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Home Server Build help

P

PSUme

n00b
Joined
Feb 28, 2006
Messages
15
I want to build a home server and am looking for some help.

Home Server. Storing movies, pictures, music, etc. It will be used to stream to a PS3 and backup data from my main PC. It needs some horsepower to do some transcoding during streaming, and some ripping of music/movies. I'm thinking of about 2-3TB of storage
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Not sure yet. I want to see what a reasonable system that meets my needs will cost and I will upgrade/downgrade from there depending on price
3) Where do you live?
Philly, PA
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
basically everything: optical drive, Case, CPU, MOBO, RAM, HDs, power supply
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
No real reuse. I have a monitor and keyboard to spare and that's all
6) Will you be overclocking?
no
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
none. headless server. I have some old monitors to use for setup if needed.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
in the next couple weeks
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
plenty of sata ports would be good. other than that I'm not sure
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
No. I will probably purchase windows home server
 
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Give us a rough estimate of how much you want to spend including a windows license. $1200?
 
$175 - AMD Athlon II X4 620 CPU + G.Skill Ripjaws F3-10666CL8D-4GBRM 2 x 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$85 - Asus M4A785T-M/CSM AM3 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
$280 - 2 x Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EADS 2TB SATA Hard Drive
$27 - Samsung SH-S223C SATA DVD Burner
$90 - Corsair 650TX 650W PSU
$40 - Cooler Master Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$100 - Microsoft Windows Home Server with Power Pack 1
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Total: $797 plus tax and shipping

The case has room for seven hard drives right off the bat. An additional 4 can be fitted with a 4in3 bracket. As such, I went with the Corsair 650TX to make sure that there's more than enough power for 11 drives + a quad-core CPU.

Speaking of the CPU, the quad-core AMD X4 620 is an entry level quad-core that should be enough for your needs. To account for expandability, I went with 2TB drives which means that you will not have to upgrade the hard drives relatively soon.

That motherboard only has 6 SATA slots so you'll have room for 5 hard drives right off the bat + one DVD drive.
 
The X4 620 is a good chip. I currently have mine at 3.12ghz (240fsb) running folding@home 24/7
 
Thanks! What was spec'd for ~$800 seems pretty nice. That is around the price range I was hoping to be at.

In terms of price vs performance, is AMD the way to go for this?
 
yeah AMD's the way to go for sure.. especially if you decide you want to use the system for something else you can pretty much throw any AMD processor into it.. all am2, am2+ and all am3+ processors on that motherboard.. since lga-775 is dead theres no real upgrade path and you would probably have to buy second hand processors in the next year or so if you ever planned to upgrade.. and lga-1156 is complete overkill for a server..

nice build idea danny.. system looks good.. wish i could afford those friggin 2TB drives so i could get rid all these 750 gig drives.. :( man unemployment sucks..
 
Amd has a very good selection in the lower end of computers. To go i5 it would cost about 150 more, and you might not see any benefit.
 
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