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Build assistance for new SFF Server

P

Pip

n00b
Joined
Jun 22, 2005
Messages
23
1. What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming, Photoshop (or other intensive programs), Overclocking, Web browsing, strictly HTPC/Playback, etc. (If you have multiple things you want to do with the system, make sure you rank them from most important to least important).

This box is to be an always on home/small business server... in many ways this is a learning tool, a headless server that I can experiment with and learn basic/immediate server administration with... I can see using it as a web server, file server, media streaming server... NAS, etc.

2. What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included in this budget? Is your budget flexible? Is cost a driving factor in component selection?

$500-700 somewhat flexible...

3. Where do you live? Do you have any big B&M (brick and mortar) computer chains nearby (e.g. Microcenter, Fry's, etc)?

Fry's relatively close, but could see using HardOCP sponsor links for everything

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.

pretty much the whole deal: motherboard, cpu, memory, case... wired/wireless networking, psu... I have some drives I can retask for this (see below)... I would like a high quality, simple and elegant metal case... not something cheap and flimsy

5. If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. For reused parts, list brands, model #s, and, if applicable, firmware revisions.

Sandisk 120gb SSD 2.5" SATA 6 Gb/s
Assorted 4-16gb usb keys and SD cards
Also have a few 2-3 year old SATA 3.5" drives... but they may or may not be quiet/power friendly...

6. What specific features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc. Which is more important, size of the system or having the particular feature? Make sure you indicate *required* vs. *wanted* for each feature you list.

high quality, reliable components... I would rather spend a bit more and get something solid.

7. What resolution output do you need? 1080p, 720p, DVD quality, etc for HTPC or list Vertical/horizontal resolution for non-HTPC SFF rigs. Do you need multiple monitor output?

After build is stable this will be run headless.

8. Does this system need to fit into a particular space? Think entertainment center shelves, closet space, rackmount, etc.

No, but small is good.

9. How comfortable are you with custom case design/modification and electrical wiring? What tools do you have (Screwdrivers/Leatherman, Drill, Dremel, Metal snips, Soldering Iron, Bending Brake, CNC/Welding machines/Plasma cutter, etc...)?

Not my first choice to do anything but simple mods.

10. How important is the noise/silence of this sytem? HTPCs typically want to be quiet while all-out SFF gaming rigs don't care

Silence is important, I would prefer a totally fanless solution that is friendly about power usage as this will be on 24/7... willing to think about a quiet fan solution but fanless is definitely preferred.

11. How mobile does this system need to be? Need a carrying handle or carrying straps? Is weight important (carry-on bag, etc)? Water cooling quick disconnects, etc?

It will live in one spot.

12. Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit? Remember that OEM copies of Win7 have issues with new motherboards

I am thinking some unix/linux solution here, open to suggestions

13. When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Immediately, in a couple weeks, 3-5 years?

immediately

Thanks much for all your responses!
 
OK, so I have been doing some research and I guess the first main question is MB & processor. If I could get some opinions on that it would be very helpful...

Option one: an Atom based solution, something like this Supermicro board perhaps? are there better atom based mini-itx solutions?

Options two: something more powerful intel based like this Asus board? if so, what is the sweet spot in terms of power / heat processor-wise? something like this i3 2120T? or are there better options?

Any help/opinions here are much appreciated.
 
If it's just a fileserver/webserver Atom might be fine, can't go wrong with supermicro for 24/7 operation. If you want to do some CPU intensive tasks I'd recommend an Intel S1200KP board, it's a great mini itx board with server grade reliability, In that case your CPU choice is fine.

I'd go for 8GB of RAM. In the Core i3 case, If you have that power on tap might as well use it, you could use it for transcoding, etc.

For chassis I'd go Lian Li Q25 or Q18 depending on availability, and I wouldn't go fanless on a 24/7 server, there are quiet enough power supplies and coolers available, you will have to compromise a bit on temperatures but a home server sits idle most of the time so it probably not an issue anyway.

If it's just a server I'd totally use freenas. Otherwise Ubuntu is my distribution of choice (with headless VNC too)
 
OK, I am liking the i3 2120T...unless there is an ivy bridge version coming out soon?

It looks like the S1200KPR is the newer version of that board? looks a bit more future proof than the S1200KP ...

How much power do I need for this? seems like I could get away with something pretty small...I'll be running 2-4 drives most likely... any fanless or very quiet recommendations?

Thanks!
 
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OP wants a server.

Yes S1200KPR would be better, not really future proof as I guess next iterarion will be a new socket but it's at least newer, probably will not be EOL soon.

500 watts should be enough look for Seasonic, I think they have a 400w fanless and a 750w just as quiet not fanless PSU.
 
fr500 said:
OP wants a server.

Yes S1200KPR would be better, not really future proof as I guess next iterarion will be a new socket but it's at least newer, probably will not be EOL soon.

500 watts should be enough look for Seasonic, I think they have a 400w fanless and a 750w just as quiet not fanless PSU.
Click to expand...

Yup I understand that, OP also mentioned using a ATOM board so I thought I would toss the idea out, also if you use an external eSATA JBOD enclosure like this, you could easily have a nice small little server for the simple needs of the OP and have all the harddrives you could want, just buy the right enclosure for however many drives you want.

I have a TowerRaid device I've been using for a while now for a server I made and they work great, have custom email alerting capabilities too so you can even monitor the health of your drives from anywhere through email, pretty cool if you ask me.
 
Ordered:

* Intel® Server Board S1200KPR
* Intel Core i3-2120T
* Kingston ValueRAM 8GB 1066MHz DDR3 PC3-8500 ECC Reg CL7 DIMM QRx8 with TS Intel Certified Server Memory KVR10R7Q8/8I
* Seasonic 400W 80 Plus Gold Fanless ATX12V/EPS12V Power Supply - X-400/SS-400FL
* LIAN LI PC-Q25B Black Aluminum Mini-ITX Tower

Anyone have any suggestions regarding a very quiet HSF that will fit? the computers I have built in the past I have gone with really big HSF with big slow (quiet) fans... but I am not sure how to go in a small case like this...

Also, should I replace the case fan on the Q25 with something like this Noctua? or is the stock case fan high quality?

Lastly, what SATA HDDs best balance speed/noise/heat? something like this Seagate?

Thanks again!
 
If you're not using a discrete GPU, scythe big shuriken would fit. I think WD Greens are good and quiet enough if high performance is not your priority (and they aren't really slow in RAID either)

Why did you go for Q25 instead of Q18? Q18 is a more advanced variant of the same theme.

Keep us posted!
 
Actually, the Q25 is the one thing I haven't ordered yet... was leaning towards the Q25 because it seemed to be $50 cheaper and I wasn't seeing the Q18 on newegg... but I like that second big slow case fan so I am going to see if I can find the Q18 somewhere for a better price.

I am definitely not running a vid card... this will be headless once set up ... and I like that big shuriken... it looks like the ticket... so you are saying that will interfere with access to the PCIe slot I guess... the only thing I was thinking about there was a possible wireless card... but I guess this needs to be wired anyway in terms of maxxing throughput...
 
Good choice on the parts you ordered.

The Supermicro Board is really nice. The IPMI features of the "F" version make it even better.. BUT..

It is seriously getting old in its life and the new sandy and ivy bridge chips are using less electricity with more horsepower when needed. Intel needs to refresh its Atom line..

If it is truly a headless server, both would have done fine. but if you want to use the CPU cycles for anything, the Intel board has more teeth.. plus room to grow.

Given the choices, I would have gotten the same setup.

I have one of the Supermicro D525's and 2 Intel DQ67EP's with I5's.
I choose the DQ67EP for VPro and the VT-d to run ESXi on.
the Intels outperform the SM for any CPU tasks. For straight file serving, both boards about on par for network speed and there is no difference.
 
Thanks for your comments. Yes, I would still be up for building a totally fanless little Atom box as a future project... are new Atom chips expected anytime soon?

I ended up ordering the Q18... I found it on Newegg after all, I must have been search deficient the first time I looked for it :p

I ordered a Noctua NH-L12 HSF, which I will have to run without the top fan given the case clearance I think...

I wonder what peoples experience has been with the case fans that come with the Lian Li Q18? are they nice and quiet or just average? I was thinking of replacing those with Noctua 120mm fans as well...

I think this will be a ubuntu/debian server box to start with... so I may just put a little 128gb SSD in to begin, then start adding WD greens for storage. Any opinions on which linux distro to start with? ubuntu or debian or something else?

Current parts list:

* Intel® Server Board S1200KPR
* Intel Core i3-2120T
* Kingston ValueRAM 8GB 1066MHz DDR3 PC3-8500 ECC Reg CL7 DIMM QRx8 with TS Intel Certified Server Memory KVR10R7Q8/8I
* Seasonic 400W 80 Plus Gold Fanless ATX12V/EPS12V Power Supply - X-400/SS-400FL
* LIAN LI PC-Q18B Black Aluminum Mini-ITX Tower
* Noctua NH-L12 Low-profile Quiet CPU Cooler with 120/90mm Dual PWM Fan (run without top fan)
 
I use ubuntu on my builds.

Considering that you're getting a decent CPU and 8GB ram you could do some virtualization trickery, ubuntu as the main OS and say... freenas as your storage solution. It'd probably be just as fast as bare ubuntu and setting up freenas is easy, also you get ZFS and a nice webUI to manage your shares.

I'd do that myself given the time :D
 
No idea on how much room you have left in the budget, but ECC memory and an E3 CPU may be interesting :)
 
OK, initial build done with just an SSD in there at the moment... it's a tight fit using this PSU, kinda jams up against the HD cage, but I think it's ok, just a bit messy. I have the fans running pretty slow at the moment... in BIOS CPU temp is 37-41C, PCH temp is 47C-50C, Memory temp is 27-28C, VR temp is 34-35C... do those seem acceptable?

Also, fr500, when you mentioned ubuntu server + freenas ... does that mean running the box on ubuntu server, say from the SSD... and then running freenas simultaneously in a VM like virtual box? I would add say 3 WD Greens and the freenas VM running on top of ubuntu would manage those? it's like having two servers running at the same time right?
 
Good thing you when with q18

Q25 only have 140mm clearence for psu

Q18 can probably do 150mm you have to consider the cables head another 10mm
 
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