ITX Home Server

[Unknown-One]

My previous file server was a hodge-podge of parts and hardware collected over the years, and I wanted to do a refresh "done right" from the ground up.

Parts list:
Case - Fractal Design Node 304
Mobo - Asus P8H77-I
CPU - Intel Core i3 3245
RAM - 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600
HDD - 3x Western Digital Red 3TB
SSD - Crucial M4 64GB
PSU - Corsair CX 750 Modular

That's a total of 9TB of drive space across three drives (plus the 64Gb SSD for the OS). The case can accommodate an additional three 3.5" drives for future expansion. Near-term, I'll likely add one more 3TB drive to get the total up to 12TB.

Loaded Windows 8 Professional (with Windows Media Center) onto the 64GB SSD and configured it for home-server usage. Full set of user accounts, folder and share permissions, and security tweaks have been made to make the box behave more like proper server editions of Windows. Group policy tweaks have also been made to make sure all accounts are fairly consistent and/or to make sure that they cannot change specified settings (like power/sleep options).

The three 3TB hard disks are running separate for the most part. Shares have been set up in a clever enough fashion that the disparate drives are transparent to anyone browsing over the network.

Backups are done twice a month to three external 3TB MyBook drives over USB 3.0.

This box supports three media center PC's and two Xbox 360's acting as Windows Media Center Extenders spread throughout the house (which is why it needed some CPU horsepower, real-time transcoding). It sits, nearly silently, on one of the desks in our home office with nothing but a power and ethernet cable plugged into it. All management is done over remote desktop.

 

[MrGuvernment]

HP Microserver

Does look like a sexa! box though,

bit overkill on the PSU?

 

[Unknown-One]

HP Microserver

I liked the look of HP's microservers, but they have a couple major issues that made them unsuitable for me.

First off, the HP boxes seems pretty limited on expansion. I can easily put six 3.5" drives plus an additional six 2.5" SSDs in this case.
Second, and more importantly, they're far too weak to handle Media Center Extenders (which require the server-side to handle real-time transcoding of formats the 360 doesn't support internally).

The i3 3245 has enough grunt to handle 2 to 4 media center extenders, even using 100% software transcoding (all work done on the CPU). It also includes HD 4000 graphics, which allows for the use of GPU-accelerated codecs (and potentially even more devices streaming from this server without additional CPU load).

Edit: One of the Media Center Extenders (An Xbox 360 S) in action

bit overkill on the PSU?

Yeah, a bit... but it's modular, so I could do away with the extra cables and keep the innards of this case uncluttered.

I was going to go with a smaller unit, but none of them seemed to include enough SATA power connectors (meaning I'd have to buy additional modular cables, or use molex adapters).

 

[MrGuvernment]

for sure,i was just looking at the HP myself for a new NAS / storage box and media streamer and once you buy the box.. and add everything else to it, drives, possibly more memory.. it isnt such a cheap little box now.

 

[Smitty2k1]

Very nice, I'm extremely happy with this case. I've got 10tb of usable storage on an unRaid setup in my 304.

 

[spencers]

That's an odd storage/backup scenario for your media...

 

[Unknown-One]

That's an odd storage/backup scenario for your media...

How so?

I don't need the speed or high availability of RAID, but I do need 100% recoverability in case of a drive failure (or accidental deletion). A bi-monthly backup does just fine for that...

I'm open to suggestions, of course.

 

[kn0s]

Too much Microsoft for my taste. In my opinion a server/media setup for home use can be done smarter and cheaper. But each to his own.

 

[Unknown-One]

Too much Microsoft for my taste. In my opinion a server/media setup for home use can be done smarter and cheaper. But each to his own.

Once again, how?

Open to opinions, but you're just shitting on what I've set up without offering up whatever "better" alternative it is that you're thinking of...

 

[Fritzz]

This is pretty much exactly what I have been looking at trying to do. I currently have a WHS v2 box, but I am looking to make a smaller footprint. What types of configuration changes did you make to Win 8 to make it more "home server" like? Have any shots of the internals?

 

[faugusztin]

Too bad that board limits coolers, as you can use only ones without a backplate, because someone at ASUS decided to put components there. That is why i went with Gigabyte B75N in my test rig in Node 304, i wanted to use my Corator DS, which uses the Noctua mount system.

 

[Unknown-One]

Too bad that board limits coolers, as you can use only ones without a backplate, because someone at ASUS decided to put components there. That is why i went with Gigabyte B75N in my test rig in Node 304, i wanted to use my Corator DS, which uses the Noctua mount system.

I noticed that a little too late. I had a left-over tower heatsink I was going to install, but couldn't for that very reason.

There are ways of making it work, though. Some longer screws and spacers will sort it out... not that you need much of a heatsink to handle a Core i3. A Hyper TX3 or a Freezer 13 would probably do just fine (and neither one uses a backplate)

 

[Unknown-One]

This is pretty much exactly what I have been looking at trying to do. I currently have a WHS v2 box, but I am looking to make a smaller footprint. What types of configuration changes did you make to Win 8 to make it more "home server" like? Have any shots of the internals?

I'll work up a list of the configuration changes I made. It'll take a bit of time though.

Buuuut, I did just snap some pics with the top off for you

Top off:


Left side:


Right side:


You might also notice the switch changed colors... The older 8-port switch I was using started crapping out (horrible stuttering while streaming media through it). Purchased a much newer version of the same switch and swapped it out.