[Tizi]

I have been testing WHS 2011 for nearly all year. The testing just ended, forcing me to purchase a copy - got it at the Egg for $49.99 shipped. I decided to upgrade the server in the process. I was using a tired Atom in a very small box, room for only 2 HDs. I still liked the smaller form factor so my choices of boxes were limited. I settled on Lian Li. See parts list below:


CPU: Intel G620 Sandy Bridge Pentium

Motherboard: Asus P8H61-I Mini ITX

RAM: Kingston HyperX 8GB

PSU: OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W Modular High Performance Power Supply

Case: Lian Li PC-Q08

Hard drives: 3, 1.5TB


The installation of components in the case was a little tricky. You really need to think things through before you build in this case. I used 3 HDs, but it can hold 6. I spaced them out to allow for good airflow.


Parts:

Unboxed:

Motherboard with RAM and CPU installed:

Case opened up, see the drive cages, fans, etc:

Hard drives installed, nice thumb screws provided:

Motherboard installed on far side of case wall:

Wiring of drives BEFORE the motherboard side is installed:

Installation of side cover house the motherboard:

Power supply, very tight, glad I used a modular one:

Other side installed:

BIOS and install WHS:

Pretty nice build quality on the case and components. Plenty of room for expansion in a very compact form factor. Very happy with it.

 

[gtgray]

I just built one today.. I went cheapie.. cheapie, Biostar board, G620 with a single stick of 4 GB DDR3, Rosewell case and PSU. One of NewEggss shell shocker deals. Got the OS for the same money you did.


I will do something else on the PSU down the way, don't fully trust one this low end, it is not 80 Plus and will be on 24x7.


Installed the OS with just one drive today. Have more drives enroute but not sure about my needs yet. First time with home server so I will not make the best choices.. I have an Atom here that is a perfectly good HTPC client and at one point thought about using it for WHS but with an ION GPU it and fully configured Win 7 pro intsall it just did not make sense to me.


Nothing as fancy as you. On a different budget I would have went intel on the mainboard as this is my usual preference. Really like their nics.


With the single 2 GB drive and OS I am in $310. I suspect I will be supporting about 7 clients with this one.

 

[StanF]

I did a similar WHS 2011 build recently using the same case. My choices:

Case: Lian Li PC-Q08B (since it held 6 drives)

MB: Zotac H67 (since it had 6 internal SATA ports)

Proc: I3-2100T - low power and low profile heat sink

RAM: Some cheap, but name brand 2x2GB set from Frys

Boot Drive: Vertex 2 60GB SSD (impressive fast boot speed)

Data Drives: Reusing existing 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 drives from my old WHS server

PS: Reusing an old one - I bought some SATA power connectors from Performance-PCs.com and am going to make a custom cable to perfectly match the drive spacing in the Lian Li case.


Thoughts so far:

1) Like it alot

2) The Lian Li case has a bunch of little screws. I haven't lost any yet, but it is only a matter of time

3) I need to figure out a way to elegantly disable the blue LEDs on the Lian Li front case fan.

4) It will be a quiet system, not silent, but quiet enough for my needs

5) The mounting of the lowest two hard drives is really poor. The bracket mounts with four screws from the bottom.

6) Supposedly the MiniPCI slot on the Zotac will take an MSATA drive for boot. That would have been a better option than the SSD and would have saved a SATA port for a data hard drive. Might still do this in the future and use the SSD in another system.

7) Not using RAID, but considered RAID 5. Just too expensive to buy a decent controller and matching hard drives.

 

[Tizi]

How do you like the SSD in the server application? Does it make the remote desktop or internet connection more responsive? I consiered the SSD option, but decided against it unless it bosted performance in those areas. I could always add one later.


What power supply did you go with? The OCZ was a tight squeeze. Very nice PSU for the price after MIR.

 

[StanF]

To be honest with you, I really haven't tried out the server much. I haven't migrated the data drives over yet, and haven't done any speed tests with the SSD. Booting is lightning fast, but hopefully, I won't be rebooting my server often

I mainly used an SSD for several reasons:

1) It's cool

2) It was on sale

3) Performance would be better than other laptop drives

4) Maybe better reliability - or at least no moving parts

5) I wanted a 2.5" drive so I could shoehorn it into the case without taking up a slot.


My power supply is some 300W cast off from an old system. It's a shallow model - I can see where one with a big 120mm fan would be deeper and cause difficulty. Since I am hacking the SATA connectors on there, I didn't want to use a good power supply. Although an 80plus model would have been better.

 

[izoard]

Read how to keep WHS2011 from destroying your music files at this WGS Post


Microsoft Connect thread (need a Windows Live Account to sign in)


Vote it up.


Also discussed at HSS thread


Bottom line is always have an external back-up. It saved me when I discovered WHS2011 has destroyed my perfectly tagged and Hi-Res album art.

 

[StardogChampion]

I am looking to build a WHS 2011 server myself pretty soon using the assortment of loose parts I have around my office. I just need a case. Here's what I have for parts already that I plan to reuse:


CPU: AMD 2.6GHz dual-core 45W 5050e

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-US2H motherboard (5 x SATA II)

RAM: 4GB DDR2 800

HDDs: 2TB Samsung, 2TB Seagate, 1.5TB WD Green, 750GB WD Green, 320GB WD Blue(O/S)

PSU: Antec EA-380D


As for the case, I am thinking the Antec 300. I am not sure what I am going to do about this assortment of drives since drive pooling is gone. I guess I'll have to figure that out.

 

[elockett]

You were able to install WHS 2011 with a 60GB boot drive? I'm going to be irritated if that's true because I had a perfectly good 90GB Kingston SSD from my old WHS v1 NAS I could have used but didn't because according to MS WHS 2011 requires 160GB minimum for installation:
http://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-g...rements-2.aspx


Regardless, I went with a pair of Sammy 250GB 2.5" drives (only the kind beyond SSD that would fit in my Norco 4224 case

) in RAID 1 for my OS and they seem to be working well so what's done is done I guess.

Quote:
Originally Posted by StanF /forum/post/20837715


I did a similar WHS 2011 build recently using the same case. My choices:

Case: Lian Li PC-Q08B (since it held 6 drives)

MB: Zotac H67 (since it had 6 internal SATA ports)

Proc: I3-2100T - low power and low profile heat sink

RAM: Some cheap, but name brand 2x2GB set from Frys

Boot Drive: Vertex 2 60GB SSD (impressive fast boot speed)

Data Drives: Reusing existing 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 drives from my old WHS server

PS: Reusing an old one - I bought some SATA power connectors from Performance-PCs.com and am going to make a custom cable to perfectly match the drive spacing in the Lian Li case.


Thoughts so far:

1) Like it alot

2) The Lian Li case has a bunch of little screws. I haven't lost any yet, but it is only a matter of time

3) I need to figure out a way to elegantly disable the blue LEDs on the Lian Li front case fan.

4) It will be a quiet system, not silent, but quiet enough for my needs

5) The mounting of the lowest two hard drives is really poor. The bracket mounts with four screws from the bottom.

6) Supposedly the MiniPCI slot on the Zotac will take an MSATA drive for boot. That would have been a better option than the SSD and would have saved a SATA port for a data hard drive. Might still do this in the future and use the SSD in another system.

7) Not using RAID, but considered RAID 5. Just too expensive to buy a decent controller and matching hard drives.

 

[StanF]



Quote:
Originally Posted by elockett /forum/post/20844491


You were able to install WHS 2011 with a 60GB boot drive?

Yes, it will install to a 60GB - probably even 40GB. But you have to create a bootable USB stick with a cfg.ini file. The cfg.ini file tells the installation not to check disk size. The critical line for this is "CheckReqs=0".


See links for more info/details:

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/e...3-190ba541ba40

http://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/wind...spx?ref=search

http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.p...-whs-2011-ssd/

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010...b-flash-drive/


This will get you started, but Google for more info.

 

[elockett]

Good to know for the future: It's too late for me now but my OS drives were moderately priced and appear to work well so no harm-no foul.

Quote:
Originally Posted by StanF /forum/post/20846744


Yes, it will install to a 60GB - probably even 40GB. But you have to create a bootable USB stick with a cfg.ini file. The cfg.ini file tells the installation not to check disk size. The critical line for this is "CheckReqs=0".


See links for more info/details:

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/e...3-190ba541ba40

http://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/wind...spx?ref=search

http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.p...-whs-2011-ssd/

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010...b-flash-drive/


This will get you started, but Google for more info.