Home server questions

[kermdawg]

So I've been building PC's for about 20 years now, but have never messed with a home server. With an abundance of old parts laying around and a nagging (but loving) wife urging me to use it or lose it, I've been looking into building a home server.

Quickly realizing the needs of a home server are quite differant than that of a desktop/gaming rig. Hopefully somebody can answer some questions I have-

1)With power efficiency for a home server at a premium, should I spring for a 100$ 400watt 80 plus platinum PSU? Will the cost savings add up over say a cheaper 80plus bronze, or should I just go with a 300 watt 80 plus gold psu?

2)Processor-and this is the big one that I can't seem to wrap my head around. Needless to say I have several lying around, LGA 775 hardware and some LGA 1155 hardware. Is more cores or higher clock speeds/less cores what I'm looking for? Basically I'm having trouble trying to figure if the server is going to be doing lots of single threaded things or if it'll actually make us of the multiple cores. Right now I have on hand a core 2 quad q8200 +mobo and a pentium E5400 +mobo, which was actually a server at one point. I also have a LGA 1155 mobo I could easily buy a processor for, but would I want a Xeon or something like a celeron? Is the price of a xeon processor worth it over one of the older board/cpus?(probably not)

3)How much memory do I really need and does it need to be ECC if I'm NOT using raid? I'm not really planning on storing anything on here I can't live without, and I have other backups anyway.

4)Networking-I've read about link aggregation and was wondering if the added throughput would be needed/wanted? How much bandwidth would my server be able to use(limited by the 1gbps on the mobo I believe?) Does more bandwidth == more speed in a home network(seems yes)?

Thanks guys and sorry if this is in the wrong forum!

4)

 

[kanewolf]

What are you planning to use your home server for? That will determine what makes sense. If you are just a NAS, then you need almost no CPU, and maybe 8GB RAM. RAM will depend on the software choice you make.

Link aggregation will only make a difference IF you have many simultaneous transactions going on. With link aggregation, each client is still limited to gigabit speeds. If you had 4 large simultaneous file copies or backups going on simultaneously, then link aggregation could benefit you. It is unlikely in a home environment. To use link aggregation, you also need a managed switch. If you have mostly wireless connections, there is no way you will exceed gigabit wired bandwidth.

 

[R_1]

1. I don't know for sure on that one sorry
2. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Pentium-E5400-vs-Intel-Core2-Quad-Q8200 it a wash performance wise but if cost to run is important I would go with the lowest power (TDP) CPU.
3. a home server should not need ecc ram, U can never have too much RAM if the Server Software can utilize it.
4. unsure about link aggregation.

 

[blazorthon]

1 You won't find the cost savings adding up much at all for a low wattage home server. You could spring for a gold PSU since they're often not too much more expensive, but a platinum isn't worth it unless you find one very cheap. Seeing as you can get decent models non-platinum as low as $30-$50, I wouldn't bother.

2 For a home server, the CPU doesn't need to be very powerful, so you could just use the E5400. You do not need a Xeon.

3 ECC is for critical systems. Unless you're reliant on your home server for processing a cure for cancer, don't worry about it. You'd probably need a different motherboard and processor even if you wanted it, not to mention the expense of ECC memory over standard memory. ECC memory or not is not impacted by RAID. Home servers generally also don't have high RAM needs, granted the more the better. A few GB should be plenty.

4 It is highly unlikely that you'd need multiple Ethernet links for a home server. Gigabit Ethernet is not easy to saturate unless you are copy/pasting files from one computer to another over the network.

The exact details of this depend on what you're doing with the server. We can give more accurate recommendations when we know the server's purpose.

 

[kermdawg]

1 You won't find the cost savings adding up much at all for a low wattage home server. You could spring for a gold PSU since they're often not too much more expensive, but a platinum isn't worth it unless you find one very cheap. Seeing as you can get decent models non-platinum as low as $30-$50, I wouldn't bother.

2 For a home server, the CPU doesn't need to be very powerful, so you could just use the E5400. You do not need a Xeon.

3 ECC is for critical systems. Unless you're reliant on your home server for processing a cure for cancer, don't worry about it. You'd probably need a different motherboard and processor even if you wanted it, not to mention the expense of ECC memory over standard memory. ECC memory or not is not impacted by RAID. Home servers generally also don't have high RAM needs, granted the more the better. A few GB should be plenty.

4 It is highly unlikely that you'd need multiple Ethernet links for a home server. Gigabit Ethernet is not easy to saturate unless you are copy/pasting files from one computer to another over the network.

The exact details of this depend on what you're doing with the server. We can give more accurate recommendations when we know the server's purpose.

Thanks for the timely replies guys. The home server will be used for the following(nothing too extreme)-

1)Cloud storage and streaming(main goal). Apps/music/pics/videos/movies across all my devices(of which about half are wired and half wireless)

2)I'm hoping to use the server to host my steam game collection as storage on the server and run my games on my gaming rig and possibly a big screen(which will be wired). This may or may not be possible, if its not I'm not terribly concerned. If it's possible but would require a good processor and video card I'd consider it. Again I'm not that worried about this as its a secondary goal. It would just be to save space on my gaming rig's hard drives.

I forgot to mention the pentium E5400+mobo already has 4gb of ECC ram on it. Is this enough? It's DDR2 which is the other thing. If I was to use my z77 motherboard and buy a processor(since ram is dirt cheap these days) would the differance between 8gigs and 16gigs of ddr3 be huge? Also, should I go for more cores or higher single-threaded performance? I'm not on a ultra-low budget, at the same time I don't wanna spend an extra 100 dollars for 10% performance gain. But if its double the performance I'd give it some thought

Last question-with my use's listed above can you recommened a software package? I'd heard alot about FreeNAS, seems to be very popular.

 

[kanewolf]

FreeNAS wants 8GB or more of RAM. Dual core is probably plenty. Commercial NAS units sell with Atom or Celeron processors.

 

[blazorthon]

Game files are best stored on the computer playing them. Putting them on a network server will increase latency and limit transfer speeds even with dual-port teaming for 2Gb/s. Streaming should be fine on your computer with an E5400 with 4GB of RAM. If you already have ECC, then you might as well use it.

For the Z77, you'd need to check if the board supports ECC. Most, if not all, do not.

More cores or higher threaded performance None of that matters because the performance requirements are almost nothing either way. You could compare a system with a powerful octa-core i7-5960X to one with a little Pentium G2380 and they're perform the same in a home streaming server. They'd perform the same in a file server too, granted that's partially because a file server is much more limited by transfer speeds of the storage and network interface.

I don't have personal experience with any of the NAS software packages like FreeNAS. I just use Windows or Linux mostly. For a small Linux distro, I prefer Tinycore, but it takes some work to get it to do what you want. I'm pretty sure FreeNAS only wants 8GB for caching purposes and isn't actually needed, but IDK for sure.

 

[kermdawg]

Game files are best stored on the computer playing them. Putting them on a network server will increase latency and limit transfer speeds even with dual-port teaming for 2Gb/s. Streaming should be fine on your computer with an E5400 with 4GB of RAM. If you already have ECC, then you might as well use it.

For the Z77, you'd need to check if the board supports ECC. Most, if not all, do not.

More cores or higher threaded performance None of that matters because the performance requirements are almost nothing either way. You could compare a system with a powerful octa-core i7-5960X to one with a little Pentium G2380 and they're perform the same in a home streaming server. They'd perform the same in a file server too, granted that's partially because a file server is much more limited by transfer speeds of the storage and network interface.

I don't have personal experience with any of the NAS software packages like FreeNAS. I just use Windows or Linux mostly. For a small Linux distro, I prefer Tinycore, but it takes some work to get it to do what you want. I'm pretty sure FreeNAS only wants 8GB for caching purposes and isn't actually needed, but IDK for sure.

Thanks for the reply. My z77 board does not support ECC memory, so theres that. Not that concerned with that cause like I said not putting anything on here I cant afford to lose and Ill have backups anyway on a differant platform(external HD, just in case).

As for the game files, I've read that in a lot of places. I currently(and have been for about 2 years now) store my steam library, almost 2 TB worth, on a USB 2.0 external hard drive, and play them off there too. Never noticed much differance between the few that i have on my SSD on playing the ones on the external hard drive. Hence my curiousity-Could I map a network drive from my server to my gaming PC and use that like an external HD, just over ethernet? If anything, I'd think gigabit ethernet speeds would be faster than USB 2.0 speeds.

Ive read a couple articles that say the celeron processors aren't powerful enough to stream a 1080p movie. That being said, since I already have the hardware, I think I'm just going to fire it up and see what happens.

Is there a way to use a video card to enhance streaming? I've read something about intel quick sync, and i happen to have a gtx 650 laying around, would that help with anything?

 

[blazorthon]

If you really wanted to use the Z77 board, you'd just buy a Pentium of Celeron to go with it because anything more is a waste. It wouldn't be any better than what you already have except in power efficiency.


Granted going from USB 2.0 to Ethernet is higher bandwidth, the latency will still be higher because the data has to come from another computer instead of just an external hard drive. Whether or not you will notice, it, I make no guarantees. It might be fine for you. Yes, you could map a network drive like that and use it kinda like an external drive.

I'd like to see where youve read that about Celerons. They might be referring to the very old Netburst-based models, but even then streaming uses so little CPU power that it shouldn't matter. An E5400 will not be a bottleneck at all for streaming and file serving with a network drive. Like Kanewolf said, commercial NAS units only tend to have Atoms and the like in them. There is no need for more.

I don't think a graphics card in the server will make a difference for streaming. The server is just reading the data and "streaming" it to a client, the server isn't editing it or anything.

 

[kermdawg]

If you really wanted to use the Z77 board, you'd just buy a Pentium of Celeron to go with it because anything more is a waste. It wouldn't be any better than what you already have except in power efficiency.


Granted going from USB 2.0 to Ethernet is higher bandwidth, the latency will still be higher because the data has to come from another computer instead of just an external hard drive. Whether or not you will notice, it, I make no guarantees. It might be fine for you. Yes, you could map a network drive like that and use it kinda like an external drive.

I'd like to see where youve read that about Celerons. They might be referring to the very old Netburst-based models, but even then streaming uses so little CPU power that it shouldn't matter. An E5400 will not be a bottleneck at all for streaming and file serving with a network drive. Like Kanewolf said, commercial NAS units only tend to have Atoms and the like in them. There is no need for more.

I don't think a graphics card in the server will make a difference for streaming. The server is just reading the data and "streaming" it to a client, the server isn't editing it or anything.

Thanks for the reply. I can show you a couple links to the articles about "old, tired celerons" but unfortunately as you stated it doesn't really describe the microarchitecture their migrating from. It could very well be older models.

I went ahead and built up the Pentium since it was already in a case, swapped in a couple hard drives, and after fiddling around with Free NAS got it up and running. Only problem so far is the god dang fan on this is so. freaking. loud. Definately going to have to fix that at a later date.

Just for S&G, I benchmarked both my ethernet and my usb 3.0 external harddrive. Results are very, very similar. Heres a screenshot-

Lastly, I wouldn't be so quick to put down the Atom processors. Some of those are pretty beefy!

Ill be moving some steam games over to my server and try and give a real life comparison of playing between the two. Will update later.

 

[kermdawg]

Just an update-I tried to play games that were installed on the network drive on my desktop, and basically what happened is it fell into an install loop-I believe the .exe or steam is trying to install the software on the network machine instead of my desktop. I'm sure there's a way around this but for now I've moved onto simply attaching my external hard drive to my router instead of my desktop, thus making the drive accessible to all computers on my network.

I think this will work better but at the moment I'm having problems getting my router to recognize my external hard drive, due to a compatibility issue apparently.