Wanting to build a Home File Server, thoughts on this build?

[Silver_40]

Hi everyone,

So I am wanting to build a file server for home and I basically want it to do the following:

1. Store files, including videos, music and pictures. I have a lot of 1080p mkv files that I would like to be able to stream over to laptops, tablets etc, possibly by using Plex. Hopefully I can also be able to access the files if I am not at home.

2. Use Usenet (SABnzbd), setting up Sickbeard, CouchPotato etc.

I want to keep my costs low, but still fitting my needs.

I made the build here, (PC Part Picker). Note that I already do have the 4x2TB drives. As for the RAM, is it really important which ones I get? I plan to probably get whatever is on sale at NCIX at the time. The other choice for Motherboard I have is (Asus P8H77-I). My question is, since the Asus one can take 6 SATA ports (4 for Biostar), if I wanted more drives, I have to get a PCIe SATA Multiplier right? But those only seem to give me 2 more ports, any way of increasing that even more?

Also, for hard drives, don't think an SSD is necessary for OS right? Especially since using Usenet, I wouldn't want to be writing/reading files constantly from the SSD, since Sickbeard will move the files to the Green drives once done downloading.

If anyone has any suggestions, please shoot them my way.

Thanks a lot :)

[MARSTG]

I am keeping my media files on a dual bay external dock on USB 3.0 from Cavalry (around 30$ on newegg.ca). A 2TB Samsung F4 and a 1.5 TB Seagate 7200.11. My USB card is the Asus U3S6 which has another USB 3.0 port free. I am thinking of buying another one as my media files accumulate. For more drives you can get an additional SATA card, a port multiplier card will divide the available bandwidth of a single SATA port to all existing drives : doable, but unnecessary. Just get an additional SATA card.

[Daedalus2002]

hmmn....File server
First off, do you really want to go with a mini-itx case for this? I know it supports 7 drives in theory, but the more drives you add in such a small space the harder it becomes to cool. Consider a mid-tower instead (and you can get it for cheaper too). For a file server you want to get a mobo that supports some kind of RAID. The H61 doesnt support RAID AFAIK. I would suggest a 5th drive for the OS and those 4x2TB in RAID 5 (space) or RAID 1+0 (speed+redundancy). If you really want to go wild on the number of drives you would want to get an addin RAID card. Those are pretty expensive though; a x8 sata port with RAID is about $500-800 off the top of my head. AND you would need to upgrade that PS if you really want to add a lot of drives.

If you want to avoid the whole RAID issue, try to buy a copy of Windows home server (not sure if you plan to go Linux or not) and utilize the drive extender technology. Personally, i bought an old used DELL for about $150 and stuck a few drives in it together with Windows Server 2008. No RAID of any sort, but then i backup religiously. It works, and its on the 2nd year right now.

[Silver_40]

Originally Posted by Daedalus2002

hmmn....File server
First off, do you really want to go with a mini-itx case for this? I know it supports 7 drives in theory, but the more drives you add in such a small space the harder it becomes to cool. Consider a mid-tower instead (and you can get it for cheaper too). For a file server you want to get a mobo that supports some kind of RAID. The H61 doesnt support RAID AFAIK. I would suggest a 5th drive for the OS and those 4x2TB in RAID 5 (space) or RAID 1+0 (speed+redundancy). If you really want to go wild on the number of drives you would want to get an addin RAID card. Those are pretty expensive though; a x8 sata port with RAID is about $500-800 off the top of my head. AND you would need to upgrade that PS if you really want to add a lot of drives.

If you want to avoid the whole RAID issue, try to buy a copy of Windows home server (not sure if you plan to go Linux or not) and utilize the drive extender technology. Personally, i bought an old used DELL for about $150 and stuck a few drives in it together with Windows Server 2008. No RAID of any sort, but then i backup religiously. It works, and its on the 2nd year right now.

Well, I don't HAVE to go with a mini-itx case but I want it to be small. I probably won't be stuffing the case with hard drives since there's only so many SATA slots, and just use USB for the rest (in the future). I originally wanted to avoid the RAID scene, doesn't seem like its something for me right now. I was definitely considering WHS, seems the better route to go (or Linux, haven't considered that much yet). So if I went with WHS, the current build shouldn't be too much of an issue I hope?

[Dzzope]

Nas.. sorted..