Looking to setup a Windows Home Server box

[IndieSnob]

So I think I'm finally ready to setup a Windows Home Server box, but I have a few questions as far as hardware goes.

Right now I am running a file server with the following specs:

P4 2.0A 400 FSB 256M Cache
Gigabyte GA-IEXP Socket 478 533FSB mobo - Has four ATA connectors and plenty of Firwire-USB 2.0 Ports as well.
2x512 of Kingston PC-2100.
80 Gig Maxtor ATA
80 Gig WD ATA
160 Gig WD ATA
200 Gig Maxtor ATA
300 Gig Maxtor ATA
Pioneer DVD-R ATA
Geforce 6200 AGP
Windows XP SP2

All of this is running in an Antec Server Case with a 350 watt Antec PSU.

All of this has been running more or less 24/7 for the past five years, and it's been a great PC.

However, I now have some new components and was wondering if the following build would be better.

One of the options is:

ASUS P4S800D-E Motherboard Socket 478
3.2 Gig Northwood - 800 FSB/1M L2 Cache
1 - 2 Gigs of PC-3200 DDR

The other option I have is:

Pentium 4 530 3.0 GHZ Socket 775 - I have no motherboard for it yet, but was thinking of picking up a cheap AsRock board for it from the forums.

Now here is what I'd like some feedback on.

Would I see that much of a difference between my current setup and going to the Asus board with the 3.2 Gig Northwood, as well as having dual-channel memory setup?

I also realize I'd need to put an ATA-133 card in there due to the Asus board not having enough ATA ports.

Or should I just stick with the Gigabyte and sell of all the components and add more storage to the Gigabyte?

Primarily I want to do Windows Home Server so that I can do JBOD and have all of my media spanned, as well as have it so that it can do backups and other things for my main Intel C2D desktop and Thinkpad Laptop.

Any feedback would be very much appreciated!

 

[Smilin]

They don't take a lot of horsepower.

I'm running the OEM one from HP and it was designed from the ground up to work well. Here are the specs I found on it:

1.8Ghz Sempron processor
512MB DDR
Gig NIC
Internal SATA
External SATA and USB2 ports

I never notice any slugishness with it. I couldn't imagine it needing any more horsepower for what it's doing.


http://www.shopping.hp.com/pro...sories/GG795AA%2523ABA

 

[loup garou]

Use whatever is convenient. WHS is not demanding on hardware. Mine is running on an Athlon XP 3000+ downclocked to 1300MHz with 2GB RAM. Works fine.

 

[RebateMonger]

Mine is (was) based on a P4 Celeron 1.7 GHz with 512MB of RAM, as I recall. I'm thinking of replacing the motherboard with a little C2D board, but only because I think it will run cooler, not because I felt the need for more horsepower.

 

[bsobel]

Id only worry about horsepower if you think you might want to run transcode360 or some other media type application on it. Otherwise, its pretty snappy on most commodity hardware.

 

[IndieSnob]

Thanks one and all for your replies!

I think I'm going to do it with a cheapo ECS LGA 775 board and the Pentium 4 530. Not only do I want to run WHS on it, but it will be used for pulling mods off of usenet, as well as some video encoding from time to time.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: IndieSnob
Not only do I want to run WHS on it, but it will be used for pulling mods off of usenet, as well as some video encoding from time to time.

I have to admit that I cringe when folks sit down at a server to browse the 'net or run non-server applications. I've seen a couple of servers with rootkits or trojans that have gotten themselves installed by users doing non-administrative work on the server. Also, many folks consider the new and complex "Drive Extender" technology to be "fragile". Don't know how it will respond to crashes of a non-server application.

 

[ViRGE]

My one piece of advice with a WHS box is to not skimp on the memory, especially when it's this cheap. Technically it works with 512MB, but as the HP MediaSmart owners are finding out, it's cutting things really close if you ever add anything else. Memory is cheap & plentiful, and since this is a file server extra memory really helps with I/O when the disks are backed up. I wouldn't build a box with less than 1GB, and really 2GB is the sweet spot.

 

[IndieSnob]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: IndieSnob
Not only do I want to run WHS on it, but it will be used for pulling mods off of usenet, as well as some video encoding from time to time.

I have to admit that I cringe when folks sit down at a server to browse the 'net or run non-server applications. I've seen a couple of servers with rootkits or trojans that have gotten themselves installed by users doing non-administrative work on the server. Also, many folks consider the new and complex "Drive Extender" technology to be "fragile". Don't know how it will respond to crashes of a non-server application.

I completely understand what you mean.

I think since I have a pretty nice main box with a 500 gig SATA HD that whatever I download I will just shuffle off to the WHS box.

The only thing that is biting me in the butt is that I run Vista 64 on my main box, and the Vista drivers for my Hauppauge 250 capture card really stink.