Post your setup!

[Tom_1569]

Unfortunately my hobbies mostly consist of computers and cars, both are expensive and i dont really earn that much .

Im currently still living at home, so living expenses are down. I worked hard for about 8 months saving every penny to build that server. I did cop a lot of crap from people saying its a waste etc etc, but the way i see it... I gained a lot of experience and knowledge building/working with PCs, as a result i currently work in IT in the city .

So for the $15-20k ive spent on computers in the previous few years, its allowed me to start building a career, which is going to be worth a lot more than that in the future.



Nothing wrong with that, you have to sort priorities and computers shouldnt really be number 1.

Anyway, if you just want a server for $500 you'll actually get a lot of performance. As i mentioned above, you can build a decent server (good for torrents and file sharing) for about 200 or so. It wont need a monitor (just remote desktop from another PC).

Power consumption is something to take into consideration... A Quadcore setup with 9800GTX SLI can draw upto ~750w, which would cost you 11c/hour, which is almost $1000 a year...

I personally would stick to AMDs, they offer the best power consumption OVERALL. (Intel CPUs are about the same these days, but the Intel mobos use a lot more power due to their design, so including the mobo AMD are still a long way ahead).

So yeah, as a headless fileserver/torrent box a AM2 LE1200 ($38) will be more than enough, if your going to use the PC then its probably worth picking up a AM2 X2 4600+ ($71).

1GB of ram again is enough for torrents and fileservering, if your going to use it boost it up to 2GB.

Remember, you dont want to have your OS on your storage drives, or save torrent files to it (as this causes excessive read/writes which wears the drive. Get yourself a "thrash" drive, basically something crappy to download to. When the file completes, copy it to the storage disk/array)

Onboard raid (which is software raid) is ok, but is limited to Raid 0 and 1. RAID It also uses the CPU for Xor calculations if you use software raid 5 (meaning the CPU has to do a lot of work, this can slow down a system a lot, especially during rebuilds).

The other downside to onboard raid, is if your mobo dies you'll need to source the EXACT same motherboard to recover your array. So there are a few downsides.

With a hardware card, you simply plug it in and away you go. It does the Xor calcs and is not motherboard specific.



Well i guess its personal choice... Dont use Vista. Just dont. XP is probably my choice, as it can be stable if setup correctly and probably the easiest to get working with other PCs/media devices.

Not sure what your using the fileserver before, but if you download TV shows/movies (only legal ones of course) its worth investing in a network player... EG Mediagate Prices
Basically you plug them into your TV and they'll play media from your PC/Fileserver over network lan or wireless. Ive got 3 of em in my house, so family members can each watch their own TV shows simultaneously. (legal downloaded ones of course) Its 1000 times better than foxtel, as you choose what show you wanna watch, when and completely commercial free. Give it 5-10 years, and foxtel will be out of business.

If i was in your position id probably buy the following...

Am2 LE1200
1GB ram
Gigabyte S2 motherboard (onboard video)
Coolermaster elite 330
OS HDD ($40-50), something cheap second hand.
3 X 750GB Samsung SATAII Drives.

TOTAL cost, $533.

Format with XP, setup remote desktop and away you go. Basically then the server can sit somewhere out of the way (Garage etc). If you need to access it use remote desktop. Share the drives out with write permissions then map the drives on your local PCs. If your running gigabit at home its worth changing the motherboard to something with a gigabit network card.

Data transfer over 100mb/s will be about 7-9MB/s, over gigabit you should see upto 40MB/S. Honestly when i originally built my PC (although it was a gaming machine as well) i had to spend a fortune to get 2TB of storage ($1600 for drives, $400 for raid card). Now you can get 2TB of online storage INCLUDING the server itself for $500. Pretty impressive really.

If you spend $700 you could get 3.5TB of space, although you'd probably want to upgrade the case to something bigger/better.

Still, thats a hell of a lot of storage for very little cost.

When you get around to building it, drop me a PM. Ill help you out...

Cheers, Errol.

Wow, thats heaps of great info. Thank you so much.
I tottally agree on building experience. I've paid out heaps on buying stuff just to try it out and learn about it, If i hadnt I wouldnt have the knowledge today.

I thought raid cards were expensive as alls hell, but had a quick browse and I should easily get a decent one for under 50 bux.
Next week I'll build up a prototype of what I want, useing an old computer and nut out any problems im going to run in to (expect questions :P), then ill start saving to build a decent server, If i can get raid to work cheaply ill go 2tb or close to.

With the network player, do i need to put another hard drive in that, or can i run it straight from the server through router to the tv? Is their anything abit cheaper that can do that?

[feistl]

Wow, thats heaps of great info. Thank you so much.
I tottally agree on building experience. I've paid out heaps on buying stuff just to try it out and learn about it, If i hadnt I wouldnt have the knowledge today.

I thought raid cards were expensive as alls hell, but had a quick browse and I should easily get a decent one for under 50 bux.
Next week I'll build up a prototype of what I want, useing an old computer and nut out any problems im going to run in to (expect questions :P), then ill start saving to build a decent server, If i can get raid to work cheaply ill go 2tb or close to.

With the network player, do i need to put another hard drive in that, or can i run it straight from the server through router to the tv? Is their anything abit cheaper that can do that?

Those cheap raid cards will be software (meaning they'll use the CPU power) but can still be quiet effective.

That network player doesnt require a HDD, but can have one installed (great for taking to a mates place). You can get the MG35 for less (non wireless, no HD version). If your trying to do it on the cheap a Chipped Xbox has the BEST mediacentre function going around. You should be able to get your hands on one for under $100 (including chip and HDD). I Paid $120 for one a while ago with 4 controllers, 250GB HDD and a DDR pad :P.

[Tom_1569]

Those cheap raid cards will be software (meaning they'll use the CPU power) but can still be quiet effective.

That network player doesnt require a HDD, but can have one installed (great for taking to a mates place). You can get the MG35 for less (non wireless, no HD version). If your trying to do it on the cheap a Chipped Xbox has the BEST mediacentre function going around. You should be able to get your hands on one for under $100 (including chip and HDD). I Paid $120 for one a while ago with 4 controllers, 250GB HDD and a DDR pad :P.

Ahhh Ok, How do I know if the raid uses software or is done on the card? What sort of price would i be looking at for a 3-4 port sata raid?

Now the Xbox is an idea, I think ill come back to this part later. Ill make the dummy server, plan the final one, start building, and get it setup by christmas lol.

Thansk for all your advice.

[feistl]

Ahhh Ok, How do I know if the raid uses software or is done on the card? What sort of price would i be looking at for a 3-4 port sata raid?

Now the Xbox is an idea, I think ill come back to this part later. Ill make the dummy server, plan the final one, start building, and get it setup by christmas lol.

Thansk for all your advice.

Id have to do some more research... But one of the highpoint cards would still be my bet..

PCI HighPoint Rocket Raid 1640
PCIe HighPoint Rocket Raid 2300

They will give you hardware Raid 5, seem to be good cards. Ive got the 8 port versions of these...

[50LTRv8]

Ahhh Ok, How do I know if the raid uses software or is done on the card? What sort of price would i be looking at for a 3-4 port sata raid?

Now the Xbox is an idea, I think ill come back to this part later. Ill make the dummy server, plan the final one, start building, and get it setup by christmas lol.

Thansk for all your advice.

Dude

Most motherboards have RAID onboard these days. You could just simulate RAID using software on your test setup, and then when you buy your machine get a mb with raid.

I have used software raid for about 2 years and all is good. I had one drive fail and it rebuilt it no worries.

I will have to take a pic of my laundy setup and post it here, aircon and all

50LTRv8

[Tom_1569]

Id have to do some more research... But one of the highpoint cards would still be my bet..

PCI HighPoint Rocket Raid 1640
PCIe HighPoint Rocket Raid 2300

They will give you hardware Raid 5, seem to be good cards. Ive got the 8 port versions of these...

Thanks for the links, ill keep looking into these. Going by wat 50LTRv8 says, is on-board alright, or are these the ones that will wear the hard drives and use more CPU. My current comp has on board raid but i havent played around with it, maybe I can just upgrade my computer and use my current one for a server.

Dude

Most motherboards have RAID onboard these days. You could just simulate RAID using software on your test setup, and then when you buy your machine get a mb with raid.

I have used software raid for about 2 years and all is good. I had one drive fail and it rebuilt it no worries.

I will have to take a pic of my laundy setup and post it here, aircon and all

50LTRv8

Cheers, Ill keep looking into this. Dont have time now suppose to be leaving for a holiday in 2 hours and im not packed

[50LTRv8]

O.k. Here it is, my Server Room

Here is the aircon duct I had installed (should have seen peoples faces when I asked for this. It was just getting too hot in summer (I am running about 12 HDD's between the 2 machines)



Here is my man hole cover that I will have to get replicated somewhere else (there is no room between the aircon pipe and the hole). I have left this open to allow hot air to go into the roof when the aircon is not on.


Here are the servers


There are 2 comps sitting on a shelf hooked up to a switchbox. There is a monitor in the cupboard so I can see what is happening, although I mainly go through rdp for admin. I also have WSUS running on a vm too apply patches to all the machines on my network.

You will also see in the pic the white box near the compaq sign. This is my 24 port 100MB switch which everything goes through.

[fu2]

my setup

Chakra Etermax case
OCZ Stealth Stream 600w psu
AMD Phenom 9600 Quad Core cpu
Asus M3A Mobo
4gb Transend ram
Asus Nvidia Geforce 8800GT 512mb
Creative X-fi Extream Gamer sound
Westen Digital Sata2 320gb HDD
Western Digital SATA 200gb HDD
Pioneer DVD-RW
XMS 5.1 surround speakers (going to change soon)
Logitech MX3200 cordless mouse & keyboard

[evil_monkey]

sr-gamer:

intel q6600 quad core 2.4Ghz
msi p35 motherboard
4GB geil dual channel ddr2 800Mhz
pcie MSI 8800GT overclocked edition 512MB DDR DVI
samsung 20x sata dvd burner
1TB samsung sata hdd
thermaltake amour case with liquid cooling
600watt JSP PSU with blue led 120mm fan & blue uv reactive sleeving
UV cold cathodes
green uv reactive coolant, green uv sata cables and green uv spiral sleaving
logitech mx5000 bluetooth keyboard/mouse
logitech z 5500 speakers


OS - windows vista home premium

monitor 1 - 22" viewsonic lcd wide screen
monitor 2 - 106 cm sony bravia hdtv via dvi to hdmi connection
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sr-reception

intel core 2 duo e6750 2.66Ghz cpu
msi something or rather motherboard
4GB geil dual channel ddr2 800Mhz
pcie msi 9600GT dvi video card
160gb samsung sata hdd
20x samsung sata dvd burner
sony black 1.44MB floppy drive
lian li atx case with 400watt psu

os - windows vista business
monitor - 22" wide aoc monitor

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sr-workbench

intel pentium 4 socket 775 3.20Ghz (hyperthreading bull****)
asus something or rather motherboard
3GB ddr1 400Mhz
250gb western digital sata hdd
lg something or rather speed dvd burner ide
black gtr atx case with digital temp gauge on the front clear side window exhaust fans etc 350watt psu
agp msi 6200 256MB dvi
microsoft keyboard with fingerprint reader & microsoft usb mouse

os - windows xp pro
monitor - viewsonic 19" widescreen

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

laptop

toshiba satelite pro
1.8Ghz centrino
250gb sata hdd
15.4" crystalbrite widescreen
harmon kardon speakers (these crank for laptop speakers )
4GB ddr2
os - windows vista home premium

[tr3nt]

Not a bad little setup here..

Toshiba Satellite laptop;
Intel Core Duo CPU @ 2Ghz
1Gb Ram
120Gb Hard disk
Onboard usuals. USB/Sound/Gfx/Lan
Wireless Wifi Internet Wicked speeds considering

[HoZy]

I'll post specs to the pc i'm on right now

Nforce3 K8n-neo2 platinum motherboard
2gb ocz ram
AMD64 2200 2.1ghz @ 2.8ghz
300gb wd velociraptor
36gb wd raptor
pioneer 108 burner

umm bout it

toy pc
-
intel core2 extreme qx9650
ocz 8gb ram
300gb velociraptor
single nvidia geforce 9800gx2 (soon to be dual)
asus p5e3 deluxe
--- I enjoy it

[Dirbatua]

Mine:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ (3.22ghz dual core)
4gb DDR 800 Transend Ram
Gigabye GA-M55SLI-S4 Motherboard
Pioneer 20x Sata Dvd Burner
512mb 8600GT Geforce Silent Pipe
400W True Power Server P/S (not sure what brand)
LG 8162B Dvd Rom
750gb Seagate Sata
500gb W.D Sata
250gb W.D Sata
250gb Seagate IDE
80gb Seagate Sata (Windows)
Not sure what brand case, just brought it cause i could fit 4 120mm Fans and 1 80mm Fan which keeps it from overheating.
Logitech x530 5.1 Speakers
Generic 2.1 Speakers.
20 Inch Viewsonic Widescreen Monitor
Windows XP Professional

and with all the HDD space, ive still run out of ****ing space, ah well, got to buy some 1tb hdds to replace all current hdds soon i rekon.

Looking to get Windows XP 64-bit so that the computer can find more then 3.25gb of ram, then ill upgrade the pc to 8gb ram after that, and i hate windows vista.

[Holdfast]

Antec "Nine Hundred" Tower Gaming Case
Cooler Master 850 WATT Power Supply
Intel® Core™2 Duo Desktop Processor E8400
ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP
PNY DDR2 800 4GB (Can upgarde to 8gig)
ASUS GeForce 8800GT - 512MB DDR3
Seagate 360GB Barracuda EIDE HDD
Seagate 500GB Barracuda SATA HDD
Pioneer DVD burner
LGE L196WTP-BF BLACK 19" Widescreen LCD
Logitech speakers
Microsoft keyboard and optical mouse
Surge protector
Windows XP SP3
Linux


Found: Chucked out for garbage, which I fixed up.

An Intel P4 2.4GHZ 478 pin and one stick of 256meg DDR.

I cleaned it up, bunged in a PCI Host Controller for 5 USB2 ports plus a cheap Western Digital EIDE 160 GB HD. Plus it needed a $5 CMOS battery.
She runs quiet and fast. Partioned the 160Gig into 2 x 80gig partitions so i could run XP home edition
The people who through away the computer even left the XP 'product key' attached to the side of the computer

Unfortunately the motherboard is a Gigabyte and yeah, it has a few leaking capacitors but still runs well. I might replace them

It's amazing what people throw away


Last Desktop is very old but still ok
Intel P4 2.2GHZ
MSI Mother Board (No leakage in the capacitors yet)
1 Gig of SDRAM
1 x 160 Gig Seagate EIDE hard-drive 'pri'
1 x 20Gig Seagate EIDE hard-drive 'slave'
LG DVD/Cd Combo
Floppy

All the Desktops are on Broadband wireless set-up

[tommo82]

Here tis.

Black macbook and DELL 24" Screen

1 Tbyte apple time capsule backup device



And the comms rack for ethernet, phone and TV

[PRH]

mines a big blue and silver box wif a blue square light and a little orange one that flashes,its got a tv thing i look at and a thing wif all the letters too,and its got a little doodaa that moves the little arrow round on the tv
Phillip

[TMM]

Mine are getting a bit dated, but do the job fine

Main Rig:
CPU: AMD Opteron 170 (2ghz Dualcore) @ 2.9GHz
Motherboard: DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D
RAM: 2GB G.Skill HZ DDR-500
GFX: Leadtek GeForce 8800GTS 512MB
Storage: 1TB total (2x250GB RAID0 + 500GB)
Powersupply: Seasonic S12-II 430W
OS: Windows XP Professional

File Server/Backup:
CPU: AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ (2ghz Dualcore)
Motherboard: ASUS M2N8-VMX
RAM: 1GB Corsair ValueSelect DDR2-667
Storage: 760GB total (40GB + 400GB + 320GB)
Powersupply: Seasonic S12-II 430W
OS: Xubuntu Linux 8.04

Home Theater PC:
CPU: AMD Athlon64 3200+
Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo4-F
GFX: Leadtek GeForce 6600GT 128MB
RAM: 1GB Corsair XMS 3200C2
Storage: 500GB total (2x250GB RAID0)
Powersupply: FSP 400W
OS: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

Main Rig:
19" LCD + old ass 17" LCD, homebrew Speakers

[SilverSV6]

Intel E6750 overclocked to 3.6ghz with Zalman CNPS9500A LED cooler
Gigabyte n650sli-ds4l
4gb of 800mhz ram
2 x 8800GTS 512mb in SLI
320gb SATA
200gb SATA
X-fi Fatal1ty
Logitech Z2300
Coolermaster rc690 with 6 x 120mm fans running off 6 channel Zalman fan speed controller.
Samsung 226bw 22" LCD
Logitech g9 mouse and g15 keyboard with custom temp/speed/usage monitor app.

[holdensupporter2005]

AMD AM2 X2 64 6400+ CPU
Asus Mainboard M3A
4 GB DDR2 800Mhz Corsair Memory
GeForce 8500GT - 512mb Graphics Card
1 x 400GB Seagate SATA
1 x 200GB Seagate SATA
1 x 120GB Seagate IDE
1 x 80GB Seagate IDE
20" Samsung 204b Monitor

[VS Omega]

Homebuilt

- Asus P5KC Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz @ 3.4GHz (Thermalright Ultra eXtreme 120)
- 4GB (2x 2GB) Dual Channel Corsair XMS2 @ 916MHz w/ 4-4-4-12 timing
- Asus nVIDIA GeForce 7900GS 128MB
- 320GB + 500GB SATA 2 HDDs
- 2x SATA DVD Burners

- Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard (version 1)
- Logitech G9 Gaming Laser Mouse

[50LTRv8]

Homebuilt

- Asus P5KC Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz @ 3.4GHz (Thermalright Ultra eXtreme 120)
- 4GB (2x 2GB) Dual Channel Corsair XMS2 @ 916MHz w/ 4-4-4-12 timing
- Asus nVIDIA GeForce 7900GS 128MB
- 320GB + 500GB SATA 2 HDDs
- 2x SATA DVD Burners

- Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard (version 1)
- Logitech G9 Gaming Laser Mouse

A vid card upgrade would have that think flying

50LTRv8

[VS Omega]

A vid card upgrade would have that think flying

50LTRv8

I know, unfortunately my motivation for computer upgrades ran out and I've regained interest in the car (possibly a good thing haha).. funny how I can't multitask interests. Graphics card is the oldest part of the computer now (also in desperate need of a few more hard drives - can't believe how cheap they can be had for these days)

EDIT: Just read about your setup, pretty sweet man! I use this box as a server of sorts with a WRT54G running DD-WRT with 9dBi antenna hooking it all up (wifes PC, upstairs PC, PSP, XBOX's [cheapo media centres]), got all the movies and music on here (obviously not much) and this computer never sleeps.. not looking forward to summer, might clock it down to 3.0 and RAM back to 800

EDIT 2: Was running Asus P5K-E WiFi but a bad windows FW flash killed it (going to use the built in flashing form now on), picked up the P5KC because there's provisions for DDR3 and for me the WiFi AP was useless

[holdensupporter2005]

EDIT: Just read about your setup, pretty sweet man! I use this box as a server of sorts with a WRT54G running DD-WRT with 9dBi antenna hooking it all up

How do you find the signal strength with the 9dBi Antenna?

[VS Omega]

How do you find the signal strength with the 9dBi Antenna?

Significant improvement, even with stock antennas on other devices (except upstairs PC which has 7dBi antenna), get strong signal throughout the home but never really tested outside, upped signal strength tx in router to 80mW as well

[Tom_1569]

I know, unfortunately my motivation for computer upgrades ran out and I've regained interest in the car (possibly a good thing haha).. funny how I can't multitask interests. Graphics card is the oldest part of the computer now (also in desperate need of a few more hard drives - can't believe how cheap they can be had for these days)

EDIT: Just read about your setup, pretty sweet man! I use this box as a server of sorts with a WRT54G running DD-WRT with 9dBi antenna hooking it all up (wifes PC, upstairs PC, PSP, XBOX's [cheapo media centres]), got all the movies and music on here (obviously not much) and this computer never sleeps.. not looking forward to summer, might clock it down to 3.0 and RAM back to 800

EDIT 2: Was running Asus P5K-E WiFi but a bad windows FW flash killed it (going to use the built in flashing form now on), picked up the P5KC because there's provisions for DDR3 and for me the WiFi AP was useless

What type of case is that? Looks similar to the one Im getting, but i didnt notice the PSU was mounter on the bottom. Do you notice any heat problems with it mounted down their?

[50LTRv8]

I know, unfortunately my motivation for computer upgrades ran out and I've regained interest in the car (possibly a good thing haha).. funny how I can't multitask interests. Graphics card is the oldest part of the computer now (also in desperate need of a few more hard drives - can't believe how cheap they can be had for these days)

EDIT: Just read about your setup, pretty sweet man! I use this box as a server of sorts with a WRT54G running DD-WRT with 9dBi antenna hooking it all up (wifes PC, upstairs PC, PSP, XBOX's [cheapo media centres]), got all the movies and music on here (obviously not much) and this computer never sleeps.. not looking forward to summer, might clock it down to 3.0 and RAM back to 800

EDIT 2: Was running Asus P5K-E WiFi but a bad windows FW flash killed it (going to use the built in flashing form now on), picked up the P5KC because there's provisions for DDR3 and for me the WiFi AP was useless

Thanks for the comments, it goes o.k., just in the process of converting it all to virual machines now. The setup is pretty simple really and I have an advantage in that I work in the industry so I can get my hands on various stuff. I got the rack from an auction, the switch from work, but most of the suff is from the computer fair cause it is cheap.

It was funny seeing the guys faces when I asked for a vent in my laundry, but it gets very hot in the summer as the sun is on the laundry wall in the arvo, hence the duct.

i only use wireless in my lounge room and for one or two laptops (just for the net). I have had huge issues with signal due to a brick wall. I spent a bit of money on it but it didn't work as well as I wanted it too (it was excel gear), and I also want to go gigabite in the future too.

50LTRv8