Help me finish my fileserver/htpc

[Chris27]

So a visit to Microcenter and Frys today left me with

• an intel core i5 2500k CPU
• an Asus P8Z68-V LX ATX LGA1155 Z68 Motherboard
• 5 Seagate 3 TB external drives which should have these inside.
• An el cheapo keyboard mouse combo

and $770 poorer

Originally, I was just planning on putting together a FreeNas box and using raid-z on the drives. However, the Microcenter sale today left me with a CPU completely overkill for the job, so I though I might as well make this into a htpc as well. Would running FreeNas as a virtual OS be advisable (and I guess Win 7 pro x64 as a main OS)? If so, then I guess I would still need a boot drive, case, PSU, and ram.

Something like

• case $40
• Samsung F3 1 tb $50
• 2x4 GB ram $45 (could wait for these to go shell shocker again)
• Corsair 430 watt PSU $45 - $20 MIR

And I suppose down the road I could always add a GPU to have some sort of fileserver/htpc/gaming tower monstrosity

Thoughts?


1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

Currently have saturated a 1.5 tb, 1 tb, 750 gb and 120 gb external hard drives and want a better way to manage the contents of said drives + backups. Also, my MBP is getting a little long in the tooth, so this desktop could also serve as a replacement for general computing + htpc. It will either run headless or be hooked up to a 47" HDTV.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

Don't really have a set budget. Cheaper is better. Hopefully I've already spent a majority of what the project is going to cost me.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

USA (bay area CA)

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.

Don't have any strong brand loyalties here

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

See above

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

Yes...

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

default for now.

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.

If I gamed, it would be at the 1080P resolution of my hdtv.

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?

now

10. Don't ask for a build configuration critique or rating if you are thin skinned.

okay...

 

[Puppies04]

I see you realise this already but absolutly nothing you are planning on doing requires that cpu/mobo combination. Can I ask why you bought them?

 

[Chris27]

because the CPU + mobo were $235 which isn't a whole lot more then a budget CPU + a mobo with sufficient SATA ports.

 

[mfenn]

The other parts you have picked out are fine. You will want to grab a few molex to SATA power adapters though.

On the software side, you really don't want to run a server OS as a VM inside of a client OS, there is too much overhead (performance and management) to make that worthwhile. If you want this box to do both HTPC and file server duties, your best bet is to leave the OS as Windows 7 and pick up a hardware RAID card like this Highpoint and some SFF-8087 breakout cables. That gives you most of the portability and performance advantages of RAID-Z expect with the Windows OS, albeit at a higher cost.