Home Server / Media Server Build - Please help

[Tupe]

Hi,

I am looking to build a tower home server to ultimately serve as a backup storage location for files on my PC (documents/photos etc) and serve as a dedicated home media server.

- The server will be based on Home Server 2012.
- It will provide for backups from Windows 7 office pc
- Serve Video and Photos to 2 HTPCs (XBMC) around the home
- Run Logitech Media Server to server music to IPAD and squeezeboxes.

It needs to have around 30TB but more is always better for future proofing. I do not need RAID but I was struggling on whether to get a dedicated RAID card to allow more than 10 HDD to be connected but have now decided on the AS ROCK mb which allows for up to 10 hdd. I also struggled with a case which had space for up to 10 3.5" hdd's.

Chosen spec:

NZXT Phantom White Enthusiast Full Tower no PSU
ASRock Z97 EXTREME6 S1150 Intel Z97 DDR3 ATX
Intel Core i3-4130T 2.9GHz LGA1150 3MB
Crucial 8GB Ballistix Sport XT 1600MHz DDR3
Corsair 430W Builder Series CX 80+ Bronze ATX PSU

I would be most grateful if someone could advise and point out if there is a cheaper or better option.

 

[g-unit1111]

A Corsair CX430 won't power anything but a basic, low profile HTPC running onboard graphics or a basic GPU - if you want to use any Z97 motherboard or any solid GPU with it then you will need something stronger, especially with the HD setup you want to run. Alternately you could go with a low profile case like a Silverstone GD05 or a Fractal Design Node 605.

 

[Guest]

A decent NAS would meet most (not sure about 100%) of your requirements, and be a purpose built device, drawing very little power.

 

[boosted1g]

When you are dealing with that many drives you are going to run into the problem of the psu having enough amps on the 12v rail to power all the drives at once (when it first powers on); then when you look at the fact that the cx series has weaker capacitors then other power supplies in its class, it is a poor option.

What I am going to do for my home server is switch to a software raid solution called flexraid. This will allow me to have a jbod style setup with data on individual drives, but for windows to see it as 1 large drive. It also allows me to assign a drive (or more) as a parity drive. This gives me the redundancy without the stress on the hard drives, but at the cost of a little more system overhead.

Instead of getting an enthusiast board with many features you would not ever use, I would just get some jbod raid cards to go with a cheaper motherboard.

For backups I like to use syncback se (se is $35 but they also have a free version) to schedule automatic backups of all of my home PCs.

i3 is pretty spot on for the performance you would need for the current system. If things upgraded for say a camera dvr system or other higher system use applications then an i5 would be necessary.

Finding a tower for 10 drives is a challenge. You would have to get a full ATX case. I have the fractial design define r4 which has 8 3.5 bays, plus a SSD drive slot behind motherboard tray, and then 2x 5.25 bays.

If you are doing something like XBMC or Plex for your media then an SSD drive for the boot drive would be a good choice as database and thumbnail access will be greatly improved.

 

[g-unit1111]

A decent NAS would meet most (not sure about 100%) of your requirements, and be a purpose built device, drawing very little power.

A NAS might actually work here, especially given that the biggest consumer-grade hard drives that you can buy right now is 6TB, and most standard ATX motherboards and cases can really only support about 6 - 7 hard drives at the max, you might have a hard time meeting the OP's requirements for 30TB.

 

[Tupe]

Thanks for your responses.

I have little understanding of PSU's but chose this at thought would not need more than 400 watts as not having seperate GPU. The server should be lower power usage given the low useage of CPU.

Hesitant on the NAS due to flexibility and being tied by the software of the NAS. Still favouring Windows Server. Understand LMS is fiddly on NAS and not sure I could run squeezelite on NAS.

I have a 120gb SSD which I was going to use as boot drive.

My desktop is a fractal R4 and I love it so thought about another for server. If I were to get 6 6TB WD Reds would this work off the MB without need for RAID cards etc. I am not too concerned with RAID and merely need the drives to be a backup of my desktop.

What would you suggestions be on a NAS? Make? Model?

 

[g-unit1111]

I have little understanding of PSU's but chose this at thought would not need more than 400 watts as not having seperate GPU. The server should be lower power usage given the low useage of CPU.

People like the Corsair CX series because they're cheap and they're from a recognized brand. But really they're poorly designed Channel Well units that have inferior capacitors and won't power anything high end.

Hesitant on the NAS due to flexibility and being tied by the software of the NAS. Still favouring Windows Server. Understand LMS is fiddly on NAS and not sure I could run squeezelite on NAS.

Have you seen FreeNAS? It's a free open source version of Linux that's geared specifically toward NAS users: http://www.freenas.org/

I think it's better than Windows Server 2011 IMO.

My desktop is a fractal R4 and I love it so thought about another for server. If I were to get 6 6TB WD Reds would this work off the MB without need for RAID cards etc. I am not too concerned with RAID and merely need the drives to be a backup of my desktop.

The board I have is the Asrock Z97 Extreme 6 and the board has something like 12 SATA ports so you could run any combination of drives you want and not have to sacrifice power. Plus with a solid power supply you could always add more drives as you need them.

 

[Tupe]

What PSU would you suggest? I am tempted by modular to avoid clutter given the number of hdds in the case.

I was aware of FreeNAS and will certainly consider it.

The suggested in my first post that I was going for the AS Rock Z97 Extreme 6. The main reason being that it has so many SATA connections and reasonable at sub £100.

I will either go with the Fractal R4 or NZXT. The NZXT has space for 7 3.5" hdd and 5 5.25" external drives so was thinking I could convert these to 3.5" and therefore in theory have space for 13 hdds. However I know the Fractal is a good quiet case as already have one.

Performance wise, I am likely to see any issue with having 8 + hdds connected to this MB. Do I need a raid card/Sata card?

 

[g-unit1111]

What PSU would you suggest? I am tempted by modular to avoid clutter given the number of hdds in the case.

I would say a Seasonic X or G series, or any XFX power supply, or an EVGA G2 / P2.

Performance wise, I am likely to see any issue with having 8 + hdds connected to this MB. Do I need a raid card/Sata card? Performance wise, I am likely to see any issue with having 8 + hdds connected to this MB. Do I need a raid card/Sata card?

Having a RAID setup would depend on if you're setting any of your drives up for backups or you're moving or sharing data between the drives. If you're planning on doing that with lots of hard drives then a RAID setup is warranted.