Guide To Building A Media Storage Server - Page 254

I am actually using an industrial BCM RX67Q in my server. This board has 2x gigabit ethernet ports so it works with WHS2011 without any problems. drawback is the 5 SATA ports and not accepting a 2nd Highpoint 8 port RR card.

Next server project is based on an intel DZ68DZ MW with 8 SATA ports. This is a desktop board so I'm using a 2nd non-intel ethernet card.

These are not cheap MBs at street prices. But I picked them up at huge discounts. So one way is be patient and watch what is available.

Out of space. I have 8 drives in my current server. 6 come from a Gigabyte GA-A55M-S2V motherboard. Server has been rock solid. Next I have a SD-PEX40054 card that supposedly gives me 4 ports, but I can only get 3 to work. I have 1 SAN tower 4 drive full box plugged into 1 of the external ports of this Syba card. The second external port will not support a second drive bay despite many emails to tech support .. and even trying a second one of these cards. The motherboard won't let me plug the second card in at the same time to support another 4 tower raid because there's only 1 PCI 2 x16 port, the rest are just x1.

So now if I upgrade the motherboard for one with 2 , I only gain 4 drives that way and I have to upgrade motherboard and CPU. That may be a year (?) but perhaps I should really think more long-term about more space so that I don't have to completely reconfigure the server.

Not quite sure where to head next..

Been feeling the need to upgrade my trusty WHS v1 box for a little while now, as it's getting a bit long in the tooth. Also, I'm thinking of running my own newsgroup indexer running under a VM on the server.

Current setup:

AMD Athlon II X2 240 at 2.8Ghz
Foxconn A74-MLK mobo
2 GB DDR2 6400 ram
8TB HDD space

I'm only going to replace CPU, mobo, and ram. Here is what I was thinking (Newegg pricing):

AMD A8 3870k ($90)
MSI A55M-P33 mobo ($50)
8GB G-Skill Ripjaws ($41)

I already have a copy of WHS2011 I'll be using for the OS, as well as VMWks 9 to run the virtual indexing server. I'm trying to balance wattage requirements as it will run 24/7, with enough processing power that the VM won't choke.

Any other ideas on component choices?

Also just saw Newegg running this combo on sale for $25 more:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1146362

If your server runs 24/7 you might want to choose some hardware that will minimize your electric bill.

Often low end intel 1155 chips offer better CPU power than AMD and also better energy profile. They do this at expense of GPU @ which AMD does well. Since you don't need GPU in server I'd take the higher CPU power and lower energy/heat of the intel.

You can get a nice G860 CPU ( basically i3 with quick sync turned off) for $58. should work well in server. if you needed more a 3570k @ $129 would be good step up.

Yep, after reading a bit more on the power consumption of the AMD chips, I'm reserved to go with an Intel again. I was looking at the i3-3220, but I'm worried that the dual-core will choke when trying to stream out 1080p to the receivers, as well as having the VM do intensive header indexing. I'm thinking about pairing up a i5-3330 with an ASRock B75M board and 8GB of ram.

i3 is a beast. It really is.

I don't understand these cases I'm looking at. This puppy at Newegg catches my eye thanks to good reviews, and good price.

ARK 4U-500-CA Black 4U Rackmount Case 3 External 5.25" Drive Bays.

The word "external" confuses me. I think this is saying I can put 3 4-drive bays inside the case (?).

That's 12 hard drives? Its hard to find 12 Sata connections on a power supply - these power supplies that I look at don't tell me how many eSata such as

Athena Power AP-RRP4ATX6508 80 PLUS Certified 20+4Pin 2 x 500W Mini Redundant Server Power Supply - OEM

The external bays can be used for a multitude of devices like optical drives, fan controllers, hard drives, etc. You could get a "3 in 5 raid cage" which could hold 5 hard drives in that 3-drive space. Something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994028

That is just one example, there are many others available that dont have hot swap trays that are more reasonably priced, With a configuration like that you could put 12 drives in the case with no problem. You would still have one more 3.5" external slot left over for a 13th if you wish.

You can buy SATA power splitters from New Egg or solder your own pretty easily. I dont know of any PSU that would have that many connectors OEM.


Edited by Dropkick Murphy - 12/18/12 at 4:42pm

Are you sure you want to stuff that many drives into that case? I was originally going to go with a rack mount case for my build as well (I even bought one) But I ended up going with a mid-tower instead and I am very happy with it. I used the expensive Raid cages on mine but they are completely unnecessary, I just thought they looked cool. You really don't need hot swap capability because quite frankly, how often is a drive going to fail? What are you planning to use to increase the number of SATA ports?

Heck, I thought I was going OVER BOARD with that chip in my server. It doesn't choke on 1080P streams, even with my sub-par network.
Someday I'll actually run that direct line from the Family room to where the Server is stored.

Really nice !

Can I ask what hot swap bays / cages you used ?

I have full tower build going now and I would like to include something like that.

Oh, I never thought that the i3 would choke streaming 1080p content, in fact my AMD chip I'm replacing does that quite nicely. What I was worried about was 1080p streaming concurrently with the VM indexing usenet headers. I'm going with the i5 so that I can allocate 2 cores and 4Gb of ram to the VM and it's tasks, leaving 2 cores and 4Gb of ram for the server functions.

Wound up ordering:

i5-3450
ASRock B75M
8GB of GSkill ram

Well my mid tower server already has 8 + 4. I guess when you get to a certain point you just build a second server? or can you just keep adding hard drives with a second power supply / external enclosure?

Mfusick -

Those are Icy Dock Raid cages http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994113

Reading the reviews a few people complained that the doors would break easily but if you open them carefully I don't see how that could happen. You just have to pop them open and then pull slowly as they push the hard drive forward from the rear. I kind of wish I would have dumped the fan controller and had one more space for a hard drive.

These are pretty cool too http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994028 You can fit 5 drives in 3 spaces.

How about one of these B***hes



I'm no expert but I would think that as long as you add some kind of RAID card with enough SATA ports you could continue your present server. If you are going to use a PSU without a motherboard you have to jumper Pins 13 - 14 to supply constant power.


You could install some sort of power switch to the front of the case for control, I like these ones http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=60_374_375 If you order one of these make sure you get the "Latching" model or else the PSU will not stay on. Remember that the switches that come installed on on your case are momentary and will not work for that application.

I'd rather a norco 4220

Meh, the Norco only holds 20 drives, you could put 30 in that Lian Li beast

That thing also has capacity for 2 motherboards and 2 PSU's. You could build a separate HTPC and Server all in one box.

Lol. I can't afford more than 20 3tb drives ...

Hey, the best thing about that case is...when you die, they can bury you in it

Lol. I though a 24 bay norco was excessive

I'm starting to research my upcoming project of building a media server. I've never even built a PC before so I'm a little nervous about the venture but think it will be fun and rewarding if I can actually accomplish it. I've already started gathering some information and I'm sure over the next month or two I will do a lot more. I plan on putting it all in an ARK 4U-500-CA so it can go in my rack. One main thing I'm not finding much information on is if it is worthwhile to use an SSD for the OS drive if this will strictly be for a media server. Is that overkill or do most people feel that small ones are cheap enough so you might as well go SSD? I'll probably do some form of WHS for the OS.

Is building a media server any more difficult than building a regular PC or HTPC? Am I making a mistake taking this on as my first foray into the computer DIY world? Thanks for the advice.

I think the price of the SSD drive have come down low enough that they make great sense for a server. Most of the storage will be on the your drives so all you will need on the SSD is OS and applications.

Building a media server is easier in my opion because the box is big. The hard part is running all the cables to the drives and configuring the OS and if needed raid system for redundency.

I have a Norco 4220 with a 60GB SSD running WHS 2011 and Felxraid. I have 12 drives currently in the array. The box took me a couple of hours to build, but I would say I spent a solid day tweaking OS and getting apps installed and flex raid setup.

By comparison I spent a week troubleshooting and craming and taking appart a HTPC I built because I was trying to have a small footprint. In a big server, standard size stuff fits well because of all the headroom. Not the case in a small HTPC when you have a fast CPU that needs to stay cool.

SSD makes sense for any new build. HDD do not make sense for OS installations anymore. Server, PC or HTPC... it does not change.

The complexity is about the same as building a regular PC, WHS will help simplify the software setup. If you plan on an SSD, just be sure to size the drive for 2X the expected use, that is keep the SSD to more that 50% filled to help with longevity as the SSD can only do the write redistribution/levelling on the free space. The write endurance of SSD have been steadily decreasing from 10K writes to about 1.5K writes on the current low cost drives. I use the Gen1 Intel X-25Ms on my server, they are rated for 10K writes.

I’m working on a replacement for my old whsV1 server, mainly to get support for Advanced Formatted drives.

I’ve installed Server2012 Standard and added Home Server 2011 in hyper-v. In HS2011 I installed StableBit’s Drivepool and so far I’m quite happy with performance and functionality.

I have 3 drives (2x3TB +1TB) in the server at the moment that I have configured in pass-through mode to HS2011. I’ll add more drives as I migrate data from the whsV1 server.

Does anyone know of any issues/gotchas/risks running a virtual storage server like this?

I could obviously have installed HS2011 directly, but I like the virtualization concept and I also have a Linux server installed as well. I might add further servers as well.

Hello. I'm ready to build my 24/7 media server and already have the following components.

Lian Li PC-Q25 case
Corsair CX430 PSU
Asus P8H77-I 6 SATA mobo
4GB GSkill DDR3 1600 RAM

I'll be using a 128GB SSD for the OS and have 5 drives (2x3TB, 3x2TB). I'll use one of those for a FlexRaid parity.

I have a free copy of Win7 professional so was thinking of just using that instead of buying WHS.
If so, should I just serve up my media using HomeGroups or would you recommend something else?
It will primarily be serving my two XBMC HTPCs and also allow me to access files from a couple of laptops.

Thanks!

Here's the Flexraid guide to setting up your shares in Flexraid: http://wiki.flexraid.com/2011/12/03/accessing-your-storage-pool-over-a-network/. I'd also use the guides in the Wiki for setting up your array, some things you need to pay attention to such as disabling the recycle bin on drives that your putting in the pool.

Good advice above. Assassin server guide is pretty well explained and illustrated for this as well.

some quick advice ????

I have 15% off a server chassis coupon good at Newegg.

I think I might grab a NORCO server case. I'd love the hot swap feature.

anyone know difference between 4020 vs 4220 vs 4224 ??

Why is the 4220 $30 more than 4020 ??? Why is 4224 $70 more than 4224 ??

I looks like 24 bays vs 20 bays is obvious difference. I get that.

But I am unsure of the other small differences. I don't need more than 20 bays so I am leaning towards the 4220. Anything special or different between these two models?


Which is better ????

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006519%2050010473%2040000412&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&CompareItemList=412|11-219-021^11-219-021-TS%2C11-219-033^11-219-033-TS%2C11-219-038^11-219-038-TS
How about the 4020 vs 4220 ?? I can't seems to find the difference of the $30/$70 between these two ???

4020 has an externally accessible optical drive bay, 20 3.5" SATA drive bays and 20 SATA connectors - one per drive
4220 has an externally accessible optical drive bay, has 20 3.5" SATA drive bays and 5 SFF-8087 Mini SAS connectors - one per row of 4 drives
4224 has NO externally accessible optical drive bay, has 24 3.5" SATA drive bays and 6 SFF-8087 Mini SAS connectors - one per row of 4 drives

Basically, it comes down to whether you want an externally accessible optical drive bay, whether you need 24 hot swap drive bays or not, and whether you want SATA connectors or Mini SAS connectors for the drives. Generally speaking, the Mini SAS connectors make for a MUCH cleaner build as you end up with far fewer cables to worry about. Just make sure you get controllers with matching Mini SAS connectors. You can also get breakout cables that convert a Mini SAS connector to 4 SATA connectors if you want to use motherboard SATA connectors for some of the drives.

The price differences pretty much reflect the feature mix as the Mini SAS backplanes apparently cost more than the SATA backplanes.
Edited by gsr - 1/8/13 at 4:56am