Power Efficient Build for Home Server?

Zyperx100

Reputable
Oct 6, 2014
2
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4,510
I'm hoping to run a home server with Ubuntu that I can use for torrenting and streaming high quality media via Plex. The machine will be on 24/7.

I need it to be as power efficient as possible with the cost being below 800 dollars.

I'm thinking about using 4x 2TB HDDs on RAID 5 with this enclosure:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1DS1PR2767

As for the build for the server/HTPC, I'm thinking:


The only thing I'm missing is the CD drive, but maybe I have to get an external one.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Also, I'll be hooking this machine up to my TV via an HDMI cable and using onboard graphic.
 
Solution
RAID is very power inefficient....if your largest concern is power efficiency, I would suggest not using RAID - and minimizing the number of hard drives utilized to the minimum. You won't need tremendous speed for torrenting unless you have 1Gbps service - and even then, it is difficult to bottleneck at the drive level.

Streaming video on a home server shouldn't be an issues either, usually having a single drive is sufficient to stream 4-6 HD video streams on a network without any bottleneck.

I would also suggest a different PSU - cooler master is not on the "top of my list" - look on the tier1 / tier2 lists for the best PSU: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1925006/power-supply-tiered-list.html

I would suggest going with an...
RAID is very power inefficient....if your largest concern is power efficiency, I would suggest not using RAID - and minimizing the number of hard drives utilized to the minimum. You won't need tremendous speed for torrenting unless you have 1Gbps service - and even then, it is difficult to bottleneck at the drive level.

Streaming video on a home server shouldn't be an issues either, usually having a single drive is sufficient to stream 4-6 HD video streams on a network without any bottleneck.

I would also suggest a different PSU - cooler master is not on the "top of my list" - look on the tier1 / tier2 lists for the best PSU: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1925006/power-supply-tiered-list.html

I would suggest going with an SSD for the OS and two 4TB drives - one as a primary drive and the second for backups. I would bet that a program similar to SyncBack Free is available for Linux to backup the hard drive and/or synchronize the drives. Remember - RAID is not a substitute for backups....
 
Solution

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator


Your disk enclosure is a USB 3.0. It doesn't look like have a RAID controller built in. The disks would be JBOD only I believe. If you want power efficient network storage, you should look at the purpose built NAS units from Synology, Qnap or Thecus. I know Synology has torrent clients and Plex server. All the units will have hardware RAID and support RAID 5.