File/Print Server

[ilovejedd]

Hello. I'm here to ask for advice on a PC I'm planning to build. I know there are a bunch of people here who make a hobby of designing systems so here goes...

I want a dedicated file/print server for my stuff. Right now, my files are scattered among six 500GB external hard drives (connected to two computers) that are shared via Windows File Sharing. Needless to say, I'd like to consolidate them to a single location. I would also like the file/print server to be fast enough for DVD to x264 encoding tasks (2-pass at 30fps combined would be decent). It should also be powerful enough for watching MPEG-4 AVC 1080i/720p. So yeah:

-smallish HDD for OS, programs, etc (maybe 40~80GB?)
-3TB initial HDD space for data (is RAID 0 possible?)
-extra SATA slots/internal 3.5" bays and/or Firewire and eSATA ports for expansion (can eSATA be daisy-chained like Firewire?)
-2x DVD+/-RW drives
-preferrably $3000 or less

Umm, yeah, not even sure if it's possible. My Newegg search turned up eATX cases and server motherboards... Anyway, thanks for the help in advance! :D

[Blue_MiSfit]

Okay, let the games begin :D

I will be posting a full spec momentarally, but first of all - no you can't daisy chain eSATA. One of the best things about eSATA is its one drive one controller mentality.

Stay tuned!

~MiSfit

[Blue_MiSfit]

This is very doable. More so if you plan on re-using your existing 500 gig drives.

Specs:

Lian Li PC-70A Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112140
-10x Internal 3.5" bays.
-Loads of 120mm fans
-Massive, solid, and pretty

Corsair 550VX Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004
-More than enough power
-Efficient

Gigabyte P35-DS3 Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128050
-P35 Chipset, supports Quad and overclocking
-8 onboard SATA ports
-Great reputation

E6850 Core 2 Duo @ 3 GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115028
-Fastest dual core processor available
-Quite affordable

Wintec AmpX 4GB Dual Channel Kit DDR2 800 CAS5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161183
-Massive memory
-Stupid cheap

HIS Radeon 2600 Pro
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161186
-Passive cooling
-Dual DVI
-HDMI
-Component out as well
-Hardware HD-DVD / BluRay Decoding

6x Western Digital 500 GB SATA 16MB HD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136178
-3 TB
-Cheap
-SATA II and 16mb cache

2x LG DVDRW SATA
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136120
-SATA
-Cheap
-Fast

You can run 4 additional internal drives in this system - just grab a cheap PCIe SATA controller. Also, if you need to run eSATA the same would apply.

One note, this board doesn't have firewire, and the cheapest board with firewire that has the same number of eSATA ports costs about $200 - way more than the $130 for this board. Get yourself a firewire card if you absolutely must have it. Otherwise USB and eSATA FTW!

$1730 shipped to my door, may be more or less for you - depending on fluctuations and your location. Love it!

[ilovejedd]

Nice! Hoping to get it within a month or two, so hopefully, prices would drop a little bit more by the time I get my tax refund. :D

I was looking at a similar case except it was black (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112141) and the specs for motherboard compatibility mentioned eATX. Does that mean it can accomodate bigger motherboards but regular ATX would work as well?

I checked prices for processors and the Q6600 and E6850 are going for roughly the same price ($5 diff). Would it be better if I got the quad-core instead of the dual-core?

I've noticed that 1TB HDDs are prohibitively expensive at the moment (at least for my purposes), but the 750GB ones have similar enough $/GB ratio. How is the reliability on these drives? I'm thinking of substituting this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136131) to the WD 500GB. How reliable are they? Since I'll be using them as my primary data storage, reliability is kind of a must.

What are the advantages of SATA to IDE when it comes to optical drives? I'm thinking of just using IDE for the optical drives since I doubt they'll be spinning discs fast enough to take advantage of the SATA speed increase. That way, I can free up two SATA ports for HDDs. Also, since I'm unlikely to make use of the external 5.25" bays, are there hard drive cages/adapters that I can use for 3.5" HDDs?

Again, thank you very very much! :D

[foxyshadis]

Quadcore for encoding is always better. x264 and avisynth will both benefit much more than from a boost in speed (4 x 2.4 x 90% > 2 x 3.0 x 95%).

The main advantage of SATA optical is that motherboards are increasingly coming with no IDE ports, and it's impossible to get downgraded to PIO mode because of one flaky disc.

Drive reliability should be no different between 500, 750, and 1000... but of course no one really knows until one line goes Deathstar (IBM Deskstar fiasco). Haven't seen any reports about a spike in failures lately.

eATX cases are compatible, the screws are in the right places to fit an ATX, but the power supplies may require an adaptor to fit an ATX mobo. (If there's no room to just hang off the side.) If you look at all the screw holes in yours, it has room for just about any motherboard spec available, heh.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Well put foxyshadis. I don't know what I was thinking. Q6600 FTW. Hell, even I got one!

All other questions I agree with 100%.

You can get adapters to make 5.25" bays accommodate 3.5" drives, and if you've got the cash, 750 gig drives are awesome.

You could do soft RAID 5 with 6 drives using the ICH9 raid (or Windows soft RAID) to ward off data loss, but I'm not very trusting of these flaky solutions. You could spend ~$600, and get a 6-12 port hardware RAID5 card, but that's some big money :) Still under your budget I suppose...

IDE opticals will be perfectly fine. Remember that with IDE the whole master / slave thing makes running both drives at once slower. SATA avoids this. Not a big deal really...

~MiSfit

[ilovejedd]

Nah, $600 for a RAID controller doesn't sound worth it to me. I'd rather use that money on extra hard drives. I can live with file sharing and mapping each hard drive. Or maybe I could look up some *nix options such as ZFS. :p

The optical drives won't really be seeing everyday use. I'll be using them primarily for ripping DVDs for conversion and I tend to buy my DVDs in batches. Besides, most of the DVDs I rip are episodic (anime and tv series) and ripping is in IFO mode for each episode. As I haven't found a one-size fits all batch file for my DVDs and an automatic disc changer, I'm pretty much still the slowest link in the ripping process. :rolleyes:

The WD Caviar 750GB is going for $155. I'm planning to get 4 of those instead of 6 500GB ($100). That would leave me with a total of 4 free SATA ports and just $20+tax over what I originally started with. Adding a PCIe SATA controller, that's 8 SATA ports, 6 internal 3.5" bays and 3 external 5.25" bays. Hopefully, that would be enough expansion for me for a while...

Lol, now that I know I can keep the budget under $2000, I'm planning on saving the rest, maybe for when 1TB HDDs and higher drop down in price. :p

[Shinigami-Sama]

Nah, $600 for a RAID controller doesn't sound worth it to me. I'd rather use that money on extra hard drives. I can live with file sharing and mapping each hard drive. Or maybe I could look up some *nix options such as ZFS. :p

The optical drives won't really be seeing everyday use. I'll be using them primarily for ripping DVDs for conversion and I tend to buy my DVDs in batches. Besides, most of the DVDs I rip are episodic (anime and tv series) and ripping is in IFO mode for each episode. As I haven't found a one-size fits all batch file for my DVDs and an automatic disc changer, I'm pretty much still the slowest link in the ripping process. :rolleyes:

The WD Caviar 750GB is going for $155. I'm planning to get 4 of those instead of 6 500GB ($100). That would leave me with a total of 4 free SATA ports and just $20+tax over what I originally started with. Adding a PCIe SATA controller, that's 8 SATA ports, 6 internal 3.5" bays and 3 external 5.25" bays. Hopefully, that would be enough expansion for me for a while...

Lol, now that I know I can keep the budget under $2000, I'm planning on saving the rest, maybe for when 1TB HDDs and higher drop down in price. :p

ZFS is awesome for volumes that need to grow like yours, but you need to be aware it needs to be tuned for your setup, the defaults suck, as well as it fragments in an odd way to do the copy on move, copy on change, and hashes and the snapshots
it tries to do it in ways to keep files in line, but its not perfect yet, next solaris release is supposed to help fix it though I hear

[Surf]

uhooo, here's my 2bits :D

3850 is built on the mistakes of 2600XT. @#$% ATI, trying to promote gaming AND hd decoding which just doesn't cut it.

Optical drive: LG something 20L, which can also READ blu/HD !! About $240...

Hold off buying ALL the hard drives in one shot. By the time you need the 3rd, 4th, 5th, the 1TB may be in the range of $150...

[ilovejedd]

ZFS is awesome for volumes that need to grow like yours, but you need to be aware it needs to be tuned for your setup, the defaults suck, as well as it fragments in an odd way to do the copy on move, copy on change, and hashes and the snapshots
it tries to do it in ways to keep files in line, but its not perfect yet, next solaris release is supposed to help fix it though I hear

As of the moment, I'm just considering it as an option. I'm a novice to *nix systems so I'm not confident of my abilities to set it up properly. Still, it sounds interesting so I'll probably try it on a secondary file server. Alas, it probably won't be as powerful as the one I'm currently building.

I have a spare Win2K and WinXP Pro license. I think I might also have a spare Win2K Server license (from when office upgraded to Windows 2003 Server) so I'm currently researching options on those first. Windows Software RAID spanning looks like an option, as is mounting hard drives to NTFS folders.


3850 is built on the mistakes of 2600XT. @#$% ATI, trying to promote gaming AND hd decoding which just doesn't cut it.

Optical drive: LG something 20L, which can also READ blu/HD !! About $240...

Hold off buying ALL the hard drives in one shot. By the time you need the 3rd, 4th, 5th, the 1TB may be in the range of $150...

Uh, yeah, dunno where you saw 3850 anywhere. The recommendation was for a Radeon HD 2600 PRO. Either way, I'm open to suggestions. I'm not doing any gaming and I just need something for previewing MPEG2 HDTV captures and the resulting converted h.264 videos. It will be connected to a 19" monitor. Again, its primary use is as a file server/encoding machine, not an HTPC.

I don't have HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. At this time, I'm not really interested in either so I don't see the point in spending $240 for something I'm not going to use and will undoubtedly go down in price after a few more months. I can always add one later (Blu-Ray burner I'm hoping) given I still have free SATA ports and 5.25" drive bays.

The reason I'm buying all those hard drives now is because I already need them. I've got space for 6 more hard drives and those I'm leaving open until I need more space or higher capacity hard drives go down in price.

A bit OT: what's the minimum system requirement to play h.264 HD video (converted 720p/1080i HDTV captures) without dropped frames? I'm considering replacing the DVD players around the house with either an HTPC or a PS3 w/Linux for greater versatility. Basically, whatever's the cheapest. I'm kinda tired of my Philips DVP5982's limitations.

Again, thanks so much for all the help. :D

[Shinigami-Sama]

As of the moment, I'm just considering it as an option. I'm a novice to *nix systems so I'm not confident of my abilities to set it up properly. Still, it sounds interesting so I'll probably try it on a secondary file server. Alas, it probably won't be as powerful as the one I'm currently building.

theres some really easy to follow guides on how to set up a NAS built on ZFS on the solaris forums



I have a spare Win2K and WinXP Pro license. I think I might also have a spare Win2K Server license (from when office upgraded to Windows 2003 Server) so I'm currently researching options on those first. Windows Software RAID spanning looks like an option, as is mounting hard drives to NTFS folders.

A bit OT: what's the minimum system requirement to play h.264 HD video (converted 720p/1080i HDTV captures) without dropped frames? I'm considering replacing the DVD players around the house with either an HTPC or a PS3 w/Linux for greater versatility. Basically, whatever's the cheapest. I'm kinda tired of my Philips DVP5982's limitations.

Again, thanks so much for all the help. :D

a good dual core or a quadcore, and if you use coreavc a decent dualcore or a good single core will do it

[Blue_MiSfit]

Right. That's definitely accurate until you talk about HD-DVD or BluRay. I know you're not there yet, but you need a very fast dual core or a quad to decode in pure software.

But you've got a quad, so don't worry :D

~MiSfit

[ilovejedd]

A bit OT: what's the minimum system requirement to play h.264 HD video (converted 720p/1080i HDTV captures) without dropped frames? I'm considering replacing the DVD players around the house with either an HTPC or a PS3 w/Linux for greater versatility. Basically, whatever's the cheapest. I'm kinda tired of my Philips DVP5982's limitations.

Again, thanks so much for all the help. :D

Might have been better if I had posted this in another thread...

The question was for a really low-budget HTPC (I'll maybe build 3 or 4 of them). Since I will be centralizing my data (mostly audio and video) into the file server, I'd like to replace my current players (Philips DVP3345, Philips DVP5960 & Philips DVP642) with something more flexible, "network-able" and cheap.

In any case, I saw another thread yesterday and it mentioned the Popcorn Hour which looks very promising. It's probably the best solution for me and provides a good compromise between cost and flexibility/media support. I'll maybe pick up one of those once they become more readily available or wait for reviews from early adopters.

The file server will remain just that - a file server/encoding machine. The only output device it will be connected to is a 19" LCD for monitoring and previewing video for encoding. Most of the time, it will probably be controlled via VNC.

Again, thanks for all the input. :D

[Shinigami-Sama]

then for your HTPCs I'd wait for the summer, when the new GPU decoders come down in price, as well as the OSS accelerators hopefully will be able to accelerate all properly encoded videos

[Blue_MiSfit]

GPU decoders are pretty durn cheap. You can get a Radeon 2400 for less than $50. Epic win ;)

~MiSfit

[Shinigami-Sama]

orly?
to bad that's not getting into laptop anytime soon :(

but for an htpc thats not a problem

[ilovejedd]

Updated specs:

Lian Li PC-A70B Case
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811112141

Corsair 550VX Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004

Gigabyte P35-DS3 Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128050

Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4 GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017

Wintec AmpX 4GB Dual Channel Kit DDR2 800 CAS5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161183

Gigabyte Radeon HD 2400 XT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125076

4x Western Digital 750 GB SATA 16MB HD
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822136131

2x Sony NEC DVDRW IDE
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827118003

Some parts from Blue_MiSfit's original build were no longer carried. In fact, compared to last month, there were much fewer Radeon 2400 and 2600 cards available.

I'm scheduled to buy around February or March (hopefully, I'll have received my tax refund by then) so parts are still tentative. If you guys are able to recommend something better while keeping the total under $2k, please feel free to add your comments.

Thanks again!

[Xproject187]

After reading part of this thread I couldn't help but be Mad at myself,because the other day I saw a Case in the second-hand store that was like the one You linked to,only it was older(off white) & as I recall it had 6-8 bays & a 450watt PSU (no mobo included) for $20.I kinda laughed & asked My 11 year old Son what in the world would a guy need all those bays for? Then I thought if for nothing other than the PSU,maybe I should get it? But then I thought "no" because it might have one of those over-rated PSU's that doesn't come anywhere near their advertised rating.So I passed on it.But now I realize "It was a deal" if not for anything other than the Case & I can't help but wish I'd gotten it
Had a glance @ craigslist 5min's ago & I found this for like $150 http://modesto.craigslist.org/sys/536044471.html & this for $50 http://modesto.craigslist.org/sys/544578663.html
I realize None of this stuff is new or guaranteed & it's not what You need but still it looks like something that one of You guys might want to check on.
~X~

[chipzoller]

I would personally consider dumping those WD HDDs for, in my professional experience, more reliable Seagate HDDs. In close to 10 years of tech work I've seen and dealt head-on with perhaps over 100 bad/dead WD drives, but only 3 Seagate drives, and I can remember each one specifically.

Stay away from ANY sort of software RAID, and to be safe, RAID 0. Keep in mind that with RAID 0 if even one disk in your array fails you often times will loose everything.

[ilovejedd]

I would personally consider dumping those WD HDDs for, in my professional experience, more reliable Seagate HDDs. In close to 10 years of tech work I've seen and dealt head-on with perhaps over 100 bad/dead WD drives, but only 3 Seagate drives, and I can remember each one specifically.

I had been planning on Seagate but they cost significantly more than their WD counterpart. Also, I've recently had two Seagate HDDs fail on me, hence, I'm doubting if the price premium is worth it for newer drives. I have an old 20GB Seagate and it works great - still no bad sectors after 8 years. The newer ones, though, I don't really trust. I think the best way of keeping data safe is through redundancy so for important files (family pictures, school stuff, etc), I store them in several places. The file server will host mostly media files (CD rips, DVD rips and TV caps) thus it is not very critical.

Stay away from ANY sort of software RAID, and to be safe, RAID 0. Keep in mind that with RAID 0 if even one disk in your array fails you often times will loose everything.

Yeah, not doing RAID 0. I figured replacing the contents of just one hard drive is easier than replacing two striped drives.

I just found out that WinXP lets you mount NTFS partitions to an empty folder similar to mounting file systems on Linux. Hard drives still retain their own file system as they would if they were given a separate drive letter and I don't have to deal with multiple drive letter shares. I'm thinking of doing either that or an FTP server. Would have to read up on the FTP server, though.

[chipzoller]

The file server will host mostly media files (CD rips, DVD rips and TV caps) thus it is not very critical.
Oh, well if that's the case then go with those WD drives.

I wouldn't bother with FTP if it's all going to be for local retrieval and storage. Mounting the partitions to folders would probably be just fine in your case.

[olnima]

I would go (and I did for myself) for an E6850 because of it's 50% less power-consumption. I think we started to live in times, where this shouldn't be ignored. The speed gain (excl. oc) between Q6600 and E6850 is not too big.

Another thing is that the E6850 is very easy, simple and quiet to cool down (In my case allways < 40 degrees).

Olnima

[ilovejedd]

I would go (and I did for myself) for an E6850 because of it's 50% less power-consumption. I think we started to live in times, where this shouldn't be ignored. The speed gain (excl. oc) between Q6600 and E6850 is not too big.

Another thing is that the E6850 is very easy, simple and quiet to cool down (In my case allways < 40 degrees).

Olnima

As far as I know, power draw at idle should be around the same for both the Q6600 and E6850. Since it is primarily a file server, it's not often that it will see 100% load. The time it does reach full load would be while doing video encoding. For x264, the Q6600 would finish faster and thus would return to idle before the E6850 so it's possible that that might offset its higher consumption. I haven't seen a power consumption vs performance comparison chart for both yet so I would be much obliged if you can point me to a link. Video encoding benchmarks (x264, xvid and divx), in particular, are desired as that is the only use it will be seeing.

You recommended the E6850, but at this time, wouldn't it be better to go with something from the E8000 family? Not only are they cheaper (Newegg: E8400 3GHz-$220, E6850 3GHz-$280), they also stand to be faster than older Core 2 Duos when video encoders start making use of SSE4 optimizations.

[ilovejedd]

Final Build:

Antec P182 Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129025

Corsair 550VX Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004

Gigabyte P35-DS3 Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128050

Pentium Dual-Core E2160 @ 1.8 GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116036

Wintec AmpX 4GB Dual Channel Kit DDR2 800 CAS5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161183

Sapphire Radeon HD 3450 256MB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102724

4x Western Digital 750 GB SATA 16MB HD
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822136131

2x Sony NEC DVDRW IDE
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827118003

Went window shopping at Fry's and noticed that full towers were quite massive. I belatedly measured the space underneath my desk. The Lian Li won't fit so I got the Antec P182 instead. I guess I'm stuck with hard drive cages. *sigh*

For the CPU, I decided to wait until cheaper Yorkies come out. In the meantime, I'm using a Pentium Dual-Core E2160 as a stopper. Lol, I almost went with a Celeron there.

Hmm... Now that I've thought about it, how would a Celeron 420 Conroe-L @ 1.60GHz do for a file server? I'm going quad because the file server will be doubling as a media encoding rig but for pure file/printer server purposes, would the lowest Celeron suffice? Does a file server even benefit from multi-core processors?

[Shinigami-Sama]

tl;dr:rolleyes:

Hmm... Now that I've thought about it, how would a Celeron 420 Conroe-L @ 1.60GHz do for a file server? I'm going quad because the file server will be doubling as a media encoding rig but for pure file/printer server purposes, would the lowest Celeron suffice? Does a file server even benefit from multi-core processors?

you can run a file server off a 500mhz P3
so that 1.60ghz is stupid overkill for a plain file server
unless you have a heavy file system like ZFS or multi gigE that is maxed

[ilovejedd]

you can run a file server off a 500mhz P3
so that 1.60ghz is stupid overkill for a plain file server
unless you have a heavy file system like ZFS or multi gigE that is maxed

Thanks! That's what I thought. Quite useful information in case I ever need to build yet another file server (this time purely for storage). The Celeron 420 is the cheapest Intel CPU I can find that hasn't been phased out yet. With the advent of Celeron DCs, Intel may soon eliminate single cores from their line-up. I'm curious how actual power consumption varies between the Celeron 400 and E1000. *sigh* Too bad hardware review sites rarely ever benchmark low-end offerings.

[Shinigami-Sama]

you can look at the white papers on intel's website for power consumption

[ilovejedd]

I've seen the datasheets, but unfortunately, I'm unable to interpret the tables and graphs found in 2.6 Voltage and Current Specification section for any practical application. Actually, aside from the absolute maximum values, I'm unable to interpret anything at all.

What I'm really interested in is real-world power consumption for both processors. If it's for a file server, I'm guessing that its power consumption will be closer to idle than full load so consumption at idle would be useful to have.