Input on home server build

[Ultima]

Hi guys i have been running a fedora home server for a month or so now for file sharing and ps3 streaming but now it wont post. It was using old parts from my old computer from when i upgraded to the i7 2 years ago. Was wanting input on whether the parts i had picked was any good and whether i would have to reconfigure it again with the new parts.

New Parts:
Asus M4A87TD-USB3 $99
4G Single 1333 PQI $42
am3 x955 $147
total: $288 from MSY

Any input n advice would be most welcome.

[Lurk]

Can't really find anything review wise about that CPU. Depends what your aims are on it though.

If you're after something that's going to work - probably.
If you're after lots of flops - not sure, probably not.
If you're after low power - no.

[ur_noobie]

Can't really find anything review wise about that CPU.

there should be plenty of reviews for the P2 X4
heres one: http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-pheno ... view-test/

@OP, what is the psu you plan to use?

[Ultima]

I have and old 400w psu that i was using before and would probably continue using. Previously it had an amd Athlon 64 x2 5200+ in it. I figured this would provide some decent perfomance for the price and doesnt seem to consume a great deal of energy. Like i said its not going to be doing too much intensive stuff so i dont need a huge amount of power.

[steve_rogers42]

budget and do you have a gpu or not?

if your looking for a decent low power/mid range decoder-encoder/streambox an i3 would perform about onpar with the 955, the phenoms are pretty power hungry but the motherboards generally come with more bells and whistles...

how many hdd's are you looking at, raid? and network/usb's and the like?

[Ash_Williams]

If your building a home server for media streaming/storage and keeping it cheap, this is what I came up with:

Intel Core i3 2100 - $135
Any Motherboard under ~$150
G.Skill F3-10666CL9D-4GBNQ (2x2GB) DDR3 - $55
2x Western Digital Green 2TB WD20EARS - $198
CoolerMaster Elite 342 with 420W - $69

Total: ~$607

(Source: PCCG)

depending on what other extras you may require. The i3 2100 is fantastic for a server in my opinion, I'm using one myself and it will simultaneously stream and encode 3 different videos at once to iPads without lag or heat.

[Ultima]

Thanks, i had basically forgotten about the new i3's. I have changed to look at now:
Asus P8H61-M-V3 $94
Intel I3-2100 $126
Budget probably a few hundred.
Is there any measurable performance benefit in getting 2 sticks of RAM over one? As it may be easier and cheaper to upgrade later with just one?
GPU...wasn't planning on using one. I have a 1TB atm and wasn't planning on doing RAID or the like and was just going to add to it as need be. Its on a 100Mbit wired network but have been looking into getting a gigabit switch. USB's probably not going to have any plugged into it and do all that from connected computer.

[l337h1um]

Is there any measurable performance benefit in getting 2 sticks of RAM over one?

Measurable? Yes. Useful? No, especially not in this case (home media server). I would stick with the single 4GB stick you chose, as it is cheaper and will probably use less power. With electricity prices constantly going north, that's always a good thing...

[BurntToast]

Which leads to me ask, 420 watts Ash? Seriously? Is that because you had it handy or you chose it specifically? Is it necessary? Surely 200ish would be plenty for a basic home server of these sorts of specs?

(Not meant in the slightest as an insult, but as a serious question)

[Ash_Williams]

Its what I had around the house, plus its for the amount of HDD's that the thing has in it =P

[BurntToast]

Ah fair enough

[Ultima]

Thanks guys for the input ill build it this week and hope everything works as its supposed to.

[Brad]

Its what I had around the house, plus its for the amount of HDD's that the thing has in it =P

Our media pc (my old rig)
q6950 dual core
4gb ram
onboard video (took out 8800gt to save power)
2* 1 TB
1 * 2 TB
1* 160gb (OS DRIVE)
450w PSU

The hard drives take a while to spin up when accessing them after a period of non use. This is with power options set to not let drives sleep.
I thought 450w would be more than enough for this set up but no matter how much i play with HDD power options and removing the 8800 no change was made.

Maybe i need more than 450 or maybe my drives are faulty. They do make a noticeable single click when they spin back up but have done this from new in this system.

its becoming more of a concern as the drives fill up and I need to look at getting another 2TB.

As for your system build, I am of the opinion that almost any older pc set up will do. Especially if you are putting Linux on it. only a few years back i was using an AMD duron 800MHZ 2gb ram with a GF440MX 64mb running Ubuntu.

At the end of the day a media pc only needs to be good enough to play videos/music and store it all. When u start adding more services to it then hardware becomes more of an Issue imo.

[Ash_Williams]

Clicking from a HDD is never good in my opinion.

[steve_rogers42]

the cpu in a media centre should be able to run a HD decode and DL/media share clients whilout skipping a beat.. the mx440 probably did the majority of the work load lulz.

What brand are the clicking drives and what is the motherboard? The newer 1tb Black drives tend to chatter a bit, and most green drives will slow down when not in use as a built in energy feature iirc...

Have you run a disck check util or a fragmenting utility through to check for any bad sectors and the like?