Help with media server?

Ratboy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 28, 2004
Messages
315
I want to create a dedicated server for backing up movies, audio, and pics. Budget is $1500. Not sure what processor to use and all...
 
It will eventually be serving for 2-3 other pc's. And ya it's just storage.
 
If this is just a file server then the processor isn't all that important. Any P4 or Contemporary AMD processor is plenty for a 2-3 person LAN file server. Are you looking for answers to questions about product names? Like what RAID card to use or what. Post is pretty vague.
 
ktwebb said:
If this is just a file server then the processor isn't all that important. Any P4 or Contemporary AMD processor is plenty for a 2-3 person LAN file server. Are you looking for answers to questions about product names? Like what RAID card to use or what. Post is pretty vague.
Well I'm not sure what else to tell ya, I'm fine with a Sempron. I was hoping for onboard Raid 5. A raid card is fine, I'm completely lost on what brands are out there tho. Is there a reliablitly issue with onboard raid 5?

I'd like to keep the costs down on most components and throw as much as possible at HDD capacity. Is 2x 512 memory enough?
 
I would say 512MB memory would be fine for a simple file server, you might see a gain with 1GB if you're transfering large files.

If you're using SATA drives this is one of my favorite RAID cards that supports RAID 5.
 
A fast hard drive and alot of ram, those two will be your bottleneck. As long as you run gigabit etherenet, which is pretty much standard in alot of set ups these days.
 
natekoz said:
A fast hard drive and alot of ram, those two will be your bottleneck.


You don't need a lot of RAM for a file server, if all it's doing is serving files. He could even use 256 MB with XP as an OS.
 
How much storage do you want total?

I would get a reliable motherboard, and get an add in RAID card. I have a couple of Promise boards and they work great. Cost around $270 each for a 4 port version with onboard cache. One is in my Media server.
 
valve1138 said:
How much storage do you want total?

I would get a reliable motherboard, and get an add in RAID card. I have a couple of Promise boards and they work great. Cost around $270 each for a 4 port version with onboard cache. One is in my Media server.
Upwatds of a terabyte.
 
Back
Top