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Win7 Home Server
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Author:  cubanblood [ Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Win7 Home Server

I have been a proud owner of a EX495 for a year and since then there has been an electronic revolution in my family. I cant imagine a day with my litle black box. I have upgrade the RAM to 4GB and the cpu to a Q9550s which has made the task of serving media more enjoyable. I have follow every major DIY the users of this website have shared and i thinkg its my time to build my own. Due to the announcement made by Microsoft about DE i have been exploring other alternatives, and have decided go give Win7 a try.
There are a lot of advantages on using WHS v1 but if Microsoft stops offering support for the OS i dont think my server will be protected against future threats. I will miss the Add-Ins. They help you get the most out of the system. I will miss DE because even though is not perfect it help me protect my data against drive failures. Most of the other features can be optain on Win7.
Win7 will help me prepared for the future. There not really a limit on how many HDD you can have or the size of the disc. Also it supports advance format drives without having to use jumpers or alingment tools. Also i will have more control over where my data is.

System Parts:

Case: Norco RPC-470
Mobo: BIOSTAR TA890GXB HD AM3 AMD 890GX SATA 6Gb/s HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX640WFGMBOX
Ram: Mushkin Enhanced Silverline 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel
System Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAJS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
PSU: Diablotek PHD Series PHD450 450W ATX12V V2.2 Power Supply


The cost of the part on Newegg $458.25 (Not bad for a Christmas Sale)

The OS got it at work for free. Windows 7 Enterprise Edition.

As for the other hard drives i will get the WD 2TB EARS. I have not got them yet. I also have a SSD 128GB that i will be testing and might be use as the system drive.
I know this is going to be a challange specially since i am not using WHS.
What do you guys think?

Update:

I perform a stress test on the system using Prime95. It has been running for 22 hours and some minutes and the average temp of the cpu has been 65C. Pictures coming soon.

Author:  cubanblood [ Thu Feb 03, 2011 6:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Win7 Home Server

Well the news about WHS 2011 is pushing me towards other OS in this case Windows 7. I am not very impress with RAID because it take dedication and i just dont have a lot of time. So I am using regular HDD and using a back up sorftware to back up disks to another disk. I have two disc for movies one from A-L and the other one M-Z which actually means 4 drives. When one gets full the devode the letters in 3 and keep going. Music and Pictures on one disc and TV shows and Documentaries in other drive. This might not be the most efficient way but I am not buying another Win7 with a different name and remote access.
I sold my EX487 on ebay and with the money bought a Mediasonic Enclosure and some drives to ad to the server. I am keeping my EX495 for other things.

Author:  Chasrobin [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Win7 Home Server

Sounds familiar.
I have done some very similar things on my system.
Be sure to check out the tools I have been putting together to handle movie collections on a Win7 server.
The most recent one is to take your recent ripps and m ove them to the appropriate labeled folder.
In my case I have several physical drives and manually moving the movies around is teadious.
So I have automated it.

Author:  cubanblood [ Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Win7 Home Server

Dont worry i have been following your ideas and tools. :cheers:

Author:  cubanblood [ Thu Sep 15, 2011 2:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Win7 Home Server

Sorry have not update this topic in a few month. After moving twice in the las 6 months (military) i am finally in a permanent place at least for the next 5 year :banana: . I just got done finishing the last touches on my Win7 server but i am having a little problem. I am using a Norco RPC-470 i got from a friend and i love it. The only problem i have is that in order to take out a hard drive if it fails i have to remove the bracket that hold the fans. This is a major problem so i am trying to come up with a solution.
I kind of like having all those fans because it keeps everything very cold ( average temp is 25c). I guess my question to all the smart people of this site is What can i do to resolve this problem?.
I have been taking pics of the server that i will post here in a few days.

Author:  cubanblood [ Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Win7 Home Server

I decided to remove the fan plate from the case. The temperatures increased a bit but not a whole lot. Below are pics of what I have so far. I have not added all the hard drives yet because I am still waiting for the other 120mm fan from Newegg.

I am not going to use RAID, what I'm doing is using the mirror function on Win 7. Some people call that RAID but i rather call it mirroring.

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File comment: The had to use black electrical tape to hold the DVD-RWs because my son took the bracket that holds them and now we can't find them.
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Author:  Comp1962 [ Fri Sep 16, 2011 11:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Win7 Home Server

cubanblood wrote:
Sorry have not update this topic in a few month. After moving twice in the las 6 months (military) i am finally in a permanent place at least for the next 5 year :banana: . I just got done finishing the last touches on my Win7 server but i am having a little problem. I am using a Norco RPC-470 i got from a friend and i love it. The only problem i have is that in order to take out a hard drive if it fails i have to remove the bracket that hold the fans. This is a major problem so i am trying to come up with a solution.
I kind of like having all those fans because it keeps everything very cold ( average temp is 25c). I guess my question to all the smart people of this site is What can i do to resolve this problem?.
I have been taking pics of the server that i will post here in a few days.


I wonder if you could install a 5 bay cage with trays, backplane and cooling fans if that might be a solution. Of course you may have to do some retrofitting but it would make drive installation and removal much simpler and you could keep the fan bracket out of the server as those types of cages have their own cooling fans. The real issue is the cost of having to install 2 cages.

As for the bracket your son lost you may be able to purchase replacements from Norco. They are very easy to deal with and eager to help. I was very happy with them when I had to return a backplane from my Norco 4220 enclosure because of a failed LED. I also believe Norco on their site sells cages too so you can email them to see if they might have something that will fit into your enclosure. Of course you would have to remove the front fans but its an option worth considering.

Author:  cubanblood [ Sat Sep 17, 2011 8:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Win7 Home Server

I thought about adding hdd cages. I going ti contact norco tek if their SS-500 fits on this case. Newegg has them for $89 ad thats not a bad price. Rhanks for you reply.

Author:  cubanblood [ Sun Sep 18, 2011 6:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Win7 Home Server

I am trying to organize my cables a bit and decide to build my own data power adapter. I want it to be more or less like the one in the pic below but I don't know where to get the parts. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Attachments:
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Author:  cubanblood [ Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Win7 Home Server

Two days ago I decided to test my system and UPS to see what a power loss would do and to my surprise the UPS failed to performed as expected and I lost a hard drive ](*,) . I had mirroring turned on so all my data is safe but it still took a day to get my server back online. I guess you can never be 100% safe.

Author:  Gardian [ Wed May 02, 2012 6:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Win7 Home Server

Here is that power cable you were looking for maybe.
http://www.moddiy.com/products/Single-B ... TA%29.html

This thing could come in handy for cable management.
Hope this helps

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