Enough horsepower for microserver? Decent setup for my needs?

nighthawkvct · Nov 1, 2013

I recently was able to get my hands on a Acer RevoCenter RC111 for free, along the lines of http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859321094. The microserver uses an Intel Atom D525 (1.8GHz, 2 cores but 4 threads), comes with a 2TB drive, 2GB of ram, and runs WHS 2011. I've been building systems for 20 years, but I'm out of my element when it comes to networking sometimes.

Had a few questions:

1. I'm planning on using the server for local backups of other computers on my network, and streaming music and movies. Does this have the horsepower to stream a 1080p video (assuming I use gigabit ethernet) given the processor/motherboard? Someone online was saying they streamed two 720p MKV's to two different computers with the same processor without any issues, but I don't have the experience with this setup.

2. What kind of speeds should I expect file transfers to/from the server, again assuming gigabit ethernet. 100MB/sec-ish? Slower?

3. There isn't a whole lot of documentation that came with the server - can I add drives that are larger than 2TB? I'd like to load a 4TB drive in it, perhaps two with RAID for redundancy, but I'm not sure what the limitations of WHS 2011, the motherboard, or the bios would be. I've done some reading and it sounds like WHS 2011 doesn't want me backing up drives from my computers larger than 2TB which I'm fine with, I just want to make sure putting a 4TB drive in the server is a possibility.

4. For only doing backups and streaming music/movies, is there any value to maxing out the ram by going up to 4GB?

5. Since this comes preloaded with WHS 2011, is there any benefit to switching over to FreeNAS or any other widely used freeware OS? About the only thing I might do outside of what I listed earlier is some torrenting, but not often. Don't know much about the plugins out there.

6. I've got a spare 120GB SSD lying around that I'm not doing anything with. The server has the capability of using a smaller 2.5" drive for the OS that's separate from the drives it uses for server duties. I'm thinking of throwing it in there for the potential power savings since as I'm not doing anything with the SSD anyways - thoughts? Would TRIM still function or does it not even matter since it's not writing to the OS drive that often?

Thanks in advance for the responses, appreciate the help!

mechaichezilla · Nov 3, 2013

1. If by streaming you mean just the raw data without decoding it, that setup should be more than sufficient. I guess even decoding should be possible, but I'm not sure about that.

2. I've got a Synology DiskStation with a 2.13GHz DualCore and 2GB RAM that runs some Linux and my speeds vary from 40MB/s up to 110MB/s. Average speeds are somewhere in the middle at 70-80MB/s. Since the specs are quit similar, my guess would be that you can expect about the same rates.

3. Not sure, but I'd also guess yes.

4. I don't think so, maybe the speed will improve a little, but I'd say not noticeably.

5. No personal experiences, but from what I've heard, there should be no reason to switch the OS since both are fine. As long as WHS is installed and free there should be no reason to switch to FreeNAS or something like that (unless you distrust MS a lot

)

6. Basically it's a good idea to keep the OS on a separate drive and if there's a free slot and you have that SSD just lying around, do it. TRIM should be good on WHS. I think TRIM is only a problem if you're using a SSD as part of a RAID setup.

nighthawkvct · Nov 3, 2013

mechaichezilla :

1. If by streaming you mean just the raw data without decoding it, that setup should be more than sufficient. I guess even decoding should be possible, but I'm not sure about that.

2. I've got a Synology DiskStation with a 2.13GHz DualCore and 2GB RAM that runs some Linux and my speeds vary from 40MB/s up to 110MB/s. Average speeds are somewhere in the middle at 70-80MB/s. Since the specs are quit similar, my guess would be that you can expect about the same rates.

3. Not sure, but I'd also guess yes.

4. I don't think so, maybe the speed will improve a little, but I'd say not noticeably.

5. No personal experiences, but from what I've heard, there should be no reason to switch the OS since both are fine. As long as WHS is installed and free there should be no reason to switch to FreeNAS or something like that (unless you distrust MS a lot

)

6. Basically it's a good idea to keep the OS on a separate drive and if there's a free slot and you have that SSD just lying around, do it. TRIM should be good on WHS. I think TRIM is only a problem if you're using a SSD as part of a RAID setup.

Thanks for the info mech!!

TK3199 · Dec 20, 2014

nighthawkvct :

I recently was able to get my hands on a Acer RevoCenter RC111 for free, along the lines of http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859321094. The microserver uses an Intel Atom D525 (1.8GHz, 2 cores but 4 threads), comes with a 2TB drive, 2GB of ram, and runs WHS 2011. I've been building systems for 20 years, but I'm out of my element when it comes to networking sometimes.

Had a few questions:

1. I'm planning on using the server for local backups of other computers on my network, and streaming music and movies. Does this have the horsepower to stream a 1080p video (assuming I use gigabit ethernet) given the processor/motherboard? Someone online was saying they streamed two 720p MKV's to two different computers with the same processor without any issues, but I don't have the experience with this setup.

2. What kind of speeds should I expect file transfers to/from the server, again assuming gigabit ethernet. 100MB/sec-ish? Slower?

3. There isn't a whole lot of documentation that came with the server - can I add drives that are larger than 2TB? I'd like to load a 4TB drive in it, perhaps two with RAID for redundancy, but I'm not sure what the limitations of WHS 2011, the motherboard, or the bios would be. I've done some reading and it sounds like WHS 2011 doesn't want me backing up drives from my computers larger than 2TB which I'm fine with, I just want to make sure putting a 4TB drive in the server is a possibility.

4. For only doing backups and streaming music/movies, is there any value to maxing out the ram by going up to 4GB?

5. Since this comes preloaded with WHS 2011, is there any benefit to switching over to FreeNAS or any other widely used freeware OS? About the only thing I might do outside of what I listed earlier is some torrenting, but not often. Don't know much about the plugins out there.

6. I've got a spare 120GB SSD lying around that I'm not doing anything with. The server has the capability of using a smaller 2.5" drive for the OS that's separate from the drives it uses for server duties. I'm thinking of throwing it in there for the potential power savings since as I'm not doing anything with the SSD anyways - thoughts? Would TRIM still function or does it not even matter since it's not writing to the OS drive that often?

Thanks in advance for the responses, appreciate the help!

Did you switch the OS on this system to freeNAS? If so how did you do it...I cant even access the BIOS to change boot order on this.

cheers.

Brad

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Enough horsepower for microserver? Decent setup for my needs?

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