File server upgrades

Archer75

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 10, 2001
Messages
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1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

File server, video transcoding, minecraft server. My current server has a Intel C2D conroe e6600. It is maxed out when transcoding and the stream sometimes pauses periodically waiting on the server to transcode. This is with one client accessing video. I want this to be able to transcode two simultaneous streams without issue.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

Should probably keep it under $300

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

US, Oregon

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.

CPU(intel or amd), motherboard, 4gb ram


5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

Powersupply is an 700w enermax 80+ gold, modular
Reusing case, powersupply, hard drives(2x 500gb, 4x750gb, 6x 1tb, 2x 1.5tb, 2x 2tb)
Radeon 5450 video card(if motherboard doesn't have onboard)
Various SATA cards outlined below


6) Will you be overclocking?

no


7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?

headless

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

depends on wife approval. Hopefully sooner rather than later. But I need to get her an estimated cost first.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.

The more SATA ports the better. I don't have any 6Gb/s drives so that's not a priority.
I currently have two PCI sata expansion cards, one PCIe 1x sata expansion card and two 8x expansion cards. All providing ports for up to 20 hard drives.
Whatever board I get will need to support those cards or have enough built in ports so I don't need to use all those cards.



10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

Currently running windows 8 x64 for the drive pooling feature. Before that I was running windows home server. All my drives are of different sizes so RAID is out.

My main desktop is running a first gen Core i7 920. I could move that cpu, board and ram over to the server and then upgrade that desktop instead but i'm guessing a worthy upgrade for that computer would end up costing more than I want to spend. That desktop is primarily used for gaming, bluray ripping and re-encoding.

I've also looked into something like a drobo where I can use drives of any size and just connecting that to my desktop pc and leaving that on to transcode but a drobo or similar device cost too much.
 
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9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
The more SATA ports the better. I don't have any 6Gb/s drives so that's not a priority.
I currently have two PCI sata expansion cards, one PCIe 1x sata expansion card and two 8x expansion cards. All providing ports for up to 20 hard drives.
Whatever board I get will need to support those cards or have enough built in ports so I don't need to use all those cards.
.
How many drives are those two PCI cards powering alone? Just to be clear, thats 20 hard drives without including the motherboard's onboard SATA ports or with it?

My main desktop is running a first gen Core i7 920. I could move that cpu, board and ram over to the server and then upgrade that desktop instead but i'm guessing a worthy upgrade for that computer would end up costing more than I want to spend. That desktop is primarily used for gaming, bluray ripping and re-encoding.
It is going to cost you a lot more for the new desktop but now would be a good time to upgrade: The Intel CPUs coming in 2014 won't be that much of an upgrade over current Intel Haswell CPUs judging from past successive Intel CPU releases. In addition, the Intel Skylake CPUs that are supposedly coming out in 2015 will more than likely use rather expensive DDR4 RAM. It probably won't be until 2016 when we'll see a mainstream Intel CPU that'll be a cost-effective and worthwhile upgrade over a Haswell or even an Ivy Bridge setup. Or that DDR4 pricing might drop down to more reasonable levels. Not to mention that DDR3 RAM pricing is only going to go higher.

I've also looked into something like a drobo where I can use drives of any size and just connecting that to my desktop pc and leaving that on to transcode but a drobo or similar device cost too much.
Drobos aren't generally recommended over in the Data Storage subforum due to their high costs, proprietary nature, and low performance.
 
How many drives are those two PCI cards powering alone? Just to be clear, thats 20 hard drives without including the motherboard's onboard SATA ports or with it?

Let me correct my earlier post. I have 2x PCI cards. Those power 4 hard drives apiece.

One PCIe 1x that powers 2 hard drives.

And one PCIe 8x SAS card that powers 8 hard drives.

The motherboard has 4 sata ports.

20 of the hard drives connect to a backplane. I install the drives into these cages and then just plug the cages in the front of the case.

I have cages for two more hard drives internally. So there's actually a grand total of 22 hard drives I could load in this case.

All of the sata ports on the cards and two of the motherboard ports are connected to that backplane. One of the motherboard ports is connected to an internal system drive. And one of the motherboard ports is not being used at this moment.

If I could get a motherboard with 6 sata ports I could ditch that 1x PCIe two port card that I have.

I don't think I could get a desktop upgrade past the wife due to the extra cost. And honestly the performance of my desktop doesn't really warrant an upgrade at this point. All depends on cost.
 
All right, you should be looking at the FM2 platform since you can get FM2 motherboards with eight SATA ports for a rather low price like so:
$88 - Gigabyte GA-F2A88X-D3H FM2+ / FM2 AMD A88X ATX Motherboard

However. I would hold off on buying the CPU until AMD's lower-end Kaveri's CPUs are widely available since those are faster than current AMD FM2 CPUs.
 
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