I have never fully stopped having problems with my 470, and have not reached a level of competence in understanding logs to figure out why the server shuts down, leaves me with many, many error notices on each reboot, and why I even now still experience periodic file corruption problems. On top of that, I don't really have enough space overall. So... I figure I'll build a new one with v.2011. As I look at this, I begin to get lost in a world of specs, but have the benefit of reading what you guys have done and are doing now with your builds. In short, I can borrow from your component lists! I don't think I'm ready to build a rack-mountable behemoth, but I would like to have an in-case 8-12 storage drive capacity. I'd also like to have enough horsepower to later do transcoding to maybe push movies to the xBox 360's floating around the house (that will also get used as CATV extenders with an HDHomerun Prime next month). With that in mind, what do you all think of this general direction? Am I overdoing it? Can I cut costs while keeping the capability, or am I already under-spec'ing the hardware?
Case: LIAN LI PC-A70F USB3.0 Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower (sticking with stock fans for now, maybe going quieter later) MB: GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5 AM3+ AMD 990FX (borrowed from the HIGHLANDER build) CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz (using the stock cooler that comes with it) Memory: CORSAIR Vengeance 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) (x2 for a total of 8GB since memory sure looks cheap in cost) PS: CORSAIR Professional Series HX750 (CMPSU-750HX) 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC (modular) Controller card: AOC-SASLP-MV8 with a couple SFF-8087 cables (probably the 1m flavor?).
HDD/OS: still pondering this one - I figure I want to go smaller and faster, maybe an SSD (see my notes below)?
HDDs/storage: I will slowly recycle drives from my v.1 system along with spares I have kicking around the house kept for server emergencies. Because of the many problems I had with my 470, I kept frequent back-ups of my media collection. I can load up the new server from those backups, and just dismount drives from the 470 and formatting/reusing them without pulling the data. I had also already begun on the 470 to match shares to drive sizes for back-up purposes, so it appears I am in excellent shape to move into a non-DE world (all my media shares are already matched to 1.5TB or 2TB back-up drives based on genre or general type of media).
I read somewhere on a forum that the OS can be installed on smaller drives in the 60GB to 120GB range with some workarounds. I have a new and unopened Kingston 96GB SSD (SSDNow 100 V+) sitting on my desk that is maybe a bit small to put in any family notebook computers, but might be nice to add to the server since it's already bought? I also have a 10,000rpm drive on a desktop that I could pull, putting the SSD on the desktop and moving the 10k drive to the server. Or I could just put an ordinary drive in the server. Still, with the case's 2.5" drive slots, I figure I might as well not waste the chance to get another drive into the case?
On the SATA side, is there any reason why I should not use the motherboard's existing 8 SATA ports first, and then add the controller card later when I kick over eight SATA devices?
Power supply question: I like the modular idea, but how much power do I really need? Does a 750w PS run that high all the time, or does it just match the load put on it? My electric bill is already a bit high...!
Motherboard question: does this combo and WHS2011 present me with any limitations regarding eSATA like the 470 did? With those two eSATA ports on the MB, how far can I expand with external enclosures, and are there any limitations on the number of drives those enclosures can have and still be seen by the OS?
I am also pondering adding a DVD or BR drive to the build just to make some things easier later, and also am thinking about adding some sort of video to it so I can put this on a KVM at home and use a keyboard/monitor directly. The latter I have not settled on though. Maybe it's just best to stay headless?
Long posting... I'd very much appreciate some advice in general and on hardware specifically before I start pushing the "buy" buttons. Also, any reason not to pretty much do it all with Newegg?
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