Please let me know which other components you will go with for your home server. I'm looking for a nice case for it at the moment.
NAS or a home server?
- Thread starter MichaelHo
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Please let me know which other components you will go with for your home server. I'm looking for a nice case for it at the moment.
I'll probably be going with the following hardware for WHS to run on:
Asus V2-P5G45 with an Intel Celeron E3200 (dual core), a Samsung 1.5TB F2 EcoGreen (+ a few other HDDs I have lying around) and 2GB OCZ ram...will use WHS with LightsOut...
Asus V2-P5G45 with an Intel Celeron E3200 (dual core), a Samsung 1.5TB F2 EcoGreen (+ a few other HDDs I have lying around) and 2GB OCZ ram...will use WHS with LightsOut...
It's easier than ever, many cases are Tool-less nowadays, all components will only fit in one way, There's no dip switches or jumpers to mess about with and SATA cables are much better than IDE for keeping things tidy.
The one exception are those god awful Intel Push Pin heatsinks, terrible piece of engineering.
Yes.
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That looks like a great base for a WHS
Well, I wanted something with a decent amount of SATA ports on mobo and then the ability to add later if needed via card, a 45nm dual-core celeron should be good enough to give decent performance, run cool and not use too much power, will get it all next week, will need to do a bit of reading on WHS, also had a look at the Add-Ins which really seem to add so much functionality.
Particularly looking forward to this project!
That price is very attractive. 6 sata ports = great stuff.
Have you done full costing on the server, based on the Asus V2-P5G45?
I was also looking at the mobile cpus and the intel atom: is it not possible for us to use one of these CPUs, considering that the power usage will be very low for these?
The intel celeron is low power, but the intel atom is surely where its at, right?
I've decided to go down the home server route. My old PC has been sat doing nothing, so it's going to get pressed into service as a server.
I've got some new drives ready to stuff in it. Can't remember how many spare drive bays there are in the case, so I might end up getting a new case for it yet.
The plan is to use it as a learning exercise to play with some new bits and pieces like virtualisation and try several different flavours of operating systems.
I've got some new drives ready to stuff in it. Can't remember how many spare drive bays there are in the case, so I might end up getting a new case for it yet.
The plan is to use it as a learning exercise to play with some new bits and pieces like virtualisation and try several different flavours of operating systems.
I looked at the Atom 330 but what I didn't like about them was the low number of SATA ports, generally 2, or 4 on the odd one...
This is not really a concern of mine, as I will be using WHS with LightOut, so that the box will only run when used and otherwise be in Hibernation...
Asus V2-P5G45, Intel Celeron E3200, and WHS, £231 delivered, I have a number of HDDs around that I can use for the time being (will add a 1.5TB Samsung F2 Eco Green in the near future) and 2GBs ram...
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One of my servers has a P4 3.06 HT with 1gb RAM, on the server itself it can get a bit bogged down, but rarely affected any streaming. It is probably the RAM more than the CPU, but it seemed to work hard. It's just used for cloning my main server now.
This makes me question how good an Atom would be if you want to do a bit more. I'd be interested to learn other opinions on these CPU/Chipsets as I have a few more WHS's to build in the next few months. So I think the Celeron will be a very good choice. I'm running Core 2 Pentium E5200's in my other server and has plenty of ooomph for it.
This makes me question how good an Atom would be if you want to do a bit more. I'd be interested to learn other opinions on these CPU/Chipsets as I have a few more WHS's to build in the next few months. So I think the Celeron will be a very good choice. I'm running Core 2 Pentium E5200's in my other server and has plenty of ooomph for it.
...but while the server is on, it would surely be better to have the cpu use as little power as possible...right?
I was scanning over the power usage for different cpus and I'm not sure if the celeron is the way to go.
Consider:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation#Intel_Atom_2
The atom N280 (1.66Ghz) uses around 1.6Watts/Ghz.
Celeron E1400 (2Ghz) uses around 32.5Watts/Ghz.
Have I got my calculations wrong or is the Atom really that efficient?
The only other problem with the Intel Atom platform is the maximum 4 sata inputs. This could be a problem, but if you consider that 1.5TB drives are (in October 2009), the sweetspot in terms of GB/£, your server will max out at 6TB, which is plenty for most home users.
I havent done the costing yet, but I can see that the cost of the Asus V2-P5G45 platform is lower.
Can't you install a RAID controller card?
Surely the cost would rise, substantially if we did this?
Basically, we want to install as few cards/peripherals to the server, to reduce power usage.
A person in this thread has already stated that he runs his server without a video card...which sounds like a great energy/cost saving idea.
You'd be able to pick up a PCI RAID controller for about a tenner at auction. It wouldn't use up much power. It's all the hard drives you attach to it that would use the power.