Check out my Server for home use.

[Mark42]

Its getting to the point that I really need a server at home to consolidate family photos, video, have real computer backups, etc. Did some research and decided to go with Microsoft's "Windows Home Server power pack 3". Found a few websites that talk about building servers for WHS, and followed their advice to get a machine that is oriented to throughput, but not so much application processing.

If your into building PC's here's the parts list/specs:

(1) Microsoft Windows Home Server Operating System Software with Power Pack 3, 32-bit, 1Server, 10 CAL, License and Media, P/N:CCQ-00099. OEM

(1) ASUS M4N68T-M V2 Socket AM3 uATX Motherboard, NVIDIA nForce 630a Chipset, Supports AMD Socket AM3 CPUs, Dual DDR3 1800(O.C.), SATA 3Gb/s RAID, PCIe 2.0 x16, Onboard Video, Gigabit LAN

(1) AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz 4000MHz Socket AM3 Dual-Core 45nm Processor.

(2) HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.C HDS721010CLA332 (0F10383) 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"" Internal Hard Drive

(1) Kingston ValueRAM 2GB DDR3 1333 System Memory, 240-pin DIMM, CL9, non-ECC, Unbuffered.

(1)Black Broadway Com Corp 943 Steel m-ATX Computer Case, w/ 500W PSU and Card Reader.

(2) Masscool 120mm Case Fan, Ball bearing, 3 / 4""Pin.

Notice there are no sound or video cards, and only 2 Gig of memory. The onboard sound and video are more than sufficient for a box that has no monitor, keyboard or mouse. And 2 Gig of memory is more than enough for the server software.

I like this small micro ATX case because it has space for 6 hard drives, plus more if the top bays are used. The USB ports on the front (hidden behind a fold down panel) make it easy to attach external drives. Might get an additional card that supports external SATA connections.

The best feature of Windows Home Server is that additional drives can just be plugged in, and it handles the rest. Its configured to do data mirroring rather than a Raid setup. This is so that if one drive fails, another can be plugged in and the server will do the mirror build from the other drive. No data is lost. Also, if the server dies for any reason, the drives can be removed and plugged into a regular windows PC and accessed if needed in an emergency.

Here are some photos of the build:

Bare case:






Main Board installed, drives, connect USB, card reader, front panel, etc





WHS loaded up just fine and has been running without a hitch. Access to the "shares" is very fast. Its on 24/7, but is set up to hibernate after 20 minutes of no access so it spends most of its time asleep.

Have loaded all the photos on it, and music too. Next is to load up all the video from tape and the 1080p video my Nikon shoots. Then a media player like the WDTV Live will be added to stream it all to the TV.

Could use some suggestions for a good small UPS that has communications through a USB or comm port to shut the server down on power loss. Is APC still one of the best?

[Mogobs30th]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

I have an APC, and working in the field, EVERYONE uses APC in their server rooms/telephone closets. My APC is connected by patch cord to my comp for monitoring purposes, but my cable modem, monitors, computer, and wireless N router are all battery backup, while my printer, speakers, and fax machine are all surge protected. But my battery backup is also plugged into a transient voltage receptacle.

I do have a question, if anyone knows of any way to get the storage off this drive I have now (160gb IDE) to my newer drive (300gb SATA) I would be appreciative. The 160gb drive is becoming maxxed out, and if I rebuild, I need to get the stuff off here to a Windows 7 Ultimate OS hard drive.

[Mark42]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

I have an APC, and working in the field, EVERYONE uses APC in their server rooms/telephone closets. My APC is connected by patch cord to my comp for monitoring purposes, but my cable modem, monitors, computer, and wireless N router are all battery backup, while my printer, speakers, and fax machine are all surge protected. But my battery backup is also plugged into a transient voltage receptacle.

I do have a question, if anyone knows of any way to get the storage off this drive I have now (160gb IDE) to my newer drive (300gb SATA) I would be appreciative. The 160gb drive is becoming maxxed out, and if I rebuild, I need to get the stuff off here to a Windows 7 Ultimate OS hard drive.

Thanks for the APC recommendation. Will look into their products closer.

Regarding your 160G drive, most main boards that have SATA as the main interface, still have an IDE port. Check out the MB. if it does have IDE, just plug in the drive and copy off what you need to the SATA.

Another option is a cheap external enclose that lets it plug into a USB(2) port, like this one by MassCool:



Its about $23 at Directron.com and supports both IDE and SATA drives, uses a USB interface, and because its from MassCool, it has a cooling fan as well as being aluminum. Just drop in your IDE drive, and your ready to copy.

[Mogobs30th]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

Both drives are in the comp at the moment, I had planned on formatting the SATA drive for Windows 7 Ultimate, and use the IDE as storage for photos, vids, and music, and as a backup with separate partition. But the IDE drive has everything on it, and I have no clue how to transfer the stuff to the SATA drive short of resaving everything under the SATA drive one by one.

[Pewter02Camaro]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

Both drives are in the comp at the moment, I had planned on formatting the SATA drive for Windows 7 Ultimate, and use the IDE as storage for photos, vids, and music, and as a backup with separate partition. But the IDE drive has everything on it, and I have no clue how to transfer the stuff to the SATA drive short of resaving everything under the SATA drive one by one.

You could save your old drive image, or ghost it, then move it to the new drive.

When i setup my Raid 0 i just installed fresh, then connected the old drive and save it all to a folder on the new Raid array. Then i sorted through it all and called it a day.

[Pewter02Camaro]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

Its configured to do data mirroring rather than a Raid setup. This is so that if one drive fails, another can be plugged in and the server will do the mirror build from the other drive. No data is lost. Also, if the server dies for any reason, the drives can be removed and plugged into a regular windows PC and accessed if needed in an emergency.

So your basicly running software raid 1. Why not just go hardware raid 1?
Personally i think hardware raid is more depenable but thats just me.

[Mark42]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

So your basicly running software raid 1. Why not just go hardware raid 1?
Personally i think hardware raid is more depenable but thats just me.

With WHS, more drives can be added by just plugging them in. WHS takes care of all the partitoning, data direction, data locations, etc. The users PC just sees a large folder with no changes, no drive letters, etc.

Plus, WHS offers tons of more features than a basic RAID system can offer. And WHS has no reported issues with data corruption since 2006 or so. Pretty much a rock steady system that is just Windows Small Business Server with fewer clients support (WHS only supports 10 PC's per license).

And that is why when running WHS all is at peace in the world. :D

[Pewter02Camaro]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

LOL, i was just about to correct you about RAID 1. But you beat me to it. :D
Being able to P&P is a good advantage and I can see why people like it.

O' well I guess im to old school when it comess to setting up a client server network. I work with 18 HP Prolient DH380's all day long.

As long as it works for you and your happy with it thats all that matters. :)

[Blackbird02]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

That's a nice PC and all but for a home server Linux is the way to go. You can pretty much use any old POS PC and do all you're looking to do and more for a fraction of the cost.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Microsoft fan. I'm just not paying the Gates tax so I can back my crap up, run a web server and serve up some media.

Ubuntu, MySQL, PHP, Apache, Ampache, MythTV and pretty much any software you need are all free.

Plus, I just turn it on and pretty much forget it, it just works, always!

[Mark42]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

That's a nice PC and all but for a home server Linux is the way to go. You can pretty much use any old POS PC and do all you're looking to do and more for a fraction of the cost.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Microsoft fan. I'm just not paying the Gates tax so I can back my crap up, run a web server and serve up some media.

Ubuntu, MySQL, PHP, Apache, Ampache, MythTV and pretty much any software you need are all free.

Plus, I just turn it on and pretty much forget it, it just works, always!

The problems with those operating systems is if the machine takes a crap, the drives are done too. Unless you have another machine with the same O/S, those drives will not work in any other machine due to proprietary drive formats. I like knowing that if the hardware takes a dump, at least the drives are formatted so that any windows machine can read them in an emergency.

Those systems have very limited support other than user forums. At least WHS is supported by Microsoft (not my favorite) and they have great forums and huge knowledge base, as well as dozens of other sites that are all dedicated to WHS.

Plus you have to realize that "any old POS PC" can not be converted into a high speed server. The MB, CPU, Memory and Drives all have to work together to be able to serve multiple users at once at speeds that will support 1080p, music and other access all at once. I'm getting close to 100 MBps throughput when the machine is pressed into serious duty by multiple wireless laptops and a hard wired desktop. It just won't work with a lesser machine.

Anywho.... Thats why I blew all of $90 on a operating system I can register and get free support on for a full year....

[Blackbird02]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

Yea I "use" to think that too.

[Mark42]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

Yea I "use" to think that too.

So what I hear is you can't defend your use of linux in a civil discussion. Somehow I expected more from you in the way of an answer. Oh well.....

If you do a search on "WHS vs Linux", you will find that people overwhelmingly prefer WHS over a Linus operating system. Mostly do to stability, ease of use, and free add-in applications.

The most common complaints of using Linux is the amount of time it takes to set things up, does not have features that WHS has, and requires a lot of "hands on" to make it do what you want. Not what I want from my server. I want to turn it on and leave it alone to do its work, automated backups, stream video, mirror data, etc. with out my intervention.

Yeah, Linux is free, but you get what you pay for.

Another major drawback is that the common NAS baxes all use linux/Unix and for 3x the price of a home built WHS, they can't even do 1/3 the throughput. And that is one of the major requirements of a server; get data and feed it back FAST.

Regards,
Mark.

[nimrod.sixty9]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

Nice build. Im impressed. As for UPS', I would say Leibert. Wes is right that most server rooms and workstations supported by IT are useing APC (like me). But Leibert is by far better. Im not going by stats, Im going by what Ive seen. 2 slot machines running max killed an APC 1500 in 3 minutes, impressive, but the Leibert (with simular stats) did 6 machines maxed for 7 minutes :D

As for Linux vs WHS Id say they both have their pros and cons. For what you save by getting Linux, you work off by getting it to run correctly. But you can do the same as WHS with some pretty, well, relic hardware.

[Blackbird02]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

You answered the question yourself. You value the support option your choice offers. When things don't break there is no need for support. So by your own admission you are expecting it to break.

I haven't and don't expect to EVER need support for my Linux server.

I really don’t want to get into a debate on MS vs. Linux. Suffice it to say I have managed data centers and written software for the last twenty years so I speak from experience.

I really hope it all works out for you, I was merely pointing out there are other options.

[Mogobs30th]

Re: Check out my Server for home use.

Nice build. Im impressed. As for UPS', I would say Leibert. Wes is right that most server rooms and workstations supported by IT are useing APC (like me). But Leibert is by far better. Im not going by stats, Im going by what Ive seen. 2 slot machines running max killed an APC 1500 in 3 minutes, impressive, but the Leibert (with simular stats) did 6 machines maxed for 7 minutes :D

As for Linux vs WHS Id say they both have their pros and cons. For what you save by getting Linux, you work off by getting it to run correctly. But you can do the same as WHS with some pretty, well, relic hardware.

A 1500? Kinda small isn't it? Most server rooms Ive seen have a MINIMUM of a 5000VA with transformer and 208V electrical imput.