Corsair 2GB 667MHz
And two Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB disks

Would that be an OK server? Razz Haven't ordered it yet..

Also, I have no real knowledge about Linux at all, so I'm planning on using W7 - acceptable? Smile


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Werelds
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PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 13:49    Post subject:
I'll check that setup out when I get home tonight, but it looks good at first glance. I would recommend going for a case with as few 5.25" slots as possible - preferably none. You don't need a DVD drive for anything, and more space for HDD's might prove useful Smile

And nothing wrong with using Win7 as OS tbh, also makes it very easy to get shares working with any random device. Although you may want to check out Windows Home Server as well, that might be right up your alley.

WHSv1 = Win2003 based, creates a massive storage pool containing all your drives and spreads data across all drives, and performs some data replication as well. WHSv2 = Win2008 based, does it slightly different, plenty of articles on the web explaining the exact differences Smile
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Paintface




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PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 14:19    Post subject:
why not go amd fusion ???? 18w underload for mobo + video + cpu which is costing around 120 euros, and you get USB3 / SATA3 and a dualcore 1.6ghz based on bulldozer with SSE4.1/4.2/AVX etc.... not to mention a nice ITX case
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fugzczo




Posts: 15

PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 14:37    Post subject:
_SiN_ wrote:
Nice, thanks :)
MSI G31TM-P35 mATX mobo
Intel Celeron 430 1.8GHz, 800Mhz
Cooler Master Elite 341 mATX case
Corsair 2GB 667MHz
And two Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB disks

if you don't have old hardware laying around, to buy that cpu and mobo now is little crazy, in 2-3 years that will be junk, but if you buy cheapest quad, decent mobo and =>4gb ram that will be usable for as long you care to keep it..
case is not important if you keep it in the closet
but psu is, on boxes running 24/7 psu that "came with case" usually dies after 2 years
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_SiN_
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PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 15:16    Post subject:
Paintface wrote:
why not go amd fusion ???? 18w underload for mobo + video + cpu which is costing around 120 euros, and you get USB3 / SATA3 and a dualcore 1.6ghz based on bulldozer with SSE4.1/4.2/AVX etc.... not to mention a nice ITX case


It's more expensive.

MSI E350IA-E45AMD Fusion with 2 GBs of DDR3, PSU and the cheapest ITX-case (and the two disks) is 410 EUR. And that case only has ONE slot for the HDDs, so I can't use two.

The setup I posted earlier is 335 EUR.


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_SiN_
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PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 15:19    Post subject:
fugzczo wrote:

case is not important if you keep it in the closet


It is when I don't have room for a full-sized ATX case Smile mATX is perfectly sized, and can fit 4 HDDs.

fugzczo wrote:
but psu is, on boxes running 24/7 psu that "came with case" usually dies after 2 years


The case doesn't come with a PSU, so I'll be getting a cheap (but quality) one.


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Spazmotic
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PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 15:56    Post subject:
Looks fine to me Sin, I still believe even with 2G you're goin overkill lol but that's just dandy, if you can't skirt the price anywhere i'd recommend it. Won't need much at all especially if you plan ont hrowing a simple linux installation on the server, will improve the uptime and everything else in a lower end server.
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Werelds
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PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 20:13    Post subject:
_SiN_ wrote:
Please do if you have the time, I've never bothered to use SAB because it seemed like a bit too much hassle when Alt.binz works so good out of the box Smile


Here you go Smile

As for your hardware, I would still get a dual core. Not so much to speed anything up, but more to avoid any potential bottleneck when parring/rarring/moving stuff. Not sure whether it's entirely up to the CPU, but I've noticed my laptop having major issues if I'm copying something to my downloadbox whilst also downloading something (1.4 GHz Core 2 Solo, about the same as that Celeron). Should only cost about €7-8 extra for a C2D @ 1.8GHz Smile
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$en$i
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PostPosted: Tue, 25th Jan 2011 23:02    Post subject:
@ SIN

What's your country btw? Checking prices at the rather expensive shop down my street the same components will cost nearly 50 euro less over there.

@ Werelds

If I am not mistaken he would rather have a celeron/pentium dual core than a C2D for 7-8 extra euro. Smile
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Werelds
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PostPosted: Wed, 26th Jan 2011 09:07    Post subject:
$en$i wrote:
@ Werelds

If I am not mistaken he would rather have a celeron/pentium dual core than a C2D for 7-8 extra euro. Smile

Not the Celeron, but yeah the models I meant (E5200 for example) are branded as Pentium Dual Core, not Core 2 Duo. Good catch Wink
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_SiN_
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PostPosted: Wed, 26th Jan 2011 09:58    Post subject:
Here's what I did - I said to myself "fuck it, if I'm gonna do it, let's do it right from the beginning!"

Who knows, maybe the server will do something else in the future, like hosting multiplayer game servers or whatnot. And why buy a Celeron when the i3 540 is a so much better CPU, for barely twice the price, and it's still cheap.

So, again, new spec list (am I annoying you all yet? Razz)

MSI H55M-E23 (mATX)
Intel Core i3 540
A-Data 2048MB DDR3 PC10600
Cooler Master Elite 341 (mATX)
FSP 400-60APN 400W (does standard-sized PSUs fit in a mATX case? Never built one before..)
and two 2TB Samsung Ecogreen F4EG. I mean comparing the price per GB between two 1.5TB and two 2TB, it's obvious that the 2TB drives are the better choice Smile

Price is about 438 EUR. 1 EUR is just under 9 Swedish kronor.
It's less than 100 EUR more expensive (I forgot to include the same PSU as above in the last list) than the last setup I posted, but miles better, and 1TB more storage Razz

So, what do you all think? Smile

$sen$i
I'm in Sweden Smile


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Werelds
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PostPosted: Wed, 26th Jan 2011 10:08    Post subject:
Hmm not sure about the PSU + mATX case, the Pundit barebone I used for my HTPC has a custom PSU inside (awesome barebones btw, really happy I used that as a base for my HTPC back then). Rest of it looks pretty awesome Smile

Now create some HUMP servers already Smug
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$en$i
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PostPosted: Wed, 26th Jan 2011 12:55    Post subject:
The case you mention use the ATX PSU norm, shouldn't have trouble with that. Smile

Everything seems good, the only thing that I would miss in my particular case -for a more oriented file storage use, sorry for digressing- would be some RAID5 support, but the mobos with a relevant chipset like the Intel H67 Express are more around the 80/100 eur price range, and it would also require at least one more disk storage device from the start.
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_SiN_
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PostPosted: Wed, 26th Jan 2011 13:29    Post subject:
Yep, a quick google search gave me the answer about the PSU, but thank anyway Smile

I've actually never tried RAID configurations to be honest, but I was thinking of just running the two drives in RAID 0 to ease the storing a bit, just having one main directory which then contains subfolders for TV, games, files etc.


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Werelds
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PostPosted: Wed, 26th Jan 2011 13:38    Post subject:
Windows Home Server would sort of do that as well.

It basically creates one massive storage pool like RAID 0, then adds some parity/duplication as well. I'm not entirely up to par with what v1 and v2 do exactly, I do know that v2 doesn't have Drive Extender anymore, which is what creates that storage pool. Perhaps worth reading up on as well?

The biggest advantage is that you can freely add or replace a drive, which tends to be a problem with RAID arrays
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_SiN_
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PostPosted: Wed, 26th Jan 2011 13:50    Post subject:
But why remove that feature from a newer version? Was there any problems or downsides with it? Surprised


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Werelds
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PostPosted: Wed, 26th Jan 2011 13:58    Post subject:
Yeah a vanilla installation corrupts files apparently under some very specific circumstances. I don't know the entire backstory to be honest, I do know that the whole WHS community is pretty pissed off with MS for removing DE, since that is the one feature that made WHS so good. You can achieve the same thing by running Linux with unraid and shit like that, but none of them work as well as DE apparently .

Like I said, worth reading up on, it's something I've been meaning to do for a while now but haven't had the time for yet (my download/storage box runs on plain Win7 Pro) Smile
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shole




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PostPosted: Wed, 26th Jan 2011 15:49    Post subject:
... or you could just get a 99euro nas hd that runs linux and does samba shares
many run torrent clients right in the stock interface
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