NAS or a home server?

[sunama]

That's the thing I stream HD material to between up to 3 clients at the same time. I do not have this issue.

The demigrator does not cripple my CPUs, it sometimes puts a P4 under high load, and next to nothing on E5200 boxes - even then it is not at 100% for days on end, it is when I would expect it to run, when it is balancing storage.

The min specs are:
1.0 GHz Intel Pentium 3 (or equivalent) processor
512 MB RAM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Home_Server#Minimum_system_requirements

Your P4 is way way way above the minimum specs, yet it sometimes comes under high load, which still worries me. The E5200 is a little too expensive/high power. The E3200 looks good to me.

I'm certainly no expert in WHS, however, you say that WHS duplicates files on different hard disks. Does this provide any redundancy with regards to disk failures or is this purely a method to speed up access to data, by the clients?

 

[jbloggs]

Just to clarfiy: are you suggesting that the entire system, when on full load, with an E3200, would use 50W of power?

Last paragraph down at bottom of Page

 

[ChileanLlama]

Yes the P4 comes under high load but it doesn't cripple it, when it was my main WHS it never suffered from streaming issues. But it's a poor CPU these days regardless

Anyway, I do think that the minimum specs are too light given what I've seen. It would run, but I'd imagine it would be worked fairly hard for anything but basic stuff. I'd imagine with a poor CPU demigrator will take longer to run at high CPU utilisation. I'm also guessing that the performance of the disks and controller will also have an impact.

The E5200 is most definitely overkill for my use but I can use it as part of my renderfarm. I'm sure a Celeron E3200 will be fine, my main reservation is around the use of Atoms...all this talk of demigrator and minimum specs makes me think they would be hard pushed too...whether that means it would have difficulty streaming HD I honestly don't know.

Duplication. It requires more than one physical hard disk. But yes when you create shares in WHS you have the option to set duplication to "on" or "off". When it is "on" WHS puts copies onto separate physical disks, so it provides redundancy should a disk fail. The advantage is that you get to choose which shares are duplicated, rather than in a RAID situation where it would just mirror whole disks. So providing you don't duplicate everything, it can be more efficient with your diskspace over a RAID array.

For example my DVDs and BluRays are set with duplication "off" as I have the original disks as backup. Documents, photos, musics etc have duplication "on" as they would be difficult to replace. Demigrator manages this duplication in the background.

If you had multi gb or tb of data with Duplication on and regularly moved it around, this would have a massive impact on the workrate of demigrator.

[Edit: I've been doing some searches this evening, and it does seem that there are some pretty high powered rigs out there - including quads that do suffer from streaming issues - I think given this, I would recommend once again using the trial version to see how it performs on your intended hardware before committing to it]

 

[THFC]

The figure of 19.2w is for "CPU Power Consumption @ 100% load" (as illustrated in diagram) NOT for total system consumptation, under full load (which you point out), which they say would be 50w which would be achievable "when paired with mainboards based on chipsets with integrated graphics core."

However, the 19.2 watts of the Celeron E3200 (100% load) is what I was highlighting in comparison to the 8w for the Intel Atom 330...

Agreed

So the Atom ion is around 8w cpu against the celerons 20w

negligible saving of £10 a year in favour of the ion

With onboard gfx and mobo equated in how do we stand then on energy usage - if using in a WHS for example?

 

[sunama]

Last paragraph down at bottom of Page

So, consider that the Atom330 only saves around 11W, over the E3200, we have to say that it perhaps isnt worth going the Atom route. 11W is around £11 per year, so the saving in power that the Atom gives us, financially, doesnt make any sense.

E3200, as long as it can run WHS properly, without stuttering and falling to its knees, is definitely the CPU of choice.

 

[THFC]

So, consider that the Atom330 only saves around 11W, over the E3200, we have to say that it perhaps isnt worth going the Atom route. 11W is around £11 per year, so the saving in power that the Atom gives us, financially, doesnt make any sense.

E3200, as long as it can run WHS properly, without stuttering and falling to its knees, is definitely the CPU of choice.

Interesting read on atom vs core2 7200

"With that said, Intel’s entry-level business Core 2 E7000 family is capable of achieving the same system idle power and several times better performance than any Atom platform. All you need is a reasonable platform with integrated graphics—we used a G31 motherboard by Foxconn—and a power supply that is matched to the power requirements. Remember that an 80plus certification is no guarantee for high efficiency at loads below 20% of the nominal PSU output."

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dual-core-atom-330,2141-11.html

So if a whs is idle most of the time, power consumotion difference is negligible. under load the core 2 achieves the task faster than the atom therefore negates the need for the more efficient atom.

 

[sunama]

The E5200 is most definitely overkill for my use but I can use it as part of my renderfarm.

Who knows - maybe your E5200 isnt overkill. Maybe that is the sort of CPU which is required to stream HD material.

You are the probably the only person in this thread who has actual experience of using WHS, with streaming HD material and you are using an E5200 (which is a fairly powerful cpu, when you consider that home servers should be low power).

We need somebody to try streaming HD material with a lesser CPU.

The advantage is that you get to choose which shares are duplicated, rather than in a RAID situation where it would just mirror whole disks. So providing you don't duplicate everything, it can be more efficient with your diskspace over a RAID array.

This is VERY interesting and desirable.

[Edit: I've been doing some searches this evening, and it does seem that there are some pretty high powered rigs out there - including quads that do suffer from streaming issues - I think given this, I would recommend once again using the trial version to see how it performs on your intended hardware before committing to it]

Perhaps we need the E5200 to guarantee successful streaming of HD material.
E5200 is selling for around £50
E3200 is selling for around £35.
Also, the E5200 uses an extra 12W, compared with the E3200.

How about the E3300?

 

[HighlandeR]

Newbie question....

Theres no such thing as a mobo with just 8 sata ports thats micro atx, with onboard graphics, and something that can accept e3200s, low end dual core intel chips ?

Would it not be perfect to have small low power running pc, just running tons of samsung 1.5tbs 70 quid drives with WHS ? 2 or 4 sata ports aint gonna cut it with my linux iso collection frankly lol

 

[ChileanLlama]

My personal opinion is that the E3200 would be enough. The E5200 rarely if ever comes under any significant load.

There clearly is a problem for some people, even using quads - so the E5200 is no guarantee of success if this is true. Now I don't want to be dismissive, but I've not seen demigrator issues since pre-PP1, dare I say could it be they may be using a less than legit version - it's probably unfair of me to say as I don't know these guys and it could just as well be a genuine issue I've not experienced in the various WHS I have or have built.

Regardless, give the 120d trial a version to be safe it works on your hardware

 

[sunama]

...and a power supply that is matched to the power requirements. Remember that an 80plus certification is no guarantee for high efficiency at loads below 20% of the nominal PSU output."

OK. So now we need to look at power supplies, too...

Surely if it has an 80+ certification, that is good enough? If not, then what PSU is advised?

 

[sunama]

Now I don't want to be dismissive, but I've not seen demigrator issues since pre-PP1, dare I say could it be they may be using a less than legit version -

I've just checked and there is WHS edition, with Power Pack 1, available on the "less than legit" websites.

I suspect that those using the less than legit versions aren't necessarily the ones who are suffering. Furthermore, because the powerpacks can be downloaded and installed separately on top of Windows Home Server V1, I doubt the problem is related to using a less than legit version.

 

[ChileanLlama]

Possibly - can't recall if the PPs need any WGA checks or not - as I say don't want to totally dismiss it...just I've not experienced it so not ruling anything out

 

[THFC]

Now wondering about using my old e6300 cpu htpc as the WHS too

Fine for everything i throw at it and silverstone HTPC case has room for 6 drives and micro atx mobo has 6 sata ports.

Power consumption was my only issue.

save me a new mobo,cpu,case,psu,ram. only problem no print server as printers are in a seperate room - print server would suffice.

need to read up on EIST and power saving options if leaving on 24/7 or simply upgrade to a more efficient socket 775 chip than the e6300

 

[sunama]

Now wondering about using my old e6300 cpu htpc as the WHS too

Hehehe.

Thats what I have in my main PC @ 3.3Ghz. The problem with it is that it is a power hog. Hopefully a low power server will negate the need to have this PC on 24/7.

 

[Bonjour]

A big plus of an Atom setup for me is that it can be passively cooled very very easily.

I'd want as little noise as possible coming from the box. Just a couple of case fans would be ideal.

 

[ChileanLlama]

Now wondering about using my old e6300 cpu htpc as the WHS too

Fine for everything i throw at it and silverstone HTPC case has room for 6 drives and micro atx mobo has 6 sata ports.

Power consumption was my only issue.

save me a new mobo,cpu,case,psu,ram. only problem no print server as printers are in a seperate room - print server would suffice.

need to read up on EIST and power saving options if leaving on 24/7 or simply upgrade to a more efficient socket 775 chip than the e6300

Give it a go and see how it works for you. I started with WHS in exactly the same way.

Also, to save a bit of power, see how far you can underclock the e6300 as well!!!

 

[THFC]

A big plus of an Atom setup for me is that it can be passively cooled very very easily.

I'd want as little noise as possible coming from the box. Just a couple of case fans would be ideal.

Can just hear my htpc - sharkoon silent eagles and freezer pro7, the panasonic hdd player is louder and Sky+ boxes are more audible, the gfx card is passively cooled

 

[THFC]

Give it a go and see how it works for you. I started with WHS in exactly the same way.

Also, to save a bit of power, see how far you can underclock the e6300 as well!!!

Will underclocking affect the other use as a HTPC and playing bluray discs?

Overclocked before but never underclocked - seems a strange concept

 

[Bonjour]

Nice. What case are you using to squeeze the Freezer 7 into?

 

[THFC]

Nice. What case are you using to squeeze the Freezer 7 into?

SilverStone Lascala SST-LC17S

quite old hat though - nothing fancy