Project Home Media Server.

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*Disclaimer* - I've never done a build log before and the photos are far from professional but hopefully it gives everyone an idea of the journey on this project as I'm pretty stoked on how this may (or may not) go.

I've always wanted a central storage area for all my media and a machine that just ticks over in the background serving up and sorting out media through any connected device on the network. There's drop in solutions like the HP Microservers, Synology and QNAP NAS systems but they didn't tick the boxes my requirements had and when asking for more features on these solutions you stump up the cash.

My main priorities are:

  • Storage in a closet / attic / under stair cupboard
  • Reasonably low power usage whilst idle
  • Low cost (against retail products)
  • Ability for large future expansion when required without rebuilding the entire system.
  • Reasonable low amount of noise
For costing I used a 12 bay DX1215 Synology (approx retail £800 - £850) as a benchmark where if I could exceed or match 12 bays(and specs) with overall build cost (minus disks) then I would be happy. Space wasn't an issue and neither were looks it just has to function.

Initially I was going to go with the Lian Li or Silverstone NAS offerings (PC-25B & DS380); which are both great little boxes however having a spare PC-25B the most drives I could fit in would be 11 which wouldn't leave either any room for expansion and it made the box crowded with a lack of air circulation. I started looking at full U server units at this point in order to over spec; most out the box racks didn't meet the requirements until I stumbled across an old 3u SuperMicro case that could hold a massive 16 HDD's; I snapped it up and all it's internals from the bay for the princely sum of £77 + £15 postage: bargain.

This is what I received:

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The guts of which were a SuperMicro LGA771 motherboard, 2GB of RAM, a SAS/SATA controller card to the front panel, Intel NIC and an Intel Xeon E5420 all of which somehow still kept going; however upon firing it up it made a hoover sound muted by comparison. It didn't sound healthy; still the test signals were good and the front panel was clearly looking for drives. It bode well.
The initial plan has always to put my own hardware in but these components have seen better days as I began to discover upon dismantling:

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The cause of which can probably be put down to the dust filled, chard, corroded mess in the redundant PSU adapter

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Still after stripping it all the way back of every electrical component, vaccuming and then followed down by a thorough hose down outside it started to look like it was getting the TLC it needed. Awww.

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So that's my first post on this build done so far before starting to mod the case and list what exciting hardware will be going in. Will update as soon as the chassis has dried thoroughly and work resumes.
 
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The Tech.

So the parts that of the system that will fuel the media centre:

Motherboard: Asrock Rack E3C224D4I-14S DTX

  • Nice little motherboard that is low power, yet packs a lot of punch for it's size and also the support for 4 DIMMS on an itx board is a bonus. Allows any future sidegrading and downsizing. Also it's onboard graphics are handy. Like the no frills nature of these boards.
CPU: Intel Xeon E3 1226V3

  • Ability to transcode 1080p on the fly taken care of I didn't see the need to go any higher on the Xeon list at this point in time.
RAM: 16gb DDR3 ECC

  • It's a server so ECC as standard just in case.
RAID Controller: Adaptec 71605 4 Port SAS/SATA PCI-E Card 1GB CACHE

  • Mid range RAID card that for home use is more than adequete supporting all the major RAID types and more importantly with large drives.
HDD: WD Red 5tb

  • Currently have 6 of these - another 2 will make up the first array.
Current plan is to run x2 RAID 50 arrays to allow for redundancy and spread risk alittle more than having large or separate RAID 5 (x2 2 leg RAID 50 should allow for logical 30tb per array according to the RAID calculator) - this will be more than enough to last a lifetime I think.

Group photo:
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And the award for best "greeting" to an unboxing goes to...

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I'll be keeping close watch on this project as I too would like to build a similar kind of setup in the future where all the media devices are in a closet to reduce heat/noise in other rooms. This kind of setup could also become very usefull soon considering IoT devices are likely to be hitting the shelves very soon.
It's also nice to see the system all cleaned up as well as there's nothing that pains me more than to see gunk on perfectly good components. :)

Keep up the good work and I look forward to the next update :D
 
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GDL

GDL

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Really interested in this build, as I'm tempted to do the same.

Good work so far and good luck!
 
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Minor update tonight:

Pondering the subject of PSU mounting and after dismissing letting the PSU free stand in the middle of the case (there would be room) it would negate any airflow through the case to the HDD's. With that in mind I removed the PSU cage that held 2 of the 1u redundant power supplies; pretty simple really just had to remove a single rivet so I can even put it back in later should I start a data centre.

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Plan is to horizontally top mount an ATX PSU as there's no point using redundancy in a my home server use; coupled with the fact replacing it with another industrial PSU I gain nothing noise wise as "quiet" isn't in the server dictionary. Time to get something fabricated...

I lose one of the 80mm exhaust fans doing this but it's a needed sacrifice.

Other minor bits that arrived for the rack part of the build:

TP Link SG 2424 Smart Switch, CAT6 patch panel and 40+ metres of CAT6 cable. Fun times.

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Interesting build, would love me some mental storage and media servings. Is a full ATX PSU required though? True they cost more, but Silverstone have 600W and 700W PSUs in SFX and SFX-L form factors which will same you some space.
 
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Interesting build, would love me some mental storage and media servings. Is a full ATX PSU required though? True they cost more, but Silverstone have 600W and 700W PSUs in SFX and SFX-L form factors which will same you some space.

Yep the pictured 550w is an SFX-L and the 600/700w flavours are the same size (120mm fan); even on it's side it extends around 30mm above the top of the case (would be ok in 4u but not 3u chassis). There are the 300-400w ones with 80mm fans and they're tight to all the edges so might be a backup plan.
 
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Wow that server was filthy! That can't have been housed in a datacenter, must have been a workshop of some kind or something.
 
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I bet you can't wait to install all that CAT 6 can you ;)
Seriously though you've got some decent kit there and I'm interested to see your method for mounting the powersupply in the case. I'm actually wondering if it would be worth while having something 3D printer for it instead of having it machined out of metal as it might save you some money and be faster to arrive :)
 
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Good call with the 3d printing suggestion unfortunately my cad / sketchup skills leave a lot to be desired - I used to have a milling machine otherwise would have machined it out of a piece of delrin (by far my favourite material to work with); fabrication should be a better option compared to machining not to mention cheaper, so will see how it pans out though.
 
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As much as I loved to listen to the industrial drone of the Sanyo 6000rpm 80mm fans; they have to go. Been toying with mid shroud designs and so far have drafted up this to sit across the midsection.

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Think it should fit the purpose exactly as needed whilst also bringing the noise levels down - handy cable management ports as well. Unfortunately triple 120mm radiator shrouds lack the width and would need more modification than they're worth.
Given some thought on fans and will probably look to using Noctua PPC PWM Industrial 2000rpm fans to drag air in.
 
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Those designs look excellent :) I'm amazed how much time and effort has gone into creating the CAD/Sketchup designs of the system. Do you use CAD/Sketchup in your job as you seem to be very skilled in creating the models :)

I also can't wait to see the Noctua Industrial fans fitted in the system as they should make a world of difference to the noise levels :D
 
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Those designs look excellent :) I'm amazed how much time and effort has gone into creating the CAD/Sketchup designs of the system. Do you use CAD/Sketchup in your job as you seem to be very skilled in creating the models :)

I also can't wait to see the Noctua Industrial fans fitted in the system as they should make a world of difference to the noise levels :D

No, no not a proficient CAD designer by any stretch of the imagination. I tend to learn what I need to know for when I need it; tried Autocad once and got completely out my depth, I just find sketchup more entry level friendly (although exporting to autocad files can be a pain).

Having available things like a digital micrometre and caliper to just translate things to paper/sketchup takes a lot of the guess work out. May need a couple of revisions from the first iteration but after 2-3 it's about there for a simple piece like a bracketed fan shroud.
 
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Every time I see one of these I want to rebuild my home NAS... which I barely use now as I have a hosted server with tons of storage... but that motherboard is beautiful! I want it!!!
 
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