Wolvers' Home Server Build

Case came today, which screws did you use to connect the drives to the hot swap trays? I tried the ones with the larger heads but they wouldn't go over the plastic on the sides. Smaller ones work but there are only 8 them. There are some holes in the bottom of the drive which can fit the larger screws, are they ok to use instead?

edit: I'm guessing the unlabelled cables are Front USB (black) and Reset Switch (red&black) since those are the only two things left?

Never actually built a system from scratch before, when the motherboard arrives do I just screw it straight on top of the 4 riser screw holes?
 
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NickM said:
Case came today, which screws did you use to connect the drives to the hot swap trays? I tried the ones with the larger heads but they wouldn't go over the plastic on the sides. Smaller ones work but there are only 8 them. There are some holes in the bottom of the drive which can fit the larger screws, are they ok to use instead?
Click to expand...

I used the small headed ones in the sides of the HDD. TBH I never noticed how many there were.

NickM said:
I'm guessing the unlabelled cables are Front USB (black) and Reset Switch (red&black) since those are the only two things left?
Click to expand...

Yep, that's it. make sure you get the USB one the right way around because the plug isn't labelled IIRC.

NickM said:
Never actually built a system from scratch before, when the motherboard arrives do I just screw it straight on top of the 4 riser screw holes?
Click to expand...

Yep, just don't forget to fit the motherboard panel in the back of the case first. The screws with the largest heads and coarse threads are for the mobo. Also, you'll need to fit your 2.5" drive first.

Apologies If I'm telling you stuff that's obvious.
 
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This thread has been a great read. Thanks goes to wolvers69.

I've been looking at a NAS for some time now. I have looked at Synology & Qnap which seem rather pricey but have good performance & reviews, also looked at Netgear as they were offering a free HDD but seen mixed reviews on these.

Now I'm tempted to build my own.
 
Well, I'm pleased that it's useful info for people. :)

Someone on another forum asked for a picture that had something in it to show the scale, so here it is with the 2-bay DS210j and a small box of Weetabix. :D

cimg4193i.jpg
 
Well, it's all going really well (I hope I don't speak too soon!). I've set up the recycle bin and it's working brilliantly, albeit it takes ages to empty the content of especially if I do it from my laptop over the wireless network, so I just need to add a script to delete the content locally. Shouldn't be too difficult now that I'm beginning to get my head around the command line stuff.

I've also managed to set up my USB backup drive and get rsync sorted to incrementally backup my shared folder to it, and in NTFS so that I can always plug it into one of my windows machines should anything happen to the server. I then added a scheduled task to run the backup script all on my own! :) This is the guide I used, although did not follow completely;

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=820425&highlight=rsync+guide

I still have a few things to sort out/decide on;

1. Find that missing disk space. Reported used space is 1.23TB but the total size of all folders is 1.14TB. When I set up the HDD, I selected an option to build the RAID array with a missing disk so that I can add it later, because I want to run RAID1 but only have 1 disk at the moment. I'm hoping that when I add the second HDD it will sort itself out, maybe!

2. I've been considering whether I should install an anti-virus onto the server. I'm keen to hear what people's thoughts are on this?

3. I've noticed that the server does not shut down when I press the power button, and I would like it too do so. I'm guessing that I need to run some kind of command so that the OS knows what I want it to do when I press the power button (and reset button as well I suppose). I haven't had a chance to research this yet so if anyone has any ideas that'd be great (jon, where are you?:p).
 
Got mine up and running (with Windows Server 2008 R2) but the speeds aren't very good. Only getting 10-20 MB/s, maybe I should dual boot with Ubuntu Server and see if I get better speeds.

edit: how did you install Ubuntu Server?
I'm having problems with USB booting despite having changed the boot order to USB-HDD, Hard Disk. If I boot with the USB plugged in it recognises it but hangs on "Verifying DMI Pool Data". The only way I can get it to boot from USB is to disable the IDE drive so it doesn't boot straight into Windows, wait for the "Error, no boot info" message, hit ok so it comes up again, then plug the USB drive in, then the installer comes up no problem. This worked ok for installing Win Server 2k8 however, when trying to install Ubuntu Server this way it starts the install fine (can select language etc) then it fails trying to detect the CD drive and won't continue the install :confused:.
 
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I downloaded the iso from the Ubuntu website and on the download page it had a tool for installing it to USB drives which I used. I'm trying to install Ubuntu FROM the USB drive to a partition on the IDE drive, is there an easier way?

I haven't seen that link, I'll take a look now.
 
Right, I get you.I have a USB DVD drive so I did it from that. Hopefully that link will get you sorted. I'm keen to find out if Ubuntu Server is faster than Windows Server. :)

Edit, did you make the USB drive bootable? I think that's probably the key to it.
 
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I'm pretty sure its bootable, I got it to boot into the Ubuntu setup but only by disabling the other boot drive in the BIOS and waiting to plug the USB drive in otherwise it just hangs on Verifying DMI.

When I did get it to boot Ubuntu setup it only got as far as letting my choose my language/keyboard layout though, it then tried to detect a CD drive to copy the install files from but couldn't (obviously). I'm going to try a different USB drive and update the BIOS to see if that helps.
 
Okay its definitely my USB flash drive that was causing the Verifying DMI problems, tried my other USB external HDD and that worked perfectly! I guess I should have twigged that something was wrong when it took 45mins to unzip the iso to it (only took 3mins for the 2nd external drive)!

It still has the CD problem even though this USB installer seems to be designed to work with 10.10 server, as it has a specific option for it! (Its the pendrivelinux.com installer). I'll go ask on the Ubuntu forums.
 
I forgot to say, I've ordered one of these low speed 40mm fans to go on the Atom board;

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-004-FD

I'm happy with the noise levels of the server (it's the quieter than my HTPC, Sky HD box and projector) but I was ordering some stuff anyway so I thought I'd give it a try. I noticed, when mucking about in the bios, that the standard fan spins at 5000 rpm which seems a bit excessive. What can I say, I can't help fiddling! :p
 
Quick update, I've fitted the Fractal Designs 40mm fan and the results are very good. It runs at about 3500rpm (the original one ran at 5000rpm) and now makes the whole system virtually inaudible. Temps have gone up a degree or two but are still perfectly OK.

Also, I decided to keep the 1.5TB drives that I had in the DS210j and have added them to the Ubuntu server. It took blooming ages though as I couldn't get the system to recognise one of the drives, which turned out to be a faulty SATA cable. Who'd of thought.

Anyway, for some reason I'm missing about 5% of the available space that I should have, on both arrays. :confused: Even when they are empty it is reported as having some space used which is odd so I just need to find out why.
 
wolvers said:
1. Find that missing disk space. Reported used space is 1.23TB but the total size of all folders is 1.14TB. When I set up the HDD, I selected an option to build the RAID array with a missing disk so that I can add it later, because I want to run RAID1 but only have 1 disk at the moment.
Click to expand...

Missing space may be 5% allocated to root; linux tends to fall over if the root file system is completely full. Link, you can change this so all the space is available if you wish (within filesystem limitations)

wolvers said:
2. I've been considering whether I should install an anti-virus onto the server. I'm keen to hear what people's thoughts are on this?
Click to expand...

It depends what you're trying to do. If it's search for viruses which may otherwise hurt a windows machine you're serving files to, ClamAV is the standard choice and I believe Kaspersky make a linux port. If you've got cpu cycles to spare, and don't mind too much if you slow down access times, then go for it.

wolvers said:
3. I've noticed that the server does not shut down when I press the power button, and I would like it too do so. I'm guessing that I need to run some kind of command so that the OS knows what I want it to do when I press the power button (and reset button as well I suppose). I haven't had a chance to research this yet so if anyone has any ideas that'd be great (jon, where are you?:p).
Click to expand...

That's a weird one. I'm afraid I've got no idea, "halt" run by root will cause the system to shut down happily enough, but setting the system up so that "halt" is called when you push the button is beyond me.

NickM: Debian netinstall on usb is likely to be more reliable than ubuntu. It seems in the new stable release, all one needs to run from an existing linux environment is
Code: 
cat debian.iso > /dev/sdX && sync
 
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