Your home server & Network

File Server/Nas;

Asus P5Q Premium
Intel C2D 6300
Passive ATI GPU
2Gb Patriot RAM
Norco 4020 case (Sold as XCase 420 in the UK)
2x Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 SAS cards
500GB 2.5" drive for the parity drive
500GB 2.5" drive for the cache drive
4x 500GB 3.5" drives for data

I use unraid for the OS.

This system allows me to add up to 20 drives in a nice tidy rack mount case. If I was to use 2TB drives, this is 40TB of storage which is plenty for Blu Ray and DVD rips and everything else. It runs really quietly (I have it sitting in the hi-fi rack under the TV). It also dishes out data pretty fast. I have watched 1080p Blu Ray rips over the network to my pop corn hour without any problems at all. No stuttering and everything was super smooth.

It has been running for about 3 months non stop now and have had absolutely no problems. It hasn't crashed or caused any problems at all. It just sits there until until needed. I realise most of the specs are completely overkill, and you could achieve the same results with less than half that spec, but I thought it wouldn't do any harm to future proof a little bit. Overall I am very happy with the build and kit. :)
 
My file server is running WHS using;

Fractal Design Define R3 case - Designed as gaming case but the sound proofing is fantastic.
AMD Spempron 145
Asus 760G
2GB G.Skill memory
1TB HDD at the mo but will be adding another very soon.
The case has 8 HDD slots (maybe 9 can't remember) so masses of room for expansion.

I'm impressed with the single core processor, I was worried it wouldn't be able to stream HD video but it handles it just fine, not even a stutter. Just only ask it to do one thing at a time.
 
mine running Windows 7 64 bit.

E2180
2gb ram
P31 gigabyte board
passive ATI card
Old coolermaster wave case
2 x 1.5tb samsungs
1 x 1tb samsung
1 x 160gb windows drive (WD)

mainly used to house all my media and photos. Streams to WD TV (custom firmware) to lounge, main pc in office, laptop etc. All cat5e'd and wireless for laptop and phones etc using netgear 1gbps switch & sky router
 
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ThorpedoUK said:
Thats pretty awesome lab though! got a network diagram lying around? did you put together anything decent? (VLAN's etc)
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No diagram at the moment I am afraid but it had 6 VLANS (4 for housemate's LANs, one for a DMZ and the other as a 'core' network) running OSPF across a few devices and a RIP-to-OSPF bridge so that we could get a Cisco PIX in there.
 
Had a multitude of home servers, self built silent atom boxes included, and Icybox / QNAP Nas's. Been replaced once again by a NAS, this time a Synology for a nice simple setup with 6TB RAID5 storage.

I know I can build a quiet server PC for less (been there done that), but this is smaller, quieter and everything works out of the box. I was impressed with my old QNAP but this is 10x better. :)

nasra.jpg
 
Oddly enough, just had my electricity bill, £67 for the last two months.

Only running the one old desktop-server as my NAS these days though.

better than it used to be - £70+ /month.
 
Not exactly "home network", but here's some enterprise porn you might appreciate ;)

Barracuda Link Balancer 430:

photo2.jpg


Couple of ASA 5510's running failover configuration:

photo1.jpg


One (of many) rack housing a 5-way XenServer pool, SQL Server 2008 cluster and the R910 vSphere 4.1 (dual Intel Xeon 7500 series 8-core procs and 128GB RAM in that machine alone) amongst other stuff

photo.jpg


I particularly like the ASA's, I think they look mean - the R910 just looks ridiculous, like something from Star Wars or Aliens.
 
celliott said:
Had a multitude of home servers, self built silent atom boxes included, and Icybox / QNAP Nas's. Been replaced once again by a NAS, this time a Synology for a nice simple setup with 6TB RAID5 storage.

I know I can build a quiet server PC for less (been there done that), but this is smaller, quieter and everything works out of the box. I was impressed with my old QNAP but this is 10x better. :)

nasra.jpg
Click to expand...

What model's that mate? (been looking at the DS410j). I too have had QNAP/Netgear NAS's in the past and I currently have a self built server but I'm now looking for something smaller with 4 bays. Want to be able to use nzb and torrent software though. Not too bothered about RAID as I currently do a weekly backup of my stuff on an external drive which I assume I'd be able to do with a synology. One of the main reasons I'm thinking of changing again in the electricity usage in using a server.
 
watsonpaul said:
may i just ask what the hell do you do with these systems?
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Mine serves movies to PC's and PS3. Music to PS3, PC's and an internet radio box. Runs an SQL server for my business. Remote Access. Redundant storage. Have also used it for distributed computing in the past.
 
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