Server, NAS, or something else for my usage?

[jizzles]

Hello I'm back again. After a successful PC build, I am now on to my next project. I have been researching about servers and NAS systems. I'm not sure exactly what I need. It seems I could go either way, but I think a server would be the best choice for redundancy purposes. Also, as long as I've been using computers....I have little knowledge to RAID setups. My friend recommended to go with RAID 5 or 10+1? Not sure...lol still doing research on this.


Approximate Purchase Date: Can purchase parts now...thinking of waiting for CPU in February when the I3/5 V.2 comes out


Budget Range: As low as possible...trying to stay around $400 or less...up to $500 after rebate(s)


System Usage from Most to Least Important: storage for documents, pictures, music, movies (from avi to 720p .mkv), torrent/newsgroup downloads


Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers


Preferred Website(s) for Parts: NewEgg or anywhere that is reliable and cheap

Country of Origin: U.S.A. >> California


Parts Preferences: No preferences but I believe the SB CPUs would be great for this build...maybe?


Overclocking: No


SLI or Crossfire: No


Monitor Resolution: I don't think this really matters for this system?


Additional Comments: This system is going to be strictly used for storage especially for pictures and videos. We're on our second child (8 months now) and there are pictures and videos galore. We are currently transferring our DVDs/BR to sleeves and at the same time I am converting them and placing them on my current PC storage. I'd like to eventually move these files off my PC and onto this server/NAS/whatever build.

Right now, our home contains several laptops and two PC's. The PC's are hardwired and the rest are on wireless. My current router is the ASUS RT-N16 using the Tomato firmware. I haven't made any drastic changes in the firmware. I also have an ASUS GX-D1081 switch that is wired with my console systems. None of our systems are setup to take advantage of the gigabit speed.

I'm not too sure what OS I would use. I have read about the free ones and paid ones but have no idea what to use.

That's all I can think of for now...lol sorry if I wrote too much. I try to be as detailed as possible.

THANKS!!!

I just put these together to get something started. It's definitely not close to final build. I know I can definitely cut costs by changing out parts too. What do you guys think?

Possible Atom based build:

Case
NZXT TEMPEST EVO Crafted Series TEVO-001BK Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
$89.99

Motherboard/CPU
SUPERMICRO MBD-X7SPE-H-D525-O Proprietary Intel Atom D525 Server Motherboard
$199.99 + $7.68 shipping

RAM
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Laptop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-4GBSQ
$43.99

PSU
SeaSonic X series SS-400FL Active PFC F3 400W ATX12V Fanless 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
$129 + $5.99 shipping

Hard drives
Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive x 2 (Own 2 already)
$159.98 (AR)

Boot Hard drive
HITACHI Travelstar 5K250 HTS542580K9SA00 (0A52127) 80GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 1.5Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Already own - almost brand new from PS3

OS
Microsoft Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 (new version) - OEM
$99.99

Total Cost: $736.61


Possible I3 base build:
Case
NZXT TEMPEST EVO Crafted Series TEVO-001BK Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
$89.99

Motherboard
ASRock P55 PRO/USB3 LGA 1156 Intel P55 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
$99.99

CPU
Intel Core i3-540 Clarkdale 3.06GHz LGA 1156 73W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80616I3540
$119.99

RAM
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL
$49.99

PSU
Seasonic SS-460FL Active PFC F3, 460W Fanless ATX12V Fanless 80Plus Gold Certified, Modular Power Supply
$159.99 + $5.99 shipping

Hard drives
Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive x 2 (Own 2 already)
$159.98 (AR)

Boot Hard drive
HITACHI Travelstar 5K250 HTS542580K9SA00 (0A52127) 80GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 1.5Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Already own - almost brand new from PS3

OS
Microsoft Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 (new version) - OEM
$99.99

Total Cost: $785.91

 

[WyomingKnott]

That's some budget. Problem is - the Raid requires 4 drives (assuming you mean Raid 1+0, where you stripe over two drives for speed and size, then mirror). That eats up a piece of money right there!

NAS makes the files available to any machine in your house, including ones that you already have, but limits you to the speed of your network. If you build a server, then when you work on that server you get much, much faster speed.

I advise against Raid 0 for a NAS - the network is slower than one drive, so why go fancy to make faster transfer rates inside the NAS that don't have any effect (or is that affect?) on your actual usage speeds. Get a prebuilt with two large drives in Raid1 (mirror). If one drive fails, all your data is still on the other.

Do backups anyway.

 

[jizzles]

That's some budget. Problem is - the Raid requires 4 drives (assuming you mean Raid 1+0, where you stripe over two drives for speed and size, then mirror). That eats up a piece of money right there!

NAS makes the files available to any machine in your house, including ones that you already have, but limits you to the speed of your network. If you build a server, then when you work on that server you get much, much faster speed.

I advise against Raid 0 for a NAS - the network is slower than one drive, so why go fancy to make faster transfer rates inside the NAS that don't have any effect (or is that affect?) on your actual usage speeds. Get a prebuilt with two large drives in Raid1 (mirror). If one drive fails, all your data is still on the other.

Do backups anyway.

Is that budget really low? It's not including the hard drives. I have two 2 TB drives and plan on getting two more. I did read about Raid 1+0 and it would be expensive. I'm thinking Raid 5 is the way to go.

My PC already has over 3 TB of media files which is why I haven't bought a 2 bay NAS. My storage is building up fast.

It sounds like I should go with a server build. I just started reading about the available OS...like freenas, unread, and whs. Any info about these or others? Pros/cons?

Thanks again.

 

[taso11]

Do you have any old hardware? Sandy Bridge is way overkill and will be totally wasted in this scenario. Hard drives and network throughput will be your bottlenecks. Hardware raid is fast but expensive and mostly unnecessary in what I think you are trying to accomplish.

I like Windows Home Server for its easily expandable storage (Windows Drive Extender), selectable folder duplication, sharing and automatic backups. I haven't played with remote access yet. It will work satisfactorily on low powered hardware you may already have lying around. The new version that will be coming out, Vail, will not have WDE which I think is WHS best trait.

 

[jizzles]

Do you have any old hardware? Sandy Bridge is way overkill and will be totally wasted in this scenario. Hard drives and network throughput will be your bottlenecks. Hardware raid is fast but expensive and mostly unnecessary in what I think you are trying to accomplish.

I like Windows Home Server for its easily expandable storage (Windows Drive Extender), selectable folder duplication, sharing and automatic backups. I haven't played with remote access yet. It will work satisfactorily on low powered hardware you may already have lying around. The new version that will be coming out, Vail, will not have WDE which I think is WHS best trait.

I do not have any functional old hardware =\ Only thing I have is a brand new PSU...forget which one exactly. This did remind though that I would like to build it for low power consumption as well.

I was thinking Sandy Bridge would be a little overkill. The reason I thought about using an I3 was because I read this article...

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Silent_Home_Server_Build_Guide/CPU_Cooler_and_Total_Cost

The SPCR build seems a lot better than the budget build. Six 2 TB drives seems like plenty of space for now...but then I thought what if it isn't within the next several years...then I would have to build a new server? Or would it be better to find a mid-size case or bigger to accommodate future expansion? Am I thinking too far ahead? lol...

I read a little about WHS setups over at the mediasmartserver forums. This does seem like an easy OS to use. I did see that the WDE will/was removed for the final release but people said it wasn't that big of a loss.

How would media streaming work? Is it similar to homegroup or sharing my files and folders? Our current setup for streaming right now is leaving my PC on and either streamed wireless through Boxee Box or a laptop downstairs. The problem with this is that the AMD 955 CPU draws so much power and it's not something I like to leave on 24/7 especially during the summer season when the computer room can get real hot day and night.

I feel like building a server takes more knowledge than building my first PC lol

 

[WyomingKnott]

I feel like building a server takes more knowledge than building my first PC lol

Well, that's because it does. Which just shows that you have a good idea what you are doing.

A NAS device will be easier to setup and manage, and cheaper, than a Windows Home Server because it does less. You can get a NAS device for well under $400, like this (example only, not an endorsement) http://www.jr.com/buffalo-technology/pe/BUF_LSQ20TLR5/

It will serve files to all the machines on your network, and probably come with included software that will let it do things like stream media and even, if you get a good one, back up files from the various machines in your house.

A Windows Home Server will do more. The main reasons that I considered getting one is automatic backup of all the PCs in my house, with all of the storage mirrored. Even though I'm an experienced builder and configurer, I'd rather buy a package for this purpose. These machines have one *amazing* shortcoming: their backup catalogs are not mirrored, neither is the OS. Lose that drive, and you lose all your backups (but not media). This always puzzled me; they could have done it better.

But the Windows Home Server will be more work than a NAS. The key point of this lengthy ramble is that you have two tradeoffs to make here: Functionality vs. price, and functionality vs. how much work you have to do. The more it does for you, the more work you have to do to set up and maintain. Any half-decent NAS will fulfill your "System Usage from Most to Least Important: storage for documents, pictures, music, movies (from avi to 720p .mkv), torrent/newsgroup downloads." If that's all you really want, save yourself the work; just make sure that you set up two drives in Raid 0 or four in Raid 1+0 so that you don't lose all your stuff if a drive fails. And backup anyway.

If you want to have more abilities, you have to put in more money and work. The killer app from my point of view is the ability to have every other machine in your house back itself up to the "server" daily. Machine fails; you just restore the system image and off you go. Home Server will do this, but some NAS units will probably come with SW to do this too; I just can't tell you which.

 

[Dougie Fresh]

To drive home the point of how important a backup is and not just relying on the RAID mirroring: consider what happening with the mirroring when you accidentally delete or overwrite a file. RAID might protect you from hardware failure but it doesn't protect you from user error.

My experience with WHS has been pretty much like it's an appliance. I use mine for the same as you describe minus the torrent stuff. It's been very much setup and forget about it. It's the least amount of work of anything in my home network. For an extra layer of protection against the aforementioned accidents, I have a nightly incremental backup of my media shares. Not that I am saying to get WHS over a NAS or vice-versa, I just wanted to share my experience with WHS.

If I were going to build a new WHS I'd be looking at an Atom D525 board (Gigabyte has one with 4 SATA and Supermicro has one with 6), a Lian-Li PC-Q08 chassis, 2GB ram and a couple of 2 x Samsung F4 2TB HDDs. I'd also have a small OS drive to isolate it from the media. From my own research, that would come in a lot less $$$ than a 6-bay NAS.

 

[jizzles]

Well, that's because it does. Which just shows that you have a good idea what you are doing.

A NAS device will be easier to setup and manage, and cheaper, than a Windows Home Server because it does less. You can get a NAS device for well under $400, like this (example only, not an endorsement) http://www.jr.com/buffalo-technology/pe/BUF_LSQ20TLR5/

It will serve files to all the machines on your network, and probably come with included software that will let it do things like stream media and even, if you get a good one, back up files from the various machines in your house.

A Windows Home Server will do more. The main reasons that I considered getting one is automatic backup of all the PCs in my house, with all of the storage mirrored. Even though I'm an experienced builder and configurer, I'd rather buy a package for this purpose. These machines have one *amazing* shortcoming: their backup catalogs are not mirrored, neither is the OS. Lose that drive, and you lose all your backups (but not media). This always puzzled me; they could have done it better.

But the Windows Home Server will be more work than a NAS. The key point of this lengthy ramble is that you have two tradeoffs to make here: Functionality vs. price, and functionality vs. how much work you have to do. The more it does for you, the more work you have to do to set up and maintain. Any half-decent NAS will fulfill your "System Usage from Most to Least Important: storage for documents, pictures, music, movies (from avi to 720p .mkv), torrent/newsgroup downloads." If that's all you really want, save yourself the work; just make sure that you set up two drives in Raid 0 or four in Raid 1+0 so that you don't lose all your stuff if a drive fails. And backup anyway.

If you want to have more abilities, you have to put in more money and work. The killer app from my point of view is the ability to have every other machine in your house back itself up to the "server" daily. Machine fails; you just restore the system image and off you go. Home Server will do this, but some NAS units will probably come with SW to do this too; I just can't tell you which.

Hmm i see. I also like the idea of WHS and backing up all the computers in the house. The main reason why I don't want to purchase a prebuilt NAS is expandability. I like the idea of building my own and be able to expand my storage when necessary.

I know RAID isn't the solution for backups. What is recommended? DVD/BR backup?

 

[jizzles]

To drive home the point of how important a backup is and not just relying on the RAID mirroring: consider what happening with the mirroring when you accidentally delete or overwrite a file. RAID might protect you from hardware failure but it doesn't protect you from user error.

My experience with WHS has been pretty much like it's an appliance. I use mine for the same as you describe minus the torrent stuff. It's been very much setup and forget about it. It's the least amount of work of anything in my home network. For an extra layer of protection against the aforementioned accidents, I have a nightly incremental backup of my media shares. Not that I am saying to get WHS over a NAS or vice-versa, I just wanted to share my experience with WHS.

If I were going to build a new WHS I'd be looking at an Atom D525 board (Gigabyte has one with 4 SATA and Supermicro has one with 6), a Lian-Li PC-Q08 chassis, 2GB ram and a couple of 2 x Samsung F4 2TB HDDs. I'd also have a small OS drive to isolate it from the media. From my own research, that would come in a lot less $$$ than a 6-bay NAS.

Are there any benefits from choosing an I3 setup compared to using Atom besides the difference in power? I just find it interesting how I've read others using I3 even though the Atom can accomplish the the task.

 

[taso11]

As for backup media people recommend Taiyo Yuden archival dvd's. My brother who is a photographer was asking me the other day. It was also something in the back of my mind. I figured a second WHS to backup the first one and only on while backing up (I've got a lot of old hardware laying around) or just duplicating files on hard drives that are only connected to copy files over and stored in a fire safe. I'd like to hear other peoples opinion/experiences because I have been putting this off too long too!

 

[jizzles]

As for backup media people recommend Taiyo Yuden archival dvd's. My brother who is a photographer was asking me the other day. It was also something in the back of my mind. I figured a second WHS to backup the first one and only on while backing up (I've got a lot of old hardware laying around) or just duplicating files on hard drives that are only connected to copy files over and stored in a fire safe. I'd like to hear other peoples opinion/experiences because I have been putting this off too long too!

DVDs would be ok for small files but I can't imagine copying 1000's of photos onto DVD and then trying to transfer those back onto a hard drive. I think having a NAS just for backing up sounds like a good idea. I was also thinking of buying those external docks and purchasing hard drives that go on sale to use as backup and store away in a safe.

 

[Dougie Fresh]

I've been doing some research for a while into off-site backups and I think I've settled on CrashPlan+. Right now I have my office PC backing up my WHS shares (except my movies) every night. The movies I have backed up on a USB drive but that's done manually through WHS. The problem there though is God forbid there's some disaster, my files are still all co-located even if they are on different hardware. CrashPlan+ will run on the WHS and back things up to "The Cloud". If my house burns down or a tree falls on it I'll still have pictures and videos of the kids.

http://b5.crashplan.com/consumer/compare.html

As for why Atom vs i3, for my usages -- just storing and serving media -- I don't need much power. If you look at the more top-of-the-line NASs that's what's running in them. Right now my WHS is a P4 2.8 built from an old Dell GX280 I refurbished. It's SATA 150. I've never had a hiccup even watching Blu-ray rips. I can get a Atom board for $80-$100 (Gigabyte) if I got with 4-ports or $180 for 6-ports (Supermicro). The Supermicro is definitely a true server board and it's still going to cost a bit less than the i3. The Gigabyte board costs quite a bit less and I can always add a PCI SATA controller if I need to add more drives. The i3 does have good power consumption but it's still not going to be what the Atom is going to be, especially with all the extra transistors for HD video I won't even be using.

 

[taso11]

I've heard/read getting your files back from online sites (Carbonite, etc) can take weeks and people with download limits like me (Comcast) could get into trouble of being kicked off for a year. I think I'll get some esata external drives for my irreplaceable stuff and keep them in a firesafe at my brothers house. Safety deposit box at you bank can be an offsite option too.

 

[jizzles]

I've been doing some research for a while into off-site backups and I think I've settled on CrashPlan+. Right now I have my office PC backing up my WHS shares (except my movies) every night. The movies I have backed up on a USB drive but that's done manually through WHS. The problem there though is God forbid there's some disaster, my files are still all co-located even if they are on different hardware. CrashPlan+ will run on the WHS and back things up to "The Cloud". If my house burns down or a tree falls on it I'll still have pictures and videos of the kids.

http://b5.crashplan.com/consumer/compare.html

As for why Atom vs i3, for my usages -- just storing and serving media -- I don't need much power. If you look at the more top-of-the-line NASs that's what's running in them. Right now my WHS is a P4 2.8 built from an old Dell GX280 I refurbished. It's SATA 150. I've never had a hiccup even watching Blu-ray rips. I can get a Atom board for $80-$100 (Gigabyte) if I got with 4-ports or $180 for 6-ports (Supermicro). The Supermicro is definitely a true server board and it's still going to cost a bit less than the i3. The Gigabyte board costs quite a bit less and I can always add a PCI SATA controller if I need to add more drives. The i3 does have good power consumption but it's still not going to be what the Atom is going to be, especially with all the extra transistors for HD video I won't even be using.

CrashPlan+ looks interesting. Now as far as plans...I see they have an unlimited plan and a family unlimited plan. Would I be able to backup from the server to CrashPlan with just the regular unlimited plan? I think the family plan is a little wasteful in money if you're able to just use one central computer to do the transfers with. Have you researched other cloud methods? This is the first I've seen and the $25 & $50 yearly fees seems like a great price for cloud storage.

The Gigabyte boards are definitely a lot cheaper than Supermicro. I'm not quite sure what to look for in these Atom motherboards. The main thing I looked for was number of SATA ports and the RAID configurations. I believe the reason I picked up the Supermicro board was because it can do RAID 0/1/5/10 and has 6 SATA ports already. I plan on setting the server up with RAID 10.

What do you guys think about this newegg deal? I read that the CPU is AMD's answer to Intel's Atom.

Shell Shocker deal
1. ASUS M4A77TD AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
2. AMD Athlon II X2 260 Regor 3.2GHz Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor ADX260OCGMBOX
Today:$113.98*
*After $15.00 Mail-In Rebate(s)


Oh and one more question...looking at the specs on newegg and the SATA RAID specs...am I wrong in thinking that what is listed is hardware raid as opposed to software raid? Or is it the same? I've seen the controllers on newegg but was wondering if the specs on these motherboards are hardware based and what the comparison in performance is to built-in RAID vs controller based.

 

[jizzles]

I've heard/read getting your files back from online sites (Carbonite, etc) can take weeks and people with download limits like me (Comcast) could get into trouble of being kicked off for a year. I think I'll get some esata external drives for my irreplaceable stuff and keep them in a firesafe at my brothers house. Safety deposit box at you bank can be an offsite option too.

I don't think I've ever had problems with Comcast download limits. *knocks on wood* How much bandwidth have you used in a billing cycle?

I still like the external drive options though...but those drives could fail anytime too even with minimal usage. It's almost like we need a backup of a backup of a backup and just to be sure another backup for those backups

 

[Dougie Fresh]

What I'd like to have for my media files is: live copy, local backup and offsite backup. I doubt my cloud offsite backup would include all my DVD/Blu-ray rips and music. Those are static enough I'd be happy with a periodic swap of an external hard drive between home and my offsite place (likely my desk drawer @ work). My biggest worry is the irreplacable videos, photos and documents -- those are added to often enough an automatic nightly backup into the cloud is something I want.

CrashPlan is so far the only one I've found with a decent option to run on WHS without costing a fortune. They have an article in their suport kb about how to set it up to backup the shares.

 

[taso11]

"...It's almost like we need a backup of a backup of a backup and just to be sure another backup for those backups"

Exactly. There are a million things that can go wrong. You can drive yourself crazy trying to protect from all scenarios. Drives fail, dvd's aren't readable, file you've been downloading for days may be corrupt, etc. etc. Thats why you need multiple copies. As of right now there isn't a perfect solution.

I don't know what my monthly data usage is. I may download a linux or firewall image, stream netflix, install a game from Steam and normal web browsing. Did Comcast ever provide a way to monitor data usage?

 

[snowgoer1998]

I have been racking my brain trying to come up with a solution to this very issue...

I've got 2 computers that back up family video/pictures to WHS...but what to do if WHS fails??

And I'm ONLY backing up the family video and pictures...the amount of storage is quickly growing...1080 HD home movies and 6 MB pictures add up quick and our first kid is only ~2 20 years from now I figure I'll have a server room to rival Google with the amount of HDD's to store all this media

 

[taso11]

Yeah, you have to conceed that you'll have to possibly rip your movies again. I have two copies of my music in flac or wav format for about 200 cd's. If I lose both copies I'll re-rip them. I have about 9 terrabytes, and growing, of dvd's, blu-ray and hd dvd movies on my media server for htpc access. Those aren't backed up/duplicated. If I lose them I'll have to rip them again. While it will be a pain it's where I draw the line of backing up. My un replaceable/priceless stuff is backed up multiple times. I think I have 4 copies.

If I owned Seagate things would be different I'm not going to have 10 or more 2tb enterprise drives, $2500, sitting around. I'll keep the money in my pocket and re rip.

 

[jizzles]

I have been racking my brain trying to come up with a solution to this very issue...

I've got 2 computers that back up family video/pictures to WHS...but what to do if WHS fails??

And I'm ONLY backing up the family video and pictures...the amount of storage is quickly growing...1080 HD home movies and 6 MB pictures add up quick and our first kid is only ~2 20 years from now I figure I'll have a server room to rival Google with the amount of HDD's to store all this media

That's exactly how I feel! My son is 8 months and we have so many pictures and videos of him. I have a external hard drive just for him lol.

 

[jizzles]

Here's another consideration...specs to be able to run vail smoothly. I've been doing some reading on the homeservershow forums and a lot of them say using the D525 is efficient for WHS but will lack in areas running Vail. I'm thinking that going with the I3 will be better.

 

[mage182]

It sounds like a premade NAS might fit your needs. You could always buy one that has a few extra bays to put your already acquired drives in.

I'm working on a NAS/media server now. Vail dropping DE crushed that for me. I won't use it. I've been doing a lot of reading on Amahi. It seems like the best alternative and will give me a chance to learn more linux instead of fighting with the nuances of WHS.

The new Gigabyte mini ITX board is much cheaper than your supermicro. It does only have 4 SATA connections tho which I wish was 6.

All your other specs look good tho. Check over the Amahi site, I think it's more stable over the long run than hardware RAID which can be a nightmare to repair if your hardware fails.

 

[Dougie Fresh]

Yeah, removing DE from Vail pretty much broke my heart. I've been running WHS1 since beta so that looks like where I'll be for the foreseeable future, even if I build a new server. All my PCs are running Win7 and I like how easily WHS meshes with them through the connector and how well it integrates my media with W7MC.

Amahi looks really cool. I wish I had time to play with it. I am sure it has a pile of things better and worse than WHS. Don't they all?

As for a LGA1156-based server, you could get these for around $180.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128457
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116283

You get 6 SATA ports and you'll save $10-$20 over the Supermicro board but it'll consume more power and throw off more heat. It will perform better though if and only if you have an OS or applications that need that computer power. Usually though, the bottleneck will be your network and I/O regardless of your CPU when it comes to a media server.