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A few people have been asking about the server I am working on, so I will be making a build log for it. I currently have some of the guts, such as psu, motherboard, memory, cpu (?), etc. Still doing testing and things are set to be changed. Especially the cpu, which I hate. Currently a pentium d 940 3.2ghz.

Here are the newest pics:
Front of the case, that small guage thing tells me the power usage. Plugs straight into the power supply. I think I ripped it out of a lian li server pc.
Opened its face, can see the 2 intake fans, 2 random barracudas i had lying around, will use them for some raid testing.
Power button is too mainstream, i like power switch.
Stability testing:
Guts of the machine:
Cooling for my intel raid controller:

Just something interesting, the inside of the side panel has schematics for the original motherboard in this case. You can get an estimate of its age due to the fact that the motherboard has usb 1.1 and an agp slot.


Things to do:
* Find a replacement cpu, this stupid pentium d uses 130w, the 30w celeron i had planned turned out to be dead .
Bought an e5400 off an irl friend for $10, works great on new motherboard. The motherboard I WAS using only worked on the pentium, no other 775 cpu, not even ones on gigabytes supported cpu list worked. even after a bios flash. odd.
* Investigate some possible motherboard voltage wierdness
Never got around to it, bought a new motherboard.
* Set up the raid controllers bios
Did about 80% of it, theres just a couple of VERY advanced features I want to research thoroughly.
* currently only have push on my hard drives, want to configure a push pull setup.
* Find some permanent raid hard drives
* Decide on a final raid level
* Find some permanent os drives, all the ones in there (currently dual booting windows server 2008 r2 enterprise and linux openSUSE). Might donate my 2 74gb raptors from main rig.
Was going to use my scsi raid controller and 74gb 15k rpm seagate cheetah for boot but I had some issues (see page 2) so I am instead going with my first idea, of using my two raptors out of my main rig in a raid 1 config for boot.
* Possibly find a raid cache ssd, the intel 330 60gb caught my eye.
* Possible case mods
* Methods of encryption
* Decide on security software
* Still waiting on my extra sas to sata cable to arrive, so i can support 4 more hard drives off the controller.
Came in the mail, its a nice cable. Good braiding, extremely thick rubber where there is any, just all round one of the most tough and well designed cables I have seen. Would expect nothing less for server gear.

Will add more to the list as I go along.

*UPDATE* Decided to put a full component list, don't know it all off by heart so i will add some as I go along.

Motherboard: Super Micro X7DAE. Full specs.
CPU:
Heat Sink:
Memory:
Boot drive: 2x 80GB WD Raptors 10k. Raid 1.
Raid drives:
Case:
Power supply:
SAS Raid Controller: Intel RS2MB044 Full specs.
SCSI Raid Controller: LSI PCBX581-B1 / Dell perc 4. Full specs.
Graphics card:
Quad Gigabit Network Adapter:

looks nice, what you plan on using it for?


also that guage was from a coolermaster case, since it's logo is on the corner of it

Will be used as a nas server, and a lan game server. I don't think the guage is from a cooler master case, since I think it only works with the cooler master psu I have. Both were taken out from a second hand machine. The motherboard might be up for a change, since I got an acer server, even though it has nice sas hot swappable bays I don't really like the case, but the motherboard in there is great. Dual xeons, a bunch of registered ecc ddr2 memory, and most importantly, 64 BIT PCI SLOTS!! (pci x)

I can make use of the pci x slots and put my quad gigabit controller in. Though none of that is set in stone, it may or may not happen.

Well for hdd's I am not too sure yet, preferrably I would like an ultrastar or an RE4 (enterprise drives) but ofcourse that comes at a cost. More realistically, I would be looking at either wd reds or seagate barracudas. The reds are ofcourse better but the price of barracudas is tempting.

For a final raid level, i would like to have raid 10. Because apparently raid 5 is bad. I am still researching into the subject though. My raid controller, which I am VERY impressed with thus far, and retails at $750 (=o) supports migrating raid levels. So I can pretty much convert raid arrays. i might have a raid 5 array, and not like it, and just use the controllers feature to convert it into the raid level of my choice. Though depending on which raid level you are changing to and what your changing from you would probably need to plug in one or two (depending on capacity) temporary drives as it moves files around and re-calculates everything.

I want to make use of this feature, and since my budget is low atm, i can get 3x 3tb wd reds in raid 5, giving 6tb of storage which is enough for now. when I will get more cash I will buy some more drives and convert it into a raid 10. but for starters, it looks like it will be raid 5. I also have a 500gb hitachi ultrastar, so i will probably put important yet small files such as family photos on that + my raid array for extra security. I also might donate my pair of raptors from my main rig into the server. Thinking of raid 1ing them for operating system, so if one fails my server can keep running.

Yeah if the raid wasn't as important i probably would have gone with cheapest drives i can find, possibly second hand + motherboard onboard raid controller. But these files are important, there is over a decade worth of computing waiting to be stored there. If I am going to do it, I am going to do it right. The only thing i am afraid of is newer versions of wd reds (so different model numbers) replacing the current ones. If that happens and I decide I want to add more drives into the array i won't be able to since all need to be identical. Meh whatever though, I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

may I suggest to get a UPS as well :P; I know you want one :).

RAID arrays have come along way; and if that a controller card, then your fine, shoot, the "on-board" controllers (RAID) can handle it, the only difference is the speed.
IE... 2TB RED; replaced with a 2TB GREEN = slower
or in your case.
2TB RED (old number); replaced with a 2TB RED (new number) = as fast as the slowest RED HDD

In the NAS box I have, I only had to replace 1 RED DRIVE (It got pinched by little sister for her PC), I thought like you thinking the two numbers had to be the same... when infact, it all runs just as it used to.
(But do keep the data size the same, or at least larger then it once was)

Nice build teck!

Quote from BKrenz

He said he has 10 years worth of stuff.

Wow, that is a lot of data, anyways the server looks pretty cool, wish I had the money to build one, but sadly I don't. Hopefully this summer I will have the money to build one, whats the raid card model?

I'd say shut up and take my money but i have none

Quote from BKrenz

I doubt you really need a server like Teck.

It retails for $700 from Intel.

Yeah to much for my small budgets Well I do have a lot of data.

Also teck asked me to post this here so yeah...

Quote from teckmaster »

hey man, I got a posting suspension for like 10 days or something so I can't post or edit my old posts anymore lol. about your question regarding my raid card, I have this one:

http://www.intel.com...r-rs2mb044.html

Basically a rebranded lsi controller. If you want to do a basic nas though, use software instead of hardware raid. Do some research into freenas, it is quite good. anyway, you can just quote this message and post it in the thread so people know im banned, and if they are interested they can know the controller model too.

cheers

SORRY GUYS FOR NOT POSTING IN A WHILE BECAUSE THE ADMINISTRATION IS OH SO GOOD ON THIS FORUM I GOT BANNED FOR 2 WEEKS FOR "GOING OFF TOPIC"

Here are some updates:

* I have been dual booting windows server 2008 r2 and linux openSUSE. I have also tried multiple linux distros before that. One thing I noticed is that the average linux distro idles at about 100-350mb ram used, and windows server is about 500-900mb which is insane. I couldn't care less though, I have so much ddr2 memory lying around.

So far I am impressed at windows server 2008 r2, not compared to unix based operating systems but compared to the standard windows. It is much more serious than the standard windows and seems to have MANY features that I will find useful and it ofcourse has that windows user friendliness. So far, it looks like the operating system I will go with.

* I have organised an e5400 cpu for $10 off a mate which I will pick up in a few days or so, which uses up half as much power as the stupid pentium d I have in there at the moment. Granted it is not as powerful, but 95% of all processing on this machine will be done by the raid controller so who cares?

* My 24 hour prime95 torture test passed with flying colours, my foxconn heat sink did well and the cpu temperature did not exceed 55 degrees, and it is summer here in Australia.

* I have been looking at a replacement motherboard, specifically one that has dual gigabit LAN. Reason being a proper dual gigabit adapter can cost about $70 which is too much, and I managed to find an Asus P5W Deluxe 775 motherboard on ebay. so far the auction looks promising. It also has 2 pcie16x lanes so I can upgrade to quad gigabit, or 10gigabit in the future. Will is possible since I plan to keep pretty much all of the components for atleast a few years.

The motherboard does not have video onboard, but I can just use a pci graphics card anyway. Or use a pcie one and cut a notch in the pcie1x slot to make it fit. The motherboard also has wifi, which I HIGHLY doubt I would use at all but a cool feature. Oh and it has 8 phase power design, SWEET.

* The extra sas to sata calbes I have ordered still haven't arrived yet, its been over a month D:. Though it should take this long since its from hong kong and I used the cheapest possible shipping. It is coming by sea...

* I was planning on using two WD raptors in raid 1 for the operating system but one of them may be having issues, I am still uncertain whether it is the hard drive, or my motherboard/or cables. I hot-plugged it into a different pc to copy files off it since my rig couldn't boot when it was plugged in.

do people want more updates?

we can't even get desktop buildlogs let alone a server one, I want more

ok good because ive updated a lot in it during my post suspension, will take pics now and write up a post. eta <45 mins