Thinking about building a server, opinions please.

[leeroberts21]

I am thinking about building a server for at-home, personal use. I want it to be able to do the following:

1) Movie/music server that is able to play on my television.
2) Server for personal, low-bandwidth website.
3) Small ventrilo server for friends.
4) Dedicated bittorrent/newsgroup downloading system when not in use for the above.
5) It also needs to be able to be fully controlled by my other computers, over the LAN, since there will be no keyboard/mouse connected to it and it will probably be hidden away in a closet somewhere. However, if it is possible to control it simply from a web browser (i.e. iPhone/Blackberry) then that would be a nice feature to have as well, although I have no idea how to go about doing that...yet. (I am going to do a lot more reading on the software side of things, but I figure it's best to have something you can experiment with when trying to learn.)


It will more than likely be running ubuntu linux, but I may consider some version of windows as well since it will be working with a windows network. (This is my first server so I'll have to experiment and see what I want and what I can get to work.)

Here are the hardware components I am considering:

• 
  ARK 4U-500-CA Black 4U Rackmount Case - $70
  SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $55
  AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Brisbane 2.9GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor - (See next item for price)
  ASUS M2A-VM AM2 AMD 690G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - $112, including processor above.
  Kingston 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $30
  ENCORE ENLGA-1320 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI Ethernet Card 1 x RJ45 - $10

(The extra Ethernet card is so the music/media server traffic will not interfere with the internet traffic.)

All of this together costs ~$275, without shipping. I am trying to keep the total under $300. Although, I may get a better graphics card later because I don't think this one will be good enough to display at 1080p resolution on my tv. I already have an 80gb sata hard drive that I plan to use to install the OS on. The 500gb hard drive will be solely for storage. I also already have a 500w PSU that I will use. I think this is all I need. I have experience building several desktops, but never a server.

Will this hardware work for what I want it for? Do you have any suggestions on how to make it better? Thanks ahead of time.

 

[KGB]

Lee,

Welcome to the Forums. :beer:

Is this "server" going to be running anything critical? What makes a server is the stability of the components, redundancy of critical components (HDD & PSU) and the efficiency of the cooling. Servers are meant for 24/7/365 operation.

With that said, I don't see a PSU in your list. Also, that NIC card will be bottlenecked at the POCI bus as opposed to an onboard NIC which bypasses the bus.

Have you considered getting a Dell Poweredge on their Outlet site. Many good deals can be had there.

Let us know.

 

[Operandi]

Originally posted by: leeroberts21
1) Movie/music server that is able to play on my television.

That sounds more like a HTPC to me.

I think it would be best so separate your tasks into to separate boxes.

The server should probably have some redundancy RAID hard drives, high quality PSU and motherboard, reliable cooling, ect. Raw power however would be a lower priority however.

The HTPC on the other hand will need a fairly powerful CPU or GPU to take care of 1080p video. You will probably also want to look into low noise a HSF and PSU, as well as use passive cooling wherever possible.

 

[leeroberts21]

I have a 500w PSU (might be 600w, I haven't got it out of storage in a while) that I plan on using with it so I won't need to buy one of those. I guess this would be more of an HTPC, but the 1080p output is something I can add later, I just want it to display at least standard definiton to my tv. I have another old computer (old as in like ~10 years) that as far as I can tell should still function well enough for at least a web server, if not a ventrilo server as well, but that's a second priority to the media server. However, I would still like this new server to be able to download things straight to the hard drive so that I don't have to transfer things so often, and also because I don't like leaving my gaming pc on for long periods of time.

I still want it to be on a rack mount though if possible because once I get out of this apartment I plan on having an actual rack in a closet or something. And it won't really have anything critical. I mean I don't want it to loose my music and movie collection if it crashes or something, but that would be the most important things stored there. The website will just be family and friends type stuff, and maybe a forum. But as I said, if it's not possible to have it all on one computer, then I can use the older computer for that.

As for the extra ethernet card, how much will it be bottlenecked? I only have DSL so would it be sufficient for that? Or can you suggest another motherboard that has two onboard ethernet inputs?

I don't want to buy a pre-built server because I enjoy the learning aspect of things like this just as much as the finished product.

 

[pugh]

toss WHS on that setup and watch it amaze you. WHS is a great Os which is basically Win 2003. Looking at you want to do with it, I don't see anything that WHS could not do that you intend for your server.

5) It also needs to be able to be fully controlled by my other computers, over the LAN, since there will be no keyboard/mouse connected to it and it will probably be hidden away in a closet somewhere. However, if it is possible to control it simply from a web browser (i.e. iPhone/Blackberry) then that would be a nice feature to have as well, although I have no idea how to go about doing that...yet. (I am going to do a lot more reading on the software side of things, but I figure it's best to have something you can experiment with when trying to learn.)

I do exactly what you mention. Except I don't use a blackberry. I can access my pc's over the lan via WHS or internet while I'm away from home. It's so simple too set this thing up you will be amazed.

There is becoming a nice little WHS following over at HardOC forums in the storage section and OS section.


http://www.microsoft.com/windo...omeserver/default.mspx

 

[KGB]

Another vote for WHS. Excellent product since they released PP1.

The reason I brought up the NIC was because you wanted a Gb NIC. Just add a regular 10/100 NIC instead. If you are merely using it to access the WAN, your DSL bandwidth will then be the bottleneck.

 

[KGB]

Actually, there was a thread in Hot Deals HERE with an HP Media Server for only $299 (a steal).

You had stated that you prefer to build this stuff yourself, disassemble the box and put the whole damn thing back together.

Really, this is one helluva deal on a great product. The OS alone is worth $100.

 

[leeroberts21]

Originally posted by: pugh
toss WHS on that setup and watch it amaze you. WHS is a great Os which is basically Win 2003. Looking at you want to do with it, I don't see anything that WHS could not do that you intend for your server.

So you think the setup I posted (aside from getting a different NIC card) would be sufficient?

I checked out the HP MediaSmart, but it seems to be sold out and I'm not up for paying $500 for it from other places.

EDIT: Also, I am thinking about getting this case instead of the rackmount. It has a relatively small size and would look good sitting next to my tv in case I couldn't put it in the closet (since my router is close to my tv anyway). As well as having support for large graphics cards. Thermaltake LANBOX Lite VF6000BNS Black SECC Gaming Cube Computer Case

 

[KGB]

Originally posted by: leeroberts21

Originally posted by: pugh
toss WHS on that setup and watch it amaze you. WHS is a great Os which is basically Win 2003. Looking at you want to do with it, I don't see anything that WHS could not do that you intend for your server.

So you think the setup I posted (aside from getting a different NIC card) would be sufficient?

I checked out the HP MediaSmart, but it seems to be sold out and I'm not up for paying $500 for it from other places.

EDIT: Also, I am thinking about getting this case instead of the rackmount. It has a relatively small size and would look good sitting next to my tv in case I couldn't put it in the closet (since my router is close to my tv anyway). As well as having support for large graphics cards. Thermaltake LANBOX Lite VF6000BNS Black SECC Gaming Cube Computer Case

Yeah, your setup looks okay BUT where WHSD really shines is with lots of HDDs loaded. Your new case only has 2 internal bays (which is fine if you don't need more) and will limit your expandability.

 

[leeroberts21]

Good point about the case, I'll probably just stick with the ARK case then, it is actually less obtrusive in some ways, and has room for 7 hard drives. I plan on having only 2 to begin with but I'm sure I'll probably add another 500gb drive for backup soon after.

I still plan on at least trying to get everything working in Ubuntu, but if it becomes too much of a hassle I'll consider moving to WHS.