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Home Server Build

Z

zrikz

[H]ard|Gawd
2FA
Joined
May 29, 2006
Messages
1,228
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Home Media Server, running VM's for hosting game servers (minecraft, terreria,ventrilo etc)
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
~$600
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
US - Augusta Georgia
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, Mobo, RAM, PSU, HD
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
3x WD RED 3TB - Case and Water cooler
6) Will you be overclocking?
no
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
old 17" junky monitor - lower resolution - doesn't matter, just need it to do initial install then I'll be remoting in.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
5-8 Days (Purchasing No later than this Sunday)
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA?
USB3 and Lots of sata.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes - will be going with a linux build.


Parts I have:
Corsair Carbide 400R
Corsair Hydro Series H100
an old monitor.

What I'm thinking about going with:

$149 - GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX
$154 - AMD FD8320FRHKBOX FX-8320 FX-Series 8-Core Black Edition
$152 - G.SKILL Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C10D-16GAO
$60 - WD Blue 1 TB Desktop Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, 7200 RPM
$65 - Antec BP550 Plus 550W ATX12V V2.3 Modular Power Supply
$30 - XFX AMD Radeon HD 5450 1GB GDDR3 VGA/DVI/HDMI Low-Profile

Total = $611

Plan is to use the 1TB for OS install and most likely some of the game hosting. The WD Reds will be for the file server, will probably pick up an additional RED 3TB along with this order, not going to include that in the price though.
The 4 REDs will be in a Raid 5 and the 1TB will be stand alone.

Would love any suggestions and or potential cost savers.

Looking to pull the trigger by this weekend.
 
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zrikz said:
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
US - Augusta Georgia
Click to expand...
How long is the drive to these two Microcenter locations?
http://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/marietta.aspx
http://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/duluth.aspx

zrikz said:
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes - will be going with a linux build.
Click to expand...
Are you planning on using ESXi or Xen?

zrikz said:
$152 - G.SKILL Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C10D-16GAO
Click to expand...
Not a good choice since this is cheaper:
$135 - Crucial BLS2CP8G3D1609DS1S00 Ballistix Sport 2 x 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
zrikz said:
$65 - Antec BP550 Plus 550W ATX12V V2.3 Modular Power Supply
Click to expand...
NOt a good choice since the quality isn't all that good. I recommend this higher quality PSU instead:
$86 - Seasonic G Series SSR-550RM 550W Modular PSU

zrikz said:
The 4 REDs will be in a Raid 5 and the 1TB will be stand alone.
Click to expand...
Not a good idea. With that much amount of storage, you should be looking at RAID 6 at a minimum since 6TB+ is a lot of data to potentially lose during a RAID rebuild in the event of a single HDD failure.
 
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Ok awesome I'll go for that ram and psu. Looks like those micrometers are nearly 2.5 hrs away unfortunately.

Was interested in esxi but without a raid controller I don't think I can do what I want. Was thinking about going for a Linux distribution with vmware for the vms.

I'm not incredibly worried about the raid rebuilding in the event of failure. I'm mostly doing it as a safety measure. It's only for my home media files and I have 8tb in external back ups that will cover it all. With the 4th hd bringing it to 9tb of data I'll get another external to cover it as well.
 
Perhaps another thread should be made, but in the attempt to save another post from withering away...

I was trying to read / ask people who use ESXi, can I do this with just those component listed above:

I want to set up a Raid 5, or 6 if I really need to, and then have my standalone 1TB each being their own datastore.

Ultimate goal would be to have the 1TB datastore run either some flavor of linux where I would run a gaming / voice servers.

the 6-9TB datastore would run FreeNAS or some other NAS OS that would contain all of my media.

From what I gather, unless I can get the motherboard to do a hardware raid, ESXi won't see it and I won't be able to use it like that.

this is my first time venturing into virtualization, but I figure I might as well learn.

If that is not an option, my friend is able to get VMware workstation license nearly free through his work, so I'd use that for my VMs.

/edit I know nothing about Xen really either, going to try and read up on it today when time permits, don't know if it's able to do the above.
 
What I've learned about ESXi is that it is more common to have the VM's be on the datastore, and use a storage appliance OS like, openfiler, openindiana, Xen(I believe - haven't really looked into it), etc, passing the storage as targets back to the vm. I can either be done AIO or by using a separate box that house the storage and handles all of that.

I'm currently fight with SAS card trying to get it to stay in passthrough mode so that I can assign it to an openfiler vm to handle the data duties. As far as hardware I'd recommend looking in to by some used gear from hear or ebay if you want to be able to use things like ECC ram and VT-d.

I had a WHS2011 box running fine but wanted something a little more challenging to get setup and ESXi is proving to be it, and since you're wanting to run multiple services a whs2011 box wouldn't really fit the bill
 
zrikz said:
Was interested in esxi but without a raid controller I don't think I can do what I want.
Click to expand...
You don't need a seperate RAID controller AFAIK. YOu can pass individual ports IIRC. But you should double check that over in the Virtualization subforum.
 
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