My Server Project: Help spec me a monster!

Heofz · 10 Oct 2007 at 17:17

Hi everyone, I was wondering if you could help me out here. Currently I have one of these and I need to fill it with components making up 2 separate systems in this one server-case.

The case has the capacity of 1 ATX mobo, as well as 1 Mini-ITX mobo.

The ATX system must be able to do the following:

Play HD movies (720p) to a plasma tv via a DVI cable, while outputting to a secondary RGB-connected monitor.
Run 10 (yes, ten ) SATA drives simultaneously, with a possibility of having 5 of these drives in a single RAID 5 array- How this works in terms of drive controller cards I have no idea
Have a good sound card, for playing both the movies as well as music.
Automated downloading service (i.e. RSS-Fed Torrents etc).

The mini-ITX system have the following functions:

Hardware firewall
Act as a DHCP server & Internet Router (only needs one ethernet port for network clients, as I have a powerline network), basically so I can have 100% control over internet traffic in our house.
ADSL2+ modem (if possible, but I don't think internal ADSL2+ modems exist atm)

I also want to run an MS-Exchange Server, FTP Server, and HTTP Server in this case but am not sure which of the two systems each of these should be hosted on. My main concern is that I do not want *any* of the above functions to be affected by each other, so for example if I'm watching an HD film, I don't want the Exchange Server's response to be slowed down due to CPU usage or whatever, hence why I'm going for 2 separate PCs.

Also I don't want to be spending anything thats unnecessary. I think the highest processing demand will be the playback of HD films, and/or music visualisations for parties.

Can someone please recommend me what components I need to get to create the above? I already own the optical drives, PSU's, hdd's, case, and screens.

m_cozzy · 10 Oct 2007 at 18:02

Wow, not seen one of them cases before capable of 2 mobo's. Anyway, as its just a server, ie I dont see gaming as a requirement, why not just one machine running vmware. I have consolidated my home server requirements into 1 beefy machine currently running 6 vmware images of solaris, linux, exchange 2003, 2003 server etc etc.
Just a thought..

BoomAM · 10 Oct 2007 at 18:13

Why do you need exchange?

The virtualisation is a good idea, if the HDDS are fast enough.
Having that many systems virtualised at once needs v.fast HDD/RAID setups to run properly.

Personally, i think your aiming for too much at once. Its not gonna be possible without one thing affecting another.
HD playback is very intensive, and to get a good media interface its gonna have to be a non-server OS. On the other hand, the other functions you mention, really do need a server OS to run properly.

Heofz · 11 Oct 2007 at 10:51

Didn't think of virtualisation before, I've used it in the past but only briefly and never thought it could be used for server-related purposes. I'll look into it

Though in the mean-time I still need to figure out which hardware bits to buy, especially for my hard drives...

BoomAM said:
Why do you need exchange?

I don't *need* it per se, but everyone in my family uses email heavily on a daily basis, and it would be nice for all of us to use the same domain email addresses, with the messages arriving and being stored on our house's central server, meaning it's one thing less for everybody to worry about. Plus it'd be a learning experience for me, so why not

BoomAM said:
Personally, i think your aiming for too much at once. Its not gonna be possible without one thing affecting another.
HD playback is very intensive, and to get a good media interface its gonna have to be a non-server OS. On the other hand, the other functions you mention, really do need a server OS to run properly.

This is the reason I thought it would be good to be running 2 separate PCs, so if they are independant, if one is busy (e.g. HD playback), I won't have to worry about my web server not responding or something, also as I bought the case with this in mind, I think it's kind of already gone past that stage lol

Though I could still run VMWare on one or both of the systems.

Lets assume for now that I won't bother with the VMWare option. For the media-pc side of things, I know I'll need a modern gfx card that can render HD with its hardware, and I need a drive controller card (or multiple ones that interface with each other), which will be able to take 10 hard drives (and maybe a few more in the future). Any recommendations?

BoomAM · 12 Oct 2007 at 00:12

Heofz said:
This is the reason I thought it would be good to be running 2 separate PCs, so if they are independant, if one is busy (e.g. HD playback), I won't have to worry about my web server not responding or something, also as I bought the case with this in mind, I think it's kind of already gone past that stage lol Though I could still run VMWare on one or both of the systems.

Lets assume for now that I won't bother with the VMWare option. For the media-pc side of things, I know I'll need a modern gfx card that can render HD with its hardware, and I need a drive controller card (or multiple ones that interface with each other), which will be able to take 10 hard drives (and maybe a few more in the future). Any recommendations?

You still have the problem of running exchange server on the same system as a media one. An epia wont be powerful enough for either.
Plus, while VM would be good for most uses, video+VM isnt a good idea (and probably wont work either), much less HD Video.

Heofz · 12 Oct 2007 at 00:15

Well I can live without the exchange server, that was more of an afterthought if nothing else

So for the mini-ITX, what components should I get?

Biffa · 12 Oct 2007 at 04:21

If you don't want the server functions to affect the video playback system then spec up the mini_ITX side as much as you can. But its gonna cost.

You will want ad dual core cpu with lots of ram. Something like this:
Commell LV677 Mini ITX 24pin CoreDuo Motherboard £172.77 £172.77
Intel Core Duo T7200 2Ghz £165.11 £165.11
Crucial PC5300 DDR2 1024Mb £20.00 £40.00
Seagate 500Gb Barracuda NCQ 7200.10 £75.74 £151.48
Intel PCI-E Network Card EXPI9300PTBLK £24.25 £24.25
Subtotal £553.61
VAT £96.87
Total £650.48

Then put Linux on it, then VMWare, run the linux firewall in one VMWare image and window 2003 SBE in the other (it has exchange built in)

2 500GB drives gives you enough space for exchange and the firewall and theres enough cpu and ram to run two vmware sessions.

Then spec up the media side of it to your hearts content.

Heofz · 12 Oct 2007 at 11:49

ouch. Would such a powerful processing spec still be necessary if I decided not to run exchange?

BoomAM · 12 Oct 2007 at 12:34

Heofz said:
ouch. Would such a powerful processing spec still be necessary if I decided not to run exchange?

No.

Nor would i recommend running exchange in a VM either.

Having said that though, a high end C2D chip in an ITX board, with 2Gb ram, would run your media center duties fine.
You could then have a Server2003 based main system to run ISA for your firewall/filtering duties, Filesharing to your media center (use two network cards in it, one to outside, one direct to ITX), and exchange.
All without it being virtualised.
ISA/Proxying/Filtering/File Server duties dont really use that much power, so asuming you had the main system with good base specs, like a quad core and at least 2Gb ram, then you wouldnt have to splash out on the rest of the parts like video/sound, it could all go on disk space. To which i would recommend a Raid 5 or 6, HW based, array.

m_cozzy · 12 Oct 2007 at 13:07

For home use running exchange inside a vm is absolutely no problem at all. Mine is also a dc and performs fine as a vm with just 512mb of ram.
As already mentioned I would build a quad core with 4gb of ram + raid if you insist( well I already have, except the quad, which I ordered today

) Runs 2003 64bit server & is also file server, terminal server with 2 users + me on the console. This server runs the vm exchange/dc, linux webserver, mailserver, dns etc in the dmz, isa 2004 in the dmz, solaris 10 running sunray software for the thin client downstairs, solarid sgd in the dmz + test virtual servers all without breaking a sweat.
My main reason for virtualization is portability, ie my server crashes fatally, i copy my vmware image to another pc & start it up again

(think not loosing all your emails!)

IMHO I think a system like this with the addition of a gfx card would suit you fine. I dont see the point of building a mini itx at their inflated prices to either perform media duties or to run as a server.

BoomAM · 12 Oct 2007 at 13:25

m_cozzy said:
IMHO I think a system like this with the addition of a gfx card would suit you fine. I dont see the point of building a mini itx at their inflated prices to either perform media duties or to run as a server.

Most good sound cards/video card's he's need to do HD media stuff wouldnt be compatible with many server OS's.
Hence why i suggested a high end ITX system for the media duties.

r0cky · 12 Oct 2007 at 13:26

m_cozzy knows how to do this stuff, very good advice (virtualization).

Look into ZFS for your file server side of things (the only RAID I would use at home, wouldn't touch any other RAID software/hardware with a bargepole), ideally under Solaris/OpenSolaris, but FreeBSD would also work.

Either do as m_cozzy says and merge everything into one, or separate out the server from the desktop. Personally I'd prefer to have a high-power desktop separate from all the server functions; my headless server would then sit in basement/loft/understairs etc.

m_cozzy · 12 Oct 2007 at 13:37

BoomAM said:
Most good sound cards/video card's he's need to do HD media stuff wouldnt be compatible with many server OS's.
Hence why i suggested a high end ITX system for the media duties.

I am certain that 2003 server can use the same drivers as xp. Also nvidia do a driver for 64bit xp/server so I dont think this would cause a problem.
However I have not done this myself so cant confirm one way or the other

BoomAM · 12 Oct 2007 at 15:18

m_cozzy said:
I am certain that 2003 server can use the same drivers as xp. Also nvidia do a driver for 64bit xp/server so I dont think this would cause a problem.
However I have not done this myself so cant confirm one way or the other

Im afraid your wrong on the drivers thing there.
Ive tryed using XP drivers with 2003 in the past at work, in an effort to create a multi-fuction server at work (ie, does more than network related functions), and it just doesnt work. Especially on 2k3 64bit.
Video wise, it should be fine, as video drivers are in abundance.
Sound wise, anything beyond stock drivers/onboard audio are gonna be very hard to find. Twice as hard if he uses any exotic HW, like TV Cards.

Heofz · 12 Oct 2007 at 23:04

whoa, thanks for the replies guys

After looking at the prices of mini-ITX systems alongside my main, i'm considering scrapping that idea. One of the main drawbacks is the lack of PCI ports for both the network card and hard drive controller cards.

m_cozzy, when you said that your server machine runs a bunch of stuff in the DMZ, are all your DMZ processes running virtually on this one machine? Or is it that your server controls these components on separate physical machines making up your DMZ?

Would dedicating specific (Quad) CPU cores' affinity for certain tasks be enough if I wanted to achieve seamless functionality of the following on a single system?

Multiple PCs connected via LAN (powerline network).
Streaming of HD media on up to 2 networked PC's simultaneously.
Server is in constant state of downloading to this same set of hard drives.
DMZ processes (if that is possible; if I correctly understood what you said).
Capability of either: [HD playback to a DVI-connected display]-or-[MP3 playback], using software similar in nature to Windows Media Center (without that bloody "delete" option, and possibly linux based) whilst concurrently doing all of the above.

Also I was curious as to how different VM's interface with each other? Is there some kind of common bus that they use? Or virtual ethernet?

I think what I'm asking is how to get from:
ADSL Modem
to
Physical Ethernet
to
DMZ (firewall, dns, dhcp, etc)
to
Media Center OS
to
Different Physical Ethernet
to
Other Networked PCs

....using nothing but virtual machines on one physical PC. :confused:

m_cozzy · 12 Oct 2007 at 23:31

Heofz said:
m_cozzy, when you said that your server machine runs a bunch of stuff in the DMZ, are all your DMZ processes running virtually on this one machine? Or is it that your server controls these components on separate physical machines making up your DMZ?

I have a /29 external range from zen and a cisco 837 router with dedicated dmz port(s). My server has 2 nics, 1 lan & one purely used by vmware thats plugged into the dmz port, ie ip & all other protocols are unbound apart from the vmware protocol, so yes I have 3 vmware servers in the dmz zone with public ip's running on the server. The physical server does not have a public ip, just an internal one on the lan interface. For vm servers on the lan you just bind them to the lan adaptor instead.

Biffa · 13 Oct 2007 at 01:29

Running a domain controller/dns/dhcp server, a webserver/sql server and an exchange server in three VM's on one box here for months without a hiccup. For home use its fine, for a business with X'000 users you'd need a clustered SAN connected exchange setup.

Actually you could spec the ITX server side of the system down from the motherboard/cpu spec, for one linux firewall in one VM and one AD/exchange server in the other you probably wouldn't need dual core.

Problem with ITX is its relatively expensive because of what you want to do.

As for networking, thats why I specced a second NIC port on the ITX server side, you can bridge the connections you need for the VMWare sessions, and setup a VLAN for the DMZ.

What you really need to decide is where the power really needs to be, for me it would be the desktop/video player side of things. The ITX side really just needs enough disk space and memory to run the various servers, having a dual core cpu would just be icing on the cake

oh and IMHO I wouldn't put a windows firewall like ISA server anywhere near my perimiter network *shudder*

Heofz · 13 Oct 2007 at 03:50

m_cozzy said:
I have a /29 external range from zen

What kind of connection do you have, if you don't mind me asking? Now it's been a while since I've done networks @ uni, but iirc does that basically mean you have a subnet of 6 public IP addresses to use?

m_cozzy said:
For vm servers on the lan you just bind them to the lan adaptor instead.

So does that mean that multiple vm's can run on one lan adaptor, whereby each one is assigned to handle its own exclusive set of network protocols? If not, how do they fight for control of the lan port?

Biffa said:
Actually you could spec the ITX server side of the system down from the motherboard/cpu spec, for one linux firewall in one VM and one AD/exchange server in the other you probably wouldn't need dual core.

So you think I could run 2 VM's smoothly on a single-core ITX system for this purpose? As for AD we don't really need domain roaming profiles for now

Exchange Server would be nice though.

That £650 price tag put me off initially, but I've spotted a VIA EPIA-EK8000EG (VIA Luke CoreFusion™ 800 MHz Processor) for sale and I've already got 1GB of DDR400 ram for it. Would this be good enough?

Biffa said:
oh and IMHO I wouldn't put a windows firewall like ISA server anywhere near my perimiter network *shudder*

What firewall would you use?

Biffa said:
As for networking, thats why I specced a second NIC port on the ITX server side, you can bridge the connections you need for the VMWare sessions, and setup a VLAN for the DMZ.

Can VMs' network interfaces be chained for firewall purposes?

m_cozzy · 13 Oct 2007 at 09:18

Heofz said:
What kind of connection do you have, if you don't mind me asking? Now it's been a while since I've done networks @ uni, but iirc does that basically mean you have a subnet of 6 public IP addresses to use?

Yes, zen provide 6 public ip's, 1 is for the router so 5 usable ones.

Heofz said:
So does that mean that multiple vm's can run on one lan adaptor, whereby each one is assigned to handle its own exclusive set of network protocols? If not, how do they fight for control of the lan port?

Of course you can, you can bridge as many vm's to an adaptor as the machine can handle and that you have spare ip addresses for.

Heofz said:
So you think I could run 2 VM's smoothly on a single-core ITX system for this purpose? As for AD we don't really need domain roaming profiles for now Exchange Server would be nice though.

Cant really coment, never used an itx, but for home use with a few users on exchange its not going to need much in the way of resources.

Heofz said:
What firewall would you use?

I use the firewall on the cisco router, with access lists defining traffic in & out the dmz & lan. I use isa purely to publish outlook web access, as I think its very good for that.

Senture · 13 Oct 2007 at 09:31

BoomAM said:
Im afraid your wrong on the drivers thing there.
Ive tryed using XP drivers with 2003 in the past at work, in an effort to create a multi-fuction server at work (ie, does more than network related functions), and it just doesnt work. Especially on 2k3 64bit.

90% of my drivers roughly are for XP yet they run perfectly on my 2003 data server machine. Keep in mind that this is 32 bit aswell though