Home Server Project... ITX advice

indyjones

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Hi all,

As I am still waiting for general availibility of the G0 steeping quad core cpus as explained in my other thread http://forum.osnn.net/showthread.php?t=90978
I am planning on doing my next porject first this is to build a small form factor server for storing all my music and pictures etc on. I am on the beta program for windows home server so fancy giving it a whirl!

Any way from googling for small form factor severs I found this:
udat_13.jpg


http://www.mashie.org/casemods/udat1.html which just seems perfect (All rights to Mashie his mods are amazing!). The only thing is it uses mini ITX components which I have no clue about.
Also I wondeer about cooling but I guess you can sort something out....

Anyway what are all your thoughts please before I take the plundge :)

(Oh was looking at the AMD geode boards apparently they they are ok!)

Cheers

IJ
 
my company builds small mini-itx servers, and we use via epia boards for these all the time. We always look for the best deal, and have used some jetway boards with 1.5 ghz processors in them. They have sata but sometimes have a hard time rebooting without having to do a hard reboot. Intel just recently released a mini-itx board with a celeron processor in it, but there are 0 sata ports...for some reason it all comes ide and that's it.

we are looking for margins but for a build like this I would look for the most powerful via epia motherboard (newegg) you can get for this. With a file server you don't need amazing number crunching capabilities and the via epia boards can handle a good amount.
 
hmmm ok going on Tuffgong4's advice and using a via epia board gives two options..... (when going with the c7 cpu) either the EX series and the SATA2 support or EX series and gigabit lan...... what does people think ?

I do plan on using the onboard sata for a while (until I get the money for more disks and a controller card) but my router is only 100 base....... still I read somewhere the old 100 base via NICs were naff which is why I thought 1000 base.....

Cheers

IJ
 
I'm pretty excited about the via boards and how well they work. I think you are going have a pretty sweet setup when it's all done and I think you will be able to not worry about stability, and crazy power usage.
 
Any updates on the build???

Wondering how it's going
 
Ahh interesting you should say so, been on holiday so delayed the project. Got back yesturday and will be ordering the componets in the next couple of days.... Tempted with some of the intel boards as you can upgrade the CPU and you can have more than 1 gig of ram. Problem is they seem a fair bit pricey.To save cash going to buy the case and hot-swap caddie first along with the mobo, cpu, ram but not buy the raid card yet. I think I will wait for this and but a good one and just use onboard sata ports for the moment.I will also get a couple of hard-drives in there and see how it goes!
 
hmmm Unfortunatly apart from a couple of ABIT baords I have seen which are very expensive and use an external PSU, all the boards seem to only take 1gig of ram max. I am worried this may be a problem for a server as that is the minimum ram requirement for windows home server which I am planning on running.......
 
Right after a lot of research I am thinking of abandoning the ITX build :( and instead going with micro-ATX. There are a couple of reasons for this is first the options on mini-itx such as (rarely) any cpu upgrade and the fact it can only take 1 gig of ram. the second is releated to windows home server which i plan to run on it. The preview on Anandtech states clearly that home server does not like add on raid cards... So after looking at micro Atx i can get intel based board with cpu, for alot less that a micro-atx board and it comes with six sata2 ports on board..... The only thing left is to look for a case...........
 
that seems like a really logical choice. the decision to run windows home server is a big no no for these mini itx boards. They are perfect for linux based systems but micro atx will give you a ton more options. Hell Micro Atx boards are full fledged boards and some are made to perform close to top level atx boards.
 
Thank you for your replies :)

I was really looking forward to the mini-itx but as mentioned micro-atx is much more flexible here is the case I am currently looking at problem is very expensive........
Still it has plenty of options and is not too large 280 x 250 x 353mm (W,H,D) vs 200 x 225 x 330 mm of the orgional. There space for 3 hdd straght away and it would be an easy mod to fit the hot-swap cage in the side at a later date (shown on the right of the case)
001132-300x300.jpg

product06.php
 
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