WHS / File Server Questions

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dC0m

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I'm going to build a file server to keep all my music, movies, and photos in a centralized location. Before I jump on purchasing parts, I have a few questions concerning drives and WHS.

-Does WHS have IE/ Media Player? (I need some essentials for I'm trying to integrate a small HTPC thing into this file server)

-Can I set up WHS as a print server? I have a few years old printer without network connection and USB only. I've always wanted a central print server but never really wanted a dedicated server for such a small task but once I get this file server I want to make the most of it.

-So far, I'm thinking 1TB is all I need with a external 750GB or 1TB as a backup drive. I'm not sure if this is enough. In case if it's not, I can always get another 1TB and just pop it into the WHS right? No harm right, just plug and play?

-What are some good drives for a File server? As mentioned above, I'm looking for 1TB and possibly 1.5TBs. It's been a while since I was last briefed with HD information (or hardware information for that matter) and I have no clue who's good and who's not. The last few computers I've built where using 500GB Seagates which always proved to be great but I've heard some bad thing recently with the 1TBs and 1.5TBs. Something about a firmware bug or bad platters? I've never been a WD fan but my 160GB WD in my Gramps rig is still chugging so I don't have doubts about them.. I've never tried Samsungs nor Hitachi(s)..

-Backing up. My solution is to keep a external 750GB or 1TB and do monthly backups of the most important information. How do I do this with WHS? Just connect and drag and drop the desired files right?

-Do these "green and eco drives" really matter? I don't really care about power since I'll only have like 1 -3 drives at most and I'd prefer the 7200RPM over the 5400RPM. Is there other advantages (other than the lower power usage), such as longer life or better reliability?

Thanks.
 
WHS is not much of a front end. That is to say, out of the box there's no media player, and there's a locked down IE. However, WHS in its current incarnation is little more than Windows Server 2003 running an application called WHS, so you can certainly open up IE and install a media player of your choice. Some will say this is a great idea to utilize otherwise unused CPU. Others will point to this being an unsupported use of WHS that could get you into trouble. You'll roll the dice as you see fit.

I am not certain about print sharing.

Drives are a contentious topic. Perhaps it's best to say that Seagate shot themselves in the foot, then reloaded the pistol and shot themselves in the other foot. Then, pointed the gun at their gut and pulled the trigger two more times. Anecdotally, current off-the-line Seagate drives, consumer and enterprise, are OK. Practically speaking, there were bad drives, and some may still be in the channel, so the drama has not left them and the rumors continue. How a person feels about this depends a great deal on whether they own Seagate drives and if so, whether or not they have failed. The negative PR has resulted in one thing: Seagate drives are cheap with consistently the least $ per GB.

WD seems to be building up a terrific reputation, especially from the Caviar Black and RE drives, and I haven't seen much cause to dismiss the Samsung drives. I've heard that current Hitachis run a bit hot. Right now, I am focusing my purchases on WD Green or Black (depending on application) and giving the new Samsungs a very strong look.

The "green" drives do have some potential benefits. In theory, a slower, cooler drive is going to hold up better over the long haul. Obviously in practice, many other factors come into play. That said, if your enclosure was a bit short on ventilation, I'd definitely be looking at these power efficient drives. They are perfect for a 24x7 quiet media server, external enclosure, etc., and so should be considered. For media archival and playback purposes, all of them are more than fast enough.
 
-Can I set up WHS as a print server?
Click to expand...

Yes.

In case if it's not, I can always get another 1TB and just pop it into the WHS right? No harm right, just plug and play?
Click to expand...

Yes.

-Backing up. How do I do this with WHS? Just connect and drag and drop the desired files right?
Click to expand...

No, it's automatic. You should really read the FAQ. That's what I did before installing WHS.
 
dC0m said:
-Does WHS have IE/ Media Player? (I need some essentials for I'm trying to integrate a small HTPC thing into this file server)
Click to expand...

WHS is not intended to be a front end. If you want a combined fileserver/HTPC just use Vista or 7 and create shared folders for your music/movies/etc.

So far, I'm thinking 1TB is all I need with a external 750GB or 1TB as a backup drive. I'm not sure if this is enough. In case if it's not, I can always get another 1TB and just pop it into the WHS right? No harm right, just plug and play?
Click to expand...

"Enough" depends on how much stuff you have. I start thinking about increasing my capactiy whenever my server reaches 70-80% full.

Yes, adding drives to WHS is simple.
 
dC0m said:
I'm going to build a file server to keep all my music, movies, and photos in a centralized location. Before I jump on purchasing parts, I have a few questions concerning drives and WHS.

-Does WHS have IE/ Media Player? (I need some essentials for I'm trying to integrate a small HTPC thing into this file server)
Click to expand...
Not really.....see comments at bottom.
dC0m said:
-Can I set up WHS as a print server? I have a few years old printer without network connection and USB only. I've always wanted a central print server but never really wanted a dedicated server for such a small task but once I get this file server I want to make the most of it.
Click to expand...
Yes
dC0m said:
-So far, I'm thinking 1TB is all I need with a external 750GB or 1TB as a backup drive. I'm not sure if this is enough. In case if it's not, I can always get another 1TB and just pop it into the WHS right? No harm right, just plug and play?
Click to expand...
Yes you can add a drive at anytime of any size to the pool with just a few clicks.
dC0m said:
-What are some good drives for a File server? As mentioned above, I'm looking for 1TB and possibly 1.5TBs. It's been a while since I was last briefed with HD information (or hardware information for that matter) and I have no clue who's good and who's not. The last few computers I've built where using 500GB Seagates which always proved to be great but I've heard some bad thing recently with the 1TBs and 1.5TBs. Something about a firmware bug or bad platters? I've never been a WD fan but my 160GB WD in my Gramps rig is still chugging so I don't have doubts about them.. I've never tried Samsungs nor Hitachi(s).
Click to expand...
WD Green.....WD10EADS or WD15EADS
Right now the 1.5tb is best GB/$ IIRC
dC0m said:
-Backing up. My solution is to keep a external 750GB or 1TB and do monthly backups of the most important information. How do I do this with WHS? Just connect and drag and drop the desired files right?
Click to expand...
It can be setup to automatically do it for you.
dC0m said:
-Do these "green and eco drives" really matter? I don't really care about power since I'll only have like 1 -3 drives at most and I'd prefer the 7200RPM over the 5400RPM. Is there other advantages (other than the lower power usage), such as longer life or better reliability?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

No but for a Fileserver there is really no point in not getting the Green ones.


WHS is not designed to be used as a front end.
That said it can be done....but I still dont reccomend it.

IE is there but you will need to disable IE enhanced security.
WMP/MC is not there.
WMP can be installed see wiki.wegotserved.com
 
Regarding 'green' drives here are some numbers from my WHS box, you can see the comparison yourself with non-green drives:

Code: 
read/write  idle    drive                  notes
5.4          2.8    WD10EACS  (qty=5)      1tb green
5.4          2.8    WD7500AACS  (qty=1)    750gb green
8.8          8.4    WD7500AAKS  (qty=2)    750gb 7200rpm
10.1         8.3    ST31500341AS  (qty=2)  1.5tb 7200.11
14.0        10.0    7H500F0  (qty=1)       OS, 500gb Maxtor
=========
84.2 load /  60.2 idle  = total for all drives

My plan is to replace all the non-green with green as I upgrade to 1.5tb and larger.

Edit: Green drives are slower than 7200rpm but for streaming content across a network it won't be a problem as even gigabit will be the bottleneck.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the help so far. I read the WHS FAQ a while back and it didn't quite seem to answer most of my questions.

Here's part 2:

-To set up WHS as a print server, how can this be done? Is it relatively easy?

-For my HD plan, I think I'm going to go with either Seagates or WD. I've never tried Samsungs or Hitachi(s) and haven't heard enough good thing about them to make me buy them. Seagates seem like the best GB/$ ratio right now. For the main storage, I'm going to go with either Seagate or WD Blue drives (7200RPMs). For my external backup drive, I'm doing to go with either a WD Green or a Seagate LP. The only thing I'm concerned about with these low RPM drives is that it'll bottleneck even more since it's already bottlenecked by USB. The advantage is that it's low power and low heat since my enclosure doesn't really have airflow or ventilation.
-Bottom line - Regular 7200RPM Seagate or WD drives in the File server, WD Green or Seagate LP in the external backup.

-@Homer: I see how have a 500GB Maxtor drive but in the notes you wrote "OS" is this drive solely dedicated to hosting WHS? and all your other drives are for your storage pool? All your 1TB, 750GBs and 1.5TBs add up to the 10TB you mentioned in your sig so I'm guessing the 500 is a dedicated OS drive.. What's your purpose for that? I doubt WHS takes up even close to 500GB.

-Seeing homer's dedicated drive has me thinking: Can I set up the WHS OS on a small seperate drive like many others did with freeNAS? I know WHS take way more room than freeNAS does and probably won't fit on a small CF card.. But, how much space does WHS take and how does that work? IIRC, WHS partitions a portion of your storage drive as a "OS drive" and leaves that as a reserve?

-I read months ago that upgrading my network (switches, NICs) to Gigabit might help me in transfer speeds. I'm thinking about upgrading my router, NICs and switches so I can get the most out of my WHS. I'll probably end up streaming a lot of my movies and music off the WHS and playing it on my desktop or future HTPC.

-Do you guys leave your WHS/ File servers on 24/7 or do you turn it off every now and then? Is there a way to schedule "wake-on"? I think I read this somewhere before but you can put it into sleep mode and have it turn on for certain hours of the day and after, it would go back into sleep mode. I'm not sure if this would be safe or not for the drives / components..
 
The whs os drive is alao used to hold data. Most people put their largest drive for OS because it is a PTA to reinstall WHS.

I would use a WD 1TB black drive for the OS drive for a WHS or a green if power use is an issue
 
Code: 
read/write  idle    drive                  notes
5.4          2.8    WD10EACS  (qty=5)      1tb green
5.4          2.8    WD7500AACS  (qty=1)    750gb green
8.8          8.4    WD7500AAKS  (qty=2)    750gb 7200rpm
10.1         8.3    ST31500341AS  (qty=2)  1.5tb 7200.11
14.0        10.0    7H500F0  (qty=1)       OS, 500gb Maxtor
=========
84.2 load /  60.2 idle  = total for all drives

what are these numbers measuring, watts?
 
orubap said:
what are these numbers measuring, watts?
Click to expand...

I asked myself the same thing when I first saw it. At first, I thought it was speeds or timings and I was shocked. But then again, it looks more reasonable to be watts.

3x 1TB drives at most would probably be around 30 - 50W which is something I'm not really concerned with. I'd take Speed > power.
 
You won't be bottenecked by a Green series drive in a USB case; you'll be limited to ~30MB/s in that situation no matter what drive is inside so just get whatever is cheapest for the external drive.

For the server, the green drives will lose a little on seek time but otherwise will be indistinguishable on a storage server so you should go with the lower power/heat green series drives.
 
Ive said it once, and everyone else has said it.
So I will say it again.

Get Green/LP drives

They are about the same price upfront, and you dont really lose any performance on the throughput side.
Yes your Seek times are a little higher, and your IOPS lower.
But you are not running a Database, you are streaming movies, and music.

The Power/Heat Savings will be worth it in the long run.
 
nitrobass24 said:
Ive said it once, and everyone else has said it.
So I will say it again.

Get Green/LP drives

They are about the same price upfront, and you dont really lose any performance on the throughput side.
Yes your Seek times are a little higher, and your IOPS lower.
But you are not running a Database, you are streaming movies, and music.

The Power/Heat Savings will be worth it in the long run.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I don't plan to run games or such, that's the reason why I'm building my server. All I want to do is hold my data, back it up (duplicate) and maybe stream music when I want it to. That's about it. If you want performance, you'd be using a completely different OS as well (linux distros, arch, slack, etc).
 
Hmm lets say for argument the difference between a green and non-green drive is 10watts.

By my calculation the difference on a machine running 24/7 for 30 days at a conservative 13pence/kWh would be 93 pence.

Considering the amount of times in one month I'd access many small files or just stream a playlist off the server I'm wondering if the saving justifies going green now given some reviews I've read (re wd caviar green) mentioning v. poor read times when the drives are filled past 60%.

Thoughts?
 
Well I dunno WTF Pence is...but for the sake of the argument ill change it to cents.

10w 24\7 for 365 days at $0.13/kwh is $11.38 yea its only 11 dollars, but when you start adding drives the savings add up quick and if your running regular Seagate 7200.11 so do the temps and heat and noise.... I know cause thats all I have in mine.

When 2tb come down a little more I will swapping out every single drive.
I will use the WD20EADS, and will have the same amount of space, using half as many drives and around ~80% less electricity.

For someone who only has 1 drive...ok not a big deal
But for some of us who run 10+ drives the saving is a fairly decent chunk of change.

Not to mention that 95% of the time your drives will just be idling.
I mean I know we all want instant access, but really the performance difference is negligible at best.....noticeable definitely not.
 
I think the heat issue is a more important issue that $$ saved.

having 20 drives in a case causes heat issues which will increase drive failure rate...
 
Adidas4275 said:
I think the heat issue is a more important issue that $$ saved.

having 20 drives in a case causes heat issues which will increase drive failure rate...
Click to expand...

Agreed.

Now you guys are really convincing me to go with the WD Green and drop the Seagates. So maybe now, 2x 1TB WD greens? 1 for server, 1 for external backup? The 1 in the server will be replace whenever my server gets full, my backup will not, since I only plan to throw on important data on it.
 
nitrobass24 said:
noticeable definitely not.
Click to expand...

I'm hoping not since I ordered the 1TB.

Lower heat emissions are a good point. I'll do some benching when it comes in, but if it suffers read speeds as bad as some sources say I may end up sticking to the blacks.
 
orubap said:
I'm hoping not since I ordered the 1TB.

Lower heat emissions are a good point. I'll do some benching when it comes in, but if it suffers read speeds as bad as some sources say I may end up sticking to the blacks.
Click to expand...

Im not sure what read speed issues you have read.
But you do know that a single HD movie stream will consume around 10MB/s of bandwidth max right?
 
My bad, seek time is what I meant to say and admittedly the negs are in the minority but if you look you'll find them. Of course when your playing any stream of content start to finish you won't notice any difference, but hearing of an OS slowing just to pull the icons off the drive when the desktop is suddenly shown or pauses in between the tracks in a playlist makes you think.
 
dC0m said:
Thanks for the help so far. I read the WHS FAQ a while back and it didn't quite seem to answer most of my questions.

Here's part 2:

-To set up WHS as a print server, how can this be done? Is it relatively easy?
Click to expand...

Quite easy, I just did a printer share with a Samsung laser yesterday. Google is your friend, look here: http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Sharing_a_Printer_on_your_WHS

dC0m said:
-For my HD plan, I think I'm going to go with either Seagates or WD. I've never tried Samsungs or Hitachi(s) and haven't heard enough good thing about them to make me buy them. Seagates seem like the best GB/$ ratio right now. For the main storage, I'm going to go with either Seagate or WD Blue drives (7200RPMs). For my external backup drive, I'm doing to go with either a WD Green or a Seagate LP. The only thing I'm concerned about with these low RPM drives is that it'll bottleneck even more since it's already bottlenecked by USB. The advantage is that it's low power and low heat since my enclosure doesn't really have airflow or ventilation.
-Bottom line - Regular 7200RPM Seagate or WD drives in the File server, WD Green or Seagate LP in the external backup.
Click to expand...
I'm leaving the system drive as 7200rpm, and my storage drives will be Seagate LP. These will save the most power, and have reduced heat. Price difference is not that large from the regular drives, but I figured the power saving and quieter operation will be better in the long term.


dC0m said:
-@Homer: I see how have a 500GB Maxtor drive but in the notes you wrote "OS" is this drive solely dedicated to hosting WHS? and all your other drives are for your storage pool? All your 1TB, 750GBs and 1.5TBs add up to the 10TB you mentioned in your sig so I'm guessing the 500 is a dedicated OS drive.. What's your purpose for that? I doubt WHS takes up even close to 500GB.
Click to expand...

If I had to guess, I'll say he's also using that drive (or a partition on that drive) for application installations. That is what I would do.


dC0m said:
... Is there a way to schedule "wake-on"? ...
Click to expand...

I think there's a plug in for that too.
 
dC0m said:
-Do you guys leave your WHS/ File servers on 24/7 or do you turn it off every now and then? Is there a way to schedule "wake-on"? I think I read this somewhere before but you can put it into sleep mode and have it turn on for certain hours of the day and after, it would go back into sleep mode. I'm not sure if this would be safe or not for the drives / components..
Click to expand...

there is an add-in called lightsout that will do as you describe above. a bit of tweaking to server 2000 services is required.

several modes of operation

AUTO: install a very small app to a workstation. when this workstation starts up it sends a magic packet to the server thereby starting the server

OFF DELAY: in AUTO operation, when a workstation turns off, after a preset delay the server goes into hibernation. default is 15mins

TIMED: set on and off times for the server. NOTE: if TIMED control is set. the server will remain on past the "off time" whilst a computer on the intranet / workgroup remains on. the server can be set to "ignore" certain workstations.

MANUAL: press the power button on the front of the server. NOTE: if no intranet / workgroup workstation is present the the server will go into hibernation after the AUTO OFF delay
 
dC0m said:
Agreed.

Now you guys are really convincing me to go with the WD Green and drop the Seagates. So maybe now, 2x 1TB WD greens? 1 for server, 1 for external backup? The 1 in the server will be replace whenever my server gets full, my backup will not, since I only plan to throw on important data on it.
Click to expand...

If you want to do any sort of data duplication, you'll need at least 2 drives in the server.
 
huskerpat said:
If you want to do any sort of data duplication, you'll need at least 2 drives in the server.
Click to expand...

Oh really? So I can't just keep 1 in the server and 1 external as backup? Instead, I have to get 2 in the server and 1 backup?

Why is this? All I would need to do is drag and drop file from my server into the external backup right?
 
dC0m said:
Oh really? So I can't just keep 1 in the server and 1 external as backup? Instead, I have to get 2 in the server and 1 backup?

Why is this? All I would need to do is drag and drop file from my server into the external backup right?
Click to expand...

Duplication in the sense referred to is online duplication, not an offline backup.
Your method will be fine, although some people go for online duplication as well as the backups.
 
novadude said:
Duplication in the sense referred to is online duplication, not an offline backup.
Your method will be fine, although some people go for online duplication as well as the backups.
Click to expand...

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.
 
nitrobass24 said:
No but for a Fileserver there is really no point in not getting the Green ones.
Click to expand...
I can't talk myself into putting these drives in a system with a nice, high performance RAID controller that costs as much as the drives. I'd rather pay the extra $22 a year (based on .10 cents a KwH) and enjoy happiness. Someone talk some sense into me. :mad:
 
What does the RAID controller have to do with anything?
And what happiness or unhappiness would you be referring to?

My point is:
That for a fileserver you are not really sacrificing performance at all.
Sequential reads are almost as high as its Blue or Black counterparts. The difference here is that when Idle this drive spins at a lower rate and effectively reduces power consumption.
Yea if you need IO's or lower access times I dont reccomend these drives, but when the majority of what you are doing is seqeuntial read/writes for a file server that is 90%+ idle there is absolutely ZERO reason to use anything else.

Even if you have a huge Mymovies or MediaBrowser database for you HTPC's that you are serving up.
Then get one higher performance drive for the OS, and put the apps, and databases there....then use the LP/Green drives for storage....thats what I have done and it works perfectly.

Seriously buy a couple of the Green drives and try them, and if you are not satisfied then exchange them to wherever you bought them saying they dont perform as expected for some other drives.
You wont be dissappointed.
 
High end RAID controllers allow for some tremendous transfer rates (400+ MB/s) with larger drive quantities. Same quantity with the green drives has produced almost half the rate of 7200 drives.

Specifically, in file transfer role, a 1TB WD Black drive is hitting 150 I/O operations in the same time frame a Samsung F2 EcoGreen drive only hit 83 I/O operations, on average. Very consistent results. Truly a killer when you're transfering high quantities of smaller files.

Myricom 10GB Ethernet controllers are quite affordable these days so I don't have any issue with bandwidth limitation. :D
 
Yeorwned said:
High end RAID controllers allow for some tremendous transfer rates (400+ MB/s) with larger drive quantities. Same quantity with the green drives has produced almost half the rate of 7200 drives.

Specifically, in file transfer role, a 1TB WD Black drive is hitting 150 I/O operations in the same time frame a Samsung F2 EcoGreen drive only hit 83 I/O operations, on average. Very consistent results. Truly a killer when you're transfering high quantities of smaller files.

Myricom 10GB Ethernet controllers are quite affordable these days so I don't have any issue with bandwidth limitation. :D
Click to expand...

Well if you are running 10gb ether, then you are the exception not the rule :D
If you were like most people that have gigabit then the discussion would be slightly different.

BTW where can i buy those, i was looking at doing some 10gbe for my server closet.
 
I work for a company that resells them as part of a product solution so I got mine at cost through procurement department. We sell enough to get them from Myricom directly but the only other place I've ever seen them for sell is Dell but I'm sure there is better than that. My setup is using the 10GBase-CX4 cards, which meant the worst part of it for me was buying the cable they use. The fiber versions are cheaper for longer runs but you have to buy the SPF.

Even for those persons using Gigabit, there will be a very noticable difference if your transfering smaller files. An example scenario would be moving large project source code around, since I cry everytime I have to move those around. Yay for overhead!
 
Now that most of my WHS questions seem to be solved, lets move on the the actual file server hardware questions:

-Which setup for motherboard/cpu should I go with?
-Intel Atom 330 Dual-Core Board ~$80
-Intel Celeron 430 1.8Ghz 35W + Intel G31/G41 Board ~$90
-AMD Athlon LE-1640/LE-1660 45W + 740G/ GeForce 8100 Board ~$95

I'm looking for the combo with the best performance/price ratio. I'm leaning toward the Intel(s). Either the Atom or Celeron. The board itself must have Gigabit because I'll be upgrading my network to Gigabit with this file server. My only fear is that the CPU on both these setup might not be enough for my WHS setup. In that case, I might throw another NIC or controller card to free up power on my CPU.

-Another concern with these two Intel setups is that they don't provide enough SATA ports. The Atom board itself only includes 2 while most of the G31/G41 setups only include 4, and 6 if you're lucky. Anyone know a cheap, reliable controller card? Something that can add like 4 more SATA ports? I think 4 will be the minimum for me as I upgrade and add more drives in the future. Something around $20 - $50.

-With the CPU/Board, I'm thinking about throwing on 2GB RAM. Should be enough right?
 
dC0m said:
Now that most of my WHS questions seem to be solved, lets move on the the actual file server hardware questions:
Click to expand...

My Atom 330 with 2 GB of RAM seems to be plenty fast as a home server. Using the built in ethernet and SATA ports I usually pull 75-80 MB/sec down and push 30-40 MB/sec up (2 TB Western Digital green drives).
 
DeathFromBelow said:
My Atom 330 with 2 GB of RAM seems to be plenty fast as a home server. Using the built in ethernet and SATA ports I usually pull 75-80 MB/sec down and push 30-40 MB/sec up (2 TB Western Digital green drives).
Click to expand...

Do you own the Intel BOXD945GCLF2D? I think I'm planning to get that one. It has Gigabit ethernet ports which is what I need. The 2 SATA ports is somewhat a limitation so I might add a Controller card in the provided PCI slot. Also, are you using DDR2 800? I know the board says DDR2 667 but DDR2 800 should automatically downclock itself to work with DDR2 667 right?
 
dC0m said:
Do you own the Intel BOXD945GCLF2D? I think I'm planning to get that one. It has Gigabit ethernet ports which is what I need. The 2 SATA ports is somewhat a limitation so I might add a Controller card in the provided PCI slot. Also, are you using DDR2 800? I know the board says DDR2 667 but DDR2 800 should automatically downclock itself to work with DDR2 667 right?
Click to expand...

Yeah, its the BOXD945GCLF2D.

I used 667 but 800 will almost certainly work fine. I don't know why the spec calls for 667, I've built a half dozen Atom machines with these boards and they only give the option of running the ram at 400 or 533, even if you have 667 or better installed.

I don't have any drive controller recommendations, but I'm sure somebody else does.
 
Dcom

Look at Supermicros Atom330 board. It has dual gig lan onboard,and 4 sata ports.
It also has a pci slot, 2 x8 pcie slots so there is room for lots of expansion.
That plus 2 WD 2tb Drives for 4tb should be plenty to get started and wont use hardly any electricity.

If you need more than 4 ports then look at the supermicro Sat2-mv8 or SASLP-mv8.
Those are the best controllers for WHS right now.
 
nitrobass24 said:
Dcom

Look at Supermicros Atom330 board. It has dual gig lan onboard,and 4 sata ports.
It also has a pci slot, 2 x8 pcie slots so there is room for lots of expansion.
That plus 2 WD 2tb Drives for 4tb should be plenty to get started and wont use hardly any electricity.

If you need more than 4 ports then look at the supermicro Sat2-mv8 or SASLP-mv8.
Those are the best controllers for WHS right now.
Click to expand...

That's a interesting board. I don't have the need for Dual Gigabit LAN but I'm sure I'll find a use for it if I ever go with that board. The 4x SATA ports do come in hand, and extra PCI slots can never hurt.

Too bad the price tag is not on my side. The supermicro board is looking up to be $130+ when I'm looking for something around ~$80. I think the Intel BOXD945GCLF2D will do. I'll just have to add a controller card for more SATA ports.

As for 2TB drives, I think I'll wait. For my first few drives, I think I'll go with either 1TB or 1.5TBs since they're half the price of 2TBs and I'm on a budget. As the prices on the 2TB decreases to ~$120 or so, I might consider an upgrade.

Keep on coming with the controller cards and setup suggestions!
 
any controller you buy is gonna push you over a $100 for the setup and then you have already lost the only expansion slot, and have an inferior board IMO.
It would be silly not chose a superior product with expansion options because of $30.

As for the 2tb drives, yea they are more expensive per gb right now so i understand not wanting to front that expense, i was just thinking about density not so much price.

Just my $.02
 
My home server with a Gigabyte G31M-ES2L with 4 sata ports and a gigabit lan,it cost me 38€ for the board,a used e4500 for more 40€ and 30€ the 2Gb of ram:

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