Full Version: Server-spec-me-do
From: ANT_THOMAS [#1]
2 Mar 16:47
To: ALL
Current spec
P4 1.5GHz
1GB RAM
~2.5TB in HDDs (4 hard drives)
My main reason for wanting an upgrade is the power consumption issue because I'll be most likely getting my own place in September and therefore paying my own bills again.
I'd love to get some sort of Intel Atom based system but my need for plenty of SATA ports seems to ruin that idea :(
I've decided I want to spend around the £100 mark for CPU+Mobo+RAM. After checking power stats, prices and CPU scores I've come up with this boring table (I originally thought the current server CPU was far more power hungry and the Pentium D is there because that's the CPU in my main PC).
For the time being I've settled on the Intel Celeron E3330 since it seems the best from a price, power and performance point of view but does anyone have any suggestions otherwise?
Is a Celeron really that bad for a server these days that's mainly going to be file serving with a small amount of web and ftp serving on the side? I think my main concern is reliability, I don't want it to crash. The server used to be run on a Duron 700 and it crashed loads, I mainly blame this on the motherboard being shit.
From: Hugh et al le J (KOSWIX) [#2]
2 Mar 17:11
To: ANT_THOMAS [#1] 2 Mar 17:38
From: 99% of gargoyles look like (MR_BASTARD) [#3]
2 Mar 17:37
To: ANT_THOMAS [#1] 2 Mar 17:38
From: ANT_THOMAS [#4]
2 Mar 17:51
To: 99% of gargoyles look like (MR_BASTARD) [#3] 3 Mar 9:22
I need a minimum of 5 ports - 4 for the drives I currently have and 1 for the drive I plan to get within the next few months. The system drive is IDE.
The motherboard I have in mind for the Celeron has 4 ports so that would be fine whilst using an expansion card. It also has 2xPCI slots, 1xPCI-E x16 slot and 1xPCI-E x1 slot. For a few quid more I can pickup a board with a few more slots if I really did want to "future-proof"
I have 2 PCI SATA cards and one PCI-E x1 SATA card at the moment so I'm fine for expansion in the future with a normal motherboard, the problem with the Atom boards is that they tend to have 1 PCI slot and 2 SATA ports onboard so that instantly means a max of 6 drives (using a 4 port PCI SATA card)
From: Peter (BOUGHTONP) [#5]
2 Mar 20:23
To: ANT_THOMAS [#1] 2 Mar 20:45
Does it need to be a single machine?
Now sure if it makes sense or fits with your budget, but if (for example) two Atoms uses less than half the power of a single Celeron, will that save you the extra £70 (or whatever) in electricity bills?
From: ANT_THOMAS [#6]
2 Mar 21:01
To: Peter (BOUGHTONP) [#5] 2 Mar 21:14
That is an interesting idea but I really would like to keep it to one machine because I have no idea how much space I might have when I move for extra computers all over the show since I have too much stuff as it is.
Thinking about the Atom side of things has lead me to finding an Atom board that has 1xPCI, 1xPCI-E x1 and 1xPCI-E x16. If I can actually buy one over here that might be the ideal board. It also has 3 SATA ports onboard instead of the usual 3.
From: Mouse [#7]
2 Mar 22:23
To: ANT_THOMAS [#1] 2 Mar 22:28
From: ANT_THOMAS [#8]
2 Mar 22:40
To: Mouse [#7] 2 Mar 23:23
It'll be hitting about 4TB soon enough :)
Currently my space is summed up as:
HD content - 239GB (That will get much bigger fairly quickly)
SD Films - 274GB
SD TV - 631GB
Music - 70GB (x2 since it's backed up on another drive)
Photos - 30GB (x2 backed up too. That's also nowhere near it all)
Documents - 2GB (x2)
Messy download folder - 243GB
TKD stuff - 34GB (x2)
Out of 2233GB useable space I'm currently using 1941GB when you include some other crap I've got on there. I do need to go through it all and delete some stuff but not much will go, maybe 100GB or so.
From: Mouse [#9]
2 Mar 23:25
To: ANT_THOMAS [#8] 2 Mar 23:25
From: ANT_THOMAS [#10]
2 Mar 23:26
To: Mouse [#9] 2 Mar 23:33
From: W R O N G bot (DSMITHHFX) [#11]
3 Mar 3:06
To: ANT_THOMAS [#1] 3 Mar 11:44
From: Dave!! [#12]
3 Mar 11:10
To: ANT_THOMAS [#1] 3 Mar 11:44
What is the server being used for? If it's just as a file server etc, I'd consider looking for a purpose-built NAS. My IcyBox NAS probably wouldn't suit you as it only has 2 hard drive slots, however it's powered by an ARM CPU, supports RAID, torrents, DHCP and all manner of other bits and pieces. Plus, with 2 1.5TB drives in it, it only pulls 25w whilst running.
Larger 4 drive+ NAS devices do exist and one of these is likely to provide the lowest power consumption you can realistically get.
If you do go for a normal PC build, I'd recommend looking at some of AMD's EE/u chips (Energy Efficient/Ultra Low Voltage). These do have fairly low power draw. The Athlon II X2 260u for instance is a dual core 1.8GHz CPU based on the Phenom II architecture and has a TDP of just 25w. Or at least, it would if I could find it for sale anywhere. Either way though, they may be worth considering.
It's worth considering that an increase of just 10w will result in a machine which consumes an extra unit of electricity in about 4 days of none-stop running. At about 20p per unit, that's about £1 for 20 days or £18 per year. Worth baring in mind anyway when you weight up the pros and cons of cheap CPUs over slightly more costly but less energy using CPUs. Work it out and see what is and isn't worth going for.
Edit: Oh, and just to quickly point out, file server duties are not CPU intensive in the slightest. A 2.5GHz Celeron is unlikely to offer any noticeable performance increase over a 1.8GHz Celeron for these sort of tasks. If you're running other tasks on the server then this may change of course!
From: ANT_THOMAS [#13]
3 Mar 12:14
To: Dave!! [#12] 3 Mar 12:28
I'm fairly sure it needs to be a PC because I often have it doing various other tasks like having it running thunderbird so I can check my emails over VNC and it's often used for P2P TV. I'll check out the AMD CPUs.
The reason I was going to go for a more powerful CPU was because I've got all sorts of ideas about streaming TV around a network and doing other video conversion stuff so wanted something a bit more powerful but still within the budget, hence why I looked at the CPU score!
From: Dave!! [#14]
3 Mar 12:31
To: ANT_THOMAS [#13] 3 Mar 12:36
From: Slaves & Bulldozers (SHIELDSIT) [#15]
7 Mar 1:21
To: ANT_THOMAS [#1] 7 Mar 13:04
From: ANT_THOMAS [#16]
15 Apr 15:03
To: ALL
I may have found the ideal solution, in case anyone is interested
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/200878
Intel Atom D510 CPU
2 onboard SATA
1 PCI-E x16
2 PCI
MATX instead of ITX but that isn't a problem. This means I could at least have 10 SATA devices by just using onboard and the standard PCI slots. Fantastic.
From: graphitone [#17]
15 Apr 15:51
To: ANT_THOMAS [#16] 15 Apr 15:53
From: ANT_THOMAS [#18]
15 Apr 15:56
To: graphitone [#17] 15 Apr 16:15