Building a Media Server

[Rob Oplawar]

Ok guys, I've been thinking about it for quite some time now (read: all afternoon! :eek:), and now I've got a tentative parts list.

V1:

What a shock, I went about twice as high as I wanted to go! But then again, I think it may be unrealistic to aim for $500 for 3 TB of fault-tolerant storage...


Case: Antec ATX Mid Tower - $60 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042)
Mobo: Foxconn LGA 775 - $60 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186146)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7300 - $120 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115132)
Heatsink: Thermalright HR-01-775 - $50 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835109133)
RAM: 2x Kingston 1GB 240 DDR2 800 - $21 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134634)
RAID Controller: Rosewill RC-209-EX - $20 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132013)
HDD: 4x WD Caviar 1 TB - $420 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136151)
PSU: Corsair 650W ATX12V - $100 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005)
OS: Ubuntu - $0 (http://www.ubuntu.com/)

Online tax: $0
Shipping cost guesstimate: $70

Total price: $921

eep! That's way more expensive than I wanted! Any suggestions?

V2:

Case: Antec ATX Mid Tower - $60 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042)
Mobo: Foxconn LGA 775 - $60 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186146)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7300 - $120 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115132)
Heatsink: Stock heatsink w/o fan, if that's reliable - included with CPU
RAM: 2x Kingston 1GB 240 DDR2 800 - $21 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134634)
RAID Controller: Rosewill RC-209-EX - $20 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132013)
HDD: 1x WD Caviar 1 TB for media - $105 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136151)
HDD: 2x WD Caviar 500GB for essential backup in RAID 1 - $120 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136149)
HDD: Generic 200GB drive I have lying around, for OS, programs, and settings - $0
PSU: Corsair 650W ATX12V - $100 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005)
OS: Ubuntu - $0 (http://www.ubuntu.com/)

Online tax: $0
Shipping cost guesstimate: $70

Total price: $676


Read on for a more in-depth description of what I want out of this server:

Let me reiterate this: I need at least 1.5 TB now, and am going to need upwards of 3 TB in the future. With 4 1TB HDDs in a RAID 5 I can get 3 TB of storage and be reasonably assured that I won't lose any of my data. Now, any way I tear it, I'm going to need at least 3 TB eventually, but at the moment I only need 1.5 TB. RAID-5 is an all-or-nothing sort of thing; once I've written to the array I can't add extra space to the array without reformatting the whole thing.
I have about 100GB of stuff that I cannot lose (losing my terabytes of media would be annoying, but not disastrous). What I could do, then, is to store my essential stuff on a RAID-1 with two 500GB drives (giving me room to expand), and then give myself a couple of 1TB drives for my media. Turns out that would cost roughly the same as doing 4 1TB drives in RAID-5, and the 3TB RAID solution gives me fault tolerance on all of my data, rather than just some.
Granted, my essential data would be better protected on its own RAID rather than being lumped in with the media-- how much better protected is an open question.


My next biggest concerns after size and redundancy are power and noise. It's a server, so it will be on all the time, so I don't want it to add $50/month to my electricity bill. Unfortunately, with 4 hard drives in there (5 counting the hard drive I already have set aside for the operating system), there's not much I can do about that.
But I can make it quiet, and that's why I went with the beefy heatsink and that particular case. 3 120 mm fans running at low RPM shouldn't make very much noise at all, and should keep the CPU and HDDs nice and cool.


Now, this thing is going to be a media server, and all my photos, music, videos, homework, websites, etc are going to be stored there, accessible from the internet. I want this because I spend a very large portion of my time away from my apartment, and I like to have access to my data, especially my music and websites.
Again, I could just do this for my essential data, handling my media separately, but for now I've lumped them all together into one RAID array.

The media still has to be on the server somewhere though, because while I don't need to access it from anywhere online I do need to access it from anywhere on my local network- that's what media servers are for.


While writing this I've started to think that the 500GB RAID-1 + 2xunprotected 1TB drives is a better plan.
The small, RAID protected storage would hold my essential stuff, and possibly my music, and would be accessible online through some interface (probably the same as I have it now- via FTP and SVN, in which case, I would just put the music with the rest of my media), and the big drives would hold all my media, and would be accessible via some local network file sharing protocol (I've been messing with samba, but I've been having trouble getting it to work).


In that case, I still need the RAID controller card, but I can get a better RAID-1 specific card, and the cumulative HDD cost is decreased somewhat.

[Amit]

Do you really need 4+Terabytes of storage? Honestly.

Also, if you plan on adding a real GPU...get the HD4850.

[klange]

If he wants all of his movies, yes he does.

[TheGhost]

I have a Drobo stacked with 4 TB hard drives and it's doing the job for me. And it's really small and quite, better than what you could build by hand. It also has redundancy. The only thing is that you need something with video out or a monitor to attach it to to watch the content.

[Masterz1337]

Use the stock heatsink. This machine isn't really going to run that hot, adn if this is the same case you told me about earlier heat won't be an issue.

[Rob Oplawar]

I don't need a GPU, because the most this thing will ever render is a command prompt while I'm setting it up, or maybe possibly a GUI media center if I decide to hook it directly up to a TV, and onboard graphics will do just fine for both of those.

Yes, I need 4+ TB. I currently have 1TB of DVD quality video (all bought and paid for, if you care), and am planning on moving up to HD video now. If you're wondering why I don't just play the media off the disks, it's the same reason I now carry an iPod instead of a CD player with a book of CDs.

What is a Drobo? *googles*
Hm, at first glance, although pretty and nicely pre-assembled, they seem to cost significantly more than an equivalent self-built RAID.
I looked into the possibility of building an external RAID enclosure to connect to my current server- $300 for a good RAID case with PSU, fan, and controller, so $700 for the 3TB solution, but I've tentatively decided I'd get better bang for my buck by putting it into the case with the server.

Will the stock heatsink work without a fan? I've been using the stock heatsink and fan on my core 2 quad for a while, and it's by far the noisiest part of my computer. I want to do away with the cpu fan.

e: Updated first post.

[Rob Oplawar]

*bump*
Didn't buy the server for Christmas like I had planned because my cat needed surgery, and it was expensive. (He got a bunch of teeth removed because his immune system was attacking his gums- he seems perfectly healthy now and is actually happier now that he gets nothing but canned catfood).

I'm gonna get a nice plump paycheck this month, though. Should I save it, or use it to pay off some of my college loans a bit more?

Nah, I'ma go with the server.
$600 plus shipping. Should I go for it as-is? Any suggestions about RAID controllers and how well they work with Linux?
Should I go for a hardware RAID, or will my processor (and motherboard, come to think about it) be powerful enough to make the improvement over software RAID negligible?

Also, on a side note, anybody know a good way to clone a partition from one hard drive to another, so I don't have to reconfigure my operating system? I'd keep the old drive, but when I say "old"... the drive was manufactured in the late nineties. To be honest, I'm astounded that it still works with no errors.