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 Ian on 3 December 2007:
Thanks for guiding me down the right route - did look as though the VPN route way way OTT for what I need.
Having researched OSs suitable for file servers NasLite 2 USB seems to fit the bill well so I might well gone down this route rather than the more resource hungry XP Pro.
Is the VNC Server appliction only for Windows OSs or will this work alongside Naslite? The same question for Telnet.
Just to confirm (I’m a little slow), both VNC & Telnet will let me remotely see the file server’s OS from my desktop’s monitor - yeah?
Thanks for your input, I think I’m slowly getting there!
Comment by Smackall on 3 December 2007:
No VPN is not the one you can choose. Coz VPN is for accessing from outside your LAN. And in your case you need to install VNC server or telnet in the file server. It depends on the OS you put in the file server
Comment by Ian on 3 December 2007:
Unfamiliar with VPN. Have googled it & the descriptions for use seem to be for large organisations that need connections to LANs from other geographical locations.
I simply want to gain acces to the file server’s OS as an administrator for carrying out all the usual HDD management tasks from within my home LAN. Actually, by co-incidence, the file server will be sat right next to my own desktop PC.
Of course I need security on the LAN but only for protection from the net as my ADSL router will be connected to the LAN. I don’t need any user security on the LAN in the home as it’s only me & the dear wife that will be connected to the LAN.
Is VPN still the best route for me to RAS & can anyone give me a brief summary as how you go about setting it up. If not VPN then what other simpler but effective ways are there to manage the file server?
Thanks again guys.
Comment by Smackall on 3 December 2007:
VPN should be the best for you
Comment by Everton on 2 December 2007:
naslite costs $30. It doesn’t have an inbuilt RAS feature, but it can be accessed with a bit of tweaking with ports or a VPN
Comment by Ian on 2 December 2007:
Hi Everton
The reason I was thinking of installing XP is I don’t have to buy another OS plus I’m quite nervous about using any other OS as I’ve only ever used Windows & am not familiar with Linux, NasLite or any other alternatives.
Is NasLite freeware?
Although I waffled on a bit in my 1st posting my main current issue is wrapping my head round how I access (see) the file server’s OS in order to be able to control/administer the HDDs on the server, ie. defrag, backups, etc. Can you or anyone help me visualise how this works.
Cheers
ps. I’m familiar with XP’s remote access over the net - quite often remotely log onto the father-in-laws PC to get him out of a jam, yeah, he’s even thicker than me!
Do you use the same process to gain access to the file server’s OS or is there a better way, ie. via an IP address? Or am I completely muddled in my thinking on this subject?
Comment by Everton on 2 December 2007:
@ian
I’m getting some comment errors since I upgraded to WP 2.3 I don’t know how to fix.
I think installing XP is OTT and NasLite will do the job you need. You don’t need a powerful PC - anything old PC should be sufficient. You will only need a better CPU if you are doing multiple things at a time.
Comment by Ian on 2 December 2007:
Ooops, apologies to all. When I submitted my comment I got an header error message so I re-submitted then got the duplication error message - did this a few times as I didn’t see my comment appear on the thread.
Then I noticed there was a page 2! So now I’m a stupid geek!
Comment by Ian on 2 December 2007:
Hi guys
Don’t know if this is the right forum but being new to the principles of file servers I wondered if I could post a few questions before I go ahead in building a home file server.
I have 2 desktops, one laptop & laser printer (with NIC) currently networked to a 10/100 ADSL network router (Linksys). The PCs all run Windows XP Pro.
To upgrade the network to Gigabit 1000kbps I just place an order for a new 8 port Gigabit switch & some replacement cables - CAT5 to CAT 6. All PCs’ NICs are capable of being configured for full duplex Gigabit speeds. Once installed, hopefully I’m going to be impressed with lightning file transfer speeds.
Phase 2 is to research (that’s what I’m currently doing) building a dedicated file server to enable central storage of large database & video edited files amongst others. The main purpose here is to be able to centrally administer the data, possibly go down the RAID mirroring route &/or centrally backup/archive files. Plus the fact that I simply want to do it as a project for fun - does that mean I’m a geek?!
Questions:
On the file server I’ll be installing windows XP Pro (I know it’s probably a little OTT but I have 1 unused license available so might as well use it). How will I gain access to the file server, ie. see the file server’s OS on my desktop’s monitor (unless I have to I’m not planning to connect a dedicated monitor, mouse & keyboard to the file server)? Is this done via some remote access function within XP? Or can I gain access via an IP address? Or what?
What things should I consider for backup processes, ie. RAID? Does XP’s backup utility allow you to configure auto scheduled backups?
I appreciate a file server can be built from very basic PC parts & I do want to keep the cost down but I do very much like the idea of those server tower cases that have 4 x 3.5″ external bays with slide out HDD facility & hinged door at front of the case - any recommendations on such cases available to order?
Finally, I’m very unclear as to what motherboard/chipset/CPU & RAM is suitable to build the file server to achieve best performance for file data transfer over a gigabit LAN??? As a non expert I wouldn’t have thought that the hardware components of the file server need to be highly spec’d to achieve my goal but I’m concerned I may have missed something in my thinking. Any recommendation would be appreciated.
Re all of the above are my ideas on how to go about building a file server on track?
Any advice you can offer me in building a file server would be very much appreciated.
Thanks
Comment by Ian on 2 December 2007:
Hi guys
Trying to submit to forum but got the same message as others above. Thn on re-submitting I get the duplicate message!
What am I doing wrong?
Ian