Guide To Building A Media Storage Server - Page 255

You Rock dude !

I'm planning a small server to start. It's based off of a server project from a Maximum PC project. I plan to use the Fractal Design Node 304 case. I would like to use a Mini-itx board with onboard video and two PCIe slots but I think they all have only one. I would have place my two Duet cards into it and then build a new smaller streaming box.

The case hold 6 hdds so I was considering 5x 3tb drives in some sort of RAID and a small drive for the OS which will probably just be Windows 7 and apps. I guess an i5 CPU should be more than enough. I want it to be as cool and quite as it can be. So I'm going to put together a wish list on Newegg and welcome some mobo suggestions.

Thanks.
Edited by Jackal55 - 1/8/13 at 12:32pm

The Node 304 is not well suited to hold this many mechanical drives. I had a look at one up close and the U-Shaped mounts have too much side to side play and is not secured at the bottom and will transmit vibration across the entire PC chassis ( I have a Define XL).

Each drive will have its own vibration to deal with as well as the ones for the other 4 drives. The track spacing on a 3Tb drive is extremely close, the positioning servos on the drive will have a tough time keeping the read/write heads pointed in the right direction. Net effect is a reduced performance from your drive array as each track may need to be read and re-read.

I suggest you look at an ARC mini or Define Mini which have proper drive mounting trays.

If you want to use the Node 304, choose a drive with vibration tolerant firmware like the WD Red or an enterprise drive like the WD-RE series or the Hitachi Ultrastar.
Edited by Tong Chia - 1/8/13 at 9:45pm

Thanks for info. that's very good to know. I saw a few youtube videos about the case but I don't think they really show the insides once they are setup. I don't think that I've seen a drive mounted in the brackets. One guy even said that he would risk damaging the SATA connectors on the drives if he opened it up and he was using WD Red drives. It's really a great looking case.

I have a WHS 2011 box that I built about 7 months ago with 8GB of RAM and a i3 processor. I have no complaints about the box except I suscept that my CPU is not up to snuff. When I built the box I did not intend to do lots of transcoding of files, but that has changed. I find myself using Plex more and more and really like it. However with my current setup I notice stutters and buffering quite often when transcoding. My CPU usage spikes to 75-85%. I have checked and it is not my network (wired or wireless). I get consistant speeds much higher (streaming uncompressed files) with no issue wirelessly. It only occurs when transcoding.

I currently have a Supermicro board SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O board (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182253) running an Intel Core i3-2120T Sandy Bridge (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115094). I am considering replacing the CPU with a XEON something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117286

A couple of questions:
1. Any issue with using this XEON chip with my board?
2. How good is this chip be at transcoding 1080p bluray rips in MKV to 1080p files to play on a Roku or iPad or workstation? Could it handle 2-3 transcoding at the same time?
3. Any other issues you can foresee with my approach?

Quick question for anybody with the ark-4u-500.

It is quoted as having a depth of 19.7". Does that depth include the handles on the front or is it the depth that would go back in the rack? Assuming it does include the handles, could somebody measure the depth of the unit could somebody please measure the depth that is actually inside the rack?

Thanks.

I have used WHS vr1 for 4 yrs and am wondering if I should stick with it or build something else. It is built on a AMD 939 chip X35 with 1G RAM. and 4Tof storage. I have turned off Remote Access and up dates. What kind of risk am I running?

I am considering a new build for WHS 2011 but switching over seems a pain. Also, beefed up systems seem to be popular but I don't see the need. I am 4 years out of date.

I use it to store video and music, archive TV, and backup. I never found any of the addins exciting or useful.

I use 2 Win 7 HTPCs around the house. The full image backup is useful insurance.

All the dire notices of Network at Risk !! do un nerve my wife.

Bob Howell

PS: I posted this to another thread but now realise it is off topic but seems approaperate here.

If there's nothing wrong with your WHS box why do you want to make a change?

You can turn off certain error messages in the WHS console... if they really aren't important.

I guess I am looking over my shoulder for the next shoe to drop.The past 2 months my systems have gone haywre. 3 yrs of bliss and then all break.

So, not a big risk to you in my runing WHSv1.

Anybody have one of these and able to do a quick measure? Thanks.

Hi everyone,

I am looking to build a media server for my house and I need some help. I have no clue as to where to start.

Thanks

Well budget and list of current equipment is good place to start...

???

Budget is $500-1000

Current Equipment: None

Here is one possible place to start: http://www.assassinserver.com/

Check out my "good motherboard for 20 TB server" thread.

Mfusick I read your thread on building a 20TB server. But frankly I was overwhelmed with all that information. Can you give me some guidance as to where to start. This is going to be my first server build and I have no idea.

Thanks

I'd start with hardware. Take a look at what you might think you want and post a proposed build. Others will help you out with guidance.

Just make sure you explain what you want it to do.

You'll get good advice on hardware choices and usually people post great deals and such...

Once you figure out hardware and buy it- you can post you build and set up progress along the way and gain additional advice.

There is many guides to help and tons of previous builds to copy.

I hope that price does not include hard drives.

Under $1000 is reasonable IMO including drives.

Many media servers start out with only a few large HDD and usually people already have some full.

2 or 3TB drives are near $100 each....

Adding 6TB more storage in the form of only two HDDs for under $250 usually gives people some growing space on top of what they already own.

I've seen many just crack open externals they already own and use those too..,

https://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=G540

Code: Harbowl

$33.99 for 2.5ghz dual core G540

That's good place start.

Add a sub $70 socket 1155 motherboard, a $30 PSU like Antec neo 400 watt, and case of your choice and liking.

Add WHS for $39.99 and its pure win.

I just bought 2 2TB WD Red drives from newegg for just over $100 each and they were on sale.

As mentioned earlier it depends what he wants to use the server for. If he intends to do transcoding of blu-ray rips, I dont think the that dual core celeron will cut it. I have not tested that chip, but I just replaced my i3 sandy bridge because it was stuttering all the time with Plex.

It can cut it.

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all your responses.

First off I am going to store this media server in the basement where my home theater is. I'll have it connect to my router upstairs via gigabit ethernet.
I think im going to have a gigabit switch in the basement for all my devices to connect to (ps3 etc.)

Now speaking of the media server I am going to be transcoding movies, torrenting, and just housing lots of media.

I'm setting this up for my house but I live in college so I want to be able to remote access it. If I was uploading to the server would I be limited to my Home ISP internet connection ?

What do guys recommend?

what do you think of that

ECC memory ?

This is going to be a server, right? Why the i5 CPU with Intel 4000 graphics? Does the board have integrated graphics? If not, consider getting one that does and buy a chip that does not have graphics... you can save some money that way.

Why the ECC Ram?

Is it not the case that if it's going to be a media server running something like Plex then it might be required to do transcoding on the fly for clients that demand it?

On the other hand if it;s a pure storage server then as you say an i5 seems overkill

How powerful of a CPU do I need ?
Do I need a i3,i5...i'm not really sure.

I chose the ECC memory because its server memory ?
Not sure whether that's good or bad ?

The mobo does not have onboard video.

Only need ECC memory on real server build with real server motherboard.

I3 or i5 is overkill

I just replaced my i3 dual core low power 35W CPU on my server with a Xeon chip. I run plex on my server and with the i3 it would run at about 75% to 85% cpu load. It would stutter and buffer. After I replaed with new Xeon quad core I no longer have any issues. CPU runs at 10%.