Building a Home Server

Dreamforger said:

It's to do with the college work and for my own sense of satisfaction. I need to provide evidence of actually being able to build a computer from scratch and be able to configure it properly as part of the course and I also want the satisfaction of building it myself as this will be the first rig I would have put together myself along with I feel it would be a decent learning curve.

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That's all well and good, but don't build it as a "server" as it will be too power hungry, not really suited to the task, and too large.

If you are going to do it, either go down the mini ITX route, or go all out and make something rack mountable, like a pair of dedicated storage servers running openfiler, configured as a fibre channel SAN, with replication between the boxes.

I've done the above (replicated SANs), and it cost me a grand total of £400 (using small HDDs as a proof of concept), including two servers running two dual-core opterons, 8GB of RAM, and hardware accelerated RAID controllers (3ware 9500S). Oh, and that included a fibre channel switch! Now, that's a) a bargain, and b) a learning curve.

Now that does sound very interesting, I'll definitely look into that and give it proper consideration. I didn't realise that a build like yours would have been around £400.

Proper server hardware you will find is more expensive as its built to serve, rather than building a sever using components aimed at the client end.

That will also reflect on power consumption usually

I wouldn't reccommend running a proper rackmounted server unless you can put up with the power consumption and noise

Sod running it 24/7, use it to learn with, then shift it on for minimal loss.

That's how I play with Cisco kit

DJMK4 said:

Proper server hardware you will find is more expensive as its built to serve, rather than building a sever using components aimed at the client end.

That will also reflect on power consumption usually

I wouldn't reccommend running a proper rackmounted server unless you can put up with the power consumption and noise

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Hey! I have a rackmounted server!
To be fair, its a 4U rack mount case (half depth) and its got a bog standard i3 mATX board in there. Its not server hardware, but does the job nicely!

paradigm said:

Sod running it 24/7, use it to learn with, then shift it on for minimal loss.

That's how I play with Cisco kit

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I bet it plays with you too

PhillyDee said:

Hey! I have a rackmounted server!
To be fair, its a 4U rack mount case (half depth) and its got a bog standard i3 mATX board in there. Its not server hardware, but does the job nicely!

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When I said Rackmounted server, I meant rackmounted server with some proper beasty hardware nice dual PSU, SAS/SCSI drives/big fans

like my 16 Poweredge 1850's then...ohh and 4 PE 1650's

DJMK4 said:

When I said Rackmounted server, I meant rackmounted server with some proper beasty hardware nice dual PSU, SAS/SCSI drives/big fans

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I know

Ok,

I get the impression that you want to build a PC to act as a server rather than building a server with server grade parts.

Ditch the i3-2100 and go for a i3-2120T if you want an i3. RRP is only 10USD more and it supports all the features of the i3-2100, runs a bit slower (2.6GHz compared to 3.1GHz) but uses 30W less (35W vs 65W for the 2100). It seems to be sitting in a sweet spot for the i3 range at the moment.

If you want to go more server than the H61 board (although at more cost), take a look at the newly released Intel S1200KP server mITX board (C206 chipset). Handles ECC memory, E3 Xeon/i3 and Dual Core Pentiums (G620 etc). It has Intel dual Lan and give or take VAT should be around 125 quid. Put a low end E3 Xeon (E3-1225 should be around 150 quid give or take VAT but 95W) or the i3-2120T in it and 4GB ECC ram (both E3 and i3 can support ECC ram). That would take you from the pc acting like a server to a entry level server.

Put the setup in a Fractal R2 array or Lian-Li PC-Q25 case for storage capacity. Add a low rated (400W or there abouts) 80 bronze or better PSU.

Multiuser environments are quite heavily restricted by IOPS of the drives. For home this is not much of an issue but if you start getting large numbers on then desktop drives may start to struggle. SSDs are great for IOPS but are expensive in larger capacities. Enterprise drives are built for reliability, 24*7 duty cycles and decent IOPS. If you can get some SFF drives (2.5") then they will also be fairly good for power usage. Second user drives from companies scrapping old servers may do you if you search around.

The dual networking will allow you to play with redundancy, routing or network teaming (link aggregation).

I am building a clients machine based on this board next week sometime and will put a build log up.

Motherboards tech specs here (pdf)

If you believe the power of this is too much for a home server then load ESXi virtulization software on it and then install WHS 2011 as a VM leaving you to allocate the underutilized remaining resources to other servers you may want to run. The board and processors support VT-d so if you add a second controller for the drives (grab a M1015 from that auction site for a great SAS2/SATA PCIe 2.0 controller for around 100 quid) you can pass it straight through to the WHS VM for direct control. I do this with my own home server although I use a different board and processor as these were not available at the time of my build. Doing it again, I would almost certainly go down this route.

WHS 2011 will take care for the software side for you as it is based on Windows Server 2008r2. It has an inbuilt webserver (used for its remote access site) and it also has the DNS/DHCP roles available (although unsupported) if you activate them

Downside are more cost, bit of searching around for the parts.

Upsides, great project, especially if you incorporate ESXi (free home use licenses are available) great server with lots of upgrade potential. You'll have to confirm pricing in the UK as I am just basing on pricing I do my builds for over here.

RB

One other thought if you are not transcoding video is something like the Supermicro X7SPA-HF-D525 .

Uses the ICH7 intel hdd controller, Atom D525, 13W, 6xSATA ports, dual intel lan, IPMI v2.0 (for KVM over IP). The version without IPMI should be around around 170+VAT and remember it is the board and processor. Add some SODIMM (800MHZ 4GB max) and you have a home server. Use the same two cases as mentioned above and job done.

RB

How are you getting on?

I ended up with the i3-2100T, Intel S1200KP server board, 4GB RAM and Corsair Builder Series 430W. Seemed to be the most energy efficient and the most effective setup to act as an entry level server (considering the amount of money in my pocket that is. All I need to do now is get my hands on a decent raid controller and some more hard drives.

It seems like a sufficient starting point until I have some more money at my disposal and have greater uses for the server (which I'm doubting will be anytime soon).

All of the feedback has been greatly appreciated. Now I just have to wait for everything to arrive and then build the thing.

Dreamforger said:

I ended up with the i3-2100T, Intel S1200KP server board, 4GB RAM and Corsair Builder Series 430W. Seemed to be the most energy efficient and the most effective setup to act as an entry level server (considering the amount of money in my pocket that is. All I need to do now is get my hands on a decent raid controller and some more hard drives.

It seems like a sufficient starting point until I have some more money at my disposal and have greater uses for the server (which I'm doubting will be anytime soon).

All of the feedback has been greatly appreciated. Now I just have to wait for everything to arrive and then build the thing.

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I still think the i3-2120T would have been better buy there you go .

I have just picked up 3 of the S1200KP boards from my local distributor (all reserved) and will be building a clients mini server tonight or tomorrow. I will put up some pics when finished in the build forum.

Oh, and yes this build is using the i3-2100 .

RB

Ive been looking around on other forums and people are saying the 2120t has a lower maximum wattage but the 2100 would use the same amount at idle and streaming content.

Is this wrong?

Looks like the office wants a testing lab because more our clients are using thinclients via XenApp & XenDesktop with out software. We currently run butched Citrix server on a IBM laptop with 10/100 switch & its becoming a joke in terms of speed+performance.


Budget is £600 for the XenApp server (hardware only)+ a managed 8port 10/100/1000 switch with telnet

*Overlockers UK Home Server builds look spot on actually

Hi everyone; my first post, so:

I've also been looking at the Intel S1200KP and would like to use ECC memory.
Like RimBlock I thought the i3-2120T looked the perfect cpu for a quiet, low power zfs based fileserver or NAS.
Looking around the net gave conflicting views on whether this processor/board combo would support ECC memory and so I emailed Intel directly.

Here's the conversation:


Hello,
Could you please tell me whether the i3 2120T processor would support ECC memory when used in the Intel S1200KP motherboard (C206 chipset)

Many thanks,

----------------------
Thank you for contacting Intel® Customer Support.

I understand that you want to know if the i3-2120T supports ECC Memory.

According to page 11 on the datasheet located here:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/2nd-gen-core-desktop-vol-1-datasheet.html

This processor does not support ECC Memory.

----------------------

I know that Intel have been wrong about their own stuff before but it doesn't look promising.

Has anyone actually tried this combo?

iccuwann said:

Hi everyone; my first post, so:

I've also been looking at the Intel S1200KP and would like to use ECC memory.
Like RimBlock I thought the i3-2120T looked the perfect cpu for a quiet, low power zfs based fileserver or NAS.
Looking around the net gave conflicting views on whether this processor/board combo would support ECC memory and so I emailed Intel directly.

Here's the conversation:


Hello,
Could you please tell me whether the i3 2120T processor would support ECC memory when used in the Intel S1200KP motherboard (C206 chipset)

Many thanks,

----------------------
Thank you for contacting Intel® Customer Support.

I understand that you want to know if the i3-2120T supports ECC Memory.

According to page 11 on the datasheet located here:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/2nd-gen-core-desktop-vol-1-datasheet.html

This processor does not support ECC Memory.

----------------------

I know that Intel have been wrong about their own stuff before but it doesn't look promising.

Has anyone actually tried this combo?

Click to expand...

I have a client who is using a G620 on their S1200KP and had the same conflicting information. The combination runs but it was unclear as to whether the memory was running in ECC mode.

A quote from Intels site on the i3.

The type of memory supported by the processor is dependent on the PCH SKU in the target platform
— Desktop PCH platforms support non-ECC un-buffered DIMMs only
— All In One platforms (AIO) support SO-DIMMs

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Note: that Server PCH's are not mentioned, presumably due to the processor being targeted at consumer rather than the Server market.

The S1200KP uses the Intel® BD82C206 PCH (C206) which supports ECC ram.

The i3 specs do not say one way or the other on Intels site. I have a vague memory of the specs stating that ECC was supported on i3 processors, when the C202/4/6 boards first came out and that it has since been removed.

My personal feel is the marketing is trying to hide the fact that i3s and Pentium / Celeron LGA1155 processors can support ECC on a C202/4/6 motherboard to try and get customers to buy the E3 units.

I do have a Supermicro X9SCM-F I am using for a server build. This board only accepts ECC ram. I could give this a test with an i3 to see if it will boot and run memtest on it. It may take a few days to get round to it though.

As a side note on Intel support, I have spoken to two Intel account managers and neither knew anything about the C1 stepping VT-d issues with the new i7 processors or when the C2 stepping correcting the problem would be out (they are now available). I had to find the i7-3960X Errata on Intels site (not so easy) and send it to them. There is still no news as to whether Intel will replace C1s for C2s.

RB

Hi RimBlock,

I can't speak for anyone else but I'd certainly be interested in you running the test on the Supermicro and the i3.
I'll also keep an eye on the build forum for your S1200kp progress.

iccuwann

iccuwann said:

Hi RimBlock,

I can't speak for anyone else but I'd certainly be interested in you running the test on the Supermicro and the i3.
I'll also keep an eye on the build forum for your S1200kp progress.

iccuwann

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Sure will give it a go and report back.

My S1200KP build log was posted here a while back .

RB