Home Server

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:42 am

OK, I've finally got myself to the point where I think that I "need" to have a server at my home. I've got my main computer (that the wife & I & soon to be kid use), two HTPCs, & a couple laptops (one for travel & one for working on the car... can't believe I just said that).

Anyhow, I have been saving up & now have 4 500gb hard drives that I'm wanting to run in a RAID 1 array (this would be my first attempt at raid by the way) for redundancy. I also will be getting an 8 port gigabit switch (yes, I've got about 200' of network cable running through my house & yes it took a ton of time). So, now I just need to build the server & want advice on what's important for it's performance.

Here are my objectives for the server:
-Energy conservation. I'd like to say that it's because I care for the enviroment, but really, it's because I'm cheap & don't want a higher electric bill.
-Relatively snappy
-Cheap (hopefully be able to use stuff I've got lying around)
-Store every friggen picture & file & driver & recipe I have (it's amazing how it adds up over 15 years).
-Stream stored movies from it to the HTPCs (didn't get every episode of star trek & Dr. Who converted to DIVX for nothing).
-Use it for my Outlook Contacts & mail storage (I'm not sure this is possible, but am assuming it is) so that I can have up to date mail & history no matter the computer I access it from.
-Two computers will probably be the maximum silmutaneous usage.

My questions are, what's really important. Does processor speed matter much. I noticed that most servers really max out the ram, but I'm not sure if that's for hosting stuff on the net & if it is important, what's a good ammount.

I'm almost thinking of using an Athlon 3200+ underclocked as low as I can go (with the voltage down) for energy conservation. Then doing software RAID (unless it's prudent to get a dedicated card).

So, anyone that has server experience, shout out. Thanks.

TheSovereign · Post by **TheSovereign** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 9:52 am

find an old pc load "freenas" proceed from their...

Walleye · Post by **Walleye** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:22 pm

this board combined with the cheapest 775 proc u can find, some DDR2, and 4 1tb WD Greenpower drives in raid5, giving u total 3 TB to play around with.

Badmojo · Post by **Badmojo** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 6:00 pm

normalicy wrote:I'm almost thinking of using an Athlon 3200+ underclocked as low as I can go (with the voltage down) for energy conservation. Then doing software RAID (unless it's prudent to get a dedicated card).

that realy wont save much power if your PSU is extremely inefficient and wastes 40-90% of the power generated.

I've started to use my new Torrent seed box for my web and other tasks. Its a slim micro with proudly a sub 200watt PSU

also the suggestion of greenpower HDD is also a good idea cause thats the other huge cost in 24hr sever PC's. If the HDD is constantly spinning like in cheap USB cases that is a huge waste of power an electric bill.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:26 pm

Thanks for the info TheSovereign, I hadn't known that there was a NAS emulator out there. Might try that out this week & see how it treats me.

Well, I've already purchased the drives, so unless someone's wanting to buy 4 500gb drives, I'm sticking with what I've got (though I see your point on efficiency). Maybe in a few years when those drives get in my range & the current ones show their age.

I was actually hoping to use one of the motherboards I have, I just wanted to know if processor power or RAM make a large difference. If neither is terribly vital, I'll probably be using a Celeron 366 or 667 with 512mb & a SATA card. Since I doubt I'll ever be able to sell them & since processors from that generation were pretty efficient at only 21 watts (especially considering the 60 watt average on processors of the last few years). The VIA Eden ULV's are hard to ignore though going from 1 watt to 7.5 watts.

Oh, & yes, I'm gonna use an Antec Earthwatts power supply.

Also, yeah, I almost forgot & this may eliminate the possibilitys for FreeNAS, I was hoping to offload torrent duties to the server as well. Though, I don't download much these days, so it might be worth living without to keep things simple.

Walleye · Post by **Walleye** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:07 am

normalicy wrote:Also, yeah, I almost forgot & this may eliminate the possibilitys for FreeNAS, I was hoping to offload torrent duties to the server as well. Though, I don't download much these days, so it might be worth living without to keep things simple.

well, there's prob NAS packages that configure it really simply for linux. i saw someone had a setup that made his NAS also his torrent box, and had a script that meant when he clicked a torrent on his main box, it was added to the que on the torrent box, and automatically stopped sharing when the share ratio reached 2.

but i dont know how it works.

and honestly, you would have been better getting the GP drives, since i highly doubt the price/gb of the 500 would have been much better. in fact, it would have probably been the same.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:10 am

Well, maybe I should keep this simple at first. My main idea is for a media/document server & if that works out well, I'll go from there.

Yeah, I know that the GP drives are a good price now. However, I bought my drives over the course of the last year when 1TB drives were still hitting that $3-- mark.

Pugsley · Post by **Pugsley** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:27 am

if you ave 4 drives why not run raid 5? That would be better then raid 1. it may require a hardware raid card, but would be better then raid 1.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:52 am

I had contemplated raid 5. If I'm correct, the merits of using it over raid 1 is that I will end up with 1.5TBs of space instead of 1TB.

Badmojo · Post by **Badmojo** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 4:24 pm

you mean 1.5TB instead of 2TB dont you? (not1.5TB vs 1TB)
3(data)-1(backup)

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 4:45 pm

Yeah, my bad, yeah what you said.

Walleye · Post by **Walleye** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 6:23 pm

normalicy wrote:I had contemplated raid 5. If I'm correct, the merits of using it over raid 1 is that I will end up with 1.5TBs of space instead of 1TB.

if you use raid1 with 4 drives, you're going to have 4 copies of the same thing. ie, 1 drive's capacity.

i assume you're talking about a nested raid here, either 0+1, or 1+0..

in either case, for a 4 drive array, i think raid5 is a much better solution. it's also a very elegant solution. another solution might be raid6, but then you'd only have 1 tb of space.

overall, i cant stress enough that you would have been better off with GP 1 tb drives

Pugsley · Post by **Pugsley** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:34 am

the raid 5 will run alot faster since it stripes data across all 4 drives and also the redundant thing is across all 4 drives as well. so you can loose one and still rebuild and you get more useable space.

I have 4 160 drives running in raid 5 and when at lans with a quad 10/100 card I can push the full 4000 out to the network.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 9:47 pm

Cool, I'll definately be doing that. I am kinda worried though after looking at SATA adapters, I'm seeing alot of reviews where arrays are being lost. That's the last thing I want to happen. I'll take reliable over speed any time.

Pugsley · Post by **Pugsley** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:42 am

yeah my array is old PATA drives. Im using a rocket raid 454 i think, the one that has 4 connectors and can run 8 drives. It has been running like a champ the past 5 years.