New Home Server

[weirdlookinguy]

I'm setting up a headless torrent box/NAS/home server using a small Compaq Deskpro EN I recently got (traded my buddy a P4 machine for it). Specs:

Pentium 3 700mhz
512MB RAM
300GB IDE HDD (Seagate 7200.10)

I love this little Compaq, the form factor is excellent and the build quality is outstanding. My buddy has another one of these Compaqs that he has been using as a torrent box for almost two years now and it is running strong as ever.

I am going to do what he did and set it up in a corner of the closet and let it run torrents 24/7. It will dump them into a large hard drive which will be accessible on the network.

OS will be XP Pro, I will manage it through Remote Desktop, applications used will be uTorrent for torrents and Web GUI, Soulseek for mp3s.

I did a test setup of the OS, I attached a screenshot of how the box looks through remote desktop. I like how everything turned out so I think I might use it how it is, even though it was just supposed to be a test setup.

Right now I am getting write speeds of 23MB/s through gigabit ethernet when writing to the open network drive.

---------------------------------------

Now here are my questions:

1. Any neato stuff you guys do with a home server that runs 24/7? Cool applications, etc.

2. If I add a cheap silicon image SATA card and pop a 1TB hard drive in there (along with the gigabit ethernet PCI card that's already there), will the PCI bus start choking and ruin my 23MB/s upload that I'm getting now?

[Scenic]

Re: New Home Server

small private game servers, FTP, VPN, ...

if the motherboard supports large HDDs (which it seems to do .. at least 128+GB), you could use a IDE->SATA converter. they're transparent to the software and the only real drawback is that they hurt the performance a bit. (my 1TB WD runs about 8MB/s slower on a converter compared to a real native SATA port ... which is next to nothing in a PIII box considering this HDD gets 90MB/s average)

http://cgi.ebay.com/310202707992
http://cgi.ebay.com/260753964629

[Uranium-235]

Re: New Home Server

your pci bus runs waaay faster then that

personally...I would prefer you at least get a fake raid card and run a mirror array, or get a HBA and run linux raid. with ext3 compression i'm pulling about ~70MB from my server, 1tb drives in linux raid 1

I have no camera to show you my server

its a dell poweredge 700, if that helps

[PCBONEZ]

Re: New Home Server

I would get your hands on a 3Ware 9500 Series RAID card in low profile.
It's PCI-X but all you need to do is put some electric tape over the extra pins and it will work in a regular 32-bit 5v PCI slot.
[The 9550 and up series' do NOT work in 5v slots.]

The 4-port 9500SX cards aren't so pricey anymore.
You are getting ripped off if you spend over $40.

They are hardware RAID and supported in both Linux and Windows.
.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: New Home Server

9500S-4LP & 9500SX-4LP
- same card.
The SX is lead free.
LP = Low Profile.
There are also 8 port cards in low profile (-8LP).
.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: New Home Server

That 3ware card sounds really good. I have a silicon image fakeraid card laying around already but if I find the performance unsatisfactory, I will track down one of those 3ware cards.

I spent 4 hours crawling around in the attic yesterday and got this server rolling. There was an unused 120v line just laying there in the attic, it was coming out of the junction box that feeds the attic light so I figured it was safe for some low-wattage use. I wired it up to an outlet (inside a romex box, securely mounted to a ceiling beam, and not the backstab type) and ran a power strip down into my closet. Then I ran a phone line for the DSL modem, and a 50ft Cat5e line directly to my desk. The rest of the house runs on wifi.

Result: my server and everything internet-related is tucked away in its own little corner in the closet with an ethernet cable running direct to my desktop. It looks really nice and clean. I attached 4 pictures so you guys can see where I stashed the server away. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Photo 1: from afar
Photo 2: zoomed in
Photo 3: closet door opened
Photo 4: close-up of the setup

[ratdude747]

Re: New Home Server

hint: pIII+fakeraid= FAIL.

i tried it with a 533mhz k6-2 with 768mb ram. and a via card. the array wasn't being booted (network share) and it still sucked the living life out of the computer. SLOW!!! it even ran win 2k like a turd.

i'd imagine a pIII would not be any better.

see if you can find a cheap and fast 3ware card on fleabay... i found one for $12 for my server.

[Uranium-235]

Re: New Home Server

l-i-n-u-x

[ratdude747]

Re: New Home Server

duh... but he don't like linux...

[brethin]

Re: New Home Server

hint: pIII+fakeraid= FAIL.

i tried it with a 533mhz k6-2 with 768mb ram. and a via card. the array wasn't being booted (network share) and it still sucked the living life out of the computer. SLOW!!! it even ran win 2k like a turd.

i'd imagine a pIII would not be any better.

see if you can find a cheap and fast 3ware card on fleabay... i found one for $12 for my server.

My opitplex 110 (which is smaller than the deskpro EN) does fine with a P3 1k and 512 ram for a home server (running win 2k), it also runs a printer for network and a magic jack. I stream in HD to my tv from it via my MCE PC all the time and never see any chopping or skipping with no raid (just a IDE drive).

I guess it might be slow if your accessing it from more than 1 PC at a time but as a home server that is not likely to happen unless you all hate each other and each need to do your own thing alone all the time.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: New Home Server

hint: pIII+fakeraid= FAIL.

i tried it with a 533mhz k6-2 with 768mb ram. and a via card. the array wasn't being booted (network share) and it still sucked the living life out of the computer. SLOW!!! it even ran win 2k like a turd.

i'd imagine a pIII would not be any better.

PIII is a hell of alot better than socket 7.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: New Home Server

I put a 1TB WD Caviar Green in there today, along with the fakeraid card. I flashed the BIOS of the fakeraid card (Silicon Image 3512) to take the raid out of fakeraid and make it a regular IDE card. Then I loaded up XP. The system feels snappy and I am still getting the same 23MB/s sustained speeds across the network. I think the fakeraid card is staying.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: New Home Server

Also, I considered Linux but I just want this thing to torrent and host files on the network. Not worth tinkering around endlessly w/ Linux for such a simple setup IMO.

[ratdude747]

Re: New Home Server

if it ain't in fakeraid mode, you will be fine. raiding things with it causes the real problems.

[Scenic]

Re: New Home Server

agreed. i only use those cheapo software-raid cards as normal IDE/SATA controllers. it's usually called JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) mode on a lot of them

[ratdude747]

Re: New Home Server

agreed. i only use those cheapo software-raid cards as normal IDE/SATA controllers. it's usually called JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) mode on a lot of them

funny, thats what mode crippled the k6-2.

[Scenic]

Re: New Home Server

anything cripples a socket7 sys..
my K6 II 550 can't keep up with a PII 400