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File Server

R

ripken204

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 24, 2007
Messages
1,427
I am thinking about buying a file server that I can keep running 24/7 to server files to multiple computers.

I currently have 3x1TB drives in my desktop that I am using for backups and storage along with 2x640GB drives for my Programs/OS.
I am would put the 3x1TB into the server and I am not sure about the 2x640GB yet, it depends on if I want to go with SDDs for my desktop or not.

I need some suggestions for hardware that I should get. My entire network is GBit and wireless N so my network infrastructure is good.

Whatever motherboard I decide to get will need to have GBit of course.
But I have no idea what motherboard I should get.
If I get a motherboard with 2 GBit ports, if I hook both of them up to my router, if 2 GBit computers want to access the server, will each get GBit speeds? or will it be limited to the router's Gbit speed? My router is a D-Link DIR-655.

Should I use the onboard SATA controller, or buy a separate RAID controller?
I would most likely run at least a 2x1TB in raid1 or maybe a bunch of drives in raid1/5. I am not too sure yet.

Also what processor would be a good? A cheap C2D? I do not plan on having more than two people at a time accessing this server but who knows. I just do not want to have any lag on it.
Whenever I upgrade my desktop, probably next summer, I may put my Q6700 in the server, so whatever motherboard I get I would like it to suppose quad cores.

As for ram, 4GB is so cheap so why not.

I would also like to make this server run as quiet as I can make it.

Is there anything new coming out in the next few months that I should wait for?

Also, what OS should I be using?
I have had trouble configuring FreeNAS and OpenFiler before.
I have had success using Windows Home Server 2003 but a linux based OS just seems better to me.. I have no idea though so you guys try to convince me on what is the best to use.

I would also like to use it as a small web server running apache/php/mysql.

As far as cases go, does it matter for a server or no? Just as long as I can hold my hard drives and cool them properly?

I do not really have an issue spending $500+ on this, but the cheaper the better of course. I already have a lot of hard drive space, I just need everything else..

If you guys could help me out in picking out parts that would be great.
Thanks
smile.gif
 
ripken204 said:
I have had success using Windows Home Server 2003 but a linux based OS just seems better to me.
Click to expand...

There's no such product. Did you mean Windows Home Server or Windows Server 2003?

Anyway, for RAID1, onboard RAID is enough. For RAID5, it depends. Onboard RAID does require some CPU usage so you will see a hit in speed/performance with the system. However, it is a much cheaper option than going with a separate true hardware RAID controller which will cost you around $300 or so for 4 ports. But a true hardware RAID controller would provide a significantly higher speed/performance than onboard RAID and will not touch the CPU at all.

As for cases, as long as the case has good cooling and enough room for how many drives you want, then it's a good case.
 
If I get a motherboard with 2 GBit ports, if I hook both of them up to my router, if 2 GBit computers want to access the server, will each get GBit speeds?
-No, you will end up with a confused router/switch unless it and the server OS support teaming of some sort, and I know of no consumer level products that do this.

Should I use the onboard SATA controller, or buy a separate RAID controller?
-For RAID 1 onboard is fine.

I would most likely run at least a 2x1TB in raid1 or maybe a bunch of drives in raid1/5.
-Start with RAID 1

Also what processor would be a good?
-For simple file serving, it almost doesn't matter. A Pentium 3 could do it with no lag if set up correctly.

As for ram, 4GB is so cheap so why not.
-Sure but if all it is doing is file serving it will never use it all, doesn't hurt though.

I would also like to make this server run as quiet as I can make it.
-Invest in a good case and big, quiet fans then.

Is there anything new coming out in the next few months that I should wait for?
-No

Also, what OS should I be using?
-Whatever you are comfortable with.

I would also like to use it as a small web server running apache/php/mysql.
-Then use a OS that you are comfortable configuring this on.

As far as cases go, does it matter for a server or no?
-nope, just use a good power supply is my only recommendation.
 
Actually. if you were to run windows and access the server by the IPs of nics instead of the share name, and each of the two computers were to access a different IP than each would get the full speed of the NIC (in my test anyway)

I tested that with a basic connect gear 16 port 10/100 switch.

It wont confuse the Router or the Switch. Your computer will just default to whatever NIC it saw first on the network. Typically this will mean the second NIC is ignored.

However on windows Server if you were to try and browse the network neighboorhood with Both NICs on the same LAN it will take 2-3x longer for it to finish scanning because it will basically talk to each computer twice. I noticed my Net. Neighboorhood would take much longer to load on my IBM workstation when I had 8 nics in it.

The teaming would come in handy if you had a buisness/enterprise class swtich (like my Dell 3448) you could trunk up to 8 NICs for throughput or redundancy in the event one fails, the switch will just reroute traffic to the other NIC and no client would notice more than split second of unresponsiveness.

However, the only NICs that support teaming and support it well are Intel Server NICS.
Intel is nice and will allow you to team any Intel nic (server or non-server) and any other brand NIC (I tried broadcom and netgear) together. Sadly these are a tad pricey.

In a nutshell, you are better of just using one nic.
 
what if i bridge my connections? would that make any difference?

for the OS, i have used server 2003.
i can get 2008 for free through MSDNAA though.
but i am not sure if i can easily set up apache/mysql/php on it.

i have only worked with linux webservers and i have only worked with windows file servers.
i have no idea how to go about combining the two of them.

so the cpu doesnt really matter then?
i should just get some cheap dual core amd 45w to keep thing cool?
 
If you're comfortable with Linux, why not run Linux? File serving is pretty easy using Samba. Then again, it's pretty simple to get apache, MySQL and php running on Windows Server. FreeNAS and similar software doesn't buy you much other than to make the file server look like a cheap NAS.

Keep in mind that RAID is in no way, shape or form a means of doing data backup. If you have 3 terabytes of important data on the server, then you'll need a minimum of 3 terabytes of additional storage to back it up. NOT a 3 terabyte RAID 5 array. For most folks, that will mean another 3 terabytes of disk storage on another computer or online or in external drives or something.
 
turning linux into a file server is as simple as installing samba. 2-3 min (ok, ok more if it's your first time) to configure and you're done. There is plenty of guides online.

It can be as simple or as fancy as you want, for example my linux file server runs the following services:

samba(windows file sharing)
nfs( *nix file sharing)
mediatomb - upnp media server
uShare - upnp media server ( so my Xbox 360 can connect because MS can't implement standart upnp)
iSCSI - future vmware esx project
 
Why not WHS? dont have to worry about RAID.
You can install all the web server stuff just same as you would on server2k3

Or run *nix inside of VM's
 
what if i bridge my connections? would that make any difference?
Click to expand...

Bridging connections is a way to pass data through your computer The only way to aggregate the speed of 2 ports is through a process called bonding, and then it only really helps if you get a tremendous volume of requests.

Not that it matters, because your bottleneck will never be your Ethernet speed. your data transfer will fly when compared to your hard drive speeds. Every second of waiting you do will be waiting for data to actually come off the drive. Many commercial drives pull data around 50Mb/sec, which means if you are accessing 1 drive, no matter how fast your network is, you will always wait on the drive.

You can help this by either buying faster drives, like raptors (really expensive as storage solutions) or implementing some sort of speed boosting RAID (like RAID 0) which pulls data off multiple drives at once and effectively combines their read speeds.

And IMHO, 4Gb is huge overkill for a file server. I run 2 file servers on 512 a piece. 1Gb would be more than enough.
 
cvillelk said:
And IMHO, 4Gb is huge overkill for a file server. I run 2 file servers on 512 a piece. 1Gb would be more than enough.
Click to expand...

Yea but RAM is so Cheap now and it never hurts to have too much...and would definately be needed if he decides at some point to run VM's on this same box. But for a box that is only doing file sharing 1gb would suffice.
 
Yea but RAM is so Cheap now and it never hurts to have too much...and would definately be needed if he decides at some point to run VM's on this same box. But for a box that is only doing file sharing 1gb would suffice.
Click to expand...

Sry, i missed the VM remark. In that case then more RAM definitely doesnt hurt.
 
so what kind of linux? i use ubuntu for coding so i am already used to it, as well as centos for servers, but is there anything meant more towards a file server?
 
whatever distro you like, I'm partial to gentoo but if you're comfortable with ubuntu or centos then roll with it
 
I am using a server OS called unRaid. I am liking it so far and it is getting better.

One of the users on the limetech forums (BubbaQ) has done some work to add useful things to unRaid. Do a google search and some reading and see if it might be of some use to you. There are some very good things about unRaid and there are some bad things about it. It is up to you to decide what you value more
 
FreeNAS is pretty decent(I've used it for over a year), and they added zfs so that's nice but since it's specialized distro based on FreeBSD it's hard to add your own things to it.
 
i already said that i tried freenas and it didnt really work on an older server i was playing with, i dont think it could pick up the raid controller. i will prolly just try out server 2008 and ubuntu and see which ones i like.

i need to get my hardware tho. so a cheap C2D i guess and a mobo with enough sata ports for now?
any recommendations?
 
e5200 is pretty cheap c2d, it's 45nm, runs cool and the stock heatsink is pretty quiet. I use it in my bedroom's htpc and it works very well.
 
I use Ubuntu Server 8.04 on my fileserver, it runs great. But I've got the whole thing virtualized so I can have many independant roles running and I can control them all seperately.

As for hardware, any relatively modern processor (even budget) and ~2GB of ram will serve you fine.
 
FYI combining two NICs in the Linux world is called Bonding in the Windows world its called teaming. Its not a function of the OS actually as someone previously stated. Its a function of the driver for the network card. Unless you buy a server mainboard the onboard NICs will likely not support teaming... they may however support bonding as Linux drivers tend to be more flexible. You could easily do Transmit Load Balancing with a teamed set of ethernet ports if you got an aftermarket dual port network card for your server. It wouldn't give you any kind of boost above 1Gb in either direction... however it would load balancing outgoing datat transfers between both 1Gb links which would really only benefit you if you had two separate clients requesting data at the same time.

We use TLB quite a bit at work for both the loan balancing but more so the redundancy as we can spread the two links across our two datacenter switches and cover both a break in the cable and a failure of one of our switches.
 
I'd go with a 780G or 790GX coupled with a 4850e or similar for the lower power consumption while still delivering more power than you could possibly use in a file server.
 
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