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Advice on new home server

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farscapesg1

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Aug 4, 2004
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I've been wanting to update my WHS server to reduce power consumption (at least a little). Since I just purchased a Norco 4220 case, I'm starting to look at parts to fill it with so I can migrate way from my Phenom 9750 power-sucker :) I am currently running Windows Home Server with SageTV (for TV recording/streaming to my house). I also use it to rip DVDs (eventually Blu-rays as soon as I get a drive) and encode my recorded TV to H.264.

I plan on using either ESXi or Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V so I can consolidate a couple different roles into one box...

Planned usage for the system is as follows;
(1) Windows Home Server (to be upgraded later to WHS v2)
(2) Windows 7 (for cablecard recording)
(3) A couple VMs for preparing for MS certification exams and hands-on experience (AD, Exchange, SCCM, etc.)
(4) A couple VMs for playing around with Linux :)

A couple points of interest;
(1) I use ESX 4.0 at work, but have not had any hands-on experience with Hyper-V. That is one reason I'm leaning towards using Server 2008 R2. It never hurts to know more than one way to do something (virtualization in this case) :)
(2) I'm still using Standard Def TV tuner cards (2 Nvidia DualTV cards) for recording analog TV channels. My understanding is that neither ESXi or Hyper-V are good about PCI device passthrough :( This is another reason I'm leaning towards Server 2008 R2 because I can run my SageTV server software in the Server 2008 OS instead of WHS, giving me full access to my tuners.
(3) The biggest processor usage is from ripping DVDs and encoding TV. The rest of the time, the current server just sits there under-used. However, I would hate to loose too much speed during ripping/encoding. I recently had an laptop with an i5 M540 processor in it and compared ripping times for the same DVD and the laptop took approximately 15 minutes longer. This is the only newer process I had to compare, so I'm not sure if a desktop i5 would provide better performance.
(4) Being my home fileserver/DVR, the system will be on 24/7.

With that said, I'm currently looking at Supermicro boards like the X8SIL-F for the onboard Intel NICS and IPMI features, matched with something along the lines of a Xeon X3440. The lack of PCI slots is troublesome though, as I'm not sure I can cut down to only one DualTV card. I do need at least 2 PCI-e 4x slots for a RAID controller (nothing too fancy, maybe a Perc 5/i for example) and a Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 (to run the drives for the WHS VM).

Is the Xeon a complete overkill for this? Would an i5 provide enough oomph for the needs listed above? I really like the idea of having IPMI for remote management when I'm at work and the wife/kids are home and have issues and need the server rebooted/etc.

Advice? Comments?
 
For cable card recording you should look into the new tuner that is coming out to replace the HDHomeRun by SiliconDust. This is a cablecard network tuner so you would not have to worry about PCI slots or worry about doing the recording on the host Windows Server machine. You will be able to actually record the TV within a virtual machine with this.
 
Yeah... it's just that SiliconDust is dragging their feet on this process, IMO. I think it was only last week (or maybe the week before) that they even going to meet with CableLabs. At least Ceton has finally started shipping. Has SiliconDust even started their beta test yet?
 
Your not going to find the perfect MB you describe. You can find them with enough PCI slots, or enough PCIe slots, or with both but only for older (power hungry) CPUs...I've searched high and low for it it and I do not believe it exists.

Do have a look at the X8SIA-F instead of the one you are looking at. It has a more flexible PCIe arrangement for you and I think you'll find it much more satisfying over time. Give up on the PCI based tuners and either get new PCIe ones or wait for a good network tuner like the one from SiliconDust that is coming.

Also, if you are really looking at running 7x24x365 and managing power, take a look at the L3426 Xeon instead of that X3440. It will cost you ~$80 more, but it idles at much lower power and has a very high TurboBoost that should get you near equal performance to the X3440.
 
Well, the Supermicro X8ST3-F looks to be about as close as I'm going to get to what I want, though a little pricey. Of course at the same time it provides 14 hard drive ports (6 SATA and 8 SAS/SATA), supports the HP SAS expanders, and has two PCI slots for my SD tuners :)

Of course then I'd have to go up to a E5520 to get hyperthread support on the LGA1366 chips and 80W (versus 130W for the i7's), which is a pretty significant price jump :( Then again, going with a cheaper MB/CPU I'll end up having to add a Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 (or equivalent) and pay to replace my current tuners. In all, it would probably end up being a wash price-wise...

Oh well, gives me something to think about :)
 
Reviving this for a little more advice since I finally have some funds to start this project :)

It looks like I'm going to pick up the Supermicro X8ST3-F motherboard. I already have an Intel E5640 processor I'm planning on dropping in and will also pick up some Kingston memory (which is verified to work with this motherboard according to the Kingston website). Trying to decide if I should get 12 GB now, or start with 6 GB and purchase more later to save some funds :)

As this will be primarly running my WHS system as well as SageTV and encoding DVDs/recorded TV to H.264, I think the following is my best option...

1) Install Server 2008 and Hyper-V. Run SageTV and do my video encoding on the host system to utilize the full processor. This is due to my two PCI tuner cards since Hyper-V doesn't support PCI-passthrough correct?
2) Install WHS as a VM and pass the storage disks directly to the VM (Hyper-V can do this correct?). I'll probably need to reserve some CPU and memory resources so that the VM doesn't crash when I am encoding on the host system, right?
3) Create my other non-critical VMs

Alternatively I could create the WHS VM with 4 cores and do the video encoding in the VM and I "should" get about the same performance as I currently have, right? My current encoding speed is fine for my needs, but faster is always good also ;)

As for storage, I've got two 160 GB 2.5" drives to run in RAID1 (motherboard) for the host OS. I've got 3 1.5TB drives for WHS storage at the moment (will probably add more later). If funds allow, I may purchase a "small" SSD (32-40 GB) to use as the "work drive" for the video encoding to speed up the process.

I'm trying to decide if there is enough justification to buy a used PERC controller and set up a RAID5 array for the VMs, or just put my non-critical VMs on one drive and my WHS VM on a seperate.

Thoughts, opinions, comments? Should I scrap the 2008/Hyper-V idea and stick to a Type 1 Hypervisor like VMWare?
 
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