File Servers
 

Hey guys, I was just wondering if anyone has their own file server or HTPC. I'm in the process of putting a budget one together.

All I plan to use it for is mostly for backing up my media. I'll probably have A LOT of pictures in the future as I'm starting to shoot RAW. I don't really need HD streaming or any sort of transcoding/encoding.

I'll also need it to download torrents. Which is one of the questions I have, how does downloading torrents on the machine actually work? Will I have utorrent on my desktop and just save the file into a folder in the server? Or is there a special web interface I use to tell it to download the file?

I only plan on having a monitor hooked up to it when I configure everything, after that it'll just be sitting in the corner of my room.

Which OS is better if I plan on using it for what I've stated? Would Windows Server 2008 be alright? Or is a Linux distro a lot better?

I'll be building the server around a AMD Sempron LE-1200 that I got a while back, maybe a year or so ago. Would it still be viable to use this as the CPU or should I get an AM3 processor with an AM3 mobo and DDR3 ram?

I know I can build an AM2 system for < $100 which is perfect because I plan on spending the most money on the hard drives. Looking at getting around 3-4TB for now, 1 TB + 2x 2TB. And maybe just 1-2GB of ram. This would suffice for what I need right? Or is it a bit too little?

Thanks!

You don't need much computer horsepower for a fileserver your sempron would be more than enough power. I'd recommend going with at least 2gigs ram for the cost of it.

I can't comment on how big of hard drives you need since it depends on how quickly you fill them.

For Utorrent, you could do it two ways: Make a mapped drive to the server and set your desktop to save there, or use a remote desktop connection to control the server directly and download there (VNC, RDP, PC Anywhere etc).

My fileserver/workstation setup is as follows:

Pentium D 820 (2.8ghz)
Mobo: Aopen i915Pa-PLF
3 Gig RAM
Win 7 Professional 32bit
Hard Drives:
O/S: 60Gb OCZ Vertex 2 SSD
Storage: 2xWD Green 2TB's (Mirrored)
Backup: 1xSeagate 7200.9 PATA 500gig

I store all my media on this machine, it also has a TV tuner and acts as our 2nd TV/PVR in the house. It does everything I need, and with the exception of the SSD and WD Greens, was all scrounged parts.

My 2¢.

After you have your file server set up, I would assume you will just map the drives to your other computers. Easiest way to deal with torrents is to just download them on a client computer, and just choose the mapped drive ont he file server as the destination.

If all your other machines are Windows, I would personally go with Windows for your file server as well. For just simple file serving, you don't even need Windows Server... you can just use WinXP or Windows 7 if you want.

A file server uses next to no CPU whatsoever, so what you have is more than sufficient. I don't think you need more than 1GB RAM, but of course it never hurts to have more.

I would strongly recommend getting a RAID controller and getting some redundancy for your hard drives. If you would hate to lose your files, use RAID1 or RAID5 so that if any one drive fails, you won't lose any data.

Or use a version of windows that supports software RAID (one of the reasons I chose Win 7 pro vs home premium). Yes hardware RAID is faster, but one of the nice things about Windows RAID is that I don't have to worry about a controller dying on me and then worrying about my RAID array's compatibility with a new (potentially different) controller.

Doesn't get much better than server 2008 r2 using RDP. Change the port from 3389 to something higher and then port forward on your router so you can access your server from anywhere. Use the free dyndns.com app on your server so you don't have to remember your public IP.

as far as ram goes... torrents can eat ram if you don't limit connections, and 2008/2008r2 are pretty ram heavy as it is, 2gb minimum probably?

edit: should probably add, that there is no technical reason to use a 'server' OS if all you want is a file server, if you've never used one before you might just be better off using win7. There's nothing windows servers can do that win7 can't in a home file server environment.

just get a NAS

Thanks for the info guys.

I was thinking of doing RAID but wasn't sure if I actually needed it. Seems like I should though considering the chances of the drives failing. Say if I had 2 2TB drives configured in RAID 1 should I still have say another drive doing backups of just my really important documents and stuff?

Seems like it would be easier to just do the torrents on my desktop but I don't really want to leave my desktop on 24/7 now as its not really that efficient leaving a computer that takes 700W lol. Is there no automatic way without having to use a remote desktop connection to make the torrents download on its own?

Thing is I don't have anymore win7 keys from MSDNAA, have access to Server2003 and Server2008. But I can probably install xp on my bootcamp partition instead and use that key for the server.

I was looking into NAS but it seems like I can build a server at a much cheaper price and its a bit more flexible isn't it?

Thanks again everyone

incredibly more flexible.

Remote desktop doesn't 'end' when you turn your main PC off, the server will still run and download torrents as if you were sitting in front of it watching. All you need to do is RD in, start up your downloads, then X out of the window and wait.

check pm's

"I know I can build an AM2 system for < $100"

i think you missed the point here buddy

have fun leaving on a 200w computer 24/7 when all you need is a 20w NAS that does the same shit, not to mention much more compact and takes only 5-10 minutes to setup.

I gotta agree with Hyde, here. If all you need is a file server, an NAS is a great solution. They are pretty cheap, now. You can get a 2TB for under $200.

I ran a file server in the closet, but realized it was a big waste of power for just file sharing. I went and bought a Buffalo 1TB NAS, on sale. It has built-in printer server, time machine, torrent client, etc. It did everything the file server could do, with much much lower power consumption.

A multi-drive NAS was considered, but I decided it was too much to spend, and it's not like I need to have every media file I have to be available at all times. I've been offloading stuff to DVDs, particularly HD content.

The NAS will be more expensive because you can't build one from random parts lying around, but it is definitely a great plug n play solution. I'm running the DNS-323, and it's been working great for me.
Out of the box you get file serving, ftp, upnp media server (stream mkv to ps3), and even a torrent client (although i dont use it).

speaking of NAS's, i picked up a 321 from NCIX for 99$ during their last sale...its basically the 323 with no Bittorent and USB port.

note if you're going to get a 321/323 Dlink NAS and want to use a WD EARS drive, be weary that youre going to have to realign the drive because of the new sector sizes.

http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?ac...;topic=14484.0
http://www.consumedconsumer.org/2010...-tb-ii_08.html

As others said, take a NAS if u want low power consumption. Plus its smaller than a toaster

If you still have a school email account, you can go to dreamspark to get a copy of server2008 for free.