Cheap/energy efficient computer as a home server

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: mxnerd
According to this http://www.silentpcreview.com/article859-page5.html article,

I tried to assemble a similar low power AMD WHS system with hot swap drive bays under $420 and has space to grow.
http://secure.newegg.com/WishL...WishListNumber=9793112

The only complaint is the case is larger than I want. And I replace a 2.5" drive with 3.5" drive and upgrade memory from 1GB to 2GB.

About $40 more than refurbished HP EX470 $379.99
http://www.shopping.hp.com/sto...etail/GG795AAR%2523ABA

That is an awesome article! I have been looking at the e4850 for my HTPC. I think it is too powerful (expensive) for a WHS though.

But your case is way too big ... and I don't really care about hot swappable bays (ideally I will set this up and not touch it for 2 years or so at which point I might add more drives/storage space). I definitely want redundancy, so 4 3.5" drivebays are a must. I will likely start off with 2x 750GB or 2x1TB drives.
I also would love to go mini-itx form factor (something as small as the HP WHS but without hot swappable drives).

And last but not least, I would like to stay sub $180 for CPU, motherboard, RAM, case and powersupply.

 

[Knavish]

Originally posted by: coolVariable

That is an awesome article! I have been looking at the e4850 for my HTPC. I think it is too powerful (expensive) for a WHS though.

But your case is way too big ... and I don't really care about hot swappable bays (ideally I will set this up and not touch it for 2 years or so at which point I might add more drives/storage space). I definitely want redundancy, so 4 3.5" drivebays are a must. I will likely start off with 2x 750GB or 2x1TB drives.
I also would love to go mini-itx form factor (something as small as the HP WHS but without hot swappable drives).

And last but not least, I would like to stay sub $180 for CPU, motherboard, RAM, case and powersupply.

I've been thinking about building a low power server for a long time. In the past I've really wanted to set it up as a RAID5 system (perhaps with 3x 1TB drives), or at least to do RAID1 type mirroring. More recently, I've been convinced this is a waste. As people in the Memory&Storage forum say: RAID is not a backup, it just increases system availability. I've seen several RAID systems fail in enterprise-level servers (by Dell / HP) that were in an academic setting. Two were being used without backups, and required very expensive hard disk recovery.

I've begun thinking my "ideal" low power file server would be a mini ITX box with a single 1 TB drive. I'd mirror that drive out to an external 1 TB eSATA drive every night. For added redundancy, I'd keep a 2nd 1TB eSATA drive and swap between the two external drives on a weekly basis.

What do you think?

 

[mxnerd]

RAID 5 setup is really overkill for average people. Several months ago I setup a Intel Matrix RAID5 for my uncle's company server using 3 disks.

It really sucks when s**t happens. It takes full 8 hours to complete a 3 disk (150GB, each) recovery. During that time, the performance is down to earth, server is almost unusable.

That's why Microsoft WHS DOES NOT use raid setup.

Yes, RAID is for performance (RAID5, for instance, when it's good) and up time, even RAID1 is for up time, not for backup (what is your file system is corrupted?).

Do the backups in a regular basis.

 

[coolVariable]

Having the backup disk external doesn't give you any benefit, as long as the backup stays on site. if you are removing the backup disk to an off-site location, then there is a benefit.

Otherwise, my vote goes to an internal system for convenience. you can use RAID or (if you are using WHS) MS' WHS software solution. I would go for RAID.
My main concern for having multiple drive bays is storage space. I only want to use 2 drives now but I have added 10GB of photos from 2 vacations in the last 6 months to my 30+GB of photos I had previously. I can easily see myself needing more than 750GB/1TB of storage in 1-2 years. And throwing away a 750GB/1TB disk after 1 year seems like a horrible waste of space.
Leaving an external disk in an enclosure on 24/7 also eliminates any power consumption savings from a SFF server. And otherwise you have to remember to turn it on - big inconvenience.

 

[Knavish]

Originally posted by: coolVariable
Having the backup disk external doesn't give you any benefit, as long as the backup stays on site. if you are removing the backup disk to an off-site location, then there is a benefit.

Otherwise, my vote goes to an internal system for convenience. you can use RAID or (if you are using WHS) MS' WHS software solution. I would go for RAID.
My main concern for having multiple drive bays is storage space. I only want to use 2 drives now but I have added 10GB of photos from 2 vacations in the last 6 months to my 30+GB of photos I had previously. I can easily see myself needing more than 750GB/1TB of storage in 1-2 years. And throwing away a 750GB/1TB disk after 1 year seems like a horrible waste of space.
Leaving an external disk in an enclosure on 24/7 also eliminates any power consumption savings from a SFF server. And otherwise you have to remember to turn it on - big inconvenience.

I specifically suggested using two external HDs as backup so that you can take one offsite on a weekly basis -- I should have said that earlier. This is, of course, an inconvenience.

The other reason why I'm interested in an external drive is that I've seen a faulty PSU simultaneously kill two HDs in a RAID5 setup before. (One of the cases I was referring to in my previous post.) The external drive wouldn't be running on the computers PSU, so I might avoid this. Of course, the external drive might have an even lower quality PSU...

Ideally I'd like to keep all my files on a single drive so that I can back them up easily (via mirroring). This is why I (hypothetically) need only one drive in my file server. If I need to add a drive at a later date, then I'd have to use two drives as backup. This would get painful.

I wish there was a cheaper way to backup 1+TB of data. I keep hoping that we get some better ideas going in a thread like this

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: Knavish
I specifically suggested using two external HDs as backup so that you can take one offsite on a weekly basis -- I should have said that earlier. This is, of course, an inconvenience.

Then it makes sense. I would still want the ability to upgrade additional HDDs in 1-2 years. WHS supposedly makes adding drives seamless.

Originally posted by: Knavish
The other reason why I'm interested in an external drive is that I've seen a faulty PSU simultaneously kill two HDs in a RAID5 setup before.

I think that is very, very unlikely. A fire or water damage is more probable.

Originally posted by: Knavish

Ideally I'd like to keep all my files on a single drive so that I can back them up easily (via mirroring). This is why I (hypothetically) need only one drive in my file server. If I need to add a drive at a later date, then I'd have to use two drives as backup. This would get painful.

I am sorry - that doesn't make any sense:. assume you have 1TB in the server and are using 1TB as external backup. 1-2 years down the line you simply put the external 1TB in with the existing drive (1+1 = 2TB) and you use a 2TB disk in your external enclosure.
If your server doesn't support adding additional disks ... then you need to actually replace EVERY SINGLE DISK. That's exactly the reason why I want a WHS with 4 HDD bays.

Originally posted by: Knavish
I wish there was a cheaper way to backup 1+TB of data. I keep hoping that we get some better ideas going in a thread like this

Me too.
If you have 2 servers at different locations you could sync them over the internet with Live Mesh (except for .pst files).

 

[Knavish]

Originally posted by: coolVariable
Then it makes sense. I would still want the ability to upgrade additional HDDs in 1-2 years. WHS supposedly makes adding drives seamless.

Yeah I think you'd need to get a $$$ raid card to get something that would rebuild on the fly. WHS sounds like the best bet for you. I want to use linux b/c I've got quite a bit of experience with it & it's free!

Originally posted by: coolVariable
I am sorry - that doesn't make any sense:. assume you have 1TB in the server and are using 1TB as external backup. 1-2 years down the line you simply put the external 1TB in with the existing drive (1+1 = 2TB) and you use a 2TB disk in your external enclosure.
If your server doesn't support adding additional disks ... then you need to actually replace EVERY SINGLE DISK. That's exactly the reason why I want a WHS with 4 HDD bays.

That's true, but it depends on your needs. I'm hoping I won't need more than ~1.5 TB of storage for perhaps 3 years. (I don't really archive much video or raw images these days.) By that time I'll probably just build a new system.

Originally posted by: coolVariable
Me too.
If you have 2 servers at different locations you could sync them over the internet with Live Mesh (except for .pst files).

[/quote]
I actually implemented a system like that for my research group (at a university) a few yrs ago. We needed a couple TB of RAID storage & didn't want to pay for the LTO tape changer. They were in the same building, but several floors apart.
--
I'm seriously considering doing the 1 drive fileserver with an Atom 330 board to keep the power and cost down. I suppose the cost+power consumption of an undervolted AMD might not be that different from the Atom...

 

[KoolAidKid]

I use my Linksys NSLU2 NAS for most of those tasks. Can't do web browsing, obviously, but it can do the rest of it. It pulls about 3.5 watts. I got mine for $30 on ebay, but it looks like they are a little more expensive these days.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: KoolAidKid
I use my Linksys NSLU2 NAS for most of those tasks. Can't do web browsing, obviously, but it can do the rest of it. It pulls about 3.5 watts. I got mine for $30 on ebay, but it looks like they are a little more expensive these days.

Doesn't do automatic backups of computers connected to it, as well as ... (see below). Otherwise, I would probably agree with you.

Originally posted by: Knavish
Yeah I think you'd need to get a $$$ raid card to get something that would rebuild on the fly. WHS sounds like the best bet for you. I want to use linux b/c I've got quite a bit of experience with it & it's free!

Why go linux? What can you do with that, that cannot be handled by a dumb NAS (see above)?
I only want to use WHS because (i.) it does backups of connected PCs, (ii.) works seamlessly with multiple drives, (iii.) can run Live Mesh (or other online sync apps) and (iv.) supposedly has a good setup to do automatic backups if you plug an external drive in.

Originally posted by: Knavish
That's true, but it depends on your needs. I'm hoping I won't need more than ~1.5 TB of storage for perhaps 3 years. (I don't really archive much video or raw images these days.) By that time I'll probably just build a new system.

Seems like a waste of money to me. The base system should still be fine 3 years down the road. the biggest problem will be storage space. (I have noticed that my storage needs are accelerating ... 2007 I might make 500MB - 1GB of photos during a vacation ... now with more MP it's easily 4GB-7GB per vacation and I don't take more photos.)

I have been using the same HTPC since 2004. At some point I added RAM, upgraded the video card and added more drives (eventually changing out 2 drives for more capacity ones) but the system was still fine until now.
And I would argue that a WHS is much more passive than a HTPC (which occasionally gets used for some games).

 

[KoolAidKid]

Originally posted by: coolVariable

Originally posted by: KoolAidKid
I use my Linksys NSLU2 NAS for most of those tasks. Can't do web browsing, obviously, but it can do the rest of it. It pulls about 3.5 watts. I got mine for $30 on ebay, but it looks like they are a little more expensive these days.

Doesn't do automatic backups of computers connected to it, as well as ... (see below). Otherwise, I would probably agree with you.

[/quote]

Actually, it can do automatic backups. For example, see here.

The NSLU2 can be easily hacked to run a specialized version of Debain or a couple of other linux distros, which greatly expands its capabilities. For more cool things that have been accomplished with this device (including a variety of media sharing applications including Twonkyvision), see here.

EDIT: screwed up the nested quotes.

 

[Knavish]

Originally posted by: coolVariable

Why go linux? What can you do with that, that cannot be handled by a dumb NAS (see above)?
I only want to use WHS because (i.) it does backups of connected PCs, (ii.) works seamlessly with multiple drives, (iii.) can run Live Mesh (or other online sync apps) and (iv.) supposedly has a good setup to do automatic backups if you plug an external drive in.

You can configure a linux box to do automatic backups of PCs. (With a bit of configuation on both the client and the server side).

As long as you're installing drives in pairs, linux will also work seemlessly -- the new disk space will just appear as a new directory in your file system.

I don't know about Live Mesh, but it's supposedly an open standard...? I doubt anyone will be handing out a significant amount of free online disk space, but it does look cool.

If you know how to use linux, it will save you $95 and require you to invest some time configuring your systems. If you don't know how to use linux, it'll either be a "learning experience" or a big frustrating project

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: Knavish

You can configure a linux box to do automatic backups of PCs. (With a bit of configuation on both the client and the server side).

Is it transparent to the client PCs? i.e. They don't know it is happening but every time the PC idles it starts backing up while on the local network.

Originally posted by: Knavish
If you know how to use linux, it will save you $95 and require you to invest some time configuring your systems. If you don't know how to use linux, it'll either be a "learning experience" or a big frustrating project

The time and frustration is easily worth $100.

 

[Knavish]

Originally posted by: coolVariable
The time and frustration is easily worth $100.

Lots of people would use that exact reasoning to go buy a prebuilt WHS box. In the end it depends on if you enjoy tweaking / building the hardware or OS or both.

I, personally, would enjoy spending the 1-2 hrs installing and configuring a linux box as much as I would enjoy building it.

 

[cerem]

Great posts. I am currently using a hp mss - which is pretty good, but I hate not having control and want something I can attach a monitor to. I love the form factor and so want to build something around the Chenbro ES34069 - I know it is a lot and there are cheaper cases, but this is neat and I already have so much pc stuff in my house, I need something that is small. Anyway, maybe you guys can help - here is what I am thinking for the build:

MB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813121358
Intel BOXDQ45EK LGA 775 Intel Q45 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard - Retail

CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819116072
Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail

RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820231121
G.SKILL 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory

DVD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16827118017
Sony Optiarc Black 2MB Cache SATA Slim 8X DVD±R Burner - OEM

along with the Chenbro ES34069 case

should work out just under $500

What do you guys think? Will those components work together? Any suggestions or help would be really appreciated.

I know I can get MB with onboard cpu - but I prefer to have the option of changing it if necessary.

 

[Knavish]

Originally posted by: cerem
Great posts. I am currently using a hp mss - which is pretty good, but I hate not having control and want something I can attach a monitor to. I love the form factor and so want to build something around the Chenbro ES34069 - I know it is a lot and there are cheaper cases, but this is neat and I already have so much pc stuff in my house, I need something that is small. Anyway, maybe you guys can help - here is what I am thinking for the build:

MB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813121358
Intel BOXDQ45EK LGA 775 Intel Q45 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard - Retail

CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819116072
Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail

RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820231121
G.SKILL 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory

DVD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16827118017
Sony Optiarc Black 2MB Cache SATA Slim 8X DVD±R Burner - OEM

along with the Chenbro ES34069 case

should work out just under $500

What do you guys think? Will those components work together? Any suggestions or help would be really appreciated.

I know I can get MB with onboard cpu - but I prefer to have the option of changing it if necessary.

Wow that's a very cool case:
Chenbro ES34069
I'll have to put that up at the top of my list for mini server cases. All the parts look compatible with each other to me. What size power supply do you have? I think HD's can use between about 10-15 Watts. If you've got the CPU fully loaded and 4 HDs churning, you might be as high as 120-150 Watts required, right?

 

[cerem]

That is the only part I do not like about the case - it has an external power brick - I think it is 120 but I need to double check that. So I am hoping that will do the trick - it is a slight downside, but the upside is the great form factor - because there is really nothing out there that is decent looking and a reasonable size. Hence the reason I went with the HP MSS, however I really want to attach a monitor to have more control.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: cerem
That is the only part I do not like about the case - it has an external power brick - I think it is 120 but I need to double check that. So I am hoping that will do the trick - it is a slight downside, but the upside is the great form factor - because there is really nothing out there that is decent looking and a reasonable size. Hence the reason I went with the HP MSS, however I really want to attach a monitor to have more control.

I actually like external bricks - you don't?
Makes the case run cooler ... and thebrick doesn't usually matter with all the cables snaking out the back anyhow.

does the HP home server have an external brick?


I just wish there were more cases with that form factor, that many drivebays (even internal only) and a much cheaper price!

 

[cerem]

No the HP has an internal power supply - it is amazing how much they fit in such a small box. I agree with you somewhat on the power supply - I guess problem is, I figure any future upgrade might be a problem. Cannot grab a regular power supply off newegg and pop it in, but I could be wrong, I am learning as I go along.

 

[Knavish]

I've seen a ~120 W power brick with my wife's old P4-3.0Ghz compaq laptop. It cost > $75 to replace, and it burned out twice. It even had a little fan built into it for cooling.

I'd just be worried a little bit if you were trying to regularly pull 150 W out of a 120 W supply If that was the case, I'd start looking for components that take less power, like a 45W CPU instead of the 65, etc. Are there any HD's that consume less power than others, like the WD Green Power drives? I suspect you'd be ok since this is a file server & the 65 W rating is a maximum thermal envelope, not a normal power requirement. I wouldn't recommend running a Folding / SETI@home client on it, though.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: Knavish
I've seen a ~120 W power brick with my wife's old P4-3.0Ghz compaq laptop. It cost > $75 to replace, and it burned out twice. It even had a little fan built into it for cooling.

I'd just be worried a little bit if you were trying to regularly pull 150 W out of a 120 W supply If that was the case, I'd start looking for components that take less power, like a 45W CPU instead of the 65, etc. Are there any HD's that consume less power than others, like the WD Green Power drives? I suspect you'd be ok since this is a file server & the 65 W rating is a maximum thermal envelope, not a normal power requirement. I wouldn't recommend running a Folding / SETI@home client on it, though.

True. They might be harder to replace. But normal power supplies burn out all the time too ... and they run between $30-$80 for a good one (depending on your preference).

 

[mxnerd]

picoPSU 120w kit, only $54.95! http://www.mini-box.com/picoPS...-kit?sc=8&category=981

 

[cerem]

Just in case anyone is interested, there is a good article here on a build with this case:
http://www.logicsupply.com/blo...the-perfect-mainboard/

MB is a expensive though. Turns out that you can use a 180 power brick with this case, that would probably take care of any power issues. Why it does not ship with this, I don't know. More money - talk about stimulating the economy.....

 

[Knavish]

Originally posted by: mxnerd
picoPSU 120w kit, only $54.95! http://www.mini-box.com/picoPS...-kit?sc=8&category=981

An embedded mini ITX computer we use at work has a picoPSU -- it seems rock solid.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: cerem
Just in case anyone is interested, there is a good article here on a build with this case:
http://www.logicsupply.com/blo...the-perfect-mainboard/

MB is a expensive though. Turns out that you can use a 180 power brick with this case, that would probably take care of any power issues. Why it does not ship with this, I don't know. More money - talk about stimulating the economy.....

damn that's a sweet setup.

 

[Minjin]

Glad this thread took off. I'm still mulling options. Actually leaning towards just running a Linkstation or something like that...