New build, with what I can get here...

[Steven]

Hi all,

I have been reading myself several headaches for the past few weeks, and finally have found something that would be good for me.

At present, I have Buffalo Linkstation 250GB. That was a rather expensive thing (about 300 euro), and only has one disk. I want something a bit more powerful, and - above all - transparent and upgradable.

I essentially need a box that is sufficiently future-proof, able to do streaming (which I will want to do in the future), and has enough "umph" to do some jobs on its own (such as uploading to Flickr, ripping dvd's and cd's, maybe some editing...).

The whole thing will be connected to our router and will serve two windows laptops and a linux netbook (and maybe some sort of streambox in the future).

Other things I want are a good understanding of what is in the box, software RAID (so I don't run into trouble when the thing dies), and the flexibility to try out different OS's. From the functionality side, online access and automated backup (but that I will sort out after the build).

I plan 2 SATA disks for storage (with the possibility to add two more), and one HDD for the OS.

Here in Estonia, hardware is relatively expensive and hard to get (it is difficult to find online shops that will ship to here at a reasonable price), so I went to a local builder and asked advice. Here is what the 2-hour chat resulted into:

- MATX Intel Cube Cove DQ45CB (4xDDR2 800, 5 SATA, 1 e-SATA, 10/100/1000)
- Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 2.5 Ghz FSB800 processor
- 2 x 2GB RAM
- PSU: Zalman 500W ATX2.2, active PFC, 12x12 fan, 24+8 pin, 2xSATA, 2x6pin PCI-express
- Zalman fan ZM-F3 120x120mm (with regulator)
- a DVD drive, so I can add and burn from the box

The case remains a question. It will be getting the nicest one that is available locally, I guess. Which, I'm afraid to say, will probably be a normal tower box.

The whole set-up will make me ditch out around 400 euro (not including the build which I may tempt myself, the disks, thermal paste, a UPS, and the odd cable here and there).

For storage, I intend to find WD Green (Caviar?) 1TB disks. And a "small" 320 GB SATAII 16MB for the OS and anything that doesn't belong on the storage disks.

No decision on the OS yet. I think I will have a look at Windows XP professional, but I am unsure how that works with the perpetual update, virus and firewall issues.

That way I hope to have a good box that can be a NAS, server, and may even be upgraded to serve as a pc should I require that. It is certainly not the most beautiful or economic thing, but I do hope it will be functional.

First off, thanks for all the wonderful information on these pages. They helped me a lot to decide what I do not want, and to get closer to what I want .

And second, of course, I would love to hear your thoughts!

 

[thiggins]

You didn't say what level of performance you are looking for. You could probably get away with less power. One of the Atom boards would make a box with decent performance.

I have found the combination of Ubuntu server and Webmin to be a good combination for performance and flexibility if you want to go open source. If you're looking in the Windows direction, consider Windows Home Server.

 

[Steven]

For performance, I have no idea actually. I just want this setup to be able to stream HD video. If it can do that, it probably can do whatever else I do with computers.

Just fyi, a bit more price breakdown:
- mobo = 109 euro
- cpu = 64 euro

Then there is of course the electricity bill, but I would power down the unit half of the time anyway. All in all, pricewise, the choice is not that important. And I do hear that dual core is better for streaming (but that might also be a misconception, of course).

I have looked into WHS (even to buy a dedicated box for that), but I'm not so confident in its capabilities for disaster recovery. I would sleep better knowing that in the event of the hardware failing, I can take out the drive(s), put them into an usb enclosure and recover the data. The way WHS stores data would mean (at least that is how I understand it) that this is not possible.

In the mean while... I was sent an offer from a second hand store today. They offer:

"Pentium 4 - 2,66GHz - Socket 775
Ram - DDR1 440Mhz 1x512MB
HDD - 80GB SATA/7200/8MB Samsung
PSU - 400W EzCool
4x Sata (1 is used by the HDD)
Windows XP Professional
Very quiet machine!
6 months warranty by us for the hardware."

For around 100 euro.

Certainly cheap, and maybe even enough for what I want to do (with a bit of extra RAM)? Only room for 3 disks though...

 

[thiggins]

Streaming HD video doesn't take much. Peak bandwidths are between 20 - 30 Mbps, which is only 4 MB/s max. Even older designs can handle that.

I would strongly recommend not depending on RAID or your plan to be able to put drives in an enclosure for recovery. You should have a separate device or media for backup.

 

[Steven]

I would strongly recommend not depending on RAID or your plan to be able to put drives in an enclosure for recovery. You should have a separate device or media for backup.

Covered, I hope. My backup strategy consists of

* backing up files from the laptops on the "NAS" (the rest of the space is for ripped content, of which I still keep the original disks)

* periodically backing up the NAS to a usb drive (or drive in a eSATA enclosure) - I'll try to use the Buffalo 250 NAS at first, and change to a larger backup disk as my needs grow.

Pictures additionally go on Flickr (a paid account, which allows to store the original files), workfiles get sync-ed to the office server, and I also have an iDrive account (which I will probably give up though).

Not ideal, but that would suffice for us. I will already be happy to have the laptops back up automatically to the NAS.

Being able to use the NAS disks in another system if needed just adds a layer of reassurance.

 

[00Roush]

The new build looks good. The only thing I might change is the amount of RAM. In my opinion 1GB is usually enough for basic file server. I will say that I upgraded my server a while ago from 1GB to 2GB and noticed that remote desktop loaded much quicker. Other than that performance was basically unchanged. Now if you are planning on also using this as a personal computer 2GB would be a good idea. 4GB would be fine but really it would only get utilized if you were using Vista.

The used option looks ok but generally I wouldn't get a pentium 4 computer. Not that they don't work just fine... its just that the newer Core 2 duo cpus are so much more efficient. Some other things to consider would be how the network card is connected. PCI? PCIe? Also is it gigabit? Not that it would matter much as Tim pointed out streaming really does not need that much bandwidth. For your purpose it most likely would work just fine except it would be limited on the amount it could be upgraded.

00Roush

 

[Steven]

The motherboard on the used option is this one - http://pentium.com/products/motherboard/D101GGC/index.htm

Doesn't look too bad, but indeed, not much scope for upgrading. I presume I can use one of the IDE connectors to connect an older HDD that can then hold the OS, so that I have 4 slots for storage after all...

I guess the difference would be that the new build option can be used for a lot more, while the used option is much more limited.

Does anyone have reservations concerning using old versus new parts?

 

[bigclaw]

Either one will support your storage/streaming needs just fine; the first one is actually overkill as the E5200 is a very powerful processor. You do save a bunch of money going with a used system. On the other hand, the new system, like you said, can be used for a lot of different things in the future.

There's always a trade-off like this; only you can make the decision.

Edit: it seems that the old system doesn't have gigabit Ethernet. I personally won't build a NAS without one, but strictly speaking you don't need gigabit Ethernet for streaming anything yet. You can always add a gigabit NIC too.

 

[Steven]

Thanks everyone for these insights - they help a lot!

Edit: it seems that the old system doesn't have gigabit Ethernet. I personally won't build a NAS without one, but strictly speaking you don't need gigabit Ethernet for streaming anything yet. You can always add a gigabit NIC too.

Does the network speed actually matter for data transfer between two disks in the system? Or is that a different issue all together?

 

[Steven]

Update

Just a little update: I have settled for another second hand system (the one I was looking at actually blew up / shorted in the shop just when I was taking out my wallet ).

So, now I have an Intel P4, 630 (3Ghz) on this motherboard (http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/d101ggc/sb/CS-029351.htm). No gigabit ethernet, but it does have a PCIe slot (from what I read in the motherboard manual), so I should be able to add that.

Ram was very cheap, so I have put 4 Gig in there. It only has a cd/rw, so the next buy is a dvd/rw. Power in the case is 450W, and it has two large and quiet fans, with the possibility to add a front fan should I see that it runs hot.

There are four sata connections, of which I use one for the OS drive (80gb) and the others for three WD 1 TB Green Caviar disks. I'm keeping one old IDE 60gb HDD handy for if I want to add a fourth storage drive.

It all was a bit of a tight fit (never seen so many wires in my life, and the large fan on the processor didn't make things easier), but the system - at least from a hardware perspective - works now (I tested with the pre-installed xp that was on the OS disk).

Now I need some time to get it all configured. I'll start by installing Linux Mint in dual boot, and then see how that all works out. I know I can use xp, but I'm wary about updates, virus protection and firewall.

One of the questions I need to sort out now is whether to format the storage disks in ext3, or in ntfs...

As I understand it, using ext3 would mean using samba to get windows to read/write the storage disks, while using ntfs would not pose problems for the Linux system. More research to be done...

Many thanks for your comments and suggestions - they helped a lot!

PS the system has cost me about € 200 plus € 260 for the WD disks. If anyone needs a purchase tip in Estonia, feel free to pm me

 

[thiggins]

Does the network speed actually matter for data transfer between two disks in the system? Or is that a different issue all together?

A 100 Mbps Ethernet connection will limit your transfer speeds to 12.5 MB/s.
Use a Gigabit Ethernet connection, preferably a NIC or built-in NIC connecting via PCIe.

 

[00Roush]

Thanks everyone for these insights - they help a lot!



Does the network speed actually matter for data transfer between two disks in the system? Or is that a different issue all together?

If you are referring to two disks in the same computer then no, network speeds will not affect local disk transfer speed.

00Roush