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New small server build, suggestions appreciated
WraithXt1
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Alright so here's the deal.
I built a small home server several years ago and it's finally about to die. It killed one hard drive and the SATA port for the third drive in my RAID doesn't appear to work anymore. The drive is fine.
I've been browsing around but I haven't found exactly what I'm looking for so I was hoping you guys could help.
I need to find a the smallest case possible that can fit four hard drives. One 1tb drive and three 2tb WD green drives for my RAID. Video cards aren't terribly important but I'd like something at least dual core so I can run my Ventrilo sever, Minecraft server and do anything else I need to do without worrying about it slowing down. Size is important so I can safely stick it in the corner of my room without having to worry about it. As of right now the mid tower I have is large and takes up too much space.
Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas about what I should start with? It's been so long since I've dove into this stuff that I feel completely lost.
I built a small home server several years ago and it's finally about to die. It killed one hard drive and the SATA port for the third drive in my RAID doesn't appear to work anymore. The drive is fine.
I've been browsing around but I haven't found exactly what I'm looking for so I was hoping you guys could help.
I need to find a the smallest case possible that can fit four hard drives. One 1tb drive and three 2tb WD green drives for my RAID. Video cards aren't terribly important but I'd like something at least dual core so I can run my Ventrilo sever, Minecraft server and do anything else I need to do without worrying about it slowing down. Size is important so I can safely stick it in the corner of my room without having to worry about it. As of right now the mid tower I have is large and takes up too much space.
Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas about what I should start with? It's been so long since I've dove into this stuff that I feel completely lost.
WraithXt1 on
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Firstly, feel free to ask this question in the PC build thread, some of us have experience building home servers/NAS.
As to your question, I'm assuming you're talking about building your own, and using Windows Home Server. For the case, consider the Fractal Design Array R2. Not the cheapest thing in the world, but it comes with a small form factor PSU that's perfectly suited for a low-power server build and (up to) 6 drives. There's also the Lian Li Q25, which has room for up to 7 drives, and takes regular sized PSUs, if that's important to you. The Q08 is an earlier iteration of the same type of case, with room for a 5.25 drive if you like.
As for the rest, there are passively cooled Intel Atom and AMD Fusion CPU+Motherboard combos out there. I'm not sure how much horsepower you need, but you can get both in dual core versions and both have integrated graphics (for initial setup) and generally have enough SATA ports for your needs.
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I was actually going to just use the copy of Windows 7 Ultimate I had around, as I couldnt find a real reason to switch over to home server.
The priority of this drive is keeping all of my data safe, with a far distant second being a backup gaming rig to bring to LAN parties with me. The Fusion and Atom CPU's, if I'm not mistaken, are absolutely underpowered. Do you think it's worth bothering with those if I'm planning on doing light gaming at some point with this machine? On mini ITX motherboards I dont see room for video cards, so this might be a waste or breath for me.
As of right now my server is running the lowest end 4xxx series and I've used it a few times to loan out to people at LAN parties. I guess this requirement isnt that impotant. I really just want something small that I can use to back up my data...
Edit: Maybe something like this, with this and this.
Battle.net
As I mentioned, this server is going to be running ventrilo, an FTP, a minecraft server, possibly a tf2 server and streaming music out to my desktop. Theres a small chance i might start hosting my website from it. All of this may not be running at the same time but the option of.it would be nice. Dual core in the age of quad and above scsres me. Its going to be on 100mbit down/up fiber here in japan so bandwidth is no concern.
edit: as far as video cards are concerned.I'd be happy with a low profile version of whatever the latest generation of cards are. 99% of the time it will.be running headless so gaming isn't a huge concern. If it can run BF3 at low resolution I will be happy.
You'll also want to get as much RAM as you can fit/afford. Minecraft in particular just loves RAM, and if anything's going to bottleneck you it'll be that.
It also has the benefit that normal sized components tend to be somewhat cheaper - it would be worthwhile working out what sort of power savings you really want to realize.
If your 920 is still in good shape, you could try to find an LGA1366 mini-ITX board to use with a new case.
Battle.net
Thanks for the suggestions, I'm going to consider them over the next week or two before I make the order.
Unfortunately, I'm with Alecthar on this one...I have no idea how your TF2, Minecraft, Teamspeak, etc. servers would perform on the AMD Turion™ II Model Neo N40L this server has. But for a file server/NAS, it kicks some serious ass.
Also...what kind of RAID? That 1TB drive in with three 2TB drives will booger your total available storage in anything but a JBOD. And a JBOD isn't a real RAID. :P
Battle.net
I was lucky enough to already have 2x 2TB drives, but when I built my small server I had to buy two more...$120 each. Ouch.
Also JBOD is a bad idea anyway, since the failure mode is still potentially "little bits of lots of different files".
Fortunately, troubleshooting such a failure is very simple:
Step 1: Google "rebuilding JBOD array"
Step 2: Weep
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