Home Servers, Network Storage and the Case House
by Loyd Case on December 2, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Postmortem: Nothing’s Perfect
For the time being, I’m planning on running the old ReadyNAS alongside the WHS box for a few weeks. Then I’ll switch over to the Windows Home Server box. After using WHS for a couple of weeks now, it seems much more flexible and, well, shiny, than the old NAS.
That said, no solution is perfect. There are a few gotchas about this particular system I built that I might do a little differently.
There’s the cost issue. Here’s the bill of materials, if you go out and buy all the components:
| Component | Model | Price |
| Case | Chenbro ES32067 | $120 |
| Motherboard | Intel DG41MJ | $80 |
| CPU | Intel E5200 | $64 |
| Memory | 2GB Kingston Value RAMD DDR2-800 | $41 |
| Storage | 2 x WD2002FYPS | $290 each; $580 total |
| Memory | 2GB Kingston Value RAMD DDR2-800 | $41 |
| Operating System | Windows Home Server OEM (SP1) | $85 |
| Total | $970 |
Just the $580 cost of the pair of WD2002FYPS drives could buy you a modest 2TB NAS system. The total cost of $970 is $150 - $300 more than similarly configured, off-the-shelf WHS systems, though many of those are Atom-based. So building your own WHS from scratch may not be a cost effective way to go.
Then there are the technical limitations I encountered.
Take the motherboard, for example. The BIOS setup is pretty limited, even by Intel motherboard standards. One thing I wanted to do was to undervolt and underclock the CPU slightly, to use even less power. But the BIOS doesn’t allow that, even if you enable the infamous “BIOS configuration jumper.”
After I built the system, I discovered that Chenbro actually builds the ES34069 mini-ITX server box with four cold swappable drive bays. That might be more flexible, but it’s also bulkier. The unit also uses an external 120W or 180W PSU brick, rather than a self-contained PSU.
So far, though, the case has been a winner. It’s actually seems quieter than the ReadyNAS, though I haven’t taken SPL measurements. It also fits nicely into the space that was taken up by the ReadyNAS.
Here’s the ReadyNAS in the storage area off the basement lab.
And here’s the Chenbro-based WHS system running. It’s a little taller, but not as wide, as the ReadyNAS, so fits very nicely. If anything, it’s a slightly more efficient use of the available space.
For most users who have modest home networks and simple backup needs, Windows Home Server may be overkill. I’m personally looking forward to the additional flexibility of an actual server, plus I’m also looking forward to experimenting with the various add-ins. So for my purposes, which are not the same as most users by any means, it’s all good.
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rrinker - Thursday, December 3, 2009 - link
I have no problem transferring 8-12GB HD movie files from my desktop to the WHS box over gig ethernet. It's as fast as any other network I've worked with (ie, clients' datacenters and so forth). I have no issues streaming HD movies through my Popcorn Hour,a dn that only connects at 100Mb.When the next version of WHS comes out, hopefully it will be based on 2008, so with Vista and Win7 clients you can use SMB2 whichw ill be ever faster. And if you absolutely must, you can install NFS on WHS and use NFS instead of SMB.
Bigaxe - Thursday, December 3, 2009 - link
The author only spent $184 for his home server, if I read correctly. Just the cost of the case and CPU. Everything else he already had, including the Enterprise Drives. Sure with a quick login to Technet for a copy of WHS, less then $200 in with taxes is a pretty good deal.Like us all we build what works for us, our own needs. Great to read each article and compare for ourselves.
bob4432 - Saturday, December 5, 2009 - link
just take a class at a community college and get server2k8 for free....darkslyde - Thursday, December 3, 2009 - link
haha i guess someone beat me to it. i was gonna mention the same thing that loyd had parts lying around.honestly, if it wasnt for HP's add-ins for the WHS, i wouldnt even touch it. the atom based ones are limited with drives and runs HOT. the other ones are blah compared to the horsepower you can achieve from one that's made from scratch, but then again, the HP add-ins are too indispensable.
i'm actually revamping my htpc to just piggy back from a whs. WHS = media monster. lets see an all-in-one distro do that.
custom back-up of all media (sync, contribute, etc), my movies + anydvd/clonedvd, on-the-fly encoding for xbox/ps3/extenders, video encoding, tv-recording, squeezebox server, remote jukebox, etc.
maybe i'll skip out on gift giving this holiday season and just use all that money for setup...bah, humbug!
Minion4Hire - Thursday, December 3, 2009 - link
Wouldn't the four 500GBs in the ReadyNAS come to less than 1.4TBs total and not 1.6TBs? Only 1.36TBs should be available for actual bulk storage considering one drive's worth of data is needed for parity information, which would leave 1.5 trillion bytes before you factor in the whole binary-decimal debacle, and then you still have to account for the overhead of your file system.Not to get picky or anything....... =P
pjkenned - Thursday, December 3, 2009 - link
That is darn expensive for a WHS like that! Spent a bit too much for 2TB drives I think. I'm actually running a 15 drive WHS (1.5TB Raid 6 + horspare with Raid 1 OS drive) off of an Adaptec 31605. I really do like WHS, especially with the add-ins. MyMovies + WHS + Win 7 Media Center is great!All that said, unless you are going for a lot of physical drive space (where the loss from WHS duplication becomes sub-optimal), the HP MediaSmart boxes really are a step above the rest.
mcnabney - Thursday, December 3, 2009 - link
I actually did the math before my build. The 1.5TB Seagate are cheap enough that it is actually cheaper to just buy more drives to get the same capacity as an array and skip buying the expensive RAID controller.It sounds like you have only 12 drives in your main array - so you only get about 15TB total storage. You could do the same thing with five extra drives (at a cost under $500), but would not require the $950 Adaptec controller. That would save almost $500 and allow you to keep your backed-up data at another location (which is far safer) and only leave ten drives powered in your case (less power and take up less room). That, and running a RAID means ALL of the drives spin everytime data is needed. WHS normally just spins the drive that is in use. Just FYI. My 18TB cost under $1400.
MadMan007 - Thursday, December 3, 2009 - link
Yeah he pretty well shafted himself by buying (perhaps on impulse?) a 2-drive ITX case. ITX is fine but the case cost more than a mATX tower+quality PSU. It's the limitation to two HDs that screwed him, he was stuck getting 2TB drives which are terribly overpriced in $/GB and on top of that he will need a new case or an external eSATA expander to add more drives.Nice article in general but the details of the build just made me frown.
MadMan007 - Thursday, December 3, 2009 - link
Well, maybe it's just the 7200RPM WD 2TB drives which are overpriced. In any case being able to expand a WHS box easily is one of the major advantages but starting out with full drive bays negates that advantage.TheBeagle - Wednesday, December 2, 2009 - link
Your total cost was approximately $100.00 TOO MUCH - for substantially less. However, for about $870.00, you could have bought (from Newegg @ $600.00 - no sales tax, free shipping) a brand new HP ex495 Windows Home Server (which comes with a 1.5 TB drive), and also added 3 more 1.5 TB drives (Seagate 7200.11 @ $90.00 each), and had a WHS (with a warranty), including the latest HP 3.0 software (which is fabulous), that has a total storage capacity of 6 TB. Now THAT HP unit is a bargain and a damn good WHS - but your WHS pales by comparison!