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Media Streaming Server :)

D

dustout

n00b
Joined
Mar 18, 2007
Messages
62
Hello Hard Forum

Almost two years ago I came here and made this post. Since then the computer you guys helped me build has been running non stop receiving upgrade after upgrade :). However as i install my 6th 1.5tb HDD into my atom D945GCLF2 i realize that it is time for a new computer, so once again am back for some advice. My requirements are as follows

Required Parts
Case: very quiet and big enough to hold 10 hard drives stock (i'll mod some more in as needed after that)
Mobo: needs 4 (or more) sata connectors with raid support, and then a bunch of pci/pciexpress slots for future sata ports. I'd like the potential to have 15HDD's if possible
CPU: powerful enough to stream a 1080p mkv video with tversity to my ps3 on an encryped HDD (truecrypt)
Graphics: Since this will be a media streaming server graphics aren't a big deal (at least i don't think they are), so i'd like to roll with an integrated solution if possible, also no graphics would work as well :)

Generic
Budget:$600-$1000CAD
Purpose: Media streaming server for 5 people with full disk HDD encryption
OS: WHS

What I Am Thinking Of Getting (will update as suggestions are made)
Case: Lian Li 343B (BOUGHT)
Mobo:Asus P7H55D-M EVO
CPU: Intel Core i3 530
Ram: Kingston KVR1333 2GB
SAS Expander: HP SAS expander
Raid Controller: 3Ware 9690SA-4I 4Port RAID Controller
CPU Cooling: Cooler Master V8





--------------
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Media Streaming to 5 users (very unlikely all at once)
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$600-$1000CAD
3) Where do you live?
Canada
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
Motherboard, CPU, Case, Graphics Card
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
power supply (if that one isn't powerful enough i got a 1200W kicking around so shouldn't be a big concern), 4gb of ddr3 ram i had sitting around, and a bunch of wires, 6 1.5TB HDD's
6) Will you be overclocking?
No
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Connected to 19" monitor, it is a server so no biggie
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAP
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
Raid, lots of room for future sata ports
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
Yea, i'm with MSDN so i get all that stuff




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THE [H]ardware porn
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Quiet and 15 drives doesn't really go together BTW ;)

Anyway a few problems with your plan:
- The onboard RAID controller of most mobos have slow RAID 5 performance. Roughly 20MB/s to 40MB/s write speed. Though the newer ICH10R can hit 70MB/s write apparently.
- It uses your CPU to handle the parity calculations. As such you might see anywhere from 10% to 50% CPU constant CPU usage at all times depending on the size of the RAID array.

If you want to stick with Windows, it's been recommended quite often in the Data Storage subforum to get a true hardware RAID controller, not the fakeRAID or software RAID controller that most motherboards have due to Windows software RAID performance issues. However those do tend to cost quite a bit of money.

Anyway I'll post more later. Got to go.
 
lol, yea quietness and keeping a nice cooling system with that many HDD's didn't seem that easy. However they will never have to work extremely hard so 40MB/s should suffice. However i will check out your ICH10R suggestion as it may be useful.

I used ubuntu as my server for quite some time, but ever since the utorrent webui stopped working it has been kind of a dissapointment. May as well join the dark side. I might even install SQL express :eek:

I have a $100 raid card, kind of like the one linked below, it worked pretty good in ubuntu, i would assume it would work just as well in windows :confused:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX11594(ME).aspx

Looking forward to reading your update :)
 
for the kind of hourse power you need & the fact its going to be an always on server I would try to track down a Phenom 2 x4 905e (Intel's 65 watt quads are WAY to expensive) & a good raid card. That being said the raid card will be the MOST expensive part especially if you end up needing 2.

As for the case if you really want it to hold that much & still be fairly quiet then nothing will beat the Lian Li PC-343B, but its quite spends as well.. That being said its one that ou should not soon outgrow given the 18 5.25" bays & you can throw these in to get you nicely spaced out 3.5" bays with plenty of airflow so you wont need any fast moving fans, thus keeping it fairly quiet.. That being said finding room for 12 drives would be much easier accomplished in any number of cases (including the popular rocketfish full tower that you can pick up used for as little as 50 bucks) or the antec 1200 thats also fairly common
 
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OK some more info, rambling, thoughts, advice, etc:

Do note that if you really want to use the motherboard's onboard RAID controller and a Core i3 or Core i5 CPU with onboard graphics, you have to get a mobo using the Intel H57 chipset as that's paired with ICH10R. The regular H55 chipset only has ICH10 with zero onboard RAID controller. The only reasonably priced Intel H57 mobo at Memory Express was this:
$120 CAD - Gigabyte GA-H57M-USB3 Intel H57 mATX Motherboard

However do note that only 5 of that Gigabyte's 7 SATA ports are controlled by the ICH10R. Unfortunately, Intel's ICH10R does not support SAS expander cards or any expander cards for that matter. So in other words, you're pretty much locked into a 5 drive RAID 5 array using the ICH10R. So you're gonna have to find a hardware RAID controller if you want additional drives as part of a RAID array. Yes this means you'll have two seperate RAID 5 arrays. Also note that the max number of drives that ICH10R supports is 6 drives. So you're not gonna get that many more drives by going with a different Intel setup.

Now if you do go with the ICH10R route and don't mind being limited to a 5 drive RAID 5 array, get a good UPS if you haven't already. One of the biggest issue with ICH10R when compared to a true hardware RAID controller is that should the PC unexpectedly loses power, the RAID 5 array might get corrupted. Putting the PC on a UPS would help prevent unexpected power loss and therefore RAID corruption. It'll buy you time while you shut down the PC.

Also note: ICH10R is the only real half-decent motherboard onboard RAID controller out there. So if you go the AMD route, you may have to avoid mobo onboard RAID and Windows software RAID and go with something like Linux software RAID.

In case you're wondering, it's not a good idea to use the actual Windows software RAID implementation as that's been shown to be pretty slow, lacks Online Capacity Expansion (allows you to expand a RAID array without losing data), and uses quite a lot of the CPU. The only times when it's a good idea to use the OSes' software RAID implementation is if you're using Linux or FreeBSD.

Speaking of Linux, dunno if you ever tried it, but Linux's MDADM software RAID implementation is significantly faster and more flexible than Window's software RAID or a motherboard's software RAID implementation. Let's use the above Gigabyte H57 mobo as an example: With ICH10R, you can only have a 5 drive RAID 5 array. With Linux's MDADM software RAID, you get to use all 7 SATA ports as part of the Linux RAID array. In fact, you don't even need the H57 mobo at that point. You can easily stick with your original chosen mobo. Not only that, if you have one these three storage controllers:
$100 - SuperMicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 PCI-X (PCI Compatible) 8 Port SATA Controller Card
$100 - SuperMicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI-Ex4 8 Port SATA Controller Card
$120 - Supermicro AOC-USAS-L8i PCI-Ex8 8 Port SATA Controller Card

You get to use all those SATA ports as part of the same RAID array that the motherboard's onbaord SATA ports are on. So that means that you can have a 15 drive RAID 5 array using the motherboard's onboard SATA and those HBA's SATA ports. However do note that it's generally not recommended to use RAID 5 with commercial hardware with that many drives. Past 8-10 drives or so, it's generally recommended to use RAID 6. Still doable with Linux.

Now, another sign of Linux's software RAID flexibility is that even if the motherboard dies or the hard drive that contains the OS install dies, you can rebuild the RAID array without loss of data on another Linux OS install. So you could have Linux RAID array with a Core i5 CPU and Intel motherboard with Ubuntu Linux, have it die, and rebuild that same RAID array on an AMD Phenom II CPU and AMD motherboard with Linux Mint.

So yeah, might want to give Linux another look.

Now if you really want to use a Windows OS, then I highly recommend taking a look at Windows Home Server. This FAQ's is a good starting point about WHS. So I won't go too in-depth with WHS as I did with Linux software RAID:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1390750

There's not a RAID array of sorts with WHS. The drive extender feature pretty much combines JBOD and psuedo RAID 1 into one. Basically, you can use different sized drives as part of WHS' drive pool. So you can have a 1TB and 2TB drive and they'll just be a 3TB drive pool. That's the JBOD function. Now here's the psuedo RAID 1 function: If there's a folder containing files that you deem absolutely critical, you can right click on the folder and enable "Duplication". What that'll do is make sure that a second copy of the file is placed on a different drive in drive pool. So if a drive containing the duplicated folder fails, you won't lose the data.

I'm personally using WHS and I love it. And yes there are people out there who use WHS with large number of drives:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1323744
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1328410

The above two OP were well known for their usage of $700 to $1300+ actual true hardware RAID controllers. So for them to switch to WHS should be saying something about WHS.

Another large WHS implementation:
http://www.servethehome.com/category/the-big-whs-30-drive-whs/

Another Windows option is FlexRAID. Dunno too much about that so you're gonna have to find more info on your own about that.

Anyway, hope the above helps. The second you figure out what OS you want to use and how you want your storage setup, let us know and we can start recommending parts.
 
Copy/Pasted/modified my response from another thread as I thought it was relevant:

Another option before I sleep:
Get this 3Ware 9690SA-4I 4Port RAID Controller for about $237:
http://cgi.ebay.com/3WARE-AMCC-9690...ultDomain_2&hash=item35aa8dcf8a#ht_798wt_1137

Get the HP SAS expander for about $300:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1484614

Connect the two cards as stated in the link I provided and bam! 32 hard drives capability. Yes this is the more costlier approach but this method will make sure that you don't have to think about expandability ever again. This will allow you to have a true hardware RAID array with 32 hard drives! That means a lot of performance.

However you have to make sure that you have at least two spare PCI-E x16 ports in order to use both of those cards.
 
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I would 2nd the WHS notion.. Thats what I have for my media server as well & it does fine. I am also using pyTivo to transcode video's to serve them out to 2 HD tivo's, as well as using it for a regular file server & seed box. I Tried several different nix flavors & in the end settled on WHS because it just plain works & the drive pooling is fucking awesome. Danny already explained what it is, but for home use I dont think that there is a raid that compete with it for flexability..
 
I have spent pretty much all of today researching what WHS is all about and i gotta say that i am pretty impressed. It sounds like exactly what i have been searching for. I have also put a bunch of time into figuring out what a SAS extender does and how it works, don't really understand it, but from what i have seen it has the functionality of what i need.

@bastage
If that cpu would be powerful enough to convert 1080p videos to my xbox in real time with tversity then i am game :) thanks for the suggestion :)

That Lian Li PC-343B is intense, but it seems kinda like overkill, and the shipping charges don't exactly help sweeten the deal. I was thinking that a Norco 4020 like the person in the below post used would be ideal
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034381654&postcount=275

@Danny Bui
OMG i was re-reading my topic about my previous computer and you were the one that suggested the exact parts i ended up getting. THANK YOU SO MUCH :p :p

So i have read your amazing post like a hundred times and to be honest a linux raid sounds tempting, but after learning what WHS can do i am sold. Also using a SAS expander card sounds legendary, i'll stay away from Intel ICH10R's like the plauge.

Some of those links you posted have some pretty interesting builds, and http://www.servethehome.com might just become a new daily site cause it has some interesting stuff

I am a bit confused as to how the 3Ware 9690SA-4I 4Port RAID Controller and the HP SAS expander result in a 32 drive setup, but i'll take your word for it as from what i have researched on SAS they are pretty complex.


EDIT: Have updated first post with what i am thinking ATM, would it be possible to pick up the additional raid controller and sas expander later on down the road when i need more space? Or what would be the possible consequences of such an action.
 
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That 905e shouldn't have a problem.. My Dual core atom can do up to 480p in double real time, but 1080p I have to let it buffer. So that Phenom should be able to tackle it with time to spare. & Yea that Lian Li is intense.. But its also going to be quieter then that norco or any other rack mount I think due to having room for everything to breath without having to use high CFM fans.
 
That is good to hear, i've been getting a bunch of 1080p stuff and i have been looking forward to viewing it on my ps3 for quite some time now :)

I just wish that there was a place that sold that case locally, the more i look at it the more i want it :p
 
It's actually fairly rare even online. But it would be about the last large case you would ever need to buy.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
That is the ultimate water cooling case though... I'd stick with the Lian Li for your purposes.
 
Doesn't mean you don't want that much space.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
dustout said:
I have spent pretty much all of today researching what WHS is all about and i gotta say that i am pretty impressed. It sounds like exactly what i have been searching for. I have also put a bunch of time into figuring out what a SAS extender does and how it works, don't really understand it, but from what i have seen it has the functionality of what i need.

@Danny Bui
OMG i was re-reading my topic about my previous computer and you were the one that suggested the exact parts i ended up getting. THANK YOU SO MUCH :p :p

So i have read your amazing post like a hundred times and to be honest a linux raid sounds tempting, but after learning what WHS can do i am sold. Also using a SAS expander card sounds legendary, i'll stay away from Intel ICH10R's like the plauge.

Some of those links you posted have some pretty interesting builds, and http://www.servethehome.com might just become a new daily site cause it has some interesting stuff

I am a bit confused as to how the 3Ware 9690SA-4I 4Port RAID Controller and the HP SAS expander result in a 32 drive setup, but i'll take your word for it as from what i have researched on SAS they are pretty complex.


EDIT: Have updated first post with what i am thinking ATM, would it be possible to pick up the additional raid controller and sas expander later on down the road when i need more space? Or what would be the possible consequences of such an action.
Click to expand...

No prob on the build :D

Anyway, did you read the HP SAS Expander link I provided? Pretty much answered all of your questions actually. But to recap: think of a SAS expander as a giant USB hub. The 3Ware card only has one port (SFF-8087 port) on it. However with that port you can use a special cable that splits into 4 SATA cables to attach 4 SATA drives to the 3Ware card. However there's also another special cable that allows you to connect the 3Ware to the HP SAS expander using that same port. Unlike the 3Ware card however, the HP SAS expander has 8 of those ports (SFF-8087 port). As such, you can then use that special cable that splis into 4 SATA cables to attach 4 SATA drives to each of those ports. So 8 x 4 = 32 hard drives total.

Also, since you're using WHS, you don't even need the 3Ware card or its RAID capability actually. The last two Supermicro cards that I posted earlier can also be connected to the HP SAS expander for more ports.

Yeah it's possible to pick up an additional RAID controller and SAS expander down the road. You don't really need to get it right away unless you need those ports right away.
 
Being that it is a storage server any reason why you aren't considering 2tb drives to cut down on the number of drives making noise and heat? I realize you have a bunch of drives now but you could always sell them to help offest expenses a bit.
 
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SlowCobra said:
Being that it is a storage server any reason why you aren't considering 2gb drives to cut down on the number of drives making noise and heat? I realize you have a bunch of drives now but you could always sell them to help offest expenses a bit.
Click to expand...

If going whs then the drives don't need to match. So you can use whatever now and add 2tb drives later.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
bastage said:
If going whs then the drives don't need to match. So you can use whatever now and add 2tb drives later.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
Click to expand...

I am aware of that I was just asking due to the OP wanting up to 15 "smaller" drives. If I was doing what he was doing I would use 2tb drives for less heat and noise.
 
After much searching i was able to find a really cool guy selling a Lian Li 343B online, so i picked it up. Along with two SATABAY5BK drive cages to keep everything nice and cool :)

Also i am now considering the AMD Phenom™ II X4 965 Black Edition as compared to the X6 as from what i understand tversity/ps3 media center do not take advantage of multiple cores, so things would likely perform much faster with this chip. I also found a cheaper motherboard as well. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks :)


Danny Bui said:
No prob on the build :D

Anyway, did you read the HP SAS Expander link I provided? Pretty much answered all of your questions actually. But to recap: think of a SAS expander as a giant USB hub. The 3Ware card only has one port (SFF-8087 port) on it. However with that port you can use a special cable that splits into 4 SATA cables to attach 4 SATA drives to the 3Ware card. However there's also another special cable that allows you to connect the 3Ware to the HP SAS expander using that same port. Unlike the 3Ware card however, the HP SAS expander has 8 of those ports (SFF-8087 port). As such, you can then use that special cable that splis into 4 SATA cables to attach 4 SATA drives to each of those ports. So 8 x 4 = 32 hard drives total.

Also, since you're using WHS, you don't even need the 3Ware card or its RAID capability actually. The last two Supermicro cards that I posted earlier can also be connected to the HP SAS expander for more ports.

Yeah it's possible to pick up an additional RAID controller and SAS expander down the road. You don't really need to get it right away unless you need those ports right away.
Click to expand...
Sounds awesome, when the time comes that i need more SATA slots i'll be picking one of those babies up for sure :)

SlowCobra said:
Being that it is a storage server any reason why you aren't considering 2tb drives to cut down on the number of drives making noise and heat? I realize you have a bunch of drives now but you could always sell them to help offest expenses a bit.
Click to expand...
I doubt they would sell for much, but the next few hard drives that i buy will most definitely be 2tb ones
 
dustout said:
Also i am now considering the AMD Phenom™ II X4 965 Black Edition as compared to the X6 as from what i understand tversity/ps3 media center do not take advantage of multiple cores, so things would likely perform much faster with this chip. I also found a cheaper motherboard as well. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...
The Phenom II X4 965 BE has a crap price to performance ratio. You're better off with either the Phenom II X4 955 or the Core i5 750.
 
dustout said:
Also i am now considering the AMD Phenom™ II X4 965 Black Edition as compared to the X6 as from what i understand tversity/ps3 media center do not take advantage of multiple cores, so things would likely perform much faster with this chip. I also found a cheaper motherboard as well. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure how the performance increases with PS3 Media Server (still using an e6600), but it does have a setting where you can adjust the number of cores it uses for transcoding.

Keep us updated with what you buy/how well it works for your streaming. I'd be interested to hear as I'll be building a new rig soon as well and one of the main purposes would be for streaming 1080p video to my ps3.
 
I have been researching this for far to long, i have decided to get a clarksdale i3 and overclock it to 4ghz, that should give me ample power to do what i need. As for software WHS on a 120 day trial and then i'll buy WHS2 when it comes out.

I intend to pick this up after work (in approximatly 5 hours)
MOBO: Asus P7H55D-M EVO (good for overclocking) (put the sas card into the PCI express 2.0 slot when i run out of sata slots again)
CPU: Intel Core i3 530
CPU Cooling: Cooler Master V8

If anyone can see a problem with my intended build please point it out :)
 
Yeah one key problem with your plan: You won't be able to do a direct upgrade/conversion from the WHS trial to an actual legit WHS or WHS v2 install. So you will have to reinstall the OS again. There's a small chance that your data might be lost during the reinstall.

Also, it seems ass-backwards to OC a server. The whole point of a server is to be stable, relatively low powered, and relatively low heat. Overclocking changes all that.
 
Danny Bui said:
Yeah one key problem with your plan: You won't be able to do a direct upgrade/conversion from the WHS trial to an actual legit WHS or WHS v2 install. So you will have to reinstall the OS again. There's a small chance that your data might be lost during the reinstall.

Also, it seems ass-backwards to OC a server. The whole point of a server is to be stable, relatively low powered, and relatively low heat. Overclocking changes all that.
Click to expand...
Uptime isn't a huge issue, my server was down for a week when i went from ext3 to ext4.

I really don't know much about overclocking but from what i have read the i3 is a superstar in this arena, and with the V8 it should be pretty stable
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/power-consumption-overclocking_9.html#sect0
I never really considered power usage, but to be honest most of the time it will just serve files, and then every once in awhile bam 1080p mkv so if there was some sort of a dynamic overclocking that would be pretty sweet, if not no biggie but it would save a bit of power :D
 
dustout said:
Uptime isn't a huge issue, my server was down for a week when i went from ext3 to ext4.

I really don't know much about overclocking but from what i have read the i3 is a superstar in this arena, and with the V8 it should be pretty stable
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/power-consumption-overclocking_9.html#sect0
I never really considered power usage, but to be honest most of the time it will just serve files, and then every once in awhile bam 1080p mkv so if there was some sort of a dynamic overclocking that would be pretty sweet, if not no biggie but it would save a bit of power :D
Click to expand...

The i3 is a decent overclocker. However I stlll don't see the need for overclocking despite PS3 media server/TVersity CPU usage.
 
Danny Bui said:
The i3 is a decent overclocker. However I stlll don't see the need for overclocking despite PS3 media server/TVersity CPU usage.
Click to expand...
that is true, i guess it would make more sense to test it non overclocked first and then if the need presents itself overclock to a max of 4ghz stock or 4.4ghz with the V8 :eek:

i'm feeling pretty confident about this build, still won't be picking up for a few more hours but i will defiantly update when i get things tested :)
 
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