Media Server

[osu43130]

Approximate Purchase Date: End of the Month

Budget Range: +/- 600

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Looking to build a Media server to store and stream movies, pictures, Music.

Parts Not Required: Starting from the ground Up. Do not need any accessories just building the server itself.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg

Country: US

Parts Preferences: New to building a server built several Gaming PC's and Im afraid Ill go over boards with most of my selections. Im not a brand junky I just want to ensure that I pick quality parts for the box.

Overclocking: Nope

SLI or Crossfire: Nope

Monitor Resolution: Server so not sure this even applies

Additional Comments: Just want it to be as quite as possible.


Its been a while since I have put anything together so just looking for something to start with.

Thanks in advance

 

[hapkido]

For a home file server, all you'll need is a dual-core CPU, 2GB RAM, and HDDs. That's assuming you're buying new. Old parts would work too; it really does not take the host a lot of resources to stream files. Depending on how much you value your data, you may also want to setup RAID 1 or 5.

 

[osu43130]

Great Thanks. Thats what I was hoping.

 

[monkeysweat]

bad time to be building a server,, just buy the hard drives you need for now,, not the ones you want,, waay to damn expensive,, like 250% more than 3 months ago,, should be better in 3 months from now as the factories start building more hdd's,,

and hapkido is right about the requirements,, although personally I like a server/player option to save you an extra PC,, however it will limit your OS options and how you do your serving,, I run a Win 7 Ultimate PC that can serve over the network,, but also can game and play movies (triple core with a 460 GTX) -- i just use XBMC to serve upnp devices, works pretty well.

 

[osu43130]

This is what I was thinking with Ubuntu as the OS. Please let me know if there are compatibility issues or there is something I should change. Total price from Newegg is 436ish..... One thing I was looking for was setting up Raid 5 other then that trying to keep it basic.




Antec200

WD 1.5TB green

ASRock 870iCafe R2.0 AM3+ AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard

OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600)

AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor ADX250OCGMBOX

 

[hapkido]

This is what I was thinking with Ubuntu as the OS. Please let me know if there are compatibility issues or there is something I should change. Total price from Newegg is 436ish..... One thing I was looking for was setting up Raid 5 other then that trying to keep it basic.




Antec200

WD 1.5TB green

ASRock 870iCafe R2.0 AM3+ AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard

OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600)

AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor ADX250OCGMBOX

We can do better than that.

CPU: Intel Pentium G620 $69.99
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-H61M-DS2 $49.99
RAM: Mushkin Enhanced Essentials 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 $19.99
HDD: Antec EarthWatts Green 380W 80+ Bronze $46.99
PSU: HITACHI Deskstar 750GB x3 $299.97 ($99.99 each)

The case you selected is fine and that's kind of a preference thing anyway. You could probably save a little, but it's not really overpriced. With your case, the total is $531.92 (before shipping and rebates) and will give you ~1.5TB disk space in RAID 5. The expensive part you can see is the HDDs, so you can tailor that to your liking. Those were the cheapest large(ish) drives I could find on Newegg. You could save $198.98 by just getting a single drive and waiting for prices to drop to sane levels.

I don't know what your experience is with Linux, but it does take more work to install and setup than Windows. Some things are easier, some things are much harder. For the most part they have the big issues ironed out by now, but it's still not as user-friendly as Windows. You might run into strange driver issues and such, but it's free and should work well on a headless home server. Most flavors also have server builds that don't have a GUI, but you won't need it, and will probably miss the ability to VNC in. I would avoid updating once you have it setup to your liking, unless you have a specific reason to update.

If you have any questions about why I selected the parts I did, let me know.

 

[osu43130]

We can do better than that.

CPU: Intel Pentium G620 $69.99
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-H61M-DS2 $49.99
RAM: Mushkin Enhanced Essentials 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 $19.99
HDD: Antec EarthWatts Green 380W 80+ Bronze $46.99
PSU: HITACHI Deskstar 750GB x3 $299.97 ($99.99 each)

The case you selected is fine and that's kind of a preference thing anyway. You could probably save a little, but it's not really overpriced. With your case, the total is $531.92 (before shipping and rebates) and will give you ~1.5TB disk space in RAID 5. The expensive part you can see is the HDDs, so you can tailor that to your liking. Those were the cheapest large(ish) drives I could find on Newegg. You could save $198.98 by just getting a single drive and waiting for prices to drop to sane levels.

I don't know what your experience is with Linux, but it does take more work to install and setup than Windows. Some things are easier, some things are much harder. For the most part they have the big issues ironed out by now, but it's still not as user-friendly as Windows. You might run into strange driver issues and such, but it's free and should work well on a headless home server. Most flavors also have server builds that don't have a GUI, but you won't need it, and will probably miss the ability to VNC in. I would avoid updating once you have it setup to your liking, unless you have a specific reason to update.

If you have any questions about why I selected the parts I did, let me know.

Just simply want a case that will keep it cool and quite since it will be on 24/7 and have always enjoyed Antec Cases. It will all come down to what is actually on sale when I hit the submit button to be honest.

I was thinking the same thing about the single larger drive that is why I chose the 1.5 TB WD over 3 smaller drives and then adding more and setting up Raid 5 after the fact. Only concern is, Is there a problem setting up Raid 5 after the initial setup?

As far as Linux, I was just trying to cut costs. But I can drop the little extra for Windows Home server. I have not used Linux based systems much other then at work.


lastly is this motherboard able to support Raid 5? I looked it up on The Gigabyte site and it did not mention anything about it but I also noticed that there were raid drivers available to download.

 

[osu43130]

Alright I kinda changed my mind a bit and looking for a bit more advice. After doing a bit more looking aroud I decided that I wanted to try a HTPC/Server instead of just a media server. Again this is all new and I want make sure I am getting the best bang for my buck because I am a little tight on money. And Yes the CASE is more then I really want to spend....

Here is my first attempt. The ability to add a lot of storage space at a later time is a must. I chose 1 Large HDD for now because it kinda seemed like the sweet spot as far as OVER priced HDD.

Here is what I came up with as far as hardware. Im still torn between Buying a Windows OS or running with a linux and XBMC.

AMD A4-3400 Llano 2.7GHz 69.99

ASRock A75 PRO4-M FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) 84.99

Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Green 380W 44.99

Antec Black Aluminum / Steel Fusion Remote Black Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case 135.99

G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-4GBNS 20.99

Seagate Barracuda Green ST1500DL003 1.5TB 5900 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive 134.99

Comes out to $491ish

Any other suggestion for an HTPC Server that will also eventually back up 2-3 other PC's. My gaming PC, the Kids PC, and my wife's Laptop.

 

[hapkido]

Seriously I would skip AMD CPUs/APUs all together unless you're buying a laptop without a discrete GPU you plan on gaming on. Intel is two generations ahead on processors right now. I'm an AMD fan, but they're just not a smart buy for ANY non-laptop CPU at the moment. Look how much more expensive those motherboards are. You can buy a discrete card AND have a better CPU for the price difference.

Get the Pentium I linked and this SAPPHIRE HD 6770 if you plan on playing games, or this GIGABYTE HD 6450 if you're just worried about video for you HTPC. That is enough to let your CPU do it's thing while you're watching a 1080p movie. It's a better CPU and better GPU for the same platform cost.

 

[osu43130]

Best answer selected by osu43130.