[aresfiend]

I often find myself wanting something from my computer on another computer at school or on my phone and a thought popped into my head. I have a spare motherboard that would be perfect for building an NAS for around the house and for remote access. The motherboard is a GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2H and I already have that.

So here's what I was thinking:

Intel Celeron E3400 Wolfdale 2.6GHz Dual Core Processor
OCZ Onyx 32gb SSD
Western Digital Caviar Blue 250gb 6.0gbps
Mushkin Enhanced 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 667 RAM
Corsair Builder Series CX430 V2 430w PSU
Apevia X-Dreamer ATX case W/420w PSU (Somebody gets a PSU for the price of shipping!)
Antec Performance Max CPU Heatsink

So, any changes I should make? This is NOT for gaming but it is going to be running for the better part of every month with one day a week allocated for downtime.

[blckninja]

• What are you going to be using this for anyway? Just for storage or will you be using this all day to store programs on?
• Why would you need a SSD? I'm just curious because you don't see them in many builds so far, or at least I dont.
• Might have to find a different tower though since it looks like newegg won't be stocking that one anymore. At least I'm doubtful that they would.
• Also I doubt you would need a new heatsink, don't see the point in getting one.

Thats my two cents.

[Stix]

What Ninja said. I would drop the SSD's, for more high capacity storage. Also, any reason you're building a whole desktop to run FreeNAS or whatever, instead of say, getting one of these: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822319006 ?

[aresfiend]

blckninja, on 17 January 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

• What are you going to be using this for anyway? Just for storage or will you be using this all day to store programs on?
• Why would you need a SSD? I'm just curious because you don't see them in many builds so far, or at least I dont.
• Might have to find a different tower though since it looks like newegg won't be stocking that one anymore. At least I'm doubtful that they would.
• Also I doubt you would need a new heatsink, don't see the point in getting one.

Thats my two cents.

File storage. The SSD is because I don't want the OS and storage on the same drive. The case was in stock when I put this thread up. Have you ever seen a stock celeron heatsink? It is freaking tiny with a low RPM fan, that's not good for a system that is going to have 7 hours of down time each month.

Stix, I don't want one of those all in ones because I cannot get remote access options and I want to stick to samba for my OS.

[blckninja]

Makes sense to me.  Guess the only thing you can do now is find a new tower.  Dunno how much storage you need though but that wouldn't be enough for me.

[aresfiend]

blckninja said:

Dunno how much storage you need though but that wouldn't be enough for me.

I have 1.25 TB on my main rig. This is just so I can access some of my stuff like music from my phone or another computer.

[blckninja]

Yea thats why I would do it too. Except everything I store is in flac so i would need a 1TB for my NAS.

[Blade of grass]

Nice idea! Lucky that you can do it.

[Blade of grass]

That sounds awesome!
Can you please tell me how this works? Are you gonna install a VPN?

[aresfiend]

Blade of grass, on 17 January 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

That sounds awesome!
Can you please tell me how this works? Are you gonna install a VPN?

I am going to use Samba to make the entire 250 gb harddrive work on a preset static IP so I just have to put the IP into my browser, enter a password, then copy what I want from the read only setting so I don't have to worry about somebody deleting my stuff.

[Stix]

aresfiend, on 17 January 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

Blade of grass, on 17 January 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

That sounds awesome!
Can you please tell me how this works? Are you gonna install a VPN?

I am going to use Samba to make the entire 250 gb harddrive work on a preset static IP so I just have to put the IP into my browser, enter a password, then copy what I want from the read only setting so I don't have to worry about somebody deleting my stuff.

So an in-browser FTP type situation? That's pretty awesome actually. Do you have any links for what your doing? I'm interested myself actually.

[aresfiend]

Stix, on 17 January 2012 - 04:24 PM, said:

So an in-browser FTP type situation? That's pretty awesome actually. Do you have any links for what your doing? I'm interested myself actually.

No, sorry. I am actually getting help from somebody who used to do this for a living so I don't have any specific resources.

If I can I will essentially make a how to though.

[Stix]

That'd be swell. I'd love to use some of my spare hard drives.

This post has been edited by Stix: 17 January 2012 - 04:47 PM

[blckninja]

Stix, on 17 January 2012 - 04:46 PM, said:

That'd be swell. I'd love to use some of my spare hard drives.

Agreed. And I can get cheap computers at the surplus store that would be perfect for this type of thing.

[Blade of grass]

Hmm, I too would like to do this. Too bad I can't afford it

[aresfiend]

Blade of grass, on 17 January 2012 - 10:21 PM, said:

Hmm, I too would like to do this. Too bad I can't afford it

Samba is free, find some old computers to cannibalize.

The only reason I am building a brand new computer is because when I can afford a true server set up in a couple of years I am going to retire this to running dedicated game servers.

[Sasquatch]

I'd like to throw my opinion in on this.

First, an SSD as the OS drive is fine, and a 250gb standard HDD will work fine for office work file storage. However, if you want this to be a dedicated file server with only a few hours of downtime in a month, I would highly recommend purchasing matching SSD's and matching HDD's in order to set up a mirrored RAID for failure recovery.

Second, a big thing you should be looking into is a quality UPS to avoid power outage failures. Get one that has the capability to remotely shut down the server when it's battery life reaches a critically low level, that way you don't get OS corruptions from a bad shut down if you aren't around the system when it happens.

EDIT: Third, for the price of the processor and high end CPU cooler, I would recommend getting a better processor that has a usable stock heatsink. For a file server, you won't need anything high end, but a Core 2 Duo would be a solid choice if you can find one. If you can't, or don't want to, definitely get a Pentium D instead of the Celeron. It is a lot faster, but will run hotter, so the aftermarket heatsink will be more useful for that application. Plus, you aren't paying for the OEM packaging and heatsink that you won't be using anyways, so it is cheaper.

Fourth, Get more than 2gb of ram. With a file server, ram is the lifeblood. Personally, I would aim for 8gb. That said, you also need to make sure you have a 64bit OS to use all of that ram.

This post has been edited by Sasquatch: 17 January 2012 - 11:31 PM

[aresfiend]

Sasquatch, on 17 January 2012 - 11:20 PM, said:

I'd like to throw my opinion in on this.

First, an SSD as the OS drive is fine, and a 250gb standard HDD will work fine for office work file storage. However, if you want this to be a dedicated file server with only a few hours of downtime in a month, I would highly recommend purchasing matching SSD's and matching HDD's in order to set up a mirrored RAID for failure recovery.

Second, a big thing you should be looking into is a quality UPS to avoid power outage failures. Get one that has the capability to remotely shut down the server when it's battery life reaches a critically low level, that way you don't get OS corruptions from a bad shut down if you aren't around the system when it happens.

EDIT: Third, for the price of the processor and high end CPU cooler, I would recommend getting a better processor that has a usable stock heatsink. For a file server, you won't need anything high end, but a Core 2 Duo would be a solid choice if you can find one. If you can't, or don't want to, definitely get a Pentium D instead of the Celeron. It is a lot faster, but will run hotter, so the aftermarket heatsink will be more useful for that application. Plus, you aren't paying for the OEM packaging and heatsink that you won't be using anyways, so it is cheaper.

Fourth, Get more than 2gb of ram. With a file server, ram is the lifeblood. Personally, I would aim for 8gb. That said, you also need to make sure you have a 64bit OS to use all of that ram.

I was planning on raiding the harddrives but not SSDs seeing as I have encountered problems with that in the past, then again SSD tech has advanced over the last 2 years.

I am looking at a UPS that I can get locally through a computer store that specializes in servers that uses USB to the computer to trigger a shutdown but I'm still looking so I won't have links yet.

The Pentium D is NOT compatible with my motherboard being the D is Pentium 4 based and does not run with the Intel G41 chipset on my motherboard. I am not putting much at all into a processor as you can see below.

I though I put up a 4gb set of ram? I would do 8 but my motherboard maxes out at 4.

I am not looking to host massive files but more for me to host my homework, office style applications, drivers, and music so I don't want to go overboard on this just yet seeing as in roughly two years when I graduate I am going to invest in a true server system with quite a bit of bite.

EDIT: Damnit, I put the 2x1 set of ram that is going into my brother's computer. Let me find my link, anyway it's a 2x2 g.skill ram kit.

This post has been edited by aresfiend: 18 January 2012 - 12:11 AM

[Blade of grass]

I think 4 GBs of RAM is enought. I have a friend who works at dell as thier client server specialist or something, he said that most high end servers have like 8 GBs of ram. So, I think he could get away with 4 GBs the other thing, get a cheap case and take a dremel to it, if you get what I mean.

[Sasquatch]

According to the MSI website you linked, here are the CPU compatibilities:
Support for an Intel^® Core™ 2 Extreme processor/ Intel^® Core™ 2 Quad processor/Intel^® Core™ 2 Duo processor/ Intel^® Pentium^®processor /Intel^® Celeron^®processor in the LGA 775 package


And the ram compatibilities:

• 2 x 1.8V DDR2 DIMM sockets supporting up to 8 GB of system memory (Note 1)

So, you should have no problem running a Pentium D, and a 2x4 set of ram. More expensive with the ram, but well worth it if you are going to be hosting drivers and music off of it.

Even after you buy the server stack you want, you can still convert this box into something usable.

Add a graphics card and install XP-64, and use it as a video and music editing station.
Add a graphics card, convert the RAID to a striped set up for faster access times, install 7-64, and use it as a lightweight gaming system
Install XP-64, keep everything else the same, and use it as a dedicated game server for stuff like Counterstrike or Team Fortress, if you play those.
Install 7-64, VMWare, and get a backup of your server stack to load into the virtual. If you want to try testing something, do it in the virtual, and if it fails, research the cause and fixes for it right there without messing up your live server.
Install a second NIC that connects to your switch, and connect the original to your network's modem. Run IP routing software, firewalls, packet sniffers, etc to serve as a router, hardware firewall, and intrusion detection on the network.
Etc
Etc

EDIT: And Blade of Grass, it depends on what those servers are being used for. Ignoring the fact that Dell always sells cheap, underpowered servers to people, something with 4gb of ram is most likely loaded to the brim with hard drives to be used strictly as a storage system. The way Aresfiend is making it sound, he wants to stream music to various network devices, and would like to have somewhere to install drivers and software from when he reformats or builds a new system. That takes a little more power and memory than people would use as ONLY file storage.

Then again, maybe I'm reading something wrong, and letting the network engineer side of me take over, which would rather have an overpowered machine not meeting capacity than and underpowered machine being overloaded.

This post has been edited by Sasquatch: 18 January 2012 - 08:21 AM