WHS Build Suggestions/Review

R

rhmclay

n00b
Joined
Oct 7, 2009
Messages
13
Everyone,

I have been lurking for a while, researching, and asking questions. I think I have a WHS build that might be ready, but wanted someone else to take a look. If I can get away with doing what I want for less, I am more than open to that :D

Here is some background: I have 2 desktops and 2 laptops, maybe adding a laptop or 2 shortly. I want to use this system to obviously back those up. Doesn't need a lot of power for that, but here is the kicker. I want to be able to put all my DVD's and Blu-Rays on the server and have them streamed to separate TV's in the house, possibly at the same time. This will probably go to HTPC's, as of now I don't have them, so it will be a future build.

Case: AZZA Solano 1000 $109 - Pretty case with lots of spots for hard drives

MB: ASUS P5E3 WS PRO LGA 775 Intel x38 ATX $199 - this MB has drivers for Server 2003 and PCI-X expansion slots for the better port multiplier cards out there when I run out of space.

Video Card: There isn't one on the MB so I will pick up a cheap one

PSU: FSP Group Zen 400W ATX 80+ $125.99

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz LGA 775 95W $189.99 - thinking the quad would be good if streaming multiple movies to different rooms

RAM: G Skill 4GB (2X2GB) DDR3 $84.99

HDD: Will probably pick up a few WD Green Drives 1.5TB

Please let me know what everyone thinks. I am open to suggestions/alternatives.

Hack away my friends.
 
Ok well im gonna go ahead and rip this apart so dont get mad.:)

First off theres really no need for that expensive of a mobo and CPU.
PCI-X is legacy at this point, and port multipliers will kill your performance and cost too much money in the end.
Also you dont need a quad for multiple streams. You can easily do 4 of any dual core.
You will hit a network or Disk IO bottleneck long before you hit a CPU one.

Secondly you can get a much better PSU for a lot less money. I have put the Antec EA430 below, its really quiet too. :)

I have made some suggestions below, and you can save a lot of money or have it to spend on drives.
With the mobo you wont need to buy a video card. You can use the same Ram you already have.
The PSU, Mobo, and CPU below only cost ~$230 and the CPU and mobo both have rebates.

I specd a AMD setup cause you get better value but if you want an intel setup lemm know.

CPU - AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz Socket AM3 - $63
Mobo - ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard - $120
PSU - Antec earthwatts EA430 430W - $50
 
I concur with nitrobass24 100%.

In addition, for the same price as that old C2D based setup, you can get a faster Core i7 or Core i5 build. Still completely overkill for your needs but still a better buy than a C2D based setup.

With all of the money that nitrobass24 saved you, you can get more hard drives :) Or go for a Norco 4020 case.

Case wise, I think this case setup would be more cost effective:
$60 - Cooler Master RC-590-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$20 - 2 x Coolermaster 621013210-GP 4in3 Device Module
---------
Total: $80 plus tax and shipping.

$30 cheaper but holds more hard drives right off the bat.
 
Last edited:
Alright, I am glad you guys are ripping it apart. That is why I posted it. I want to be an informed purchaser. OK, so if Port Multipliers isn't the way to go, what do I need to do when I run out of SATA ports on the MB and want to add more drives, i.e. moving up to 10+?

Will Core 2 do High Def streaming also?

Thanks, keep it coming!!!
 
I have been lurking here a bit in preparation of building my own WHS build. From what I have read a lot of people like the SASLP-MV8 (can connect 8 drives). Edit: nitrobass beat me to it, and here I thought I was going to sound all smart!

Along the same lines as your post, does anyone know how big the disk I/O bottleneck will be when streaming multiple media files? WHS doesn't have raid but the disk pool feature. Would disk I/O be a big factor, and therefore consider going with a RAID array instead of WHS, or is network speed going to be the bigger bottleneck?
 
Erasmus354 said:
I have been lurking here a bit in preparation of building my own WHS build. From what I have read a lot of people like the SASLP-MV8 (can connect 8 drives). Edit: nitrobass beat me to it, and here I thought I was going to sound all smart!

Along the same lines as your post, does anyone know how big the disk I/O bottleneck will be when streaming multiple media files? WHS doesn't have raid but the disk pool feature. Would disk I/O be a big factor, and therefore consider going with a RAID array instead of WHS, or is network speed going to be the bigger bottleneck?
Click to expand...

Thats kind of a hard question to answer.

1. It depends on what you are streaming. SD or HD.
2. It depends on your network. GigE, Wifi, Quality of equipment.
3. How many streams
4. Type of Disks

Really once you are doing more than 3 streams from a single source your disk access is really not sequential any more and is random IO. This can be problematic when using a single disk setup.

What I have found from personal use is that I hardly ever, if ever stream 3 or more different things at the same time. And when I have they are not stored on the same physical disk so i didnt have bad contention.

I would start a thread and spell out exactly what you plan on doing and what you have and we can drill down on it some more.
 
Im running a e2160 with abit board that has 7 sata and 4gig ddr2. Cant remember the name. I have a 400gb as the main and a 1.5tb for the rest. I stream hd to my htpc and an xbox while its utorrenting. No issues. Its in a antec case with a 380 antec psu.

Sure if i had the money id get that 4020 case but it does what i need it to do. Its just 2k3 OS so its not that demanding for specs. I would just make sure you have lots of sata i guess.
 
nitrobass24 said:
Supermicro SASLP-MV8 - $100
Click to expand...

OK. Sorry about the noob question, but is this a RAID card? Or I guess a better question is, I am not sure what this does, so what does it do?:confused:

If I am reading things correctly, does this allow me to connect 8 SATA drives to this card, and the card controls those drives? And if I build an external HDD enclosure for the extra drives do I connect the one cable to one connector on this board, or does each HDD in the enclosure have to go to each connector? Sorry, told you it was a noob question.

Thanks
 
rhmclay said:
OK. Sorry about the noob question, but is this a RAID card? Or I guess a better question is, I am not sure what this does, so what does it do?:confused:

If I am reading things correctly, does this allow me to connect 8 SATA drives to this card, and the card controls those drives? And if I build an external HDD enclosure for the extra drives do I connect the one cable to one connector on this board, or does each HDD in the enclosure have to go to each connector? Sorry, told you it was a noob question.

Thanks
Click to expand...

That is not a RAID card. It is a storage controller card that lets you connect up to 8 hard drives to it.

Note that the motherboard that Nitrobass recommended has an eSATA port. If you get an enclosure that connects multiple SATA ports into one eSATA port, all you have to do is connect that enclosure via eSATA to the onboard eSATA port on the motherboard. No need to connect to the Supermicro at all..
 
that supermicro card is a dummy card. it jsut passes the HDD through to the OS with out any raid or anything... perfect for WHS.

I love that motherboard, but I do see the point of having more PCIe than PCIx however I still have a PCI-x raid card that I am running in a PCI slot and would love to have added performance for local transfers.

also even on a WHS I would love to have ECC ram
 
Alright, is there speed issues when hooking external drives to either the supermicro or the esata? I was planning on using the WD Green drives which are 5400 rpm. Is this fast enough for streaming HD? And if there are speed issues with the externals, when I get to that point should I then switch to 7200 rpm drives?

Yeah, the reason I thought about that original MB was because of it having plenty of PCI type slots, and the thinking with the Port Multipilier was that you could get 20 drives per 4 port card, 5 drives per port. But if the eSATA and or/Supermicro will do the same, I am open to the cost savings and spending the money on other important things, such as HDD and RAM.
 
A 5400RPM drive connected via eSATA should have very little speed issue when streaming HD content.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
Adidas4275 said:
that supermicro card is a dummy card. it jsut passes the HDD through to the OS with out any raid or anything... perfect for WHS.

I love that motherboard, but I do see the point of having more PCIe than PCIx however I still have a PCI-x raid card that I am running in a PCI slot and would love to have added performance for local transfers.

also even on a WHS I would love to have ECC ram
Click to expand...

For the money you will save on MB you can buy brand new SATA cards...hate to say it, but that PCI-X raid card you've got is pretty much legacy and spending yourself poor just to use it is probably not a good move.

I'll save you even more money on that MB and get you ECC support. Go cheap, go really cheap. Same CPU (Athlon II X2 240) but go with Biostar's A760G M2+. $65 at Newegg but you can find it for as low as $50 if you shop.

This MB is perfect for a small to medim WHS build. 6 on-board SATA to get you started, PCIe x16 for the SuperMicro SASLP-MV8 when you need 8 more - you can drive up to 14 SATA-II drives, GigE (though it is crappy RealTek), and it offers full support for ECC (note: Biostar's web site is out of date - this board DOES support ECC). Plus its super low-power - with 4Gb of ram and that X2 240 you will measure <40 watts at the wall under load with a single drive (obviously more when you add enough disks to make a good server).
 
nitrobass24 said:
With the mobo you wont need to buy a video card. You can use the same Ram you already have.
The PSU, Mobo, and CPU below only cost ~$230 and the CPU and mobo both have rebates.

I specd a AMD setup cause you get better value but if you want an intel setup lemm know.

CPU - AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz Socket AM3 - $63
Mobo - ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard - $120
PSU - Antec earthwatts EA430 430W - $50
Click to expand...

Nitrobass,

You said that I won't need a separate video card with the ASUS board it states that it doesn't have on-board video. Your link didn't work, so I looked for the board on newegg and came up with this one

Was that the board you were talking about?
 
So if I go with the Biostar, I will want to get a better GigE card, utilizing one of the PCI slots right?
 
You are building a file server, not performance desktop gaming rig.

Since the rig will be on 24/7 go for efficiency rather than raw overkill performance.

GIGABYTE GA-MA790GP-UD4H On-board video, On-board gbit, (2) PCI-E for dual controller cards. This motherboard paired with two of the super micro controllers will net you 20 SATA ports + the 2 on-board raid ports. This gigabyte board has great voltage adjustments for undervolting plus a few other features that the Biostar lacks.
AOC-SASLP-MV8
CPU Options: Could wait for the 235e or 240e 45w AMD processors to be released. The 240 listed below is the same as the 240e but instead of running at 45w the 240 runs at 65w and costs nearly half the price.
AMD Athlon X2 5050e 45w (Buy at Frys Electronics B&M)
AMD Athlon II X2 240 65w
AMD Sempron 140 45w
Power Supply Options: I am personally not a fan of Antec power supplies. I'd rather consider PCP&C, Corsair or even Enermax. The current best bang for the buck is the 400w Corsair. There was a good deal two weeks back on the 520hx but it is now dead.
CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W

BTW that AZZA case looks a bit too busy to me. My preference goes towards the LIAN LI PC-A17B.
 
BurntToast said:
You are building a file server, not performance desktop gaming rig.

Since the rig will be on 24/7 go for efficiency rather than raw overkill performance.

GIGABYTE GA-MA790GP-UD4H On-board video, On-board gbit, (2) PCI-E for dual controller cards. This motherboard paired with two of the super micro controllers will net you 20 SATA ports + the 2 on-board raid ports. This gigabyte board has great voltage adjustments for undervolting plus a few other features that the Biostar lacks.
AOC-SASLP-MV8
CPU Options: Could wait for the 235e or 240e 45w AMD processors to be released. The 240 listed below is the same as the 240e but instead of running at 45w the 240 runs at 65w and costs nearly half the price.
AMD Athlon X2 5050e 45w (Buy at Frys Electronics B&M)
AMD Athlon II X2 240 65w
AMD Sempron 140 45w
Power Supply Options: I am personally not a fan of Antec power supplies. I'd rather consider PCP&C, Corsair or even Enermax. The current best bang for the buck is the 400w Corsair. There was a good deal two weeks back on the 520hx but it is now dead.
CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W

BTW that AZZA case looks a bit too busy to me. My preference goes towards the LIAN LI PC-A17B.
Click to expand...

I am looking to build a 24/7 media server for light backup and torrent duty with WHS. My main goal is efficiency and low power. The above parts list looks ideal, plus a couple WD Grenn 1.5 drives. Question: what is the advantage/disadvantage of the athlon over the sempron? Sempron is cheaper and lower power, so it looks good to me, but is there anything I should be concerned about?

Thanks

edit: according to this thread: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1426852, can I unlock the sempron to dual core with the above mb? is this beneficial or not worth it for using as a WHS?
 
Last edited:
rhmclay said:
So if I go with the Biostar, I will want to get a better GigE card, utilizing one of the PCI slots right?
Click to expand...

I did, but I am not sure I am better off for it. Most of the time you will be limited by disk bandwidth. The better Ethernet card only really makes sense if you have 4 or 5 clients accessing simultaneously.
 
I own the Biostar A760G-M2+. It's been flawless so far. This is the cheapest MB that I found that offers the following features: 6 on-board sata ports, ECC memory support, accepts NON-video cards in the PCIe-16 slot (my Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 DOES NOT), onboard video can be UNDER-clocked.

CPU: AMD 4050e
RAM: Kingston 2x1GB DDR2-533 ECC
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-400CX (great PSU for a file server - 6 SATA + 6 molex connectors)
HDD: three Western Digital WD10EADS
Case: Coolermaster Centurion 590
OS: unRAID

I have all unnecessary features disabled (sound, serial, parallel, etc.), the CPU under-volted & under-clocked, and the on-board video under-clocked. :)

Power consumption measured using Kill-a-watt:
* Startup Peak: 88 W
* Idle, all drives spun up: 48 W
* Idle, all drives spun down: 39 W
* Parity Check: 69 W
 
I read in a thread over at SPCR that someone got an email reply regarding the A760G M2+ from Biostar support where they state that "most types of ECC memory are supported (Registered or Unbuffered), but the ECC functions aren't supported."
 
Everyone,

Thanks for all the feedback. You have definitely given me pause on what I was thinking. I am re-evaluating now. I was under the imression that I needed higher stuff to stream HD/Blu-Ray, but now realize this isn't completely true. You have slowed down my build ;-) But that is a good thing, b/c if I can spend more money on RAM or HDD and/or the eventual HTPC then that is a good thing. Especially if I get my HTPC sooner than I thought I would. Now I have to start researching that as well.

If more people want to chime in, please keep the suggestions coming. I am still learning from the masters :-D
 
DiscreteMeat said:
The benefits of ECC RAM are irrelevant if the ECC functions aren't supported on the A760G M2+ from Biostar
Click to expand...
I've been in contact with Biostar regarding ECC support, and they have been less than helpful. As I understand, 3 things need to be present for full ECC support.
1) Support from the memory controller
2) BIOS options to enable/disable it
3) required extra electrical traces in the MB

Items 1 is covered :the on-board mem controller since the original A64 supports ECC (per every AMD A64 datasheet).
Item 2 is covered: I can confirm that there are BIOS options for ECC (since I'm using them).

So item 3 is the issue. Biostar has not satisfactorily my questions on this, (when they answer at all). Maybe the meat of my question gets lost in translation, but every reply is cryptic like your quote "most types of ECC memory are supported (Registered or Unbuffered), but the ECC functions aren't supported." What the hell does that mean? That although I can enable/disable ECC functions in BIOS, those functions are non-functional? :) I cannot get good answers on this.

Would ECC ram work at all if the required electrical paths were not present in a motherboard?
 
Afaik, ECC RAM will work even if the mobo does not have the required electrical paths

however i recommend asking the memory subforum just in case

.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
i love my low power dual core intel celeron 430
I would never use a single core CPU for any task
 
Jay_S said:
I've been in contact with Biostar regarding ECC support, and they have been less than helpful. As I understand, 3 things need to be present for full ECC support.
1) Support from the memory controller
2) BIOS options to enable/disable it
3) required extra electrical traces in the MB

Items 1 is covered :the on-board mem controller since the original A64 supports ECC (per every AMD A64 datasheet).
Item 2 is covered: I can confirm that there are BIOS options for ECC (since I'm using them).

So item 3 is the issue. Biostar has not satisfactorily my questions on this, (when they answer at all). Maybe the meat of my question gets lost in translation, but every reply is cryptic like your quote "most types of ECC memory are supported (Registered or Unbuffered), but the ECC functions aren't supported." What the hell does that mean? That although I can enable/disable ECC functions in BIOS, those functions are non-functional? :) I cannot get good answers on this.

Would ECC ram work at all if the required electrical paths were not present in a motherboard?
Click to expand...
If you have ECC turned on in the BIOS and the traces are not in place on the MB, then the controller would be reporting ECC errors on every memory read...

I have the Biostar A760G M2+. I have ECC memory installed. Memtest86+ confirms that the ECC functions are operable.
 
PigLover said:
If you have ECC turned on in the BIOS and the traces are not in place on the MB, then the controller would be reporting ECC errors on every memory read...

I have the Biostar A760G M2+. I have ECC memory installed. Memtest86+ confirms that the ECC functions are operable.
Click to expand...

So it sounds like the board does indeed support ECC functions. Can you verify your results and post them here?

If he does this would you all agree then that this board really does support ECC memory and ECC functions, fully?
 
joshmxpx said:
I am looking to build a 24/7 media server for light backup and torrent duty with WHS. My main goal is efficiency and low power. The above parts list looks ideal, plus a couple WD Grenn 1.5 drives. Question: what is the advantage/disadvantage of the athlon over the sempron? Sempron is cheaper and lower power, so it looks good to me, but is there anything I should be concerned about?

Thanks

edit: according to this thread: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1426852, can I unlock the sempron to dual core with the above mb? is this beneficial or not worth it for using as a WHS?
Click to expand...
There will be a AMD 235e and 240e CPU released between the next week or two that operates at 45w. Or underclock/undervolt the 65w AMD 240 to or near 45w.

For WHS you don't need dual core. The single core Sempron is a cheap deal and will do you well. The majority of main stream processors are dual core so that is what's generally used for new builds. It all depends on what fits into your budget, etc.
 
DiscreteMeat said:
So it sounds like the board does indeed support ECC functions. Can you verify your results and post them here?

If he does this would you all agree then that this board really does support ECC memory and ECC functions, fully?
Click to expand...

It will be a few days as I have to offline the WHS machine to do this. I am also not sure how to screenshot memtest86+ as it is running outside of windows...I'll figure it out.
 
DiscreteMeat said:
So it sounds like the board does indeed support ECC functions. Can you verify your results and post them here?
Click to expand...
PigLover said:
It will be a few days as I have to offline the WHS machine to do this. I am also not sure how to screenshot memtest86+ as it is running outside of windows...I'll figure it out.
Click to expand...
As it's a bit off-topic, I opened a new thread about this in the 'memory' subforum, with photos of my board's BIOS screens and memtest confirmation. And a few official Biostar replies.
 
BurntToast said:
You are building a file server, not performance desktop gaming rig.

Since the rig will be on 24/7 go for efficiency rather than raw overkill performance.

GIGABYTE GA-MA790GP-UD4H On-board video, On-board gbit, (2) PCI-E for dual controller cards. This motherboard paired with two of the super micro controllers will net you 20 SATA ports + the 2 on-board raid ports. This gigabyte board has great voltage adjustments for undervolting plus a few other features that the Biostar lacks.
AOC-SASLP-MV8
CPU Options: Could wait for the 235e or 240e 45w AMD processors to be released. The 240 listed below is the same as the 240e but instead of running at 45w the 240 runs at 65w and costs nearly half the price.
AMD Athlon X2 5050e 45w (Buy at Frys Electronics B&M)
AMD Athlon II X2 240 65w
AMD Sempron 140 45w
Power Supply Options: I am personally not a fan of Antec power supplies. I'd rather consider PCP&C, Corsair or even Enermax. The current best bang for the buck is the 400w Corsair. There was a good deal two weeks back on the 520hx but it is now dead.
CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W

BTW that AZZA case looks a bit too busy to me. My preference goes towards the LIAN LI PC-A17B.
Click to expand...

Haha same thing I thought when I see the Quad in it.. slow down young fella.. way over kill.
 
PigLover said:
I have the Biostar A760G M2+. I have ECC memory installed. Memtest86+ confirms that the ECC functions are operable.
Click to expand...

Jay_S said:
As it's a bit off-topic, I opened a new thread about this in the 'memory' subforum, with photos of my board's BIOS screens and memtest confirmation. And a few official Biostar replies.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, Jay_S was never able to confirm that the Biostar A760G M2+ has full support for ECC memory and left the thread he started without reporting back to verify. Until someone from Biostar reports it or someone can confirm with 100% proof, I would err on the side that this board does NOT support ECC functions.
 
I currently am running a WHS build on my NAS and it inclues the following:

Biostar TF720 A2+ Motherboard
AMD AM2 X2 BE-2300
2x 2GB G.Skill DDRII 800
2x SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8
6x WD 1TB Caviar Black HDDs
1x WD 1TB Caviar Green HDD
2x WD 1.5TB Caviar Green HDDs (newest additions, still in testing before they get added)
3x 750GB (2 WD, 1 Seagate)...will be removed when all 20 hot-swappable slots are taken
Norco 4020 Server Case
Windows Home Server PP2

After getting the movies onto the NAS and create my shares, I then direct my HTPCs to those shares and the contents in my HTPCs list automatically gets updated. Currently I'm using Win 7 WMC, again, in testing. Previously, I was using MediaPortal with no issues. WMC is picky about codecs and wanted to get those straight before keeping it.

For a NAS, it depends on the load for your specs. For me, at MOST, there would be two streaming HD movies, so 4GB of ram was sufficient and a dual core CPU was as well. I didn't need to go high end unless if there was more than 2 people accessing stuff at the same time. But I definitely do recommend a gigabit network at least. At that point, you'd be limited by your HDDs I/O throughput.

Lastly, I would highly recommend those Supermicro PCIX SATA cards. $100 gets you 8 hot-swappable SATA ports. You cant beat that. That recommendation also comes from Ockie.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top