Building A Home Server Part II
I was bored yesterday, so I spent some time buying components for my Home Server. I set myself a budget of £250 for the system and I ended up spending just over £130 which I’m very happy with. Here are the components I purchased:
Case: Foxconn TLM397 £28 (pictured above)
I went for this case as it had a lot of expansion slots (2x 5.25 External Bays, 2x 3.5 External Bays and 4x 3.5 Internal Bays) so there’s plenty of space for internal HDDs and external drives. It also has a 360W PSU which will be more than enough power as I won’t be running a graphics card. I didn’t need anything sexy as I’m going to stick the box behind my sofa. I just hope the fans are quiet…
Motherboard: Foxconn 6150BK8MC-KRSHN2 £60
I spent a bit more on the motherboard than I would have liked, but I was determined to get a micro ATX motherboard with Gigabit LAN for lots of streaming capacity and also one with 4 SATA II sockets. I also wanted a Socket 939 so I could use some of the ram in the study PC which has 4GB of RAM which is overkill.
CPU: AMD 64 x2 4200+ £45
After doing some reading on various Windows Home Server forums I decided to go for a dual core CPU as apparently the single core machines are ok for backup and file transfer, but struggle with streaming multiple HD graphics files. I went for the 4200+ as it was only £12 more than the 3800+. It’s the same CPU as I have in my main machine (HTPC has a 4600+) so I know it’s more than powerful enough.
Memory: 2×1GB DDR400 Free
Will take 2GB out of my main PC which doesn’t need 4GB anymore (I don’t think it ever did!)
HDD: 2×750 SATA II drives and 1TB Lacie External HDD - Free
‘Borrowing’ from HTPC. I have a 400GB in the study PC which is unused which will replace these drives. Hopefully the prices of 1TB drives will come down by the time I need one.
OS: Windows Home Server - Free
I’ll be starting with the 120 day demo. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get a full version out of Microsoft for free.
Overall I’ve specified a very powerful machine, which will definitely last a very long time. It’s probably got too much power, but for only £130 I’m not going to lose any sleepless nights over the cost. I really think I’ve built a system for the future, that will power my home for at least 5 years, maybe even more.
The bits should all arrive this week so I’ll let you know in part III how I get on with the construction. Hopefully I’ll have everything working smoothly before I go to see my parents over Christmas, so that I can test out the remote access to the full.
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Comment by James on 13 November 2007:
Amazing price, I am going to try and find the same config in spain and see how it workd out.
Comment by Joseph Plazo on 12 November 2007:
It happens all the time. I think it’s the cataloguing system foundering.
Comment by Sergio on 12 November 2007:
@ john motson:
it was happening yesterday to me too..
Comment by John Motson on 12 November 2007:
This is the exception…
I then click back, then hit submit again, then I get the normal “This is duplicate content”. Thought I’d let you know.
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Comment by John Motson on 12 November 2007:
By the way, you have a bug in your system… when I comment, I get a huge execption
Comment by John Motson on 12 November 2007:
Fair enough.
I always worry about doing something like that. As in, I won’t be able to provide myself with enough security and guarantee of uptime as a professional hosting server would.
Comment by keikun17 on 12 November 2007:
why dont you guys try making a rented dedicated game-server and put it up for rent. the demand for dedicated servers today are high because of the influx of online and FPS games.
Comment by Everton on 12 November 2007:
@John
I hadn’t considered hosting my blog. My upstream is too slow to do that I think. But I might look into getting a better connection as I’m sure I can get a fast enough one for less than $200 per month
@Micah
Yes, I’ll contact Microsoft and ask for a review copy.
Comment by Micah on 12 November 2007:
That sounds like it’ll make a nice setup. How are you planning on getting MS Home Server for free…writing a review? Expansion slots are very necessary in the computer world, too much stuff changes quickly.
Comment by John Motson on 12 November 2007:
Wow, a nice setup you got there, and got it for quite a cheap price too.
Are you going to host this blog on that server? Or is that just for playing around?