DIY First Time Questions

[Marcb80]

What I am looking to do:
1) Network File Shares
2) U PnP w/ Xbox 360 (media on NAS, output XBOX 360)
3) I would like to be able to automate downloads so I can drag a link I want to download from one of my laptops and have it download to the NAS, even with my laptop offline
4) Anyway to stream audio and video to iphones on our WIFI network?
5) I prefer lower power usage and noise

First step:
1) We are going to take a 5 year old computer with a pentium 4, 2 GB of RAM, and 4 sata ports
2) We are going to purchase x2 1.5 TB Seagate's at Fry's for $117 each today for data and utilize an old hard drive for OS
3) What is the best OS to use for the above requirements? I have access to all Microsoft products (legally) and don't have issues using linux
4) If we setup the x2 1.5 TB Seagates Raid 0, how hard would it be to add drives to them or move them to a new motherboard? Would I have to backup all the data and start from scratch?

Second Step: Once Comfortable....
1) Purchase the below components, any comments on something better?
a) 2U Rackmount: I'm not sure if I want to go to 4U or not, I would prefer not to have to use Riser cards but would also like to get the smaller form factor of a 2U.
b) Motherboard w/ x8 SATA Connections: This board has x8 sata connections, x2 GIGE NICs, and supports my legacy Pentium 4 and RAM so I don't have to buy a new but still lets me upgrade in the future, any better ideas? - price is amazing too
2) What is better to use with a motherboard like this, the motherboard RAID, software RAid, or do I need to look at getting a RAID card
3) Currently our network is fast ethernet with 802.11G wireless, what do you recommend upgrading too?

End State I'm looking at spending $404 for 3 TB Raid 0, motherboard with lots of expansion, in a rackmountable form factor (I have a 19" rack in the media room) This thing may become a media center in the future, or at least replace the XBOX for movie playback - OS, Raid decisions, and network upgrades are still confusing me

 

[starfox101]

I would look into a nas. far less power, much quieter, most have media center, download station.
I have always set up my drives as single disk only. I hope if I loose a drive I can just rip the dvd's for that disk.
I started out with an old pc and freenas, worked well, but wanted more. Then same pc and naslite: http://www.serverelements.com/naslite-M2.php great system! Still wanted more. Qnap 409 nas, nice system, just not as fast as I wanted. wanted more. Synology ds508, had it about a month, I like it. Fast, does what it want!
Each time I changed systems: buy a new drive, format, copy all files, This last change was over 3 tb's. something like 72 hr to copy all data.

I guess everyone needs a hobby, I guess this is mine!

 

[Marcb80]

thanks, already looked into appliances and not interested... looking for help on DIY

 

[00Roush]

If you have access to Microsoft OSes then most likely that would be the easiest route. The problem is which one. A good middle of the road might be Win Server 2003. Should be able to do all of the things you want. Not sure about # 3 on your list though...

The hardware you plan to use for your current build looks fine but make sure your power supply is solid. I don't mean high wattage I mean good quality. As for the RAID options... I am not completely sure. Why not just use single drives? RAID 0 is not going to offer any better performance (those 1.5 TB drives are already fast) in your situation and if one hard drive fails you could lose everything. I haven't really spent much time messing with RAID arrays so I don't have much to offer when it comes to migrating to a different machine.

For your future build... just remember that most of the case fans in the 1U,2U and 4U racks are LOUD! Motherboard looks solid but you might consider upgrading your CPU at the same time as the Core 2 Duo cpu's are much more efficent. Besides you would need to do a OS reinstall anyway with the new board and if you upgraded the CPU at the same time you would only need to do one reinstall. The RAID options on that motherboard are good and performance should be fairly good. I don't deal too much with wireless so I can't comment on that. For your wired I would recommend at least getting a gigabit switch. Even if all of your other machines are slower than that it will remove any bottleneck between the server and the network.

00Roush