About to build a WHS - what do you think of these specs?

[newstuart]

I was going to go down the route of using old parts to build a WHS but have decided to build a new system manily from scratch as i want to ensure it is reliable and will also run some home automation softwware on it 24/7

I need to backup 3 tb of dvds on my htpc and also the system backups of the htpc and the house laptop.

My spec is as follows

Case - unsure but it will be something cheap with decent airflow and lots of drive space, I dont believe in spending decent money on a case that will not be on show

PSU - Prob going to re-use one I have, cant remember the model but it was a good spec model

Motherboard - Asus P5KPL-AM
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/Asus-P5KP...ro-ATX-VGA

CPU/ram - Dual core I already have with 2 gb of decent ram

Storage drives - 2 x Seagate 2 TB drives
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/2TB-ST3200542AS-SATA-HDD

System Drive

I have a few 500gb drives sat around that I would like to re-use if possible(not needed for storage mind as the 4 tb gives me plenty of headroom - is it worth fitting 2 of these in raid for the system?

I plan to keep the original 3 tb in the htpc and leave duplication off on the WHS as i feel this would give me the best choice of duplication (ie copies of everything on 2 totally seperate systems.

Any sugestions or comments on my plans

[elootos]

Seems like a good spec for a server. I've had to look back on my thread about my WHS to remind me of my spec, in fact I've realised this morning that I haven't rebooted it in over 2 months!! It's been in and out of hibernate all that time with Lights Out and I've completely forgotten about it in the loft!! It's amazing how much you can use it and never actually be aware its there.

Anyway I digress about your machine.

Mobo looks good, I assume it has decent XP drivers still for all its onboard hardware. Although the next version of WHS (Vail) is currently in beta stage to download so you may want to try that or even see when it's release date is as that is Win7 stylee. The current WHS is still worth it though.

As for your drives, don't worry about the individual sizes as WHS itself creates a RAID out of them; the entire global WHS storage is just one big RAID. In fact maybe try and get a mobo with as many SATA connectors as possible because you can never have too many

And for your PSU, is it fairly effificent? You can get some very efficient models these days that also run very cool and you won't need more than about 350W.

Oh, and I can't see any reason to have duplication across 2 machines, after all that's what the function is there for on WHS. The only reason would be if the PSU shorted itself in turn frying the hard drives.

[northan]

I would seriously get 6 sata connections if you can. It will make life so easy.
Elootos is right about the drivers, research all the drivers if you can. I couldn't get an xp driver for something on one of my boards, and so wouldn't let me use lights out very well.
Be conscious of power levels, even in standby, or hibernation. These babies can kick out a fair whack of juice, could be equivalent to running a few light bulbs on 24/7 ££££££
I was never sure if I should have bought a mobo with a gpu or without. I couldn't see the point of powering unused components, I had a spare gpu card knocking around which I connect when I need the monitor on.

As far as the hard drives go, looking at some choices, I personally think the samsung ecogreen 2tb is more economical on power and has a faster response time, maybe even cheaper.
For a few pounds extra but some great reviews for power consumption and blistering speeds is the western digital WD20EARS, 32mb extra cache will no doubt help.

I think spending some money on fans, and vibration is really useful. I don't know where your going to keep the machine but I find that fans that move slow put pump lots of air the best, bigger the fan the better, so finding a case that holds 120's or bigger is the way to go, cases with a good design wont pack the hd's to tight and hopefully pull air through them. cheap case yes, bad design no.

Take out the hds from your htpc and stick them in too, stick the os on the largest hdd in your collection, its something you cant change in the future.

[Illingworth22]

Can anyone recomend a MoBo with 6 to 8 Sata connections? I would rather have more Sata's and a lower sepc processor if poss!

[elootos]

(01-01-2011 11:52 AM)Illingworth22 Wrote:  Can anyone recomend a MoBo with 6 to 8 Sata connections? I would rather have more Sata's and a lower sepc processor if poss!

I struggled to find a low spec AM3 (AM2+) board with more than 4 connectors. They were the cheapest option, especially when teamed with a Sempron CPU at around £25.

I've added more ports to my server by adding a SATA expansion card. As mentioned here, you can get them for as little as £9 and they can add up to 3 more ports. On the card with an IDE port as well, you can even get IDE to SATA converters and run another SATA HDD off that port giving you a total of 4 extra ports off one PCI card.

You'll never get high end burst speeds with these expansion cards, but for media and general data storage in the home, they still exceed what is needed by quite a margin.

My WHS and unRAID server that have both run with the cards have had no problems.

[Illingworth22]

(01-01-2011 01:51 PM)elootos Wrote:  

(01-01-2011 11:52 AM)Illingworth22 Wrote:  Can anyone recomend a MoBo with 6 to 8 Sata connections? I would rather have more Sata's and a lower sepc processor if poss!

I struggled to find a low spec AM3 (AM2+) board with more than 4 connectors. They were the cheapest option, especially when teamed with a Sempron CPU at around £25.

I've added more ports to my server by adding a SATA expansion card. As mentioned here, you can get them for as little as £9 and they can add up to 3 more ports. On the card with an IDE port as well, you can even get IDE to SATA converters and run another SATA HDD off that port giving you a total of 4 extra ports off one PCI card.

You'll never get high end burst speeds with these expansion cards, but for media and general data storage in the home, they still exceed what is needed by quite a margin.

So the SATA card will be OK for say recorded HD TV stuff? And HAPPY NEW YEAR to you too! :)

[elootos]

(01-01-2011 01:53 PM)Illingworth22 Wrote:  

(01-01-2011 01:51 PM)elootos Wrote:  

(01-01-2011 11:52 AM)Illingworth22 Wrote:  Can anyone recomend a MoBo with 6 to 8 Sata connections? I would rather have more Sata's and a lower sepc processor if poss!

I struggled to find a low spec AM3 (AM2+) board with more than 4 connectors. They were the cheapest option, especially when teamed with a Sempron CPU at around £25.

I've added more ports to my server by adding a SATA expansion card. As mentioned here, you can get them for as little as £9 and they can add up to 3 more ports. On the card with an IDE port as well, you can even get IDE to SATA converters and run another SATA HDD off that port giving you a total of 4 extra ports off one PCI card.

You'll never get high end burst speeds with these expansion cards, but for media and general data storage in the home, they still exceed what is needed by quite a margin.

So the SATA card will be OK for say recorded HD TV stuff?

It'll be spot on

I think these cards probably max out at around 133MB/sec (the speed of the PCI slots), which isn't quick by modern standards, but when HDTV is around 1~2MB/sec then there's a massive amount of headroom still.

[northan]

(01-01-2011 02:01 PM)elootos Wrote:  It'll be spot on

I think these cards probably max out at around 133MB/sec (the speed of the PCI slots), which isn't quick by modern standards, but when HDTV is around 1~2MB/sec then there's a massive amount of headroom still.

By the time anything takes up that much bandwidth, Im sure all our hardware will change 3 times over. hmmmm the future :super hi vision tv
watch