Soldato
- Joined
- 1 Sep 2005
- Posts
- 10,001
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
I am currently on the verge of rebuilding my Fileserver/NAS. Currently it has a MSI K8N mobo & Athlon64 3200 CPU with about 2Gb ram, all sitting in a 20drive hotswappable X-Case RM420 Rackmount case.
It has been running ok for a while now, but it is far from perfect. The main problem is that is has to live in the living room under the telly, and it is just far too loud! Even undervolting and disconnecting case fans the system is too loud. I also started off with a 16port SATA controller that gave me no end of trouble. It was very unstable and kept loosing drives for no reason. So, I want to rebuild it from the ground up with one purpose in mind; Making a super quiet, large capacity NAS server. Currently I am running WHS, but I will be trading this for something like FreeNas/unRaid/Openfiler etc.
Hardware wise though I am after the following; A cheap ATX mobo with ideally 5 or more PCI or PCI-E slots (All the same) so I can run 5x 4port SATA controllers(Any suggestions for these. Don't need hardware raid, just plug and play 4 port SATA controllers). This should help to keep the cost down and if I do have problems with a controller it will only affect a portion of the drives. It will also help to spread the bandwidth over several slots (especially if I use PCI). It needs to be passively cooled, ideally onboard graphics (Just basic for initial setup).
CPU wise again it needs to be fairly cheap, but the most important point is it needs to run cool and be very power efficient. I am thinking something like a Celeron undervolted and underclocked? I could also do with a suggestion for a CPU cooler that can be run passively or with a large fan at very low RPM.
Does anyone have any suggestions for a super quiet, ideally modular PSU with enough power to run the above spec + 20 SATA drives (Although most won't be running at the same time and will have staggered startup). I am currently using a 500W Tagan, but I need something even quieter.
Finally I need some suggestions for 3x low RPM , very quiet 120mm case fans for a bit of airflow through the case.
It has been running ok for a while now, but it is far from perfect. The main problem is that is has to live in the living room under the telly, and it is just far too loud! Even undervolting and disconnecting case fans the system is too loud. I also started off with a 16port SATA controller that gave me no end of trouble. It was very unstable and kept loosing drives for no reason. So, I want to rebuild it from the ground up with one purpose in mind; Making a super quiet, large capacity NAS server. Currently I am running WHS, but I will be trading this for something like FreeNas/unRaid/Openfiler etc.
Hardware wise though I am after the following; A cheap ATX mobo with ideally 5 or more PCI or PCI-E slots (All the same) so I can run 5x 4port SATA controllers(Any suggestions for these. Don't need hardware raid, just plug and play 4 port SATA controllers). This should help to keep the cost down and if I do have problems with a controller it will only affect a portion of the drives. It will also help to spread the bandwidth over several slots (especially if I use PCI). It needs to be passively cooled, ideally onboard graphics (Just basic for initial setup).
CPU wise again it needs to be fairly cheap, but the most important point is it needs to run cool and be very power efficient. I am thinking something like a Celeron undervolted and underclocked? I could also do with a suggestion for a CPU cooler that can be run passively or with a large fan at very low RPM.
Does anyone have any suggestions for a super quiet, ideally modular PSU with enough power to run the above spec + 20 SATA drives (Although most won't be running at the same time and will have staggered startup). I am currently using a 500W Tagan, but I need something even quieter.
Finally I need some suggestions for 3x low RPM , very quiet 120mm case fans for a bit of airflow through the case.
