Configuring a new media server

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Outnumbered

n00b
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Nov 11, 2007
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I've been planning on rebuilding my media server for a while now. Right now I've got around 6TBs of space (2x1.5TB, 4x750GB, 1x400GB for the O/S), running on an old socket 939 DFI LanParty Ultra-D with an Opteron 146 (running at 2.5GHz), 2GBs of RAM and an Antec EarthWatts 650 PSU.

I found an open box Areca ARC-1260 for $500 earlier today on Newegg and bought it on the spot. The plan at the moment is to pick up a dozen or so 1.5TB drives, and either a few 5-in-3 hotswap bays for my Stacker, or a Norco 4020 (probably the latter if it can relatively easily be modded to use 92MM or 120MM fans). I plan to either keep the 400GB O/S drive, or put two of the 750GB drives in RAID1 for the O/S, and put the 1.5TB drives in a RAID6 array. Since most of the readers here are much more experienced than I am with configuring RAID arrays, I thought I would look for some input before I made any further purchases.

Basically this will serve as a global share for my home network, as well as stream audio and video to 3-4 PCs, a few consoles, two laptops, and my HTPC. Given the relatively minimal load, is there any advantage to upgrading the 1260's RAM? Any real disadvantage to sticking with the existing CPU/MB/PSU? I've considered picking up something along the lines of a 4050e or E5200, MB and a few sticks of DDR2, but given what the controller and drives are going to wind up costing, I'd prefer to avoid it.

I have a spare copy of Server 2008 that I picked up from DreamSpark, and will most likely be using that for the O/S (using 2003 on the existing setup), as long as the 1260 works properly under 2008.
 
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I would definaltey go with a 45w CPU for energy $$, with the cheap price of ram I would go with 4+ if using 64bit OS.

Server 2009 will work fine with that raid card. There are drivers for it on their site.

For the cost of hotswaps for the drives you can buy the norco case.
 
I most likely will go with a 4050e or 5050e build in the future, but I'm leaning toward holding off for the time being to reduce costs. Performance-wise, with hardware RAID it doesn't seem like the slightly faster/newer platform will significantly increase performance, so my only real issue is whether I'm likely to have any problems migrating the RAID controller over to another motherboard/platform.

I'm leaning toward the Norco 4020, mainly due to cost. I would have to mod the Norco out of the box for 120mm fans, but I would have to mod the Stacker also in order to fit 4 5-in-3 modules in it. The Stacker would also cost significantly more unless I went with standard 5-in-3 modules rather than hot-swap. I've noticed a few comments on the Norco having spotty build quality, though, which I guess is to be expected given the price point.

Is adding storage to an existing array a fairly straightforward process, provided the new drives are the same capacity?
 
how do you plan on streaming from server 08 to your consoles?
I have a very similar setp built into my Norco running an Areca 1230 and a large raid 5 array. I have been using WHS till now which work well streaming to my PS3, but WHS doesn't play nice with volumes larger than 2tb.

So now that I'm working with two 10tb arrays, I'm testing server 08 in a VM and everything is pretty easy to setup. Sharing to my PCs and my popcorn hour are perfect, but the PS3 is a PITA. I'm left with having to run a media server program such as PS3 media server which I don't like since it decides it MUST transcode my DVD rips even though the PS3 supports mpeg (sees them in video_ts folders and decides the PS3 can't play them)

Anyway, you're gonna love that ARECA card... expanding arrays and modifying volumes couldn't be easier and there is no downtime associated with reconfiguring your arrays. Performance isn't too shabby either. I did the ram upgrade to 1gb though
 
Right now I just have shared folders mounted as network drives on my PCs, and mounted as SMB volumes in XBMC on my HTPC. I have streamed video to the PS3 with Vista Ultimate, but I expect I would need a 3rd party program under Server 2008.

I had originally hoped to use my PS3 as a HTPC replacement, but the current gen consoles are so locked down that, as you say, it's just way too much of a PITA. I really wanted to keep everything seamless and avoid the use of transcoders, so I just bit the bullet and built a HTPC around the Windows version of XBMC (originally planned to use the Linux version, but it didn't play well with my Radeon 4670). For the most part I imagine I'll just be streaming music to the PS3/360, since XBMC handles everything else more or less perfectly.

What RAM did you use to upgrade your card, if you don't mind my asking? So far I'm not seeing much in the way of ECC DDR333 online, but I assume basically any 1GB ECC module would work.
 
I'm not sure as I bought mine second hand with the ram already installed... Newegg has some areca certified modules though
 
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