file server how to

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lianregnif

Weaksauce
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Nov 30, 2004
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First I apologize for this very amateur post. I am not very good at computers at all, but from what I do know....my files are getting quite big.

I'm planning on building a file server but I don't have a clue on where to start. The server will be used to store pictures/music/movies. There will be 3 different users accessing it, very rarely simultaneously (if that matters).

For starters I will run about 1TB.

If you guys could point me to where I can learn more about it, I greatly appreciate it.

Questions I need help on:
1. What mobo/proc/ram combo can I run cheaply, reliably, as well as scalable?
2. Case recommendations?
3. Powersupply recommendations?
4. I did a few hours of reading on file server research, but it really just went over my head. What OS can/should I run?
5. I see some setups on here that just has a case and a bunch of hard drives...how can I do that?

Thank you...ANY help is appreciated. There's so much technical material on here that can make a newbie's head spin, like myself.

-Howard
 
1. What mobo/proc/ram combo can I run cheaply, reliably, as well as scalable?
2. Case recommendations?
3. Powersupply recommendations?
4. I did a few hours of reading on file server research, but it really just went over my head. What OS can/should I run?
5. I see some setups on here that just has a case and a bunch of hard drives...how can I do that?
Click to expand...

1) I usually recommend a Biostar TForce 550 w/ either a A64 or a X2 3600+ (Dual core if you want dual cores). Reason I chose this is due to the boards performance and the cheap price of the combination. Another option you can venture into is the 6100 series boards with onboard gigabit (matx).

2) Case depends really on yourself and what future expansion you would need. Anything from a Sonata to a Stacker would suit your needs. You will need to determine, do you want this silent? Do you want future expansion space? Do you want neat things like hot swap units?

3) Power supply would also depend on if you want future expansion space. I would highly recommend that you check out the Seasonic S12 series or the Corsair HX series, they are super power supplies and don't break the bank.

4) OS is a personal preference. I prefer Windows 2003 Server, however, there are lots on here that prefers Linux flavors. Either option is good, not one you can go wrong with, however, keep in mind, if you are familiar with a certain one, stick to that.

5) Basically all it is is just a computer with a lot of hard drives, anyone can do it. All you need is enough SATA ports on your board and you are set. Keep in mind that you are only seeking 1tb at this moment, so you could either get one 1tb drive, or two 500's, or 4 250's. I would recommend that you take a look at the 1tb drive out right now, it's a lot of space to bank on, but you can save a ton of space for future expansion. Other users might suggest going with say 3 500's (they were $109 each yesterday on special) and either running RAID5 or perhaps run them all independent but use the 3rd 500 as backup.
 
Setting up a file server only for sharing files is easy.

What i'm doing is using a Pentium M with an AOpen motherboard and install Win XP on it. I enable file sharing and printer sharing with my mates.

very easy if you don't have other requirements other than just file sharing.

Microsoft is coming with a Windows Home Server which is still in its beta stage. Quite an interesting OS..
 
the biostar tforce550 only has 4 sata ports...can anyone explain how other people can connect 10 drives together? Or am I just missing something very basic?
 
they use PCI or PCIe expansion or RAID cards that have SATA ports on them.......
 
And the cards that will do more than 4 drives in a hardware raid setup are generally some pretty big bucks.

An option that will allow you to do 8 SATA and 4 IDE/ATA would be a motherboard like the DFI LANPARTY UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert Socket 939 - $116.00 at eWiz.
I paid over $275.00 for mine.:(
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=MB...dba0f07abc2fa0aa237bdcc189faf19070da43810b168

Specs
http://us.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_pro....jsp?PRODUCT_ID=3872&CATEGORY_TYPE=LP&SITE=US

It's socket 939 and uses DDR1 RAM so the processors and memory for it would be cheap.
It's really an overclockers board but it's outdated now and would offer you a lot of drives for cheap. With dual Giga Ethernet ports.

Then use some form of Linux and create a HUGE software RAID array. If you aren't worried about redundancy then you could just buy drives of any size when they go on sale and build what would look like just a single large network drive to the clients.

Since you don't have a lot of users and will be accessing the files over a network the software array should be more than fast enough.

Just a thought - I might do it with mine when I finally upgrade.
 
The overall cost and setup will depend significantly on the number of drives and their associated $/GB. Redundant 1 TB can be done affordably with 3 drives. There's a jump in pricing from 4 drives to 8 drives, you need to make a hard call on this. Another option could be to await the upcoming 1 TB drives and associated price drops / semi-obsolescence of older drives.

Briefly, you should establish some sort of:

1. Backup plans
2. Budget
3. Limits on storage expectations
4. Performance goals

I say consider (1) first, and use that as a constraint to the master plan considering (2) -- if you're accumulating a TB+ of data, how are you going to manage the risk of that data going "poof" all at once? Don't assume that RAID will save you. "RAID alone is not a backup" -- RAID protects from one sort of problem, typically just single drive failure, but doesn't protect you from a number of others, and notably, brings additional risk and maintenance issues all by itself. A good backup goes a long way towards simplifying maintenance and can even reduce the expenditure on RAID system, because instead of trying to get the most sophisticated RAID system that will never fail (ha ha), you can afford to think about a RAID system that can afford to fail, when you can rely on a backup.

For (4), some people think that 100 Mb/s networking is just fine for file servers. If you think that, then the build options get much easier. If you don't, and are interested in modern networking, then you need to be more careful. The SmallNetBuilder article for example, while good in spirit, is an example of a how not to design a NAS box for performance (specifically don't put those things on the PCI bus).

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/27840/77/
 
FreeNAS for the OS and appropriate hardware.

Or if you can live with 4 disks, go for a ReadyNAS. Has all your file serving needs all built in in a tidy little quiet low power bundle.
 
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