File Server Build

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Lugztaz

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 21, 2004
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I'm looking to build a file server. I will be using the Norco 4020 case but I'm stuck wondering about a few other things.

First, I already have two of the 640GB WD HDD's and I think I will go with 8 more to start.

Now, pretty much all I will be storing for the time being is movies, music etc. Right now I just use a backup program to copy from an internal drive to an external each night. With 10 total drives I would continue to do the same, each single drive will have a sister drive for general replication.

Is there anything wrong with that process? What are the major drawbacks of onboard SATA controllers? OS will be some type of Windows Server.

If onboard SATA is ok, what is a good motherboard for this and a decent processor to accompany it?
 
Ok well is this box going to be doing anything other then fileserver? If not then get a low power processor that doesnt take a lot of electricity and make a lot of heat.

Also onboard SATA is fine if you want to use WHS, if you use Windows Server and go with onboard Raid its going to suck.


My suggestions:
Grab and AMD 5050e 45w processor
AMD board with a lot of sata ports, and PCI slots.
Grab Supermicro SAT2-MV8
WHS

For the drives if you go the WHS route you dont need to have the same size drives and could have the same amount of storage with 4x1.5tb instead of 8x640's. Or wait a lil bit and grab 3 of the 2tb drives.
 
The motherboard you pick should ideally be able to undervolt your processor in the BIOS. Also, keep in mind some motherboards have trouble supporting a hardware RAID card if you should want that. Personally I would consider a Conroe-based Celeron (Conroe-L) because of its low power consumption.

Forget that Supermicro card. It's only useful if you have PCI-X slots or are prepared to not get good transfer speeds. Normal 32-bit 33MHz PCI has a theoretical maximum of 133MB/s, and even lower real-world.
 
dandragonrage said:
The motherboard you pick should ideally be able to undervolt your processor in the BIOS. Also, keep in mind some motherboards have trouble supporting a hardware RAID card if you should want that. Personally I would consider a Conroe-based Celeron (Conroe-L) because of its low power consumption.

Forget that Supermicro card. It's only useful if you have PCI-X slots or are prepared to not get good transfer speeds. Normal 32-bit 33MHz PCI has a theoretical maximum of 133MB/s, and even lower real-world.
Click to expand...

First off I wouldn't say many board these days have trouble supporting hardware raid cards.
Secondly Conroe-l is going to consume much more power then what I spec'd above.
Thrid 133MB/s omg holy shit that is so slow.....o yea but its faster then a single drive. And with WHS you are essentially limited to JBOD speed so the bus width is not a factor.
And its still faster then if he were to do onboard RAID.
I have one of those and it works great.

Another thing to point out. You can have a the fastest drive/array in the world but it dont much matter because you will really be limited by your network speed.
 
dandragonrage said:
Forget that Supermicro card. It's only useful if you have PCI-X slots or are prepared to not get good transfer speeds. Normal 32-bit 33MHz PCI has a theoretical maximum of 133MB/s, and even lower real-world.
Click to expand...

Dude..really. If we are talking real world...where in the real world for streaming or storing data do you even need more than a few MByte/sec? A normal PCI slot is way more than enough horsepower for the average user. In the real world for a home user, saturating gigabit is about it. That supermicro card is the ideal card for WHS. It provides a lot of ports for little $ and sufficient performance for a non-RAID5+ system.
 
dandragonrage said:
The motherboard you pick should ideally be able to undervolt your processor in the BIOS. Also, keep in mind some motherboards have trouble supporting a hardware RAID card if you should want that. Personally I would consider a Conroe-based Celeron (Conroe-L) because of its low power consumption.

Forget that Supermicro card. It's only useful if you have PCI-X slots or are prepared to not get good transfer speeds. Normal 32-bit 33MHz PCI has a theoretical maximum of 133MB/s, and even lower real-world.
Click to expand...

133 MB (BYTES, not bits) is 1,064 Mbit/s

To give you an idea, you would need nearly 3 normal desktop gigabit nics to capture that kinda bandwidth on teaming. You would need to pull data from the same controller.

Secondly, even if you have the best nic out there, your still short by far... so you would saturate your gigabit controller without any problems before you saturate the bus.

Most individuals have a couple controllers, therefore doubling those numbers.
 
Are there any mobo's in particular that would be good at this or that has been used a bit around the forums? I don't want the computer to be completely under powered but I also don't want it sucking lots of juice.

Does anyone know how loud the 4020 is?

Also, what PSU would be good at handling these drives with that backpane and the fans? Lots of connectors will be needed! :cool:
 
Alright, I think FOR NOW I am going to get that case and use my Intel mobo w/ P4 processor to run this file server to save money on that.

My question is...I will have 4 SATA drives to start with, and only two ports to use. What is a half decent SATA card (PCI) I can get for now that will support the 4 slots? I know my read/write & network performance won't be the best but that' OK with me.
 
No PCI-E slots on that mobo?

I'd consider a marvell 8port pci-x or something similar, supermicro also has SAS/SATA cards for PCI-E.

Motherboard support for hardware raid controllers can be iffy, thats why im stuck with a P5WDG2-WS card and a celeron with my 3ware 9500S-12, instead of a P5E WS PRO and a Q6600... (40MB/s write doesnt cut it for me, damn pci-x incompatabilites)

Do not buy more 640GB drives, 1TB and up is where you should look. Samsung just released F2 1.5TB drives that should be more stable than Seagate 1.5TBs, and WD has 2TB drives.. My personal preference is on Samsung tho.

For a PSU I'd go with a Corsair 750W.
 
Wibla said:
No PCI-E slots on that mobo?

I'd consider a marvell 8port pci-x or something similar, supermicro also has SAS/SATA cards for PCI-E.

Motherboard support for hardware raid controllers can be iffy, thats why im stuck with a P5WDG2-WS card and a celeron with my 3ware 9500S-12, instead of a P5E WS PRO and a Q6600... (40MB/s write doesnt cut it for me, damn pci-x incompatabilites)

Do not buy more 640GB drives, 1TB and up is where you should look. Samsung just released F2 1.5TB drives that should be more stable than Seagate 1.5TBs, and WD has 2TB drives.. My personal preference is on Samsung tho.

For a PSU I'd go with a Corsair 750W.
Click to expand...

I just found the Corsair 750W, so I will look into that.

I'm looking to find a cheap SATA card to hold me over until I can buy a new set of mobo, CPU and memory then I can get a PCI-E card...I was planning on letting WHS just do it's "backup" since what I'm storing is just movies, music I'm not super worried about getting a $500 SATA card.
 
Supermicro SAT2-MV8

PCI-x but runs in a reg PCI slot too.
 
+1 for the Supermicro SAT2-MV8. I've got one so for, but I'm running it in PCI-X slot so I can't speak to running it in a PCI slot. I see no better card for the $. A perfect match for WHS.
 
That was a mistake.
But the OP went with his P4 stuff for the server.
This thread is a month old
 
Or I will be soon, still have to decided on the SATA card(s)

EDIT:

Ok it's been two months, is there a different Mobo/CPU combo that would be decent for a file server like this that won't cost alot?
 
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