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So I'm currently in the position where my data is vulnerable to failures. The OS SSD from my main PC is backed up along with my user profile and my separate disk for photos, but nothing else is backed up and at best the backups are only duplicate. My current home server is a Win7 box running an old AMD dual core with a single 2TB disk. Nothing on the server is backed up, it used to be a pair of 1TB disks in RAID 1 but I ran out of space and had to swap them out. As you can see, this is a tad risky.
I was hoping that the server I had brought home from the clearout at work would be the base unit for my new server, but after it decided to smoke me out on Saturday I don't trust it any more and will be getting rid. It ran an old Xeon with limited memory.
Storage
Storage is fixed already, I'll be buying a trio of WD Red 3TB drives and running them in RAID 5, giving me protection against one failure and 6TB of usable space. The disks currently total ?285, the controller I have in mind is the Adaptec 6405 which comes in at ?135 with the fan-out cable for the 4 SATA connections. In all cases this controller is required as I will mention later. The server will be performing several tasks. Primarily it'll be a file server for all my media and backup device for the network, but will also be running Plex, Sickbeard, Sab, torrents and potentiall handling IP camera recordings in the future. One of my options allows me to make other uses which I will explain. OS will either be Windows 7 or Home Server 2011, They're both about the same price but I'm struggling to see the benefit of WHS over Win7.
I'm left with a couple of options for the box though.
Option 1
Buy an HP MicroServer. The prices range wildly depending on the model but a good Gen 7 model with 4GB RAM can be had for about ?200. The processor will be low end, at best a dual core Turion, which is slower than that in my current server. Out of the box they don't do RAID 5, so I'll need the Adaptec card mentioned above. Basically if I go down this route I'm just paying ?200 for a small, quiet box that sips electricity. However it lacks the power of option 2 and means I have 3 machines, one of which is potentially sitting around doing nowt.
Option 2
Turn the box I'm currently using into a server. It's my trusty C2Q 9550 with 8GB RAM. Work were getting rid of a custom Core 2 Extreme beast that was used for many years as a 3D modelling machine, and naturally this has more power than the C2Q, along with DDR3 RAM. This means I could move over to that beast as my main machine and re-purpose this one, with the disks and controllers mentioned above. The P5Q Pro board can already support RAID 5, but a quick search will reveal many complaints about speed so I'd rather just spend the money and get something reliable. Advantages are it's essentially free and along with all the other tasks I can use it as a video render machine, something I've really been wanting recently. No other solution can do this.
The only main downsides of using this box are it's size and volume. It's a full ATX board so other than shoving it in a rackmount chassis it has to stay as-is, a big midi-tower. It's currently rocking 3 big fans (inlet and exhaust built in to the case) but if I drop it back to standard clock speed I could probably get the volume down. It still won't be quiet though so I'll need to locate it carefully if I'm going for 24/7 uptime. Power usage is a concern because none of this kit was designed to run on low power, I have no idea what it uses while idling though.
Opinions appreciated.
I was hoping that the server I had brought home from the clearout at work would be the base unit for my new server, but after it decided to smoke me out on Saturday I don't trust it any more and will be getting rid. It ran an old Xeon with limited memory.
Storage
Storage is fixed already, I'll be buying a trio of WD Red 3TB drives and running them in RAID 5, giving me protection against one failure and 6TB of usable space. The disks currently total ?285, the controller I have in mind is the Adaptec 6405 which comes in at ?135 with the fan-out cable for the 4 SATA connections. In all cases this controller is required as I will mention later. The server will be performing several tasks. Primarily it'll be a file server for all my media and backup device for the network, but will also be running Plex, Sickbeard, Sab, torrents and potentiall handling IP camera recordings in the future. One of my options allows me to make other uses which I will explain. OS will either be Windows 7 or Home Server 2011, They're both about the same price but I'm struggling to see the benefit of WHS over Win7.
I'm left with a couple of options for the box though.
Option 1
Buy an HP MicroServer. The prices range wildly depending on the model but a good Gen 7 model with 4GB RAM can be had for about ?200. The processor will be low end, at best a dual core Turion, which is slower than that in my current server. Out of the box they don't do RAID 5, so I'll need the Adaptec card mentioned above. Basically if I go down this route I'm just paying ?200 for a small, quiet box that sips electricity. However it lacks the power of option 2 and means I have 3 machines, one of which is potentially sitting around doing nowt.
Option 2
Turn the box I'm currently using into a server. It's my trusty C2Q 9550 with 8GB RAM. Work were getting rid of a custom Core 2 Extreme beast that was used for many years as a 3D modelling machine, and naturally this has more power than the C2Q, along with DDR3 RAM. This means I could move over to that beast as my main machine and re-purpose this one, with the disks and controllers mentioned above. The P5Q Pro board can already support RAID 5, but a quick search will reveal many complaints about speed so I'd rather just spend the money and get something reliable. Advantages are it's essentially free and along with all the other tasks I can use it as a video render machine, something I've really been wanting recently. No other solution can do this.
The only main downsides of using this box are it's size and volume. It's a full ATX board so other than shoving it in a rackmount chassis it has to stay as-is, a big midi-tower. It's currently rocking 3 big fans (inlet and exhaust built in to the case) but if I drop it back to standard clock speed I could probably get the volume down. It still won't be quiet though so I'll need to locate it carefully if I'm going for 24/7 uptime. Power usage is a concern because none of this kit was designed to run on low power, I have no idea what it uses while idling though.
Opinions appreciated.