BUILD Advice on equipment for new build home server

[28061]

Morning all,

I've been trying to replace my huge, ex-gaming rig now home server tower with a purpose built home server. Obviously read a lot of these forums, but if I'm honest, I've made a couple of errors and thought I'd better ask before I make any more or waste any more money.

It is primarily, just storage for my media centre, laptop backups & personal data. At the moment, it serves just a couple of raspberry Pi's but in future, may need to serve HD\3d content to 4 Pi's. I'd like it to be a long lasting platform that I won't have to touch for years and years. It will run no applications. All of the downloading & indexing is done on a Poweredge R200 that will also run my home automation project.

Requirements:

• Rack mountable, ideally with a number of hot-swappable disks - although I like the RSV-L4500 that 9C1 Newbee suggests. It's cheap and I don't mind rebuilding in a better case later.
• Immediate capacity for 4x4TB disks (intend to use WD Reds) - with the capacity for adding another 4 over time.
• Must have 1 disk of redundancy & ability to expand arrays at a later date. (This is all software isn't it?)
• As quiet as possible

My errors so far:!

• I bought a 4 bay Netgear NAS box. Researched it some more and realised it was naff so returned it!
• I then bought a HP DL180 G6 with a P410\512 controller which I thought would work well - but totally underestimated how massively noisy it would be - have had to return it because I couldn't sleep in the other room. Think this would work well if I had a garage place to put it!?

My purchase list (I think):

• Supermicro X9SRH-7F-B motherboard @ £249
  
• Xeon E5-2603 v2 1.8ghz quad core @ £154
• RSV-L4500 rack mount case @ £75 (Might consider a re-used SuperMicro case like this one)
• 16GB listed ram @ £135
• 4x4TB Western Digital Reds @ £129 = £516

This brings me to a total of approx £1129 which is a bit more than I wanted to spend though.

So firstly, given my needs, is the purchase list appropriate? Is there anything that would be either a better or cheaper alternative?

Thank you!

 

[danb35]

For your stated application, a Xeon E5 is overkill to the nth degree, and will run up your cost quite a bit. Consider instead the SuperMicro X10SL7 motherboard for about £170 shipped (plus customs) with an i3 or Xeon E3 (maybe this i3 for £80 shipped). That's saving over £150 right there.

On the case, I don't have a lot of experience with rack-mount gear, but what experience I do have suggests that it's going to be noisy. If noise is a concern for you, this could be a problem. The rack form factor is very convenient, but there are drawbacks.

Yes, the array management is all in software. Suggest you carefully read cyberjock's presentation to learn what you can and can't do (and more to the point, what you should and shouldn't do) with your array.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Haven't used that chassis myself, but at 4U it should be primarily using 120mm fans, which you can easily convince to be quiet. I'd be surprised if you can hear it over your R200.

danb35 has most everything else covered re: saving money by buying an i3, as well as going through cyberjock's PPT/PDF about drive configuration. I'd suggest starting with six disks in RAIDZ2, then adding another six down the road.

 

[Ericloewe]

Haven't used that chassis myself, but at 4U it should be primarily using 120mm fans, which you can easily convince to be quiet. I'd be surprised if you can hear it over your R200.

danb35 has most everything else covered re: saving money by buying an i3, as well as going through cyberjock's PPT/PDF about drive configuration. I'd suggest starting with six disks in RAIDZ2, then adding another six down the road.

It seems that, in many cases (pun intended), 120mm fans don't have enough static pressure to properly cool a 4U's worth of HDDs.

The used Supermicro chassis is probably the better choice performance-wise. It may be loud as hell and expensive, though.

 

[28061]

For your stated application, a Xeon E5 is overkill to the nth degree, and will run up your cost quite a bit. Consider instead the SuperMicro X10SL7 motherboard for about £170 shipped (plus customs) with an i3 or Xeon E3 (maybe this i3 for £80 shipped). That's saving over £150 right there.

Thanks - that's exactly the sort of suggestion I was hoping for. Kit list amended!

Haven't used that chassis myself, but at 4U it should be primarily using 120mm fans, which you can easily convince to be quiet. I'd be surprised if you can hear it over your R200.

danb35 has most everything else covered re: saving money by buying an i3, as well as going through cyberjock's PPT/PDF about drive configuration. I'd suggest starting with six disks in RAIDZ2, then adding another six down the road.

I think you're right about the six disks. I've read the presentation (had read it before, but read it more carefully this time) - and think I'll go with 6x3TB WD Reds on Raid & add another six at a later date - probably a few years down the line.

I also think I'll change the case to this case, which looks fantastic:

• At £70 it's a steal
• Can add this add on module for 5 hot swappable disks. (Or 2 for 10)
• Has front, centre and rear fans - most of which are 120mm which will give me cooling scalability & the opportunity to fit quiet fans.
• It's only 3U which is better for size & comes in 480/550 & 650mm lengths. (480 doesn't have centre fans)

I would have liked the supermicro case, especially for the redundant PSU's but can't tolerate the noise.