Home server - Energy efficient - Budget

[aciddrink]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Home network backups. Streaming HD Movies / TV to various devices. (No more than 2 simultaneous devices)
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Preferably $500 or less. Cheaper the better since it's a very hand's off machine.
3) Where do you live?
Kentucky (Amazon has tax here)
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.
Case, Mobo, CPU, PSU, RAM
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I will be reusing WD20EARS x4
6) Will you be overclocking?
No. If anything I may underclock to conserve energy.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
No monitor attached after initial OS installation. Will be connecting remotely
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within the next few months.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
SATA connections for multiple HDDs (minimum 4 HDD). On board GFX preferable for energy conservation
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
No, will be purchasing WHS 2011 most likely. This is not to be included in the price of the build.

I am looking for this build to be as energy efficient as possible since the rig will stay on 24/7. This rig should not require much processing power (if I have the correct understanding on network traffic). I will not be doing any server-side transcoding, simply streaming raw files back and forth.

I have no preference between AMD or Intel, as long as it is cheap and efficient.

Thanks for any help! (I know this is a harder build than your standard gaming rig)

 

[diizzy]

Not ideal but solid hardware and it just works (tm)

LIAN LI Lancool PC-K58W Black 0.8 mm SECC, Plastic + Mesh ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112238

HITACHI HDS721050CLA362 (0F10381) 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145299

XFX Core Edition PRO650W (P1-650S-NLB9) 650W ATX12V 2.2 & ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified ...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207014

Intel BOXDH67BLB3 LGA 1155 Intel H67 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121506

Intel Core i3-2100T Sandy Bridge 2.5GHz LGA 1155 35W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I32100T
Mushkin Enhanced Silverline 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model 996770
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.695630

Total: 467$ excluding a 20$ mail-in rebate

Some notes, getting a decent case seems to be very expensive for some odd reason. The Lian-Li case is pretty decent and if you want more HDDs you can add hotswap bays easily or just mounting frames depending on how much you want to spend / easy to fix. The PSU is overkill but its a good back for the buck considering the mail-in rebate and modular which isn't a downside. It certainly wont be bad if you want to add more HDDs in the future. The Intel motherboard may not offer that much out of the ordinary but it gives you Intel LAN and (at least in general) a properly working bios including ACPI. What you might want to consider (highly recommended) is a ZFS based solution which is very suitable for what you're going to do. This is why I included 8Gb of memory and an additional HDD (boot drive). If you want to save some cash and obviously sacrifice performance I'd recommend you to have a look at the AMD Zecate platforms which uses less power but also perform much worse and you'll end up with Realtek LAN.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131697
If you replace the motherboard and cpu with this you can still go with everything else.

..and if you still wanna go Win 2011 you can probably go with only 4Gb of RAM too.

//Danne

 

[Dangman]

Are you planning on getting more hard drives in the future? If so, how many hard drives do you think you might need in the future?

 

[aciddrink]

Are you planning on getting more hard drives in the future? If so, how many hard drives do you think you might need in the future?

For now I'm thinking 4 HDD. In the future maybe 6 tops? I can't foresee myself filling up 12TB of space anytime soon. I could always find something useless to delete to make room for new files.

 

[diizzy]

So you don't want to run RAID 5 or similar?
//Danne

 

[plunger]

This was a build I ordered over the weekend for WHS v1. It's really $236 for the entire build minus HD but I subtracked a little because I will only be using 1 ram stick. I don't stream any video files so I don't know how well this setup would perform. I will have 2 HD's in it but will add more as needed.

I only picked the case because of its small size. Pick up a UPS ($50) if you don't already have one to power down your server if you have a power fail.

 

[Dangman]

So you don't want to run RAID 5 or similar?
//Danne

If he's not planning on using a non-Windows OS for the server, I wouldn't bother with RAID 5 on account of his low budget and the really slow performance of Windows software RAID and the motherboard's onboard RAID.

Anyway, OP, here's what I recommend:
Grab the PSU that Plunger listed. That XFX PSU is overkill and unless you actually have the MIR in hand, don't factor in the AR cost. Nor is that XFX PSU modular. So basically that XFX is a waste of money for your usage.

Do go with the motherboard, and CPU + RAM combo that dizzy linked.

Case wise, if you're willing to buy from Amazon.com, I recommend this case over the Lian Li:
$60 - Cooler Master HAF 912 RC-912-KKN1 ATX Case

While that Lian Li case is of better quality, the problem is that it's limited to 4 hard drives max in stock config. To add additional drives will cost you an additional $20. The Coolermaster HAF 912 supports 6 hard drives right off the bat. So it does save you money in the long-run.

 

[aciddrink]

Thanks a lot for all the help guys. I really appreciate all of it.

If he's not planning on using a non-Windows OS for the server, I wouldn't bother with RAID 5 on account of his low budget and the really slow performance of Windows software RAID and the motherboard's onboard RAID.

I am most likely just going to use WHS 2011. I thought about a Linux alternative but am hesitant to willingly deal with all the headaches that may come with sharing files from a linux platform to various devices. Especially with my limited knowhow of linux

Grab the PSU that Plunger listed. That XFX PSU is overkill and unless

Overkill PSU is what I was trying to avoid. I want to have enough power to run the server, but as little energy waste as possible. I've read that larger PSU's are less efficient in how they handle power.

Again, thanks guys! If anybody else has any advice please feel free to chime in.

 

[aciddrink]

I read through the reviews on the board diizzy posted. Both newegg and amazon have reviews stating the board is not compatible with server OS software. Does anybody else have ideas on a motherboard that would be suited well for my purposes?

Here's a link to one of the reviews from amazon: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3L5MKLZW2A8EE/ref=cm_srch_res_rtr_alt_1

 

[plunger]

I don't know about that board, but I'm getting blue screens with my board. Will not install WHS. I'm trying a few different things now.

Ooops, false alarm

I changed the IDE to AHCI in the SATA bios option. That was the problem. Reverted and it's ok now.

 

[diizzy]

Here's the deal,

My bad about the XFX being modular, looked at a photoshopped image and I should've known that Core means "value" ;-)
A more powerful PSU doesn't mean necessarily more wasted energy, what you should have in mind that if you want to run lets say 8 drives or more in the future your 380W may/may not be able to handle it since you'll get a surge at power up due to the fact you wont have hardware (most likely at least) that doesn't do delayed start up(s). It probably wont be an issue as long as your drives are running though.

Speaking of additional costs Danny, a mounting bracket is about 5$ which is quite far from your estimated 20$ probably even less if you use eBay/DX/*
Intels MatrixRAID isn't that bad afaik, but it has its downs and upsides.

That case from Amazon is a better choice indeed, I just tried to find something that was cost effective over at Newegg.

As far as I can tell it works fine on Windows Server / Linux / *BSD / Whatever but may need a little handholding.
http://www.missingremote.com/guide/installing-server-os-intel-media-series-motherboards

//Danne

 

[wtourist]

NZXT Source 210 Elite White has 8 3.5" internal bays, good cooling with 2 more fans $60 shipped.
A Biostar Z68 motherboard at $100 seems a better choice to me.

 

[aciddrink]

As far as I can tell it works fine on Windows Server / Linux / *BSD / Whatever but may need a little handholding.
http://www.missingremote.com/guide/installing-server-os-intel-media-series-motherboards

//Danne

Oh very nice, according to that article it looks like there are some workarounds to getting the NIC working. The main problem people were complaining about is they cant get the onboard NIC to work because Intel doesn't support the board as a "server" board, but rather a desktop board.

 

[diizzy]

NZXT Source 210 Elite White has 8 3.5" internal bays, good cooling with 2 more fans $60 shipped.
A Biostar Z68 motherboard at $100 seems a better choice to me.

It packs USB3 which may/may not be useful but other than that it really doesn't offer anything to the table except a much worse NIC.

If you would want something "better" it would be an Intel Q67-based motherboard with an i5 or i7 CPU which allows you to use AMT and KVM (i3 isn't vPro certified) or ASUS P8B WS which gives you dual Intel LAN, more PCIe slots (very useful for a storage server).

//Danne

 

[Dangman]

A more powerful PSU doesn't mean necessarily more wasted energy, what you should have in mind that if you want to run lets say 8 drives or more in the future your 380W may/may not be able to handle it since you'll get a surge at power up due to the fact you wont have hardware (most likely at least) that doesn't do delayed start up(s). It probably wont be an issue as long as your drives are running though.

8 hard drives + a Core i3 will not stress a 380W PSU in the future unless it's a crappy 380W PSU which the Antec Earthwatts clearly isn't.

Speaking of additional costs Danny, a mounting bracket is about 5$ which is quite far from your estimated 20$ probably even less if you use eBay/DX/*

I was thinking more of those 4in3 module bays rather than those mounting brackets.

Intels MatrixRAID isn't that bad afaik, but it has its downs and upsides.

Just going from what the guys over in the Data Storage subforum are saying about the ICH10R and motherboard onboard RAID in general.