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Building a new home Linux server

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  • Linux
  • Systems
  • Servers
Last response: in Systems
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May 5, 2013 1:03:40 PM

To my great regret, my home Linux server, built in 2005, finally failed. Now I need to build a new one, ASAP. While I'm at it I'm going to upgrade its storage capacity.

The server is on 24x7x365 and is used primarily for:

  • Software RAID 5 storage array, particularly music and movies
  • Samba server for my gigabit network (~3 clients)
  • A couple daemons such as a BitTorrent client; i.e. nothing extremely CPU nor RAM intensive

  • Other occasional uses:

    • Running a Linux VM or three
    • Batch transcoding and processing of audio and video files
    • Collecting video from security cameras and batch transcoding it

  • The most important things to me in a new server are:

    • Linux compatibility: I want the hardware to be fully supported by the mainline kernel, and preferably also the RHEL 6 kernel. I strongly prefer not to depend on third-party kernel modules and binary modules are out of the question. I most likely will not depend on any SATA or network chipsets made by Promise, Broadcom, or NVIDIA, and Marvell might even be iffy. I have a relatively good track record with Intel products under Linux.
    • Fast I/O: I want to wait for I/O as little as reasonably possible, whether locally or over the network. Obviously I don't need a 15k SAS RAID 10 array, but on the other extreme a single spindle will not cut it.
    • At least 7 TB of storage.
    • Value: I don't want a "cheap" build but I also don't want to waste money. I'd like to keep this server for the next seven years.
    • Noise: This server will be in our office with us. We've become accustomed to the noise from the old server (~5 case fans, PSU, Intel CPU cooler), and anything significantly louder is unacceptable. Quieter is better, of course.

  • Reliability is also important to me, as I've got beloved data on this server. I keep backups and I have the server on a UPS, but I'm currently thinking I'm going to buy backup parts for at least some of this build: doubles of at least motherboard and any extra controllers I need, and a spare disk on hand for the arrays. (I hope CPUs fail as infrequently as I think they do, after they've survived their first months.)

    What I'm currently thinking of is:

    Lian Li PC-V2100 case (already owned)
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

    Corsair HX750 PSU (just bought, can return but inclined to keep it)
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

    Supermicro X9SCL-F motherboard (or X9SCM-F if I decide I want the extra PCIe)
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

    Xeon E3-1230
    http://amzn.com/B004O3DFHE

    2x8 GB DDR3 PC3-12800 ECC DRAM
    http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=C5...

    IBM M1015 PCIe SAS HBA (probably off eBay?)
    http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0740.html

    2x 80 GB SATA Seagate Barracudas in RAID 1 for the OS (already owned)

    5x Seagate Barracuda 2 TB SATA disks in RAID 5 for data
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

    As soon as I configured a Xeon, though, I started wondering if I might be over-buying for my needs, especially considering that I've been using a Pentium D and 8 GB of RAM up until last week.

    My question for you all is: given my needs, what would you recommend for my replacement server? Or do you see obvious improvements to my above list? Build or buy, I don't care--I'm not above buying something from Dell or eBay so long as it meets my needs. All suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

    Thank you!
  • More about : building home linux server

    May 6, 2013 12:28:19 AM

    Thinking about going way in the other direction, could I get away with this? Real-time transcoding is probably out, but I can't believe it wouldn't be 2x faster or more than the seven year old server it's replacing.

    PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

    CPU: Intel Celeron G1610 2.6GHz Dual-Core Processor ($34.99 @ Microcenter)
    Motherboard: Intel DH61BEB3 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($66.99 @ Amazon)
    Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($66.99 @ Newegg)
    Total: $168.97
    (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
    (Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-05-06 03:20 EDT-0400)

    Throw that in my Lian Li ATX case, add in an LSI HBA in the x16 slot?

    Should my 24x7 file server have ECC memory? Looks like maybe $20 more.

    Is there a better motherboard with an Intel NIC, maybe a motherboard that'll accept 16 GB or more?
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    May 31, 2013 7:27:27 AM

    I will definitely not use such a powerful processor as Xeon for such simple needs. Even the Celeron processing power would not be used, but I guess it is the best option you can choose now.

    If you could wait a bit, there are AMD Kabini processors coming in a month or two, which would do everything you need using about 15W of power.

    This 750W PSU is an absolute overkill, as even with 7 hard drives your server won't use more than 150W of power (maybe closer to 200W if you ll go with the Xeon).
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