New media server build should I wait for new hardware?

[Kneedragger]

I have a Synology single bay NAS that I have out grown and want to build a new server. I mostly stream Blu-ray and DVD rips. No transcoding what so ever. Pretty much I stream to XBMC boxes in my house.

I picked up a Lian Li PC-Q25 earlier this year on sale so I need to build a Mini-itx server. I haven't bought anything else yet but what I'm questioning is the Mobo and CPU I should use. I would like to try and keep it low power and wonder if there is any new stuff coming out this year I should wait on or just go a head and buy now. budget wise I think $300.00 on a Mobo and CPU should work.

Thanks

 

[mfenn]

Check these out:

Pentium G2120 $75
P8H77-I $110 - 6 SATA ports

 

[Cerb]

I would like to try and keep it low power and wonder if there is any new stuff coming out this year I should wait on or just go a head and buy now. budget wise I think $300.00 on a Mobo and CPU should work.

Nothing new on the horizon, no. Haswell Core i3s, but that will get you, at most, a couple more 6Gbps SATA ports (useless in general), and 5-10% more CPU performance (useless, because your main bottleneck will be GbE and HDDs). Most mobos will give you 6 SATAs, before needing a card, and if you just outgrew a single bay, that should give you a few years.

Any fat desktop core is fast enough to make the HDDs the bottleneck for software RAID (RAID 5, 6, RAID-Z1-3). A single 8GB stick of RAM would give you enough RAM for basically any future needs, though 4GB will probably be enough.

 

[Kneedragger]

Thanks for the info guys. I'll take a look at the hardware tonight.

 

[dawza]

There are compelling reasons to go with "real" CPUs for sure, but another option if you only anticipate straight streaming w/o transcoding is one of the Supermicro IPMI ITX boards. I think the latest such board (with IPMI) is the X7SPA-HF-D525, which you can find here and there for <$200.

6 SATA 3 ports, dual Intel giga LAN, and IPMI-- with official 4 GB RAM support, but unofficially works fine with 8 GB. I wouldn't want to run soft RAID 5 with Atom, but you can always add a RAID card down the line.

I have the previous (D510) version running WHS 2011 for backups and to serve (w/o transcoding) media files. CPU usage doesn't really budge during streaming, and I easily saturate my giga network. Not running RAID, though.

The IPMI functionality is simply fantastic. Being able to remotely manage the system from cold boot is something I never want to be without, now that I've experienced the convenience.

 

[Kneedragger]

There are compelling reasons to go with "real" CPUs for sure, but another option if you only anticipate straight streaming w/o transcoding is one of the Supermicro IPMI ITX boards. I think the latest such board (with IPMI) is the X7SPA-HF-D525, which you can find here and there for <$200.

6 SATA 3 ports, dual Intel giga LAN, and IPMI-- with official 4 GB RAM support, but unofficially works fine with 8 GB. I wouldn't want to run soft RAID 5 with Atom, but you can always add a RAID card down the line.

I have the previous (D510) version running WHS 2011 for backups and to serve (w/o transcoding) media files. CPU usage doesn't really budge during streaming, and I easily saturate my giga network. Not running RAID, though.

The IPMI functionality is simply fantastic. Being able to remotely manage the system from cold boot is something I never want to be without, now that I've experienced the convenience.

Thanks for the tip I'll look into the mobo also.

 

[Kneedragger]

Just out of curiosity do you think this CPU/Mobo combo is worth using with a raid card? http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AT5IONTI/ I have this from a old build and wonder if its worth using ?

From what I found on the internet the PCIe x4operates at 1x. Is that bad?

 

[dawza]

Should be an x1 2.0 slot, so 500 MB/s bidirectional. Which means that even with only 2 SATA ports, you should be able to add a 4 port card and get decent performance (probably within the constraints of giga Ethernet).

Since you have the board already, why not? I'd certainly go for it. The only potential issue is the Realtek NIC, depending on what OS you're planning to use.

 

[Kneedragger]

Should be an x1 2.0 slot, so 500 MB/s bidirectional. Which means that even with only 2 SATA ports, you should be able to add a 4 port card and get decent performance (probably within the constraints of giga Ethernet).

Since you have the board already, why not? I'd certainly go for it. The only potential issue is the Realtek NIC, depending on what OS you're planning to use.

It would be Windows 7 or Windows 8.

 

[mfenn]

It would be Windows 7 or Windows 8.

Realtek will be totally fine in Windows.