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Flexraid Media Server for WD TV

1K views 58 replies 9 participants last post by  Dark_Slayer 
#1 ·
I'm looking to build a media server for streaming videos to the WD TV media boxes in my house. I've done some homework, but I need advise on specific hardware.

First and foremost, this will be a high capacity media server. It won't be connected to a TV. I have intentions of starting off with my 2 3TB drives, and a parity drive. Its essential that I have the ability to add more drives over time, one reason why I'm going with Flexraid.

Additionally, all media will be copied from my primary machine, so no ripping, converting, or downloading will happen on the media server. I need to be able to remotely administrator this server from my desktop.

I'm looking at the CM Storm Trooper case for airflow, and the ability to mount the drives with coolers.

I'm at a loss about what specific hardware to run; motherboard, processor, ect. I know a need a motherboard with at least 8 SATA ports, preferably 10. Actually the more the better. I won't be needing much in the way of graphics and sound output. I'm also only looking to get a processor that can handle the job well without going overboard on processing power it won't use.

Power supply, memory, and other components would be greatly appreciated as well. I intend to run the operating system on an internal SSD.
 
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#2 ·
You did not list a budget :)

A couple questions:

1st- Would you ever want to transcode on the fly your media for use while away from home, or on other devices like ROKU, ipad, iphone, laptops, android, kindle, windows phone, etc... ? If not- and you are certain you can skimp on the CPU without much penalty, it will serve media over LAN just fine with a Pentium or Celeron for short money. (under $50 CPU)

If you might, then you want an i3 or greater. i3 can't handle multiple streams though, so i5 is safer bet if you want two streams at the same time. I do this all the time. Actually I just remoted into my Flexraid server and checked, wife is watching via PLEX on our ROKU and my parents are watching at their house via Mediabrowser 3 app for their ROKU. At times I join the mix with the ipad, and my brother does at his house with his HTPC or his ROKU. This functionality is really the only reason you need a beefy CPU. You do not need a beefy CPU to just send data over LAN as a server.

2nd, Do you have a space requirement ? How many drives ideally do you want capacity for ? I have 20 in mine, and I need more. I have a Norco 4220 server case. If you read my thread you'll see I had a few cases before that, and I kept upgrading to get where I am. Same story on the CPU, I started with a Celeron, then a Pentium, today I have an i7 :) My advice is do it right the first time. It's easier.

3rd- Would you ever want support for bigger than 3TB? I have 4TB parity drives in mine just in case I wanted to add a 4TB drive for data, but to date I keep adding 3TB because cost is effective, and also performance is better.
 
#3 ·
Of the top of my head:

Asrock Socket 1150 mobo with 8 Sata ports (get one with dual x8/x8 ability for sata cards in future)
Dual core for never transcoding / quad core for remote access media sharing and transcoding multiple streams
8GB DDR3. 1866mhz is good, 2400mhz is better. 1600mhz is satisfactory (but not much cheaper)
Case: Your choice
SSD: Samsung EVO
OS: WHS or Windows + FLEXRAID
PSU: Seasonic or Rosewill Capstone 650watt is solid choice, plan ahead for more drives. 550watt probably enough unless you want lots of HDD's

Hard to hate on any of this ^.
 
#4 ·
Budget; I'm going to spread it out over the next 6 months, my current set-up will suffice until I can get everything ordered and assembled. Even with that in mind, I don't want to go overboard and get a bunch of excess tech I won't use. The ability to upgrade later is more important than going full throttle initially.

1st. I don't foresee that, but the idea of a plex server is intriguing. The ability to run a motherboard that will accommodate an upgrade to a beefier I3, I5, or I7 down the road would be best.


2nd. Space requirements are not a terrible issue. If its too big I'll stick it in the basement, or in a closet. I want a case big enough to ensure good airflow for 8-10 hard drives. Additionally, I'll need a power supply that can accommodate that much hardware. A PS that is good on power consumption when I'm not using the disks would be good as well, though that might be more of a software solution than a PS feature.


3rd. Yes. After adding my two 3TB and the initial parity drive, I intend to load 5TB drives. Possibly bigger as technology progresses and prices come down.


Motherboard; After looking at the Asrock family, would I benefit more from a card like the Asrock Z97 Extreme6, that natively supports 10 SATA drives, or dial it down a notch and get a SATA controller in addition.


Processor, I'm looking at the Intel Celeron G1850 Haswell (2.9) initially, with the potential to upgrade if my requirements change down the road.

 
#5 ·
You are on right track, celeron is fine; swap it out for beefier if you need it later.

PSU any 80plus gold like the two brands I mentioned; 550 watts is enough for 8-10 hdds.

Mobo is tough call; you get additional features with Asrock extreme 6 like dual intel LAN, advanced fan controllers, more PCI express etc... So going cheaper then adding sata card isn't really apples to apples. But any h97 board should suffice for you in reality.

You can ask in my Flexraid thread, those guys can help I'm sure. We get off topic a little, could use a nice refresher to get back on track :)
 
#6 ·
Is the SATA cards inherently disadvantaged when compared to on board ports on the mobo?

Also, thanks for the help. I've been following your threads on your personal builds. Great advice.


I haven't built a computer in almost 10 years, bought my primary desktop on cyberpower two years ago. Is there a site or thread that details all the extra stuff I'll need other than the obvious hardware? (I work in IT, but hardware is not my forte)
 
#17 ·
Would the integrated graphics on the Intel Celeron G1850 be enough for my initial needs?
Well, you stated it won't be connected to a TV, so any video controller should suffice. If you're okay with remote administration no video card at all would be fine once your OS is installed and configured.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Flexraid aggressively uses ram, but that doesn't matter for large sequential writes greater than it's ram cache. When I run my server with 16GB of ram, Flexraid will hold up about 4 or more GB if I recall correctly. That takes care of small writes. When the size of the file surpassed that the insane speeds stabilize

For the same price faster would be better, but I don't usually see 16GB ddr3-2400 for the same price as 1600. I'd honestly say more than 1600 is really only useful for advanced video rendering with an integrated gpu or gaming. It can probably lead to instability in your server

More is better. Faster can be worse unless it's just as cheap and known to be stable
 
#24 ·
As far as the ram goes, since I'm going with ASRock Z97 Extreme6, I'll have 4 slots & I'll add 8 gigs at a time as the need arises.


The more I look, server cases like NORCO RPC-2008 2U seem like a more desirable option when considering space & external bays. What special considerations do I need when picking out hardware for such a case? I know it needs a fairly slim 2U power supply.
 
#29 ·
I have a few machines, but my flexraid server has a Z77 Asrock board (Z77 was new back in 2012) in it and my PSU is a Rosewill Capstone.


The rosewill capstone is a good PSU, it's OEM by superflower and 80+ Gold efficiency. They give you plenty of long and well sleeved cables too. I've used a lot of PSU before and I can recommend the Rosewill superflower units without any hesitation.

I've rebuilt my server a bunch of times so far but I am pretty happy these days (except I ran out of drive bays in my case). I am trying to figure out an add on for that now. I'd like support for 8 more drives.

There is a ton of pictures in my flexraid thread if you need to see something specific just ask and I can dig it up.
 
#31 ·
Depends on the case. Some will work with a standard ATX power supply, some have proprietary supplies and others use the 1U supplies.

Another thing to consider if you're wanting to go the backplane route is to stick with a tower case and get a couple 4in3 or 5in3 hotswap cages.
 
#36 ·
Doubtful you'll find a SAS connector on a SATA backplane.

Most SAS gear is aimed at Enterprise which means you have two problems... the first is, you won't find much in the way of "home brew" SAS parts... it's pretty much enterprise level server chassis, and enterprise level RAID cards. The second problem is that even if you do manage to find a drive cage with SAS connector, it's probably going to be for 2.5" enterprise drives, as most Enterprise storage has been moving away from 3.5" drives for the last several years. (Backblaze not withstanding)

Having said that, Supermicro makes a few 2.5" cages with 8087 connectors.

Edit: Agree with Dark_Slayer on the terminology. "Cage" was not the best choice of words. (though it does yield fruitful results with a newegg search)
 
#35 ·
I don't know if this is going to initiate a terminology war, but typically a cage is what you call it when there are no backplanes. You just connect power and data cables to your drives

When I've seen a backplane it was usually called a module or enclosure. Like these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133030

OP - I use two of those 5in3 hot swap enclosures in my server to give me 10 extra bays in addition to the 5 built in HDD bays on a thermaltake armor. Having the backplane is nice like mfusick said, since with those two norco 5in3 modules I use I can just plug in two molex connectors from the PSU to the entire enclosure rather than 5 sata connections from the PSU

With those backplanes added to a tower you can't go 8087->8087 like you can in the norco chassis. That's a little cleaner on cable management, but not much. I have to use 8087->sata breakout cables then connect the sata (data not power) cable ends to the backplane

It's nice to just pull or add a drive by pulling out the tray and adding the drive to it without opening the case. I used to antagonise mfusick for pushing the hot swap thing so much, but I can't ever see myself going back after having it for myself
 
#37 ·
Yeah that was my thinking ... backplanes are not on cages. Cages just hold HDD's. I'm not of enough concern to care much about a terminology war. I'll call it whatever people want to call it. But I'm currently looking for cages with SAS connector and backplanes to expand my norco past 20 hard drives.

I think I am going to just do a second value chassis.
 
#42 ·
The thing to keep in mind for the double case mod is to either physically join the cases so that if you move one, the other comes with it, otherwise doing any sort of maintenance can get really cumbersome. If they aren't physically joined and you need to move one (or both) you'll either have to move both at once, which I imagine would be difficult with two unattached 4u server chassis, or take them apart and uncable everything in the expansion chassis. You could use the internal to external adapters to give you a place to disconnect the two chassis without opening anything, but that would require several of those is you planned on populating a norco 4224 or 4220 (and knowing you, you'll eventually have both full... let's not kid ourselves)
 
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#47 ·
I have the old high end one, full tower- 10 bays. With add on hard drive cages for 14 hard drives. I'd sell it cheap too, but shipping is expensive on something this big and sized. It's the good one with the thick metal ply. It has the side window clear as well. I think it was $399 back in 2007 or whenever core2 duo was current high end. It just sits on my floor empty now. I have all the accessories for it too, because this was my first case I used for a server before I upgraded to the 20 bay hot swap chassis. I have the SATA splitters, and the 4 sata wire combos, the IDE to SATA power splitters and all that. Probably $50 in accessories to power and hook up 12 HDD's and the extra thermaltake HDD cage (3 total + another up top near PSU) I think the cages alone where like $30 each.

$40 the case is yours. $50 I'd do all the extra accessories too. But shipping might be $$$.
 
#49 ·
Okay, because my servers have been through a few iterations I am going to suggest a different approach: Go with real enterprise hardware. You will appreciate that down the road.

I started out with all consumer hardware, moved on to consumer parts in an enterprise case, and finally arrived at Enterprise components only, with the exception of the hard drives.


After long periods of 24 /7 operation I just found consumer parts didn't last. Norco backplanes broke, motherboard RAM slots and SATA ports went inop and RAM sticks arrived dead.

Currently I'm using a Supermicro SC826 case that I got brand new off eBay for £140. It's got redundant power supplies, a SAS expander backplane and 12 hotswap bays. The power supplies are noisy but that won't matter if you can locate the server in a closet or basement.

Inside it is a Supermicro X9SRL-F motherboard, a Socket 2011 Xeon 1.8 gigahertz quad core processor and 16GB of ECC DDR3 RAM.

The motherboard has IPMI which is a fantastic feature allowing completely headless operation, great if the system is stowed away in a basement or garage.

This is all running Windows Server 2012 essentials and flexraid.

You can get those Supermicro cases really cheap, even complete servers if you don't mind older hardware. This is true enterprise gear at rock bottom prices.

I wanted a motherboard for the new Xeons so I got mine at retail, but just go one generation back and you can get great deals.
 
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