WHS build

[joutlaw]

I've been doing some research on WHS. I tried getting it off of MSDN a few months back and no luck. Well apparently as of March 16, WHS is available on MSDN so I downloaded it.

I have an old Gateway from 2002. It was a P4 1.8Ghz with 512MB of RD RAMbus (takes ya back huh?). I think it has a 40GB IDE drive in it and no SATA interface as far as I can remember.

I think the hardware would be fine, but with no SATA I feel I'd be limited. Also I believe this circa P4s were not very energy efficient. I could get SATA enclosures and go that route with the P4, but I'm not 100% if that PC is USB 2.0... I believe it is though.

I found an article about building a shuttle k45 WHS. Well the K45 is no longer on newegg... except for in red.. but the k48 is.

I was thinking a build with the following:

Shuttle K48
e1400 celeraon dual core 2.0ghz
2x1GB crucial DDR2 667mhz
1TB WD Caviar Green

This rang in right around 320 with shipping.

What does everyone think my best option would be?

 

[mc866]

I think it depends on what you want to spend, I did my WHS on the cheap with left over parts spending the bulk of my money on drives. You could also keep the old system and install a SATA controller card and two 1TB drives for 320 or less.

 

[joutlaw]

The cost really isn't that much IMO for the build.

K48 - $129
e1400 - $49
RAM - $25
fan and some cables - $10

I'd have to get storage regardless. I have one SATA enclosure already with a dead Samsung 500GB drive... but I think that enclosure was the reason for its death.

I suppose I'm leaning more and more towards a new build b/c of potential energy savings. I could get a single core celeron for 39, but just don't know if would have the juice for what I want the machine to do.

I'd like this box to be the torrent box, newsgroup box, etc... I want to leave all downloading to it and it serve the files to the PCs on my network.

My home network is pretty basic.

My office PC - 2x74GB raptoors
1 160GB enclosure
1 500GB enclosure - dead

My HTPC 80GB system drive and a 320GB media drive

My wife's laptop - 320GB drive
1 120GB enclosure

Of the close to 1TB of total space... We're probably using 700GB right now. It could be more if I would RMA the 500GB, but I won't ever trust that drive again.

Edit: forgot my work laptop. Can WHS only backup a specific folder on a PC?

 

[mc866]

Sounds like you made up your mind on new then, honestly you don't need much processing power for this OS unless you're planning on encoding movies or trying to stream HD content so the lowest power option may be your best bet.

 

[joutlaw]

Well I'd definately be wanting to stream HD content, but I suppose the HD processing would be done on the HTPC instead of WHS correct?

Right now I only push 720p, b/c I only have a 32" 720p set, but eventually I will get something bigger and 1080p. I mostly stream .mkvs.

I also have a Xbox360, but I don't know if WHS integrates with it.

I just remembered that I also have a slightly newer P4 with HT(I believe) from work that they gave me at one point. I don't know how much RAM it is has, but it's a Dell ... probably an optiplex. It was only used to remote into work in the event I got called, but I don't use it anymore since I got my laptop... and I doubt work wants it back.

 

[lxskllr]

I'd use your old hardware first, and see how it works. If there's deficiencies, you can then go to plan B.

 

[mc866]

One of the best features of WHS is that it integrates with the 360, you just need to make sure the video type is supported by the 360. As far as processing goes I think it all depends on how you set it up, I have XBMC, GeeXbox, and the 360 all connected to my WHS box to stream movies so most of the processing if any is done on the WHS box. I can run tversity from my whs box to stream HD content but my WHS box can't keep up, if you have tversity on your HTPC you shouldn't have to worry about the processing.

 

[joutlaw]

Do you use a gigabit router or switch with WHS? Does it perform ok with just 100Mbit LAN?

I have a WRT54GL connected to my cable modem and it sends my Xbox360 and HTPC wirelessly. If I did undertake this project I would more than likely want to wire my living room to my office.

I was thinking 1 cat5 going to living room where it meets a linksys 4 port router. It then sends the 2 links to the HTPC and Xbox360.

I know even streaming HD bit rates wouldn't strain a 100mbit router, but would I be better making the switch to gigabit now. Or would my relatively small network not really need gigabit since I shouldn't have that much concurrent transfers.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: joutlaw
Do you use a gigabit router or switch with WHS? Does it perform ok with just 100Mbit LAN?

I have a WRT54GL connected to my cable modem and it sends my Xbox360 and HTPC wirelessly. If I did undertake this project I would more than likely want to wire my living room to my office.

I was thinking 1 cat5 going to living room where it meets a linksys 4 port router. It then sends the 2 links to the HTPC and Xbox360.

I know even streaming HD bit rates wouldn't strain a 100mbit router, but would I be better making the switch to gigabit now. Or would my relatively small network not really need gigabit since I shouldn't have that much concurrent transfers.

you want to wire it for gigabit if you can. 100Mb is painfully slow if you are moving large amounts of data. I am waiting on my monoprice order of 100' runs of patch cable to get the bedrooms wired.
100Mb may seem fast, but it's only 11MB/sec. For comparison my USB enclosure with a 12GB laptop IDE drive in it transfers at 40-50MB/sec.

I have 500GB's of data to get to the WHS box and will wait till it is wired correctly, before bogging down my current network.

PS, if you're going to use your old hardware, At least buy a new hard drive, as it will not install on anything less than an 80GB drive. IT will automatically set up an OS partition and a landing partition. the OS partition is set at 20GB, and the landing uses the rest of the drive you have.

 

[joutlaw]

Are you using a switch or router?

What's a good gigabit switch or router to use? I suppose I don't want to lose my DD-WRT functionality on my WRT-54GL.

I suppose I would make 2 runs to my living room and maybe 1 to the bed room for the future.

 

[mc866]

I have my dl-4300 connected to a Netgear GS608 gigabit switch which is connected to my WHS box. Personally if you don't have any issues with your g wireless I wouldn't worry about changing the router, I would potentially add a 5-8 port gigabit switch to accommodate the devices you plan to wire to. The price delta between gigE and non isn't much so you're prolly better just getting the gigE.

 

[joutlaw]

I suppose I could connect it like this.

Cable Modem > Router > Switch > Hardwired PCs and Xbox360

Then I would keep the DD-WRT functionality of my wired connection. In theory my modem will never deliver more than 100Mbps... for a while at least.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: joutlaw
Edit: forgot my work laptop. Can WHS only backup a specific folder on a PC?

No. It's an image-based backup and makes backups by Volume. You can restore anything from a single file to a single drive to an entire PC.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: joutlaw
I suppose I could connect it like this.

Cable Modem > Router > Switch > Hardwired PCs and Xbox360

Then I would keep the DD-WRT functionality of my wired connection. In theory my modem will never deliver more than 100Mbps... for a while at least.

That's how I do it. My PCs are hooked up to the GigE switch, while the couple of 100Mb devices I have are on the router to save space.