Post your setup!

[feistl]

Fileserver

AM2 X2 4600+
8GB DDR2 667mhz
Asus M2N32 SLI Deluxe
2 X Matrox PCIe1x Video cards
WD 500GB System Drive
2 X Highpoint 2320 PCIe Raid cards
8 X 320GB, 8 X 500GB
Stacker 810
Toughpower 750w
3 X 19" LCDs (8bit screen)
Logitech G15, Z5500, G5

Total Space, 6TB. In about 2 weeks ill be upgrading to 16 X 750GB to give me around 10TB formatted space.

Laptop
Dell XPS M1710, C2D 2ghz, 3GB ram, 320GB HDD, 7900GTX, 17" 1920x1280 etc

 

[Tom_1569]

Fileserver

AM2 X2 4600+
8GB DDR2 667mhz
Asus M2N32 SLI Deluxe
2 X Matrox PCIe1x Video cards
WD 500GB System Drive
2 X Highpoint 2320 PCIe Raid cards
8 X 320GB, 8 X 500GB
Stacker 810
Toughpower 750w
3 X 19" LCDs (8bit screen)
Logitech G15, Z5500, G5

Total Space, 6TB. In about 2 weeks ill be upgrading to 16 X 750GB to give me around 10TB formatted space.

Laptop
Dell XPS M1710, C2D 2ghz, 3GB ram, 320GB HDD, 7900GTX, 17" 1920x1280 etc

Why such a fast file server, and 3 monitors? Is it used for something else, I take its in an industry and not a home file server?

 

[feistl]

Why such a fast file server, and 3 monitors? Is it used for something else, I take its in an industry and not a home file server?

Na, just a home file server.
At the moment im using it to watch top gear, monitor torrents and post online (hence 3 screens ). Occasionally i run/test/experiment with virtual OSs so the ram comes in handy.

Annoying part is ive only got about 120GB left, which will be gone in about 2 weeks. Hence the upgrade .

 

[Tom_1569]

Na, just a home file server.
At the moment im using it to watch top gear, monitor torrents and post online (hence 3 screens ). Occasionally i run/test/experiment with virtual OSs so the ram comes in handy.

Annoying part is ive only got about 120GB left, which will be gone in about 2 weeks. Hence the upgrade .

Oh god, I'd love to have that at home.
What virtual OS's do you use... Im new to virtual operating systems, and learning how to use server 03 and networking all through virtual.
How do you keep it cool? air conditioning?
And dare I ask how much do you think just the system will cost onceyou upgrade to 10tb.

 

[feistl]

Oh god, I'd love to have that at home.
What virtual OS's do you use... Im new to virtual operating systems, and learning how to use server 03 and networking all through virtual.
How do you keep it cool? air conditioning?
And dare I ask how much do you think just the system will cost onceyou upgrade to 10tb.

Ive been playing around with Server 2008 and Vista, as well as linux and Mac OS's. Also been experimenting with running torrents from inside a Virtual OS (protects against viruses, helps with stability etc)

At the moment its in the garage, with the cables running through a small hole in the wall. This is brilliant as right now there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO noise or heat in my room. Its actually quiet errie at first, its even quieter than a laptop. Heat isnt really an issue, CPU is currently at 21 degrees, all HDDs are below 25 (which is good when there is 17 of em in a single case).

When i originally purchased the 320GB drives (25 months ago) they were $210 each, i paid $190 for the 500GB drives about 12 months ago and will be paying $150 for the 750GB drives.

Since building the fileserver in June 06, ive spent roughly $14k on it, plus $100/month for internet.

I normally spend about $1500 or so when upgrading the HDDs, which is about what it'll cost me this upgrade. Ill sell the 320/500s off for about $50/$70 each hopefully.

Its really nice as windows only sees 2 "drives", currently 2.2TB and 3.5TB. So file management is really easy. Plus ive got redundancy so if a drive fails i dont lose any data. Plus ive got a commercial UPS which lasts about 4-5 hours during power failures. I am considering upgrading to 1TB drives, as they are only $215 each... not sure yet

 

[Tom_1569]

Ive been playing around with Server 2008 and Vista, as well as linux and Mac OS's. Also been experimenting with running torrents from inside a Virtual OS (protects against viruses, helps with stability etc)

At the moment its in the garage, with the cables running through a small hole in the wall. This is brilliant as right now there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO noise or heat in my room. Its actually quiet errie at first, its even quieter than a laptop. Heat isnt really an issue, CPU is currently at 21 degrees, all HDDs are below 25 (which is good when there is 17 of em in a single case).

When i originally purchased the 320GB drives (25 months ago) they were $210 each, i paid $190 for the 500GB drives about 12 months ago and will be paying $150 for the 750GB drives.

Since building the fileserver in June 06, ive spent roughly $14k on it, plus $100/month for internet.

I normally spend about $1500 or so when upgrading the HDDs, which is about what it'll cost me this upgrade. Ill sell the 320/500s off for about $50/$70 each hopefully.

Its really nice as windows only sees 2 "drives", currently 2.2TB and 3.5TB. So file management is really easy. Plus ive got redundancy so if a drive fails i dont lose any data. Plus ive got a commercial UPS which lasts about 4-5 hours during power failures. I am considering upgrading to 1TB drives, as they are only $215 each... not sure yet

Oh god, 14K, but that is a neat setup.
The 1tb drive will work out more costly for the same amount of room, but you can have more room for less space.
What type of system is it, Is it just a standard computer case with an external hard drive rack? or is it all a server? Pics?

Im looking at building a simple file server on a budget (not near 14k lol), what would you recommend for an OS. Pretty much all I want it to do, is sit in a room, and act as a 1-2 TB storage drive, and hopefully appear on both computers (xp and vista) as a drive letter. But i want it to be done as simple as possible.
Also if those drives arnt SCSI then I would be interested if you choose to sell.

 

[feistl]

Oh god, 14K, but that is a neat setup.
The 1tb drive will work out more costly for the same amount of room, but you can have more room for less space.
What type of system is it, Is it just a standard computer case with an external hard drive rack? or is it all a server? Pics?

Im looking at building a simple file server on a budget (not near 14k lol), what would you recommend for an OS. Pretty much all I want it to do, is sit in a room, and act as a 1-2 TB storage drive, and hopefully appear on both computers (xp and vista) as a drive letter. But i want it to be done as simple as possible.
Also if those drives arnt SCSI then I would be interested if you choose to sell.

Hey mate, Its been a while since ive taken any pics. There is a thread on whilpool from a few years back...
Eman's Silent PC and Cooling Mod... - Cases - PC Hardware - Whirlpool Broadband Forums

The system is housed in a Coolermaster Stacker 810. They retail for about $200 but are hard to find these days. They have been replaced with the 830 which is terrible as a server case (good for gaming machines). The drives are standard SATAII Western Digitals.

As the system is left on 24/7 the drives will last forever . Raid5 is a "write once, read lots" type setup. Meaning the drives basically get some data written to them, and the just read it occasiaonally. Whereas an OS drive is constantly reading/write which wears them out.

Also, its much better to leave a HDD on 24/7 than turning it on and off. That way the bearing is at the same temperature. So although my drives are 2 years old and have been on for over 15,000 hours. They have actually had less wear/use than most 3 month old system drives.

As for a file server solution...

Well, you can buy external NAS devices which basically have a network plug, and a couple of internal HDDs. They'll act as a server... The downside is they can be quite expensive and you cant easily upgrade them.

As for a file server... Well...

AM2 LE-1200 $38.
1GB Ram $25
G-B M61SME-S2 $54
Case + PSU $50
OS HDD? $20??
3 X 750GB Samsung Drives $300

So for $487 you can have 2.25TB of usable storage space. In order to have the 750GB drives appear as one, you'll either need to use onboard raid0 (no redundancy) or software raid. If using software raid your better off sticking to Linux, as windows software raid can be painfull.

The other option would be to purhcase a raid card as you get redundancy, speed and ability to have all drives show as one. However this will add $400 to the cost and you'll lose 1 HDD worth of space (as raid 5 is n-1 capacity).

But simply, you can build a file server PC (CPU, Mobo, Ram, Case, Onboard Video) for about $200. Then just add drives as you need them.

My server uses around 250w continuously, which is about 3.6c per hour (based on 14.4c/1kwh). That equates to about $300 a year of power usage. On a smaller setup (as suggested above) i would expect power draw to be about 80w or so. that should only cost about 1.15c per hour (27c a day to run).

If you wanted an intel setup, go for the Celeron 430D, as its a "35w version" which keeps power draw down. I was actually using a AM2 X2 3600+ 35w version for a long time, but ended up selling it for more than twice what i paid. Never got around to importing another one (35w versions are sought after due to the lower power consumption, makes them ideal for servers).

 

[Zuicider]

meh im not running much,
intel core 2 quad overclocked to 2.8ghz
msi p35 neo m/b
thermaltake silver soprano case
msi 8800gt
4 gigg of geil ram
top silent 600 psu
logitech 5.1 surround sound
dvd burner
and 160gig h/d

 

[Tatiana]

BAHAHAHAHAHA. No idea what the specs are, but I was just emailed a .pps of some random pics and this was in the show.

Would you sleep in this bed?

 

[Tom_1569]

Hey mate, Its been a while since ive taken any pics. There is a thread on whilpool from a few years back...
Eman's Silent PC and Cooling Mod... - Cases - PC Hardware - Whirlpool Broadband Forums

The system is housed in a Coolermaster Stacker 810. They retail for about $200 but are hard to find these days. They have been replaced with the 830 which is terrible as a server case (good for gaming machines). The drives are standard SATAII Western Digitals.

As the system is left on 24/7 the drives will last forever . Raid5 is a "write once, read lots" type setup. Meaning the drives basically get some data written to them, and the just read it occasiaonally. Whereas an OS drive is constantly reading/write which wears them out.

Also, its much better to leave a HDD on 24/7 than turning it on and off. That way the bearing is at the same temperature. So although my drives are 2 years old and have been on for over 15,000 hours. They have actually had less wear/use than most 3 month old system drives.

As for a file server solution...

Well, you can buy external NAS devices which basically have a network plug, and a couple of internal HDDs. They'll act as a server... The downside is they can be quite expensive and you cant easily upgrade them.

As for a file server... Well...

AM2 LE-1200 $38.
1GB Ram $25
G-B M61SME-S2 $54
Case + PSU $50
OS HDD? $20??
3 X 750GB Samsung Drives $300

So for $487 you can have 2.25TB of usable storage space. In order to have the 750GB drives appear as one, you'll either need to use onboard raid0 (no redundancy) or software raid. If using software raid your better off sticking to Linux, as windows software raid can be painfull.

The other option would be to purhcase a raid card as you get redundancy, speed and ability to have all drives show as one. However this will add $400 to the cost and you'll lose 1 HDD worth of space (as raid 5 is n-1 capacity).

But simply, you can build a file server PC (CPU, Mobo, Ram, Case, Onboard Video) for about $200. Then just add drives as you need them.

My server uses around 250w continuously, which is about 3.6c per hour (based on 14.4c/1kwh). That equates to about $300 a year of power usage. On a smaller setup (as suggested above) i would expect power draw to be about 80w or so. that should only cost about 1.15c per hour (27c a day to run).

If you wanted an intel setup, go for the Celeron 430D, as its a "35w version" which keeps power draw down. I was actually using a AM2 X2 3600+ 35w version for a long time, but ended up selling it for more than twice what i paid. Never got around to importing another one (35w versions are sought after due to the lower power consumption, makes them ideal for servers).

Oh man, I just read your whole thread on whirlpool. That is insane. Im stunned at such a setup, its better then excellent. Bugger those who criticised it, its a hobby you get an enjoyment out of it, plus the knowledge you have gained would be priceless.

Now i feel stupid, but my budget for a server is around 500 bux minus hard drives. I dont like NAS' and would prefer to build one, more to gain knowledge aswell. I think i should be right building a basic system, but I never thought about power consumption, ill look into it and keep asking questions. Especially about RAID, is on board the easiest?
I have a spare version of XP pro, Server 03, and I did try using Kubuntu but my test computer couldnt run it lol. What do you think would be the best and easiest to set up, im in no rush, just want something effective, and not to hard to setup.