• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

WHS build

N

no_control

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 6, 2006
Messages
1,429
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Data storage...nothing else

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

as cheap as I can get it and meet my requirements

3) Where do you live?

SoCal

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.

Everything Except strage HDDs

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

Several WD GP drive of Various sizes, I have a LL PC60 but was looking at other more practical and cost effective solutions

6) Will you be overclocking?

negative

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?

want to run this headless

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

within 2 weeks

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.

Enough SATA and PCI(E) slots to fit whatever controllers I need.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?

Yes WHS would be preferred (also have 2008 R2)

I Have an HP MSS, Sans Digital TR4M & a rosewill R-2 (total of 10 slots spread across 3 devices) right now but I'm running out of space fairly quickly. I have a LL PC60 case which with some modifications I think I could stuff quite a few drives in. But I would prefer a backplane setup for ease of use. I've considered full towers etc..The cost of the backplane coupled with the cost of a case is just budget killing. I'm considering one of the norco cases as well. Since I'm asking for the world...I would also like to run this as low power as possible. (like a sempron 140 or Atom). and not sound like a jet engine. My mod/fab skills are fairly high.

Open to options and suggestions short of selling my smaller driver to replace with larger ones.
 
You need to give us a hard number for your budget. I know you said that you want to build this as cheaply as possible, but some people still get carried away with their recommendations (sometimes intentionally).

Additionally, we need more details about your storage plans. How many drives do you have? Do you plan on buy any more drives soon? Are you going to use RAID? Do you plan on reusing your add-on cards as well?
 
Understood and realize why your asking, however....I've noticed everytime someone provides a budget in a post the parts list is maxed out to the budget limit. The budget for me at the moment is as cheap as possible. I'm looking for the cheapest solid solution taking into consideration where I'm coming from, MSS adding more DAS, So I can determine what is the cheapest I can get away with with the info I provided. Looking for a firm number for a ~20 drive file server.

Drives Already owned:
3x500gb
5x1tb
1x2tb
2x 80gb Would use 1 of these for system only not part of the drive pool.

Server currently contains about 7TB of data

I buy drives as I need them or when good deals come up.

I'm using WHS so I would prefer not to use raid unless there is a specific and significant reason to do it. Not a big fan of raid, too restrictive.

I do not have add any in cards

HP MSS EX470 only has a single eSATA port. It does have 3 USB ports on the back. I could use the same as the link you provided but via USB. Point is I'm trying to consolidate all of the Boxes I have into a single cohesive unit.
 
Yeah the MSS servers that support port multipliers only have one eSATA connector. You can still get a TR4M-B. It's still cramped so I'd look into building a new system and selling off your MSS, you can get well over a dozen drives in a Cooler Master 590 with the 4-in-3 modules.
 
I'm less interested in the case as I am the actual computer...I'm 75% sure I'm going to get the norco
 
no_control said:
Understood and realize why your asking, however....I've noticed everytime someone provides a budget in a post the parts list is maxed out to the budget limit. The budget for me at the moment is as cheap as possible. I'm looking for the cheapest solid solution taking into consideration where I'm coming from, MSS adding more DAS, So I can determine what is the cheapest I can get away with with the info I provided. Looking for a firm number for a ~20 drive file server.
Click to expand...

That's the point though. The problem is that we all have a different definitions of "cheap as possible".

For a 20 drive file server, the Norco 4020 is the best bang for the buck 20 drive hot-swap capable case there is. PC wise, you can get away with this:
$98 - AMD Sempron 140 CPU + GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H 785G mATX mobo

The mobo has 5 SATA ports and $60 for a quality mobo like the above Gigabyte is a pretty good buy. For additional SATA ports, you can get these:
$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

Both of those SuperMicro cards have shown up in many Norco 4020 WHS builds so those are good choices.

PSU wise, I recommend this high quality 750W PSU. It's also one of the best bang for the buck 750W PSU today:
$95 - Antec Truepower New TP750 750W PSU

So basically to get 20 hot swappable bays and the capability to use them, you'll need to spend roughly $700 for a WHS server with 20 hot-swap capable bays, the two controller cards necessary to use 21 drives (20 hotswap + one OS drive), a PSU capable of powering 20 drives, and a low power CPU + mobo for single cohesive unit. That's probably the best bang for the buck server that best fits your needs/wants
 
Last edited:
This is exactly what I wanted to know. Thank you!

Now I'm off to crunch numbers and decide if this is really the option I want to go with.
 
If you find out that you do not need/want 20 drives or hot-swap capability I recommend doing the following:

- Mod that Lian Li PC60 case to fit a 120mm rear fan. A 92mm fan might be enough if you can't fit a 120mm but a 120mm is preferred. Make the top fan 120mm as well if you want.
- Buy one of these 4in3 bays and put it inside the Lian Li:
$10 - Coolermaster 621013210-GP 4in3 Device Module
- Get this PSU to power 12 drives:
$67 - Seasonic SS-500ES 500W PSU
- Get the same mobo + CPU combo and just one of those SuperMicro cards.

That'll be roughly $277 for a single cohesive WHS server that's holds 12-13 drives, a single controller card necessary to use 13 drives, a PSU capable of powering 13 drives, and a low power CPU + mobo. If you can't mod that Lian Li case, just go with the CoolerMaster RC-590 case and two of the above 4in3 bays that I linked to above.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top