What do I need

[Soldier101]

I am getting ready to wire my entire house with network cable through the walls and I want to ditch my use of cable television, dvd's etc.

I want a file server that it's sole purpose is to store a mass collection of whatever movie, television show, music, or software I want.

I figure I will use WHS and start with a 2 TB drive and slowly expand as I need more since from what I have read WHS allows for me to pool drives together to be one giant one.

This also saves me on initial startup costs of building the machine to exact size requirements immediately.

What would you guys recommend for a file server setup like this? (Please include a case that can hold a ton of hard drives)

I will be using this to stream the content to my XBOX 360 and satellite machines

 

[Dangman]

WHS might not be the best of options considering that some people are having some issues with WHS and 2TB drives with advanced format. And the new version of WHS, WHS Vail, doesn't have that Drive Extender feature anymore where you can pool drives into one giant one. If you want to stick with WHS, fine but don't use 2TB drives that have advanced format.

$115 - Intel Core i3-540 CPU
$280 - Supermicro X8SI6-F because it has 8 builtin SAS2 6.0 gbps ports. The LSI2008 ROC it uses supports expanders like the HP SAS Expander (recommended below). ATX size, LGA1156 for use with Core i3 CPUs for plenty of horsepower when needed but still low energy use and low heat. Has builtin IPMI 2.0 with virtual media over LAN and KVM-over-LAN support (you can access the BIOS and install the OS from a remote computer, no keyboard, mouse or monitor needed).
$57 - Kingston 2 x 2GB ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1333 RAM
$300 - HP SAS Expander - PM Synergy Dustin for exact Price
$400 - NORCO RPC-4224 4U Rackmount Server Case
$90 - 6x NORCO C-SFF8087-D SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 Internal Multilane SAS Cable - OEM
---
$1242 plus tax and shipping

EDIT: In fact, just look at this other thread and learn from there:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1572188

 

[Red Falcon]

That's a really nice mobo. OP, if you can swing it, definitely grab it.

 

[pjkenned]

One other reason I'm a fan of the Supermicro X8SI6-F ( see the pictures with a HP SAS Expander installed in a RPC-4220) or another board with IPMI 2.0 is that you'll want the server somewhere a bit far away due to drives/ fans spinning, and IPMI 2.0/ KVM over IP lets you remote into the box even if WHS panics so you cannot RDC in.

One thing I do recommend is spending a few bucks and install a USB drive into one of the internal headers so if something does go wrong you can use the USB drive as a "spare" fix-it OS drive with a linux distro or something. The IPMI 2.0 allows one to remotely mount ISOs which is very handy too.

 

[cnick79]

I thought only Xeon processors support ECC memory, so the i3 will not work in this setup.

 

[Blue Fox]

I thought only Xeon processors support ECC memory, so the i3 will not work in this setup.

Incorrect. Any Core i3 CPU will support ECC unregistered memory in that motherboard.

 

[Nelius]

I thought only Xeon processors support ECC memory, so the i3 will not work in this setup.

In the new iX lineup from intel, it is not the CPU, but chipset, that determines whether there are ECC support or not.

Stick an iX cpu in a motherboard with a server chipset, and you will have ECC support. Put an iX cpu in a motherboard without a server chipset, and ECC support is gone.

You will however still only be able to use a max of 16 GB memory. If you need more than that, you need a Xeon.

SM FAQ

 

[devotech]

deleted

 

[Soldier101]

Thanks for the updates guys......I don't want to have a bunch of drive letters etc...and I really liked the idea of the storage pool thing to have one massive drive or share that I could organize however I want (one folder called Fileserver or share or whatever that breaks down by folders not having to worry about drives)...so when it gets full I just have to add another drive or replace a smaller one with a bigger one. If WHS is glitchy and the newer version wont have that feature anyways what would you guys recommend in order for me to get the same result as what I want with WHS?


EDIT: Reading that other thread that Danny posted for reference right now as well.

 

[RESTfulADI]

sorry to highjack, but I'm in the same boat and I would like to know what ECC memory does and why I would need it for a home server.

 

[cnick79]

Incorrect. Any Core i3 CPU will support ECC unregistered memory in that motherboard.

That's funny, because on Intel's site (very bottom) they say it doesn't. I guess this is to get people to purchase the more expensive Xeon processors.

 

[_Bogus_]

sorry to highjack, but I'm in the same boat and I would like to know what ECC memory does and why I would need it for a home server.

ECC RAM is "error correcting code" memory. It has specialized circuitry that detects and corrects memory based data corruption and errors. It does this with little impact to throughput speeds.

The primary reason you want ECC RAM in a fileserver is that you're dealing with high volumes of data being transferred across the memory bus (drive reads and writes - lots and lots and lots of them). The data on the drives is only as accurate as the bits that memory sends the drive controller. If data gets corrupted in the memory controller, no amount of RAID or disk level security will help.

In a personal computer single-disk environment, memory-based data corruption generally only affects a single file per memory error. But in a RAID array the impact of corruption could affect your whole volume. In a worst-case-scenario it could keep you from recovering the RAID array

ECC memory is very inexpensive insurance against that sort of corruption. The price differential between non-ECC RAM and ECC RAM is consider insignificant when compared to the cost of data loss on a grand scale.

 

[vraa]

Incorrect. Any Core i3 CPU will support ECC unregistered memory in that motherboard.

In the new iX lineup from intel, it is not the CPU, but chipset, that determines whether there are ECC support or not.

Stick an iX cpu in a motherboard with a server chipset, and you will have ECC support. Put an iX cpu in a motherboard without a server chipset, and ECC support is gone.

You will however still only be able to use a max of 16 GB memory. If you need more than that, you need a Xeon.

SM FAQ

can you guys please confirm that you have indeed used Intel iX with ECC?
http://www.intel.com/support/processors/corei3/sb/CS-031175.htm

Does the Intel® Core™ i3 desktop processor support Error Correction Code (ECC) memory?

The Intel® Core™ i3 desktop processor does not support ECC memory. Typically ECC memory is used on servers and workstations, rather than on desktop platforms. This is due to the price premium and extremely low likelihood of a data error occurring even on memory not utilizing ECC.

 

[pjkenned]

That's funny, because on Intel's site (very bottom) they say it doesn't. I guess this is to get people to purchase the more expensive Xeon processors.

So I e-mailed Intel about this subject a few months ago because if it was true that the i3 fully supported ECC memory, I wanted to make a post about it.

The response I got (paraphrasing) was that the i3 "supports" ECC UDIMMs in that the i3 will work if they are installed, but that the ECC functions would not be enabled when used with an i3 versus a Xeon.

For the record, I think every CPU/ motherboard should support ECC UDIMMs and the ECC functions. I could see registered DIMMs as being a server-class CPU specific thing though.