Looking at building a NAS

[Skids1]

I am looking at building a NAS around the ASUS P5E-VM DO per the article on DIY NAS testing...

C2D E7200
4GB of Memory
3 x 1.5TB Seagates and 1 x WD Raptor as the OS drive running Windows Server 2008. I have 5+ units in my home. 3 are running Vista 64bit. They are my primary use system for file sharing, media playback. I have them connected via a Netgear GS116. Do you still recommend this mainboard or do you recommend another choice due to its age? Thanks for reading.

 

[00Roush]

You might take a look at the ASUS P5N7A-VM or ASUS P5Q-EM as they both have a more recent chipset. But they might be a little overkill. Then again it depends on what you intend to be using the server for. Here is a link to a review of the ASUS P5N7A-VM board... http://www.silentpcreview.com/article892-page1.html

I am not quiet sure why you are deciding to use a WD Raptor as your OS drive on your server. From my point of view it will not do much to benefit your server. It might provide a quicker start up time but the rest of the time it would sit idle. I would recommend something much cheaper unless you already have one that you can't use anywhere else. Just my opinion.

00Roush

 

[thiggins]

I second the point on Raptors. Drive performance isn't the limiting factor. To get above 70 MB/s or so non-cached performance, you need to use an OS that can tranfer in larger than 64 KB chunks, i.e. Vista SP1.