Mikesnow Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 So now that I am pretty much finished with my I7 build as my main pc for gameing and w/e, I have all these extra parts left over and I was going to sell them to a frind at work for 250bucks, but he just seems to be so undecided. So after staring at this stuff for like 30 mins just thinking what the heck am I gunna do with this extra crap, a light poped above my head. Windows Home Server + Extra Parts + Some new parts = File Server Build. The Goal Build a better version of this using spare parts, mass storage, and keep it close to the same price. $699.99 The Leftovers Motherboard : EVGA nForce 780i CPU : Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHZ Ram : Corsair Dominator DDR2 ODD : Memorex DVD/CD Burner/Reader PSU : Silverstone Strider ST60F These Parts will be my starting point as I already own them, Now for what I need to buy. The New OS : Windows Home Server = $99.99 Retail HDD : WD 1TB Caviar Black = $99.99/each x 6 = 599.94 Retail Now heres the catch I am not sure what my discount will be on the new items, however it's typicaly half price. In the case of the OS I can possibly get it for the cost of shipping if I take some tests and become Microsoft Certified on it. My Windows 7 Ultimate was same way cost me 10 bucks. The hards drives will likely goto half price so I'll be looking at roughly $350 dollars for all 6 drives. The primary use for this will be to put my entire Blu-Ray collection on this server to stream to the many TV's with media extenders on them, such as PS3's. While maintaining the highest quality possible. Now I have only begun to tinker with this, but from What I have done so far it's looking like 5GB per avg movie in space, some longer movies like "Gladiator" for example will use more space, reguardless with my collection at around 200 movies as it stands now at 5GB per movie we are looking at roughly 1tb give or take my crappy math skills leaveing me around 4.5tb with just the 1TB drives. So with this in mine I was thinking, Depending on the discount of course, go with 6 2TB drives and run the raid in Stripping/Mirroring for a bit of redundancy. Any suggestions, Opinons? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkrow21 Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 720p movies are going to take ~ 3GB while 1080p movies are going to take just under ~ 8GB of space. Depending on the size of your collection, I think you could be fine with a drive or two less as you can always buy more additional space later. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CheeseMan42 Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 Seems like it will work perfectly fine for a file server. A bit overkill, but if you already have the parts then its great. If you are at all familiar with Linux, Ubuntu Server has been working great as my file server. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
flareback Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 I would recommend a RAID setup even if it means getting another drive or two. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nemo Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 Windows Home Server doesn't natively support RAID arrays although you can create a RAID array and have it treat the array as a single drive. You might want to give Openfiler or FreeNAS a look in place of Windows Home Server. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RimX Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 (edited) You might want to give Openfiler or FreeNAS a look in place of Windows Home Server. yea, I was going to suggest trying one of those, too. Wouldn't hurt, they are free and open source. Although, looking into using a full linux server, would give the ability to add on other services later on if you'd want too, such as DHCP, DNS, LDAP, VPN, ect. Although it might be a little harder to setup, it could also be a good learning experience, depending on how much you've worked in a linux environment before and if that was something you would even want to try. And there are plenty of resources out there now to help users with linux. Edited October 21, 2009 by RimX Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikesnow Posted October 22, 2009 Posted October 22, 2009 So, I got it all together installed WHS, and everything works great so far. I am kinda diggin it tbh. Only had 3 of the WD 1TB Eco green drives in stock tho but thats fine, I'll get better ones later if I decide to keep it. I have to get a new case for it some day soon too cause the one I have it in now is setup for water cooling, so theres just a big3x120mm rad chillin in there wasting away. lol I put a pic or 2 of it tomorrow if i can get some time. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikesnow Posted October 25, 2009 Posted October 25, 2009 Here is what I started with: And after a couple hours I ended up with this for my Windows Home Server: Note the radiator is a waste, so i'll get a different case to put it in once I sell this water cooling case. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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