Home file server

[mrmylanman]

Hey all,

I haven't been in here in a while since I stopped using my SG03 (sold it to a friend) however I have a spare SG01 case laying around just gathering dust.

So I figured I kinda want to build a budget home server. Low power usage would be ideal as all this box will do is serve files and probably serve as a bittorrent client (that'll probably be about it. I plan on running Linux on it in command line interface if possible).

I found an interesting motherboard from Jetway that I was thinking about using. It's kinda cheap in that it includes the CPU and motherboard for only $90. Its an Atom 330 which I should think is powerful enough right? Anyone see anything wrong with this?

Also looking for some tips. I have a 1TB hard drive that I will be transferring over to this computer, and I am thinking about booting the OS from a USB flash drive (or maybe finding a cheap small hard drive for it to run from).

I don't imagine I'll need a powerful PSU at all although I don't know how much power 3 or 4 hard drives will use up in conjunction with this board.

Thanks

 

[criccio]

An Atom 330 based board is exactly what I was going to recommend. Perfect for what you want to do.

 

[mrmylanman]

Yeah I was pretty excited when I heard about the Atom 330. I priced out a low power (45W) Athlon build which would probably be worlds faster than the Atom however the power draw is probably significantly higher plus heat, plus noise, plus an extra $15 or so.

Would it have problem streaming HD video (1080 resolution)? It has a 100Mbps NIC and I know the Atom can't play it good, but I wasn't sure if that'd be a problem with simply streaming it.

 

[mrmylanman]

Upon closer inspection of Newegg I think I might get a Mini ITX board that Intel makes

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121359

It has gigabit as well as support for faster RAM. Also, according to a few reviews the Intel board draws even less power.

 

[Dangman]

Would it have problem streaming HD video (1080 resolution)? It has a 100Mbps NIC and I know the Atom can't play it good, but I wasn't sure if that'd be a problem with simply streaming it.

The Atom 330 should have no problems streaming HD content, espeicially with that Gigabit NIC that the Intel board has.

 

[mrmylanman]

Yeah I realized something else pretty cool about the Intel board - going Mini ITX means I can get a Mini ITX case that'll hold close to the same amount of hard drive space as the SG01 and costs the same as a new power supply for my SG01 anyway.

Plus the cool factor of having a super small computer... haha.

 

[fr500]

See here

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1420570

Some blatant self advertising there, but it's good info there (I hope), 100mbps is more than enogh for streaming HD content so no issues there, even good 802.11g can cut it except some exceptionally high bitrate encodes.

If you check the base system I posted, you can even manage to get it to play back 1080p with the adition of a $40 video card under linux, at least with XBMC

keep us posted

 

[mrmylanman]

That's cool bro. The SG05 is pretty slick, but what did you think of the Apex? That's the case I really want for this because of price mostly. And it looks smaller. I figure with an Atom I don't have to worry about heat much.

 

[fr500]

You don´t have to worry because it can work at pretty high temps, I have read 90c is still fine, it DOES get hot, look this is the idle temp this morning

smsc47m192-i2c-0-2d
Adapter: SMBus I801 adapter at 2000
+2.5V: +2.53 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +3.32 V)
VCore: +1.15 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +2.99 V)
+3.3V: +3.33 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.38 V)
+5V: +5.31 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +6.64 V)
+12V: +12.25 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +15.94 V)
VCC: +3.33 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.38 V)
+1.5V: +1.58 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +1.99 V)
+1.8V: +1.78 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +2.39 V)
Chip Temp: +46.0°C (low = -127.0°C, high = +127.0°C)
CPU Temp: +56.0°C (low = +96.0°C, high = -104.0°C)
Sys Temp: +49.0°C (low = -127.0°C, high = +127.0°C)
cpu0_vid: +2.050 V

smsc47m1-isa-0680
Adapter: ISA adapter
fan1: 3963 RPM (min = 1280 RPM, div = 4)
fan2: 1820 RPM (min = 1280 RPM, div = 4)

It seems to be normal for this board though, I have an 8cm on the side at low 1800rpm, If I let it go full speed cpu temp will go down to 43-45c but it's too noisy at that point.

The chipset fan on the intel D945GCLF/2 boards is annoyingly loud, maybe the jetway heatsink is better, there is a gigabyte atom board that is supposed to be even better (and overclockable to 2ghz)

The Apex case is fine for the price point, the MW-100 and MD-100 have better finish, specially the buttons are "beautiful" on those cases, the ones in the MI-100 are fairly cheap, buttons aside it´s a fine looking case with a decent psu (it´s pretty silent) and good interior space. I think it's easeir to work with it compared with the SG05, If you avoid the optical you could get 3 HDDs without even using the side bay (there is space for a 3.5" drive on the side but it blocks all your cooling vents so it´s not a good idea).

Try to get some low profile memory sticks, it eases a lot the installation of the main hard disk drive.

 

[mrmylanman]

The interior space is what I like about the MI-100, it doesn't seem like you can fit multiple HDs in the others you mentioned, otherwise I would like them more. I plan on using multiple hard drives in it and the fact that you could fit 3 inside the MI-100 is a big selling point for me. If it's ugly I can always hide it away somewhere, lol.

Thanks for the tip. I will probably end up getting the Intel board by the way since it has gigabit and ITX (kinda started liking the ITX idea... haha).

EDIT

I went ahead and ordered the parts.

I got the Intel Little Falls 2 (Atom 330 mini ITX), 2 GB of Kingston half-height DDR2-667, an 80GB Western Digital hard drive for the OS. All will go into an Apex MI-008. I already have a 1TB hard drive that will also be going in to it, and I will probably eventually get another 2TB hard drive that will also go into it.

I will post a build log when I get the parts!