# Ok... So who needs a 30TB server??



## Viridian

That's the most amazing use of an A1200. You should post details on how you got 25 3.5" HDD's into that thing!


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Viridian;13059815*
> That's the most amazing use of an A1200. You should post details on how you got 25 3.5" HDD's into that thing!


As it stands right now it will only fit 16 HDD's but if I need more space I can add 4 more drives by adding another SATA controller and getting the 5 in 3 supermicro hot swap bays.. but that would add a lot to the cost of the server because they are like $90 each..


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## AyeYo

lol wow... can ANY air get between those drives?

What do you do with 25TB? Pron storage?


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AyeYo;13059842*
> lol wow... can ANY air get between those drives?
> 
> What do you do with 25TB? Pron storage?


Look at the drive temperatures.... They are lower than my ambient room temperature..

and no, mostly DVD and BD rips.. that accounts for 90% of the 4.5TB I am currently using, the other 4.5TB is data duplication courtesy of Drive Extender.


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## yuugotserved

lol nice! i bet that weighs a ton!


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## spartacus

Sweet!

I'll get there someday....


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## Bitemarks and bloodstains

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


*Look at the drive temperatures.... They are lower than my ambient room temperature..*

and no, mostly DVD and BD rips.. that accounts for 90% of the 4.5TB I am currently using, the other 4.5TB is data duplication courtesy of Drive Extender.


cant be done, nothing can be lower than ambient unless you use some type of phase cooling, the sensors are off slightly


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## Baking Soda

...You made me jelly man. Heck makes my Pentium 3 server jelly.


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## fg2chase

Yes, it does weight a lot..

And im sure the drive temps are not exact.. Sometimes they read over 300F! lol... Seems like it would be on fire at that point..


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## fg2chase

Just put it on my bathroom scale...

It weighs 78lbs/35Kg..

wow...

I still need to add two more hard drives. Might push it over 80

Did anyone notice my ghetto placement of the fan controller? I used Velcro to affix it to the floor of the case.. LOL there was just nowhere else to put it.

Does anyone have any thoughts of replacing the main drive with an SSD? IM not sure this would aid in performance at all but since WHS can't backup it's primary system drive one would tend to think that particular setup would be it's ahchilles heel.


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## MadCatMk2

All that for a bunch of movies? Or is there some other use in it?


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MadCatMk2;13063332*
> All that for a bunch of movies? Or is there some other use in it?


Yes, all my PC backups.. I also need to be able to access my files from anywhere in the world. I used this server while I was in Afghanistan so I could VPN into home and get my files which most of the time was movies. And I like never having to carry removable media around, I haven't used a thumb drive or CD-R in ages.

My wife is in California right now, she is logs into it periodically and gets important documents and streams music from it..

It is actually pretty Amazing.


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## the_beast

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13063261*
> Does anyone have any thoughts of replacing the main drive with an SSD? IM not sure this would aid in performance at all but since WHS can't backup it's primary system drive one would tend to think that particular setup would be it's ahchilles heel.


Personally I'm not convinced that SSDs are any more reliable than mechanical drives - the tech in mechanical drives is proven, but SSDs change continuously.

I'd put your WHS OS drive onto a RAID1 mirror on your onboard controller and leave it at that. Nice and cheap, low power and pretty unlikely to fail.


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## 2thAche

Wow that's awesome. Makes my 4x1.5TB look weak!


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *the_beast;13063431*
> Personally I'm not convinced that SSDs are any more reliable than mechanical drives - the tech in mechanical drives is proven, but SSDs change continuously.
> 
> I'd put your WHS OS drive onto a RAID1 mirror on your onboard controller and leave it at that. Nice and cheap, low power and pretty unlikely to fail.


yeah I had thought of that.. Here were my thoughts on doing this..

create the RAID 1 and use norton ghost to move the image from the single drive to the array...

Otherwise I don't think there is a way to do this without starting over.

My temporary solution right now is to use ghost to create weekly images of the system drive.


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## TronRR

Nicely done.


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## the_beast

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13063459*
> yeah I had thought of that.. Here were my thoughts on doing this..
> 
> create the RAID 1 and use norton ghost to move the image from the single drive to the array...
> 
> Otherwise I don't think there is a way to do this without starting over.
> 
> My temporary solution right now is to use ghost to create weekly images of the system drive.


That system should work. I'd make sure you disable DE before you do the image though - otherwise if WHS moves a file midway through the imaging you'll have issues.

Personally I wouldn't bother with the weekly images though - if anything changes on your server at all since your last image you will be in a whole world of trouble if you restore an old image. Better to reinstall WHS and reimport the drives to rebuild the system rather than use an old image.


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *2thAche;13063445*
> Wow that's awesome. Makes my 4x1.5TB look weak!


This is a nice Home server, much more practical than my setup I just do not know when to stop..

You also appear to have superior hardware, Core 2 Duo? The CPU in mine is from 2003 or 2004...


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## age_ruler1

Aww lol, I was proud of my 4xHDD RAID









I wonder what is the Brust speed & average read of your Setup. Its gotta be EPIC


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## the_beast

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *age_ruler1;13063666*
> Aww lol, I was proud of my 4xHDD RAID
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder what is the Brust speed & average read of your Setup. Its gotta be EPIC


lower than yours - his drives are not in RAID...


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## age_ruler1

Ahhh I didn't noticed that. Then I feel proude of my 383MB/s


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## robbo2

wow thats amazing!


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *the_beast;13063712*
> lower than yours - his drives are not in RAID...


Yeah, that is questionable though.. Drive extender basically emulates RAID 0 and it is possible for files to stripe among more than one drive.

I have load tested it though and I was able to stream 1080P content to 5 other computers in the house, even while my brother was connected from his house in New Mexico.

How do I test the I/O?

ninja edit- ok I downloaded HDtune and the best read I got was 105.6 MB/s

There was no way to test the drive pool as whole which kinda sucks but oh well but theoretically if it was functioning as a true RAID 0 the speeds would be in the 1200-1500 MB/s?


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## the_beast

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13064340*
> Yeah, that is questionable though.. Drive extender basically emulates RAID 0 and it is possible for files to stripe among more than one drive.
> 
> I have load tested it though and I was able to stream 1080P content to 5 other computers in the house, even while my brother was connected from his house in New Mexico.
> 
> How do I test the I/O?
> 
> ninja edit- ok I downloaded HDtune and the best read I got was 105.6 MB/s
> 
> There was no way to test the drive pool as whole which kinda sucks but oh well but theoretically if it was functioning as a true RAID 0 the speeds would be in the 1200-1500 MB/s?


The files don't stripe across drives, each file sits on 1 drive only (plus a second copy on another drive if mirroring is on). That's why you can pull a drive and mount it on another Windows box and access the files.


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## fg2chase

oh ok fair enough i guess


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## rdrdrdrd

why no RAID, raid is awesome
ironically i came up with this exact same setup just a few weeks ago, with a different mainbord and CPU of course


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## hick

Get flexraid! Free, and works. 2 drives to backup your whole system (i would still duplicate all pictures and docs though).
You just keep adding drives and not using them :x


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *hick;13069278*
> Get flexraid! Free, and works. 2 drives to backup your whole system (i would still duplicate all pictures and docs though).
> You just keep adding drives and not using them :x


I use the drives, it just takes time for WHS to actually start using them... But it eventually balances out.

Out of all the hard drives I have purchase I have had two catastrophic failures, that is when having all those drives comes in handy... I have purchased over 30HDD's for this machine, and only two failures is pretty good. Started with 750Gb, then to 1TB then 1.5TB and now 2TB..


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## AblueXKRS

Want.


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## graphicsman

What drives are you using. Also would ate to see you do a full antivirus scan, lol

Edit: cool pants too


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## GoHigh

Good God man... How much porn did you download and more importantly, why are you keeping all of them? 25TB? It's time to start using the delete key man...


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## ____

Missing the dual Xeons, 48GB RAM, and 3 GTX580s


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## GoHigh

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13063360*
> Yes, all my PC backups.. I also need to be able to access my files from anywhere in the world. I used this server while I was in Afghanistan so I could VPN into home and get my files which most of the time was movies. And I like never having to carry removable media around, I haven't used a thumb drive or CD-R in ages.
> 
> My wife is in California right now, she is logs into it periodically and gets important documents and streams music from it..
> 
> It is actually pretty Amazing.


Ever hear of Netflix? Or Amazon VOD? Dropbox? They do all this for you so that you don't have to do it yourself. I mean, 8 bucks a month, and you can go crazy.

JK... Awesome... I think you should ask for sponsorship next time.


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *GoHigh;13069438*
> Ever hear of Netflix? Or Amazon VOD? Dropbox? They do all this for you so that you don't have to do it yourself. I mean, 8 bucks a month, and you can go crazy.
> 
> JK... Awesome... I think you should ask for sponsorship next time.


I needed a hobby, my old hobbies were sleeping with hundreds of women.. Now that im married my wife doesn't approve of that old one so I moved onto this.

I am all into the cloud storage thing, I just wanted to have control over my own cloud And I wanted to have my own cloud in my closet. =)


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## Erper

25gb server... hm.. i would be happy with 10... and that wouldnt be full..


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## EfemaN

I need to learn how to work magic like this. I've always wanted to have a real home server going; something like this (albeit with less storage) is going to happen when I start really making money.

Where did you gather all of the knowledge for setting up the server and being able to work the remote access? Or is it easier than I'm making it out to be?


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## GoHigh

If a hard drive failed on a 25TB server, and there was no one there to hear it...


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## AblueXKRS

What's the power draw on that thing?


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EfemaN;13069498*
> I need to learn how to work magic like this. I've always wanted to have a real home server going; something like this (albeit with less storage) is going to happen when I start really making money.
> 
> Where did you gather all of the knowledge for setting up the server and being able to work the remote access? Or is it easier than I'm making it out to be?


Well I have always been into computers and I am an Army network engineer.. So I guess it just kinda fell into place.. plus WHS is pretty damn easy for someone with at least some computer experience. I don't think it would be easy for someone with basic PC knowledge but yeah its not too bad.


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## TitaniumClocker

Not to be rude, but you can't be bothered to rotate those pictures?


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AdmiralThrawn;13069517*
> What's the power draw on that thing?


450W full load

With the Northwood P4 it would usually bounce between 180-190W with the new Prescott 90nm P4 it is bouncing between 220-230 according to the UPS.


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## drjoey1500

Man that thing looks like a heater. I'm sure you're house will stay warm in the winter







.

Seriously, those temps obviously aren't right. I have a hard time believing those fans push much air at all between the drives. If you can't get an accurate temp reading, at least feel it with your hand after you shut it down to make sure they're not getting too hot.


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TitaniumClocker;13069529*
> Not to be rude, but you can't be bothered to rotate those pictures?


you got it boss.. didn't think it would bother anyone... Done..


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *drjoey1500;13069539*
> Man that thing looks like a heater. I'm sure you're house will stay warm in the winter
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .
> 
> Seriously, those temps obviously aren't right. I have a hard time believing those fans push much air at all between the drives. If you can't get an accurate temp reading, at least feel it with your hand after you shut it down to make sure they're not getting too hot.


The drives are cool to the touch... They are all LP drives and run cooler anyhow... There is plenty of airflow, when air is being moved by the fans through the spaces the velocity is increased.. just by holding my hand there I can feel all the air moving.


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## Beeiilll

Wow fg, that looks nice.
I'm in the process of setting up my own server set to use atm. I have an E7400, case with PSU, 2GB ram, 160MB - 7200 samsung for the OS, 3 - F4 - 2TB Samsung for storage. Just waiting on a MB (had one but it crashed) and a copy of WHS v.1.

Should be able to start getting all my video moved over onto it when I get it up. I have over 125 VHS movies that I want to copy in and probably 200 hours of music to do.
Will just keep buying F4's as I go!!

Bill


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Beeiilll;13069620*
> Wow fg, that looks nice.
> I'm in the process of setting up my own server set to use atm. I have an E7400, case with PSU, 2GB ram, 160MB - 7200 samsung for the OS, 3 - F4 - 2TB Samsung for storage. Just waiting on a MB (had one but it crashed) and a copy of WHS v.1.
> 
> Should be able to start getting all my video moved over onto it when I get it up. I have over 125 VHS movies that I want to copy in and probably 200 hours of music to do.
> Will just keep buying F4's as I go!!
> 
> Bill


Originally I had a LOT of VHS tapes that I intented on copying over to digital as well.. This was in 2007 so hard drives of this capacity were not out yet but I decided it was more practical to aquire copies of the DVD versions and do it that way. came out much better and actually uses less storage space believe it or not.

The only thing I ended up ripping from VHS was home movies from my families archive dating all the way back to 1984.


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## the_beast

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *drjoey1500;13069539*
> Man that thing looks like a heater. I'm sure you're house will stay warm in the winter
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .
> 
> Seriously, those temps obviously aren't right. I have a hard time believing those fans push much air at all between the drives. If you can't get an accurate temp reading, at least feel it with your hand after you shut it down to make sure they're not getting too hot.


drives need very little airflow at all - if ANY air is moving over them at all it will likely be enough. You can pack drives in much tighter than that and not worry about the temps.


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## Mr. Original

25 tb is impressive... i have quite a few home dvd's i put on my machine and i still haven't broke 3tb... you must have oddles of stuff or have everything in lossless 20gb movie files....


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Mr. Original;13069733*
> 25 tb is impressive... i have quite a few home dvd's i put on my machine and i still haven't broke 3tb... you must have oddles of stuff or have everything in lossless 20gb movie files....


Yeah, something like that... The average file size for a DVD rip is 6GB at least in my experience, I do not compress them at all, I have nearly 600 movies as it stands right now and im using about 4.6TB of hard drive space multiply that by two (for duplication) and you can see that im using just over 9TB right now. This leaves me plenty of room to expand and also helps to accomodate a hard drive failure should another occur.


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## 2thAche

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13063555*
> This is a nice Home server, much more practical than my setup I just do not know when to stop..
> 
> You also appear to have superior hardware, Core 2 Duo? The CPU in mine is from 2003 or 2004...


E5300, Microcenter, $50 lol. I keep debating throwing a cheap Q8xxx on there.

I haven't set up to stream/share on the web yet. That's my next project. Did you just use the WHS built-in stuff?

If you move to C2D it will be much kinder on power.


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *2thAche;13071649*
> E5300, Microcenter, $50 lol. I keep debating throwing a cheap Q8xxx on there.
> 
> I haven't set up to stream/share on the web yet. That's my next project. Did you just use the WHS built-in stuff?
> 
> If you move to C2D it will be much kinder on power.


I use the WHS built in remote access when I can't VPN into the server (like from work) but thats it usually.. My family uses the remote access more than me for their "cloud storage" though, my dad used to carry a thumb drive around but he doesn't anymore.

my 1090T system below is going to become the ultimate server once bulldozer comes out... Minus teh video cards, sound card, monitors, Case and that OS.. lol

no C2D for me... lol


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## Pentium-David

That is awesome! You are now my idol...Reppin the P4 still, I like it. About how much data does it stream daily?
Edit: Just realized that's a socket 478 too.....Wow that is impressive!


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## Beeiilll

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13069661*
> Originally I had a LOT of VHS tapes that I intented on copying over to digital as well.. This was in 2007 so hard drives of this capacity were not out yet but I decided it was more practical to aquire copies of the DVD versions and do it that way. came out much better and actually uses less storage space believe it or not.
> 
> The only thing I ended up ripping from VHS was home movies from my families archive dating all the way back to 1984.


I wish I could find the movies in DVD as that would help for sure. My problem is that I have a ton of TV shows on VHS that I want to archive as well as movies.

My bad on my post as well. I have an E8400 Duo Core CPU for my server whenever I can get the MB and WHS software.

Bill


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## fg2chase

Eh.. On a busy day we will watch 4-5 shows of TV and maybe two movies.. but thats on like lazy saturdays.. Saturday mornings all it does is stream Barney and Jungle Junction to my HTPC.

and beeiill, you can get TV shows on netflix or something. I have done that especially the old ones I owned in VHS format..

I eneded up donating all my my VHS tapes to an old folks home in El Paso, there were like 300tapes.


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pentium-David;13074149*
> That is awesome! You are now my idol...Reppin the P4 still, I like it. About how much data does it stream daily?
> Edit: Just realized that's a socket 478 too.....Wow that is impressive!


lol yeah man, this thing is like 2004 tech.


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## Cvalley75

FG, a question about streaming music online when youi are away from home. I was using Vail until they dumped DE. So I now own WHS V1, i used to stream music from my sever at work, but now with v1, some of the bells & whistles that i used in vail aren't available, one I really miss is the streaming of music. You mentioned your wife streams music from your server while away from home. Is there a plugin for this in v1, or am I just ignorant enought about v1 that I havent figured it out yet.


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## jadawgis732

I have a setup that's very similar (albiet with only 7.5Tb, but I am wondering- I see you have avast antivirus. How's that working out? Any other recommended addins?

I'd like to know about the music streaming as well ^^


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## Beeiilll

Some shows I can probably find, but I have the complete original Star Trek series on VHS as well as a bunch of Playboy parties and some Geographic specials that were one of a kind and I have not found anywhere else.

I have 35 - 7 & 1/2" reel to reel tapes that I want to save as well. A lot of it was concerts that I went and taped live as well as a radio station (CHOM) from Montreal that I taped a lot of in the early 70's when I was stationed up in Plattsburgh, NY in the Air Force. Some really great days of radio back then.

Just want to save the stuff you know and keep it for posterity.


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Cvalley75;13074454*
> FG, a question about streaming music online when youi are away from home. I was using Vail until they dumped DE. So I now own WHS V1, i used to stream music from my sever at work, but now with v1, some of the bells & whistles that i used in vail aren't available, one I really miss is the streaming of music. You mentioned your wife streams music from your server while away from home. Is there a plugin for this in v1, or am I just ignorant enought about v1 that I havent figured it out yet.


Yes sir, I use webguide for Windows Home Server! It's actually pretty awesome the guy that made it was hired by Microsoft and thats how the streaming was included in VAIL.

here is my cable managment update.. As promised










Avast works great... only a few false positives mosly relating to RAR archives, but that was over a year ago. When my brothers computer tried to back itself up to my WHS through the VPN it detected malware that it was attempting to backup and deleted it.

If you have priceless videos and such or some that cannot be obtained digitally then the choice is obvious. Rip them...


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## Pentium-David

Gosh I want that server...just curious, how loud is it?


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## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pentium-David;13079768*
> Gosh I want that server...just curious, how loud is it?


It's pretty noisy... But both my wife and I like "white noise" when we sleep so it helps us sleep because it's in our bedroom closet.. It is noticable if it is off.. Plus there is my webserver right next to it which makes some noise as well.


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## fg2chase

looks at these temperatures it is 55F in my house right now because I have all the windows open and I like it cold


















A prescott core CPU running at 90F LOL


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## midwaybluejay

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13074367*
> Eh.. On a busy day we will watch 4-5 shows of TV and maybe two movies.. but thats on like lazy saturdays.. Saturday mornings all it does is stream Barney and Jungle Junction to my HTPC.
> 
> and beeiill, you can get TV shows on netflix or something. I have done that especially the old ones I owned in VHS format..
> 
> I eneded up donating all my my VHS tapes to an old folks home in El Paso, there were like 300tapes.


I like your set-up. Like you i built my own PC/server with 8- TB hard drive in a raid 5 set-up with about 620 DVDs in the ts format for menu and trailers and movie art. I'm streaming video to all bedrooms and home theater using Popcorn Hour NMT. I also built a server using WHS for my in-law, I set-up a 6 TB server for them with the same 620 movies.BTW what sata expansion card did you use


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## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *midwaybluejay*


I like your set-up. Like you i built my own PC/server with 8- TB hard drive in a raid 5 set-up with about 620 DVDs in the ts format for menu and trailers and movie art. I'm streaming video to all bedrooms and home theater using Popcorn Hour NMT. I also built a server using WHS for my in-law, I set-up a 6 TB server for them with the same 620 movies.BTW what sata expansion card did you use


I currently have two different types..

Standby I will newegg link you..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816124027
Two of these, (one currently installed)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815280003
and two of those... Even though they are cheap they have worked no prob


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## Beeiilll

Hey fg another question for you.
What did you use to rip in your VHS tapes when you did them? Just looking ahead for the best way to get them into storage.
Thanks
Bill


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## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Beeiilll*


Hey fg another question for you.
What did you use to rip in your VHS tapes when you did them? Just looking ahead for the best way to get them into storage.
Thanks
Bill


I had a VCR (of course) from like 1986.
a RCA-USB adaptor... I don't remember which kind.. But I know where it is.. Did you want to "borrow" it?
And The software that came with that device..

If you wan't to borrow it we can come up with something...


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## midwaybluejay

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Beeiilll*


Hey fg another question for you.
What did you use to rip in your VHS tapes when you did them? Just looking ahead for the best way to get them into storage.
Thanks
Bill


I have a Sony VCR/DVD Recorder RDR-VX555. It also work great!!!


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## mbudden

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


I had a VCR (of course) from like 1986.
a RCA-USB adaptor... I don't remember which kind.. But I know where it is.. Did you want to "borrow" it?
And The software that came with that device..

If you wan't to borrow it we can come up with something...


It's as easy as that? My parents have TONS of tapes they want to go digital. I may have to "borrow" it. Whenever I end up making a mass storage for them.


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## fg2chase

Yeah man just let me know, just shoot me a deposit and then I can drop it in the mail.. We can hash that out in a PM though.


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## mbudden

No problem man. I'll shoot you a PM when the time comes.
They want their Cassette tapes in digital form too.
So I'm having to figure out how to do all this analog to digital stuff lol.


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## SupaSupra

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


Yeah man just let me know, just shoot me a deposit and then I can drop it in the mail.. We can hash that out in a PM though.


Lol, my gf parents want to do that as well. I'll have too look up where to get one.


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## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *mbudden*


No problem man. I'll shoot you a PM when the time comes.
They want their Cassette tapes in digital form too.
So I'm having to figure out how to do all this analog to digital stuff lol.










This device captures audio just fine, as long as you have a way to do RCA in..


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## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SupaSupra*


Lol, my gf parents want to do that as well. I'll have too look up where to get one.


np, let me know if you want to use mine.


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## fg2chase

http://store.antec.com/Product/acces...5-30146-6.aspx

ugh, I really need another one of these cages since the 1200 only came with three, I need it because it has the air filter in it, I made one out of pantyhose in the meantime but I really want it to be uniform.

I can't post in the wanted forum either because I don't have enough "rep" and antec is out of stock, no luck on ebay either.


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## Pentium-David

I can help, kinda... +Rep for having an epic server


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## Cvalley75

Well, it looks like I'm too late to the party to get Webguide, the download doesn't work. If anyone else has another suggetion for streaming music, video & pictures online from a home server, I'm all ears.


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## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Cvalley75*


Well, it looks like I'm too late to the party to get Webguide, the download doesn't work. If anyone else has another suggetion for streaming music, video & pictures online from a home server, I'm all ears.


standby, I will shoot you a link...

www.hispeedchase.com/server/whs/webguide.rar

That's right on my server. Remember to decompress it to the add ins folder in your software directory.


----------



## Cvalley75

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


standby, I will shoot you a link...

www.hispeedchase.com/server/whs/webguide.rar

That's right on my server. Remember to decompress it to the add ins folder in your software directory.


Thanks, i searched high & low for another download source, Ive got the file now, home servers sure are handy sometimes. Sweeeeeeet.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Cvalley75*


Thanks, i searched high & low for another download source, Ive got the file now, home servers sure are handy sometimes. Sweeeeeeet.


haha well, you didn't download it from my WHS you downloaded it from my other P4 webserver.. lol


----------



## Citra

15 hard drives in a row is awesome sauce.


----------



## Abs.exe

woot me want


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abs.exe;13092161*
> woot me want


Make one man...


----------



## ounderfla69

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *mbudden;13084050*
> It's as easy as that? My parents have TONS of tapes they want to go digital. I may have to "borrow" it. Whenever I end up making a mass storage for them.


The company ION Audio makes Record players and VCRs that will encode and input the signal into the USB. Here is the link. $99 not bad, and when done ebay it, its a lot cheaper then getting the converted professionally and their products works very well. I have a record player and have been converting records over for my mother.


----------



## ounderfla69

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13092245*
> Make one man...


So, do you think you will want to upgrade to home server 2011. I think a migration of data my be possible with a 3rd party DE replacement. The one I'm looking at is Drive Bender which will be supported by most OSes. Now I dont know if this is possible to do but I have been contemplating this. If Drive bender will allow you to set it up on one OS or machine and transfer the drive array to another machine by backing up the setup of array created by drive extender and restore it to another machine. You can then take WHSv1 install Drive Bender then one by one remove each drive from DE and then add it to the drive Bender array. Then start migrating data over to the Drivebender array until all data is moved. Once this is done backup drive bender array config. Unplug the data drives and swap a new hdd in for the OS install WHS 2011 and Drive Bender the plug in all the drives restore config and now WHSv1 has been migrated over to WHS2011. This is if these 3rd party apps will be really usable. Although here are a few points about WHS 2011, will microsoft support it now that HP has dropped it. Second, WHSv1 had some serious data corruption problems when it came out and wasnt fixed for some time even though microsoft new about the problems. Wouldnt it be nice if they made a MSE for WHS. I have an extra pc to this out when WHS is released.


----------



## fg2chase

well, the more and more I learn about WHS 2011 the more I am inclined to say no, I have a legit Copy of 2008 R2 that I am leaning towards but this should work fine for years to come.. It's only shortfall is that its 32bit which for me limits me to 4Gb installed memory.

4Gb seems to be plenty though.. It's not like I have hundreds of concurrent connections to this server at a time.. At most there are 6 at any given time with my family being around the country and all.


----------



## AblueXKRS

So what's the power draw on that thing?


----------



## yuugotserved

i have a question about webguide

can i use this to access my stored documents online from remotely anywhere?

thing is my remote access option doesn't work for some reason so will that be a problem?


----------



## Riou

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13100495*
> well, the more and more I learn about WHS 2011 the more I am inclined to say no, I have a legit Copy of 2008 R2 that I am leaning towards but this should work fine for years to come.. It's only shortfall is that its 32bit which for me limits me to 4Gb installed memory.
> 
> 4Gb seems to be plenty though.. It's not like I have hundreds of concurrent connections to this server at a time.. At most there are 6 at any given time with my family being around the country and all.


Server 2008 R2 is 64-bit only. Server 2008 is the last version to have a 32-bit SKU. Socket 478 Prescott CPUs are 32-bit only iirc.


----------



## Captain1337

lol, hard drive madness.


----------



## Ulver

AOL, google, yahoo?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Riou*


Server 2008 R2 is 64-bit only. Server 2008 is the last version to have a 32-bit SKU. Socket 478 Prescott CPUs are 32-bit only iirc.


Yeah I know that... I am going to use my Sig rig as my next Home Server...


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *yuugotserved*


i have a question about webguide

can i use this to access my stored documents online from remotely anywhere?

thing is my remote access option doesn't work for some reason so will that be a problem?


No you would need remote access...


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *AdmiralThrawn*


So what's the power draw on that thing?


eh 200-450W


----------



## mbudden

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


Yeah I know that... I am going to use my Sig rig as my next Home Server...


That would be over kill for a home server.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *mbudden*


That would be over kill for a home server.


Yeah but I will take the video cards off


----------



## mbudden

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


Yeah but I will take the video cards off


Even a X6 would be overkill lol.


----------



## DraganUS

That thing must be heavy.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *mbudden*


Even a X6 would be overkill lol.


Yeah but when Bulldozer comes out I need to keep this cpu employed somehow lol.


----------



## ali7up

That is one sweet server, I'm always debating if i should build one.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *DraganUS*


That thing must be heavy.


Yeah it's just under 75lbs


----------



## Pentium-David

If you use that x6 as your next server what are you going to do with the old hardware?


----------



## fg2chase

Well the video cards, SSD's, PSU and sound ard will go into the new system, everything else will be on Server Duty.


----------



## graphicsman

just curious but what is your power draw on 1 outlet?? i basically had to change stuff around and thought about putting in a single breaker because my office had so many computer hooked and running that my power would flicker, lol


----------



## compudaze

Nice job!

Here's how we did 25TB back in the day...










I can't even give these away now.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *compudaze*


Nice job!

Here's how we did 25TB back in the day...










I can't even give these away now.


wow... What are the capacitys of each of those drives? Im too lazy to count and divide...


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *graphicsman*


just curious but what is your power draw on 1 outlet?? i basically had to change stuff around and thought about putting in a single breaker because my office had so many computer hooked and running that my power would flicker, lol


Power draw off the outlet has not exceeded 450W for a very short duration.. I have a spaceheater that draws a continuous 1000W so this is no big deal.


----------



## SIMPSONATOR

Epic server, man!

And... nice PJ's
NINTENDO


----------



## compudaze

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13126014*
> wow... What are the capacitys of each of those drives? Im too lazy to count and divide...


There's 154x 146GB fiber-channel drives in that cabinet. We have 4 of these sitting in the warehouse because we cannot get rid of them. You can put all this storage and more in a mid/full tower case now-days. :/


----------



## fg2chase

^ wow... Yeah, thanks for the compliments on my PJ pants and Server. lol.. I was trying to do some research to determine at what point all the data on the internet equalled 26TB but I was not able to find that data...


----------



## fg2chase

Well I just placed the order for the last three 2TB drives... they are $65 on Newegg right now


----------



## reezin14

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13128835*
> Well I just placed the order for the last three 2TB drives... they are $65 on Newegg right now


Do you have room in that case?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *reezin14;13128882*
> Do you have room in that case?


Yes, I have one 500Gb hard drive that is coming out and one free slot...

The primary hard disk is a 1.5TB drive I will be replacing with the 2Tb to push me to 30TB..


----------



## yuugotserved

hey fg2chase, can you tell me /show me ur config for the disk management model? can seem to set it correctly the way u did

http://www.hispeedchase.com/server/whs/09APR11/1.jpg


----------



## fg2chase

what do you mean set it correctly? To make sure the drives were in the right place I had to boot it up adding one drive at a time and making sure it was in the right place in the wireframe.. It was tedious and took about 4 hours but it worked.


----------



## yuugotserved

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


what do you mean set it correctly? To make sure the drives were in the right place I had to boot it up adding one drive at a time and making sure it was in the right place in the wireframe.. It was tedious and took about 4 hours but it worked.


the image on the right... i had some trouble figuring the Xs and Ys when configuring the image to show on the right.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *yuugotserved*


the image on the right... i had some trouble figuring the Xs and Ys when configuring the image to show on the right.


Oh I never even messed with that.... Just go to advanced and it will give you arrows to move them around.


----------



## fg2chase

edit- Update = 28TB










Put in a 1.5 and a 1TB drive until my other 2TB drives arrive on tuesday...


----------



## the_beast

Why keep adding disks when your overall usage is so low?

Adding more drives than you need just increases disk activity and wear as the data is balanced, and costs you more money (as drive prices always follow a general downward trend - 10TB worth of drive space costs more now than it will in 6 months). Providing you have more than say 2 drives worth of space free your data is no more secure as their will always be sufficient free space to duplicate files when required in case of failure (or removal).


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *the_beast*


Why keep adding disks when your overall usage is so low?

Adding more drives than you need just increases disk activity and wear as the data is balanced, and costs you more money (as drive prices always follow a general downward trend - 10TB worth of drive space costs more now than it will in 6 months). Providing you have more than say 2 drives worth of space free your data is no more secure as their will always be sufficient free space to duplicate files when required in case of failure (or removal).


Because I have 100 Blu ray discs that are waiting to be ripped to the server and I want to be able to facilitate that from the start. That and I want to be able to start recording HD content from my HTPC which can be 30GB for just one hour!.


----------



## Beeiilll

Well fg I finally got the stuff to set up my server thanks to your posting on this monster machine of yours.
Been wanting to set one up for a year now and just never got around to it. But now I have one actually running (I think -







). Soon as I figure things out I will know how to use the darn thing as well.

Came out ot be:
Intel DB43LD motherboard
E8400 3.0GHz cpu
2MB of OCZ DDR2 PC6400 ram
160GB Samsung 7200 rpm OS drive
Asus Cd/DVD
Thermaltake TR2-430 PSU
Thermaltake V3 case
Windows Home Server ver. 1
2 - Samsung F4 2TB drives (so far, he he he) I have room for 10 of the F4 drives in this case so should work for a while!

Just got it all up and running last night and it seems to be going fine even though I don't have a clue what it is doing yet. HA I got 2 of my computers onto the network so far with no troubles.
Now have to go look at add-ins to help manage things plus get some virus protection for the server. Probably use Avast since I use the free version of it for all my other computers and it works great.

Here is a shot of it just before I stuck in the cpu and cranked it up. Have to get some pics of it once I get the cooling fans installed and the case put back together.

So plus rep for the push to get this done.
Thanks
Bill


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Beeiilll*


Well fg I finally got the stuff to set up my server thanks to your posting on this monster machine of yours.
Been wanting to set one up for a year now and just never got around to it. But now I have one actually running (I think -







). Soon as I figure things out I will know how to use the darn thing as well.

Came out ot be:
Intel DB43LD motherboard
E8400 3.0GHz cpu
2MB of OCZ DDR2 PC6400 ram
160GB Samsung 7200 rpm OS drive
Asus Cd/DVD
Thermaltake TR2-430 PSU
Thermaltake V3 case
Windows Home Server ver. 1
2 - Samsung F4 2TB drives (so far, he he he) I have room for 10 of the F4 drives in this case so should work for a while!

Just got it all up and running last night and it seems to be going fine even though I don't have a clue what it is doing yet. HA I got 2 of my computers onto the network so far with no troubles.
Now have to go look at add-ins to help manage things plus get some virus protection for the server. Probably use Avast since I use the free version of it for all my other computers and it works great.

Here is a shot of it just before I stuck in the cpu and cranked it up. Have to get some pics of it once I get the cooling fans installed and the case put back together.

So plus rep for the push to get this done.
Thanks
Bill


AWesome, if you want me I can zip up all of the add-ins I have collected so far and you can try them out. I have spent years collecting them up. Your system is nice! I paid for most of them with the most exensive coming in at $100 for My movies.

LOL it's kinda cool that I inspired people with my build... I just didn't know when to stop with mine LOL!


----------



## Beeiilll

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


AWesome, if you want me I can zip up all of the add-ins I have collected so far and you can try them out. I have spent years collecting them up. Your system is nice! I paid for most of them with the most exensive coming in at $100 for My movies.

LOL it's kinda cool that I inspired people with my build... I just didn't know when to stop with mine LOL!


Aww man, that would be awesome since I have no idea what I need other than virus protection at this point.

I know what you mean about not being able to stop too. I already want more drives and I haven't even started to put things into it yet!
Thanks a lot.

Bill


----------



## fg2chase

to download them

ftp://ftp.hispeedchase.com

login with username:guest
no password it's addins.rar


----------



## Norse

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Beeiilll*


Well fg I finally got the stuff to set up my server thanks to your posting on this monster machine of yours.
Been wanting to set one up for a year now and just never got around to it. But now I have one actually running (I think -







). Soon as I figure things out I will know how to use the darn thing as well.

Came out ot be:
Intel DB43LD motherboard
E8400 3.0GHz cpu
2MB of OCZ DDR2 PC6400 ram
160GB Samsung 7200 rpm OS drive
Asus Cd/DVD
Thermaltake TR2-430 PSU
Thermaltake V3 case
Windows Home Server ver. 1
2 - Samsung F4 2TB drives (so far, he he he) I have room for 10 of the F4 drives in this case so should work for a while!

Just got it all up and running last night and it seems to be going fine even though I don't have a clue what it is doing yet. HA I got 2 of my computers onto the network so far with no troubles.
Now have to go look at add-ins to help manage things plus get some virus protection for the server. Probably use Avast since I use the free version of it for all my other computers and it works great.

Here is a shot of it just before I stuck in the cpu and cranked it up. Have to get some pics of it once I get the cooling fans installed and the case put back together.

So plus rep for the push to get this done.
Thanks
Bill


Ensure you update them Samsungs to the latest firmware to prevent data loss


----------



## Beeiilll

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Norse*


Ensure you update them Samsungs to the latest firmware to prevent data loss


Most of them now are already up to date and fine, but I do have the upgraded firmware on a USB stick and check them when I get them before using.


----------



## fg2chase

What sucks about the controller cards is I can't update the firmware on the hard drives, I have to connect them to the primary onboard sata controller.


----------



## Beeiilll

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13176976*
> What sucks about the controller cards is I can't update the firmware on the hard drives, I have to connect them to the primary onboard sata controller.


I hear you there. I have another rig that just sits here folding all the time, so I just plug the drives into it to check the firmware if needed. Just plug the drive in, boot off the USB stick, and update if needed. Then put the computer back to a folder.
Makes a handy test bed or second use machine if I need one.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Beeiilll;13177464*
> I hear you there. I have another rig that just sits here folding all the time, so I just plug the drives into it to check the firmware if needed. Just plug the drive in, boot off the USB stick, and update if needed. Then put the computer back to a folder.
> Makes a handy test bed or second use machine if I need one.


Thing is I woudl have to remove a drive from the drive pool to do this, as with anything you risk bricking the drive (small chance but there nontheless) and that can take up to 4 days the last time I did that and that was a full 1.5TB drive.


----------



## jakemfbacon

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13063360*
> Yes, all my PC backups.. I also need to be able to access my files from anywhere in the world. I used this server while I was in Afghanistan so I could VPN into home and get my files which most of the time was movies. And I like never having to carry removable media around, I haven't used a thumb drive or CD-R in ages.
> 
> My wife is in California right now, she is logs into it periodically and gets important documents and streams music from it..
> 
> It is actually pretty Amazing.


Does sound awesome.... I have an unraid server wonder if I can set up mine like this? You need to setup a VPN?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jakemfbacon;13178620*
> Does sound awesome.... I have an unraid server wonder if I can set up mine like this? You need to setup a VPN?


yeah, in WHS I just went in and configured it using the native features of windows server 2003..


----------



## Beeiilll

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13177876*
> Thing is I woudl have to remove a drive from the drive pool to do this, as with anything you risk bricking the drive (small chance but there nontheless) and that can take up to 4 days the last time I did that and that was a full 1.5TB drive.


I see what you mean. Yes that would not be a good thing.
I always take any new parts that I get and run them on my folding machine just for testing, unless I am building a completely new machine.
That way I can check firmware and things and give stuff a test before I put it into the machine it will reside in.

Funny since this new server build is the first time that I put a machine together and did wire management and clean cable running as I was building it rather than after I had it all together. Wouldn't you know that the first motherboard I had in there was DOA on me when I went to power it up for the first time! Had to rebundle the PSU wiring and front panel cables for this new motherboard when I got it in. Figures you know as in Murphy's law type of things!
So I have ordered new SATA cables and a 4-in-3 drive enclosure for future F4 drives so that I can put the things in now and then just add the drives and cables when I want more storage.
Fun to build something different and should be interesting to learn about servers and things as I get my vhs tapes, reel to reel tapes, and other things into storage and go to the digital format for things.
Also gives me things to keep my sanity on boring days like today
(which by the way it is snowing out rignt now!!!).

Bill


----------



## Beeiilll

Hey fg
In post 118 you show a pic of the disk management and it has disk name, used, etc and the wire frame pic of the disk array.
Is this and add on to get that or is there something I am missing (which is probably more the case) in WHS that I need to set?

Ah-ha I see that I only have the Server Storage icon and not a Disk Management icon on the toolbar. Hmmmm, what now?

Also (here is my noob showing - DUH) What do I do with the add-ins.rar file I downloaded from you?
I have never played with a rar file before.

Thanks
Bill

PS Would it be easier for me to put my server and a couple of my computers in my truck and drive out to see you to make all this work! LOL


----------



## fg2chase

Yes, Disk management is in that RAR archive you downloaded from me. You will need winRAR to decompress it, when you decompress it make sure you put them in the "software\addins" directory. BUt yeah it's in there, it's kind of a pain in the ass trying to figure out which drive is which if they are all identical but if you make a wireframe from the beginning then it should not be a problem.

Wouldn't be a problem you driving out normally but im about to move to Ft Hood so that would be a bit of a problem. lol


----------



## Beeiilll

Great, Thanks again.

And yes it would take a bit to get there for me.

I can make Denver in around 32 hours but I don't remember the time from Denver to Phoenix when I used to make trips quite a few years ago. Got old service buddies that live in both places still.

Good luck on the move.

Bill


----------



## kujon

question about the psu, if you have a server with say 15+ hard drive, would it be better off getting a 750w psu or would a 650w psu do? newegg has a discount on the seasonic x750 gold so i was wondering if that was overkill vs a seasonic x650 gold


----------



## fg2chase

I ran out of connectors with my TX750 and needed some molex splitters... I would say go with the bigger one, thats a lot of hard drives.


----------



## kujon

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


I ran out of connectors with my TX750 and needed some molex splitters... I would say go with the bigger one, thats a lot of hard drives.


so anything that i would plan on using in a norco 20 bay build would need at least a 750w for the sake of power connectors eh? jw, did you use molex splitters and then have those attached to molex-sata convertor?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *kujon*


so anything that i would plan on using in a norco 20 bay build would need at least a 750w for the sake of power connectors eh? jw, did you use molex splitters and then have those attached to molex-sata convertor?


Yes I did...


----------



## kujon

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


Yes I did...


how many did you have to attach through molex?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *kujon*


how many did you have to attach through molex?


Three


----------



## jellis142

Now replace those with 3Tb drives







Seriously though, that's an amazing use of space, all it's missing is a lower-powered CPU. I barely fill up 1Tb, but I imagine if I had the space, I'd find a way to fill it!


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *jellis142*


Now replace those with 3Tb drives







Seriously though, that's an amazing use of space, all it's missing is a lower-powered CPU. I barely fill up 1Tb, but I imagine if I had the space, I'd find a way to fill it!


Well 3TB drives wont work, it is limited by 32BIT addressing.. Plus 3Tb drives would drive up the cost of my server by 3000% lol...

Lower powered CPU is not really neccesary, this thing idles at 190-200W which really isnt that bad. And the P4 has the horsepower to rip two DVD's at the same time quickly.

my 1090T sig rig right now will be on Server duty once Bulldozer comes out.


----------



## nightraker

fg, that is one impressive box. And thanks for pointing out the additional internal SATA card. That might come in handy, one day.









I took a different approach: a 23TB (soon to be 24) workstation. (See Sig) I can hear the groans already.



















The volumes marked ARCHIVE_? are 2TB Junctions to their respective drives, i.e. the drive SERIES S: has a junction folder to ARCHIVE_S, a separate disc spindle residing (with the other ARCHIVES) in a Sans Digital Towerraid box connected by an eSATA card to the main system. SyncToy is my friend. Junctions are a Windows feature that allows a disc to not use a drive letter.

There are 2 XBMC boxes elsewhere in the house, but they get very scant use. When they do, video and music is pulled from the main box SPACELY.

Drives without ARCHIVEs are synced with the other 2 workstations at the main desk, providing brute force backup.

Another way of doing things.


----------



## fg2chase

wow, that is also quite impressive... I like seeing these kinds of things...


----------



## hoostie

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


to download them

ftp://ftp.hispeedchase.com

login with username:guest
no password it's addins.rar



I was wondering if maybe I could get a copy of your ad ins also? I am in the process of using some old parts to put together my whs. I am using the same case as you. Eventually I wanted to also get the 4 in 3 bay hdd cages that you had.

I am building it out of old parts that I had from previous builds. Might be a little overkill.

evga 750i motherboard
q6600
4 gb ddr2
evga gtx 260 (i know i dont need a card like this, but it will also be folding)
about 12 tb of hdd space. Some day I wish to get the storage space that you have. I dont have anything older or lower power or I would use it. I had previously had hdd spread across my desktop, htpc, and a spare pc. I think this should work better having everything in one space.


----------



## Fir3Chi3f

I wept a little when I saw windows server, but that is one fine pile of drives.


----------



## Bonz(TM)

@fg2chase

Are you using FlexRAID or any sort of protection against drive failure or data loss? I just hit 20TB worth of drives, and have ~14TB in my WHS at the moment. I've been debating between Linux mdadm RAID, 2k8 w/ FlexRAID, ZFS, or continuing my use of WHS w/ FlexRAID.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Bonz™*


@fg2chase

Are you using FlexRAID or any sort of protection against drive failure or data loss? I just hit 20TB worth of drives, and have ~14TB in my WHS at the moment. I've been debating between Linux mdadm RAID, 2k8 w/ FlexRAID, ZFS, or continuing my use of WHS w/ FlexRAID.


No, I am using drive extender which ensures that each bit of data is duplicated on more than one physical hard drive. I could go in right now yank a few drives out and it would rebuild itself.

I am using a 3rd party add in to check file integrity though it makes its own checksums and then periodocally goes through the files.


----------



## ali7up

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


No, I am using drive extender which ensures that each bit of data is duplicated on more than one physical hard drive. I could go in right now yank a few drives out and it would rebuild itself.

I am using a 3rd party add in to check file integrity though it makes its own checksums and then periodocally goes through the files.


Which version of WHS are you using? OEM? 2011?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ali7up*


Which version of WHS are you using? OEM? 2011?


WHS V1 Power Pack 3...


----------



## Bonz(TM)

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


No, I am using drive extender which ensures that each bit of data is duplicated on more than one physical hard drive. I could go in right now yank a few drives out and it would rebuild itself.

I am using a 3rd party add in to check file integrity though it makes its own checksums and then periodocally goes through the files.


I understand that, but drive extender is very inefficient when you are storing as much data as you and I. You are spending 1/2 your space (~12TB = $480 assuming 6 2TB drives @ $80) just to replicate your stuff. But I guess with all that free space and only DVDRips it's not a big deal.

I was under the impression that you had a strategy for your large media shares while optimizing your space. But I guess with only 4.6TB of duplicated information and 28TB total... you have a lot of room to grow.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Bonz™;13205377*
> I understand that, but drive extender is very inefficient when you are storing as much data as you and I. You are spending 1/2 your space (~12TB = $480 assuming 6 2TB drives @ $80) just to replicate your stuff. But I guess with all that free space and only DVDRips it's not a big deal.
> 
> I was under the impression that you had a strategy for your large media shares while optimizing your space. But I guess with only 4.6TB of duplicated information and 28TB total... you have a lot of room to grow.


Yes, I am aware of this.. I needed it to be simple so that my wife could add/remove drives while I am deployed either to Iraq or Afghanistan, since I go a lot and cannot perform physical maintainence on it I needed it to be simple like I said. SHe like the wizards on the WHS connector and all the drives are labeled making it very easy.

I don't mind paying $4800 for duplication, it give me peace of mind until a viable way of backing up the movies can be found. It's a good deal considering the "price" I paid for the movies.


----------



## fg2chase

Formatting the last two 2TB drives now, going to pop them in the morning.. Then I will be at 29.9TB


----------



## kujon

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13206424*
> Formatting the last two 2TB drives now, going to pop them in the morning.. Then I will be at 29.9TB


how come you have to format them outside of the server?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kujon;13208374*
> how come you have to format them outside of the server?


I prefer doing this because WHS will do the "quick" format, I want to do the long format so that I ensure that the drive doesn't have any bad sectors from the beginning.

I also heard somewhere that if a drive is destined to fail prematurely It will do so during the first format.

I have had two Seagate 2TB drives fail of this same model and didn't do the long format on those ones, probobly a coincidence but who knows?


----------



## xartion




----------



## Smoblikat

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13062346*
> Yes, it does weight a lot..
> 
> And im sure the drive temps are not exact.. Sometimes they read over 300F! lol... Seems like it would be on fire at that point..


----------



## kujon

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13209750*
> I prefer doing this because WHS will do the "quick" format, I want to do the long format so that I ensure that the drive doesn't have any bad sectors from the beginning.
> 
> I also heard somewhere that if a drive is destined to fail prematurely It will do so during the first format.
> 
> I have had two Seagate 2TB drives fail of this same model and didn't do the long format on those ones, probobly a coincidence but who knows?


oh i see what you mean. i've always added my 2tb drives in through the gpt because they were 4k sector hard drives (samsung f4s) and i remember there being a full format option. sorry for the confusion


----------



## labbu63

lol at the last 2 pics and nice server


----------



## ali7up

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *xartion;13209778*


lol, wow what an organized chaos.


----------



## Smoblikat

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ali7up*


lol, wow what an organized chaos.


too bad its IDE


----------



## noak

Holy ***** Skittles

That is all...


----------



## noak

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *xartion;13209778*


Do you need some special permit or license to own that thing? 4 power supplies, your power bill...

brb, gonna change my pants


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *xartion*












wow... What's the capacity on that?


----------



## thrasherht

I think My server beats all of this on the hardware side of things. Lol.
Dell Poweredge 6650
Not an actual picture of my server. I don't have the massive hard drive space, but I do have redundant everything in the server. Including redundant ram.
also beats op server for weight, my PE is 89lbs.


----------



## mbudden

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *thrasherht;13210600*
> I think My server beats all of this on the hardware side of things. Lol.
> Dell Poweredge 6650
> Not an actual picture of my server. I don't have the massive hard drive space, but I do have redundant everything in the server. Including redundant ram.
> also beats op server for weight, my PE is 89lbs.


I bet yours doesn't beat this.
http://www.overclock.net/servers/987494-40tb-unraid-server.html


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *mbudden;13217746*
> I bet yours doesn't beat this.
> http://www.overclock.net/servers/987494-40tb-unraid-server.html


Nope, sure doesn't... If I learned anything from life it's that no matter what you do or what you have, there is always someone who does it a little better or a little bigger.

I'm average I guess =(


----------



## ali7up

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


Nope, sure doesn't... If I learned anything from life it's that no matter what you do or what you have, there is always someone who does it a little better or a little bigger.

I'm average I guess =(


Would you post the link to the plugins you used. The precious link doesn't work.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ali7up*


Would you post the link to the plugins you used. The precious link doesn't work.


yeah I removed the rar archive.


----------



## fg2chase

Update
Ok I think im done adding drives for ahwhiel..


----------



## forrest89sei

Not Enough Space!

I don't think you could even put SimCity 2000 On it!


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *forrest89sei*


Not Enough Space!

I don't think you could even put SimCity 2000 On it!


Actually I do have Sim City 2000 on it... I was palying it the other day.


----------



## arekieh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


Yes, all my PC backups.. I also need to be able to access my files from anywhere in the world. I used this server while I was in Afghanistan so I could VPN into home and get my files which most of the time was movies. And I like never having to carry removable media around, I haven't used a thumb drive or CD-R in ages.

My wife is in California right now, she is logs into it periodically and gets important documents and streams music from it..

It is actually pretty Amazing.


Would you mind expanding on how you do this. SSH + ???
But what about file transfer?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *arekieh*


Would you mind expanding on how you do this. SSH + ???
But what about file transfer?


LTPP, file transfer... HTTPS...


----------



## allenottawa

Sorry for being so lazy and not wanting to look through so many pages, but how much did all the hard drives cost you? How many TB are you up to now? Still 24TB?


----------



## arekieh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


LTPP, file transfer... HTTPS...


Can you expand on that? Im a complete noob when it comes to networking.


----------



## herkalurk

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *arekieh;13225435*
> Can you expand on that? Im a complete noob when it comes to networking.


Windows home server has a website front end. You log into it like you log into email, except you can view the files stored on the home server, then you can select and download the files to whatever remote computer you're on.


----------



## arekieh

Solid, thanks for the info


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *herkalurk;13227902*
> Windows home server has a website front end. You log into it like you log into email, except you can view the files stored on the home server, then you can select and download the files to whatever remote computer you're on.


This, Unless I am connected to it Via a VPN tunnel.. Then I can just browse the server like its on my LAN.

And to awnswer the question about how much space it has now, Rounded up I have 30TB, to be Precise I have 29.3TB.. As of yesterday










How much did it cost? Lets just say for the sake of argument including shipping each drive was $95 on average.

16x95= $1520


----------



## fg2chase

I just purchased theft protection for my Windows Home Server.


----------



## arekieh

lol only in america.
Why did you buy an assault rifle? And why do you need a sight? Or are you a gun aficionado?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *arekieh;13237664*
> lol only in america.
> Why did you buy an assault rifle? And why do you need a sight? Or are you a gun aficionado?


Im in the US Army and they don't let me bring the guns home so I bought my own.. I need optics because it's easier to shoot people with them than without. Im moving to Texas so I figured I needed to blend in and have a gun.

OH yeah and God Bless America, they can have my guns when they pry them from my cold dead fingers.

My Next one will be an AR-10


----------



## arekieh

Makes sense. Didnt know you were in the army.


----------



## BLinux

a little late getting on this thread, but I noticed the picture of the APC UPSes you have... which model are they and how do you like them? what do you think are the pros/cons? I'm looking for a new UPS for the office area and I was considering one of the models that look like the ones you have, but have found a lot of mixed reviews so was wondering what your 1st hand experience has been?


----------



## mbudden

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


Im in the US Army and they don't let me bring the guns home so I bought my own.. *I need optics because it's easier to shoot people with them than without.* Im moving to Texas so I figured I needed to blend in and have a gun.

OH yeah and God Bless America, they can have my guns when they pry them from my cold dead fingers.

My Next one will be an AR-10


I really wouldn't say that...








If you were looking for home protection, I doubt a AR would be the best/fastest thing to grab. lol.

Anyways, nice gun







Can't wait to be able to buy one of my own.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *mbudden*


I really wouldn't say that...








If you were looking for home protection, I doubt a AR would be the best/fastest thing to grab. lol.

Anyways, nice gun







Can't wait to be able to buy one of my own.










well, I would.. I have used M16's/M4's in Both Iraq and Afghanistan and yeah, it's much easier to shoot with Optics.

And how is it not fast? reach up in the closet next to my and turn the selector swtich from safe to semi....


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *BLinux*


a little late getting on this thread, but I noticed the picture of the APC UPSes you have... which model are they and how do you like them? what do you think are the pros/cons? I'm looking for a new UPS for the office area and I was considering one of the models that look like the ones you have, but have found a lot of mixed reviews so was wondering what your 1st hand experience has been?


they are the 1500AVR models.. they each powere different server, it will keep the Windows Home Server up for about 20 mins.


----------



## fg2chase

Just cleaned the air filters, god.... They were dirty. This thing moves a LOT of air, you know how in the sunlight you can see dust flakes floating in a room? Not in here, the thing just sucks everything out of the air.


----------



## cyronn

nice when cant wait until I upgrade my system. Going to use the old for a storage system but not as much as yours









edit: what do you link all the drivers together ? that pci sata controller


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *cyronn*


nice when cant wait until I upgrade my system. Going to use the old for a storage system but not as much as yours









edit: what do you link all the drivers together ? that pci sata controller


Yeah, there are 4 on the motherboard and 4 ports on each controller, if my case supported it I could add 4 more drives with another controller because I have one PCI-E slot left


----------



## cyronn

Ah ok still nice though tbh


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *cyronn*


Ah ok still nice though tbh










tbh? I wonder if there are 5 in 3 hard drive cages... Then I could expand and add 4 more drives


----------



## herkalurk

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


tbh? I wonder if there are 5 in 3 hard drive cages... Then I could expand and add 4 more drives


You rang....???

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816215081


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *herkalurk*


You rang....???

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816215081


LMAO.... LOL well lets see adding for more drives would cost me about $1000... haha


----------



## Beeiilll

As we used to say "Peace through superior firepower". With 30 round clips these can tend to defend me and mine pretty well I think!
Afraid that I do need to get optics for them or at least a lazer spot since I am getting up in years and the old eyes are not what they used to be.


----------



## Beeiilll

Okay guess I better put up a couple of pics of the server togther. Have 2 F4's so far and will put another 2 in first of the month probably. It can take up to 10 drives for storage although I will be putting a bigger psu in it before then.
Everything going smooth so far except that I can't get my modem to work with remote access so I can play with other machines on the network yet. Just have to figure things out.
Have about 20 DVD's stored so far as well and am waiting on a vhs machine from icon to rip my tapes into this thing.
Ahhhh, finally going to have some storage for things!!!


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Beeiilll*


As we used to say "Peace through superior firepower". With 30 round clips these can tend to defend me and mine pretty well I think!
Afraid that I do need to get optics for them or at least a lazer spot since I am getting up in years and the old eyes are not what they used to be.


wow, I like that A1! classic right there with the old triangle style hand guards.. We don't even have those in the Army anymore, lol..

but naa, I got the M4 because I want to be able to protect my girls and I don't have to teach my wife how to use it, she already knows how because she is in the Army as well.


----------



## Beeiilll

I have had these babies for many years for sure. Picked them up back in the early 80's when I was working for a company that there was a major gunshop right next door. Used to go on lunchbreaks or after work with the gunstore owner and shoot up a bunch of ammo.
The AR was my first just because I wanted one, but the HK is really fun to do some long distance pecking.
Don't shoot as much as I used too but try to get in at least 3 to 4 times a year with some target shooting to keep the eye and feel for it.


----------



## PCSarge

all i can say is










that is one huge pile of HDDs.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


This, Unless I am connected to it Via a VPN tunnel.. Then I can just browse the server like its on my LAN.

And to awnswer the question about how much space it has now, Rounded up I have 30TB, to be Precise I have 29.3TB.. As of yesterday










How much did it cost? Lets just say for the sake of argument including shipping each drive was $95 on average.

16x95= $1520


You probably shouldn't be hosting them on the same server your important files are on though. Check out dropbox for easy file hosting.


----------



## SgtSpike

That's a dang lot of hard drive space! Seems like a waste to have so much extra drive space going unused, but I guess you still have more DVD/BluRays to rip?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;13266014*
> You probably shouldn't be hosting them on the same server your important files are on though. Check out dropbox for easy file hosting.


hosting what on the same server? if you are talking about my webserver then no, it's on a different VLAN in my home network.

And no I won't use "dropbox", the only one I trust with my files is me.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13266546*
> hosting what on the same server? if you are talking about my webserver then no, it's on a different VLAN in my home network.
> 
> And no I won't use "dropbox", the only one I trust with my files is me.


I'm just saying that's basically telling everyone, "test my security" for free. VLANS aren't exactly secure either. But, nice storage rig!


----------



## herkalurk

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;13267338*
> I'm just saying that's basically telling everyone, "test my security" for free. VLANS aren't exactly secure either. But, nice storage rig!


It depends on the way Vlans are set up, and how his network is configured. WHS isn't that easy to break.....


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;13267338*
> I'm just saying that's basically telling everyone, "test my security" for free. VLANS aren't exactly secure either. But, nice storage rig!


Ok but either way, the webserver and WHS are not even on the same collision domain..

Dude I do this for a living in the Army, I have been chugging long just fine for years now. I even have a honeypot, so.... Come on in I guess.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

cool


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;13270992*
> cool


Heckacool!


----------



## Cyrilmak

I wished that my UPS would show like that in CPUID. is H CPUID an older version of CPUID? Everest doesn't even show my UPS. I have to use Powerchute for my APC ups.


----------



## Cyrilmak

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;13266014*
> You probably shouldn't be hosting them on the same server your important files are on though. Check out dropbox for easy file hosting.


I personally feel that an external hard drive - or DVD-RW is a better way to store files. I just don't trust cloud computing like that unless you host it yourself.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Cyrilmak;13280302*
> I personally feel that an external hard drive - or DVD-RW is a better way to store files. I just don't trust cloud computing like that unless you host it yourself.


Yeah I agree, im all for the cloud storage thing.. But I want my own cloud in my house.


----------



## herkalurk

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Cyrilmak*


I personally feel that an external hard drive - or DVD-RW is a better way to store files. I just don't trust cloud computing like that unless you host it yourself.


Except that 1 WHS server isn't a cloud....? Not sure you caught the point....


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *herkalurk*


Except that 1 WHS server isn't a cloud....? Not sure you caught the point....


Right... But it's as close to the cloud as I am willing to do.. I want to maintain it ONSITE...


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Cyrilmak*


I personally feel that an external hard drive - or DVD-RW is a better way to store files. I just don't trust cloud computing like that unless you host it yourself.


Dropbox is stored on your machine. It's just duplicated in the cloud automatically. It's a good free backup service.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;13285664*
> Dropbox is stored on your machine. It's just duplicated in the cloud automatically. It's a good free backup service.


How much do they give you "free"?


----------



## fg2chase

I know this is not the most popular thread but none of my pics are going to show up starting sometime early thursday, I need to power off both the WHS and my WebServer and put them in my Uhaul to move them to Texas.


----------



## makecoldplayhistory

Are you aXXo?


----------



## Smykster

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Bitemarks and bloodstains;13060292*
> cant be done, nothing can be lower than ambient unless you use some type of phase cooling, the sensors are off slightly


Oh thank god. I almost had a conniption.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *makecoldplayhistory;13287906*
> Are you aXXo?


Huh?


----------



## Freakn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *makecoldplayhistory;13287906*
> Are you aXXo?










I get that, doubt that would be big enough


----------



## herkalurk

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13287170*
> how much do they give you "free"?


2gb


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *makecoldplayhistory*


Are you aXXo?










lol, no these are the DVDs I bought and watch them in my own home.


----------



## ounderfla69

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Beeiilll;13265782*
> As we used to say "Peace through superior firepower". With 30 round clips these can tend to defend me and mine pretty well I think!
> Afraid that I do need to get optics for them or at least a lazer spot since I am getting up in years and the old eyes are not what they used to be.


You live in the people's republic of New York, your only allowed 10 round clips.


----------



## ounderfla69

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13280316*
> Yeah I agree, im all for the cloud storage thing.. But I want my own cloud in my house.


Have you heard of crashplan.com? It allows you to create your own cloud. You can use a friend or family computer or your own computer at a separate site and backup your data to that site bypassing any online cloud.

My plan is to put 4 2TB drives into a pc. Install the software on my pc then the server which will go to friend in CT. Then, do the initial backup on the local lan, send it to my friend in Connecticut and ten just do differential backups. The backup is encrypted, and he can backup files to my machine too.

Personally I don't trust these backup online services. Do you trust your data to be stored on servers in China? The problem is nobody knows where your data is going. I rather trust my data with my friend.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ounderfla69*


Have you heard of crashplan.com? It allows you to create your own cloud. You can use a friend or family computer or your own computer at a separate site and backup your data to that site bypassing any online cloud.

My plan is to put 4 2TB drives into a pc. Install the software on my pc then the server which will go to friend in CT. Then, do the initial backup on the local lan, send it to my friend in Connecticut and ten just do differential backups. The backup is encrypted, and he can backup files to my machine too.

Personally I don't trust these backup online services. Do you trust your data to be stored on servers in China? The problem is nobody knows where your data is going. I rather trust my data with my friend.


Yeah I have heard of it, my important stuff backs up VIA VPN to my brothers server in New Mexico. The only thing that does not backup are the movies because they are so huge..

I rely on drive extender duplication and the house not burning down to save those. If the house burns down I will have a lot worse **** to worry about.


----------



## fg2chase

woohooo my move is complete my images should show up now. I love U Haul.


----------



## kz26

May I ask why you didn't go with a more robust Linux-based RAID setup?


----------



## fg2chase

Because as I have covered before, I often go to Iraq and Afghanistan for up to 10 months at a time, I needed something so easy that even my wife could open up the box, pull out a dead hard drive which I labeled and pop in a replacement.

and WHS is plenty robust for me.. Has not let me down yet.


----------



## Somenamehere

Its probably mentioned somewhere in the 23 pages.

But what raid cards (are they raid cards ?) do you use ?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Somenamehere*


Its probably mentioned somewhere in the 23 pages.

But what raid cards (are they raid cards ?) do you use ?


um just some cheap ones I got on newegg made by masscool and syba? lol, the raid functionality is disabled anyways


----------



## forrest89sei

Gotta Love it!

Oh Well the Two 1.5TB Drives from that server are serving me well, and as soon as you upgrade again I'll take the drives in there off your hands...


----------



## fg2chase

Ugh im having some problems with this damn server freezing a lot... I think it's the Cpu.. It started happening after the move from AZ to TX. It is not overheating or anything


----------



## the_beast

take ram, cpu, etc out and reseat them, in case they wobbled loose in transit?


----------



## systemlayers

Nice! Thought never understood why people stick with regular tower cases for that many drives. I'm loading up my norco 4224 soon with 12 2TB hitachis (so far)


----------



## InerTia*

Well thanks, you officially made my night seeing all those HDD's crammed into a case like that







I thought I felt cool sticking three 500GB' drives in my case..


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *systemlayers;13683610*
> Nice! Thought never understood why people stick with regular tower cases for that many drives. I'm loading up my norco 4224 soon with 12 2TB hitachis (so far)


When I started this thing I didn't have so many drives, it originally (2009) was just going to be a basic 1-2TB home server... But I don't know when to quit.

I think I fixed the damn thing, I laid the tower on its side and backed off the heatsink screws then turned them 1/4 turn at a time until snug.. it's been online over 12 hours now.


----------



## jibesh

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13682031*
> Ugh im having some problems with this damn server freezing a lot... I think it's the Cpu.. It started happening after the move from AZ to TX. It is not overheating or anything


Welcome to TX


----------



## fg2chase

lol thanks! This is my second time living in Texas and I like it again. I lived in EL Paso for 4 years.


----------



## systemlayers

Yeah i started out small (atom board with a 5 PCI sata board) which has been solid although no room for expandability now. It was in a Coolermaster case with 5 in 3. It will become the backup case now. The Norco 4224 is a badass mofo, it weighs nearly 50lbs empty! Can't imagine what it will come to fully loaded.


----------



## Kratthew D. Kraids

While I really hated my 1200, using it as a server like this is perfect. Very nice


----------



## daveyjones

Woah :| you made some white liquid come out my laptops usb port... :/


----------



## mbudden

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *daveyjones;13688023*
> Woah :| you made some white liquid come out my laptops usb port... :/


Then you haven't seen this.

http://www.overclock.net/servers/987494-40tb-unraid-server.html


----------



## daveyjones

Oh great, now its leaking out the headphone socket and hdmi ports!!


----------



## fg2chase

Well guys here goes..

A few weeks ago the server started locking up, like the screen would stay on but it would drop off the network and freeze. I traced it back to the CPU long story short, ended up taking heatsink off and re-applying paste and all that junk. And it got a little better but eventually it came to be having to reboot the damn thing every few hours or so.

Now as soon as newegg shipped these to me,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103916
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131595

the damn thing started running fine again but I don't think its permament. I think that the CPU is on its way out for whatever reason.

My next question is what would it take to install this new CPU and motherboard on my current installation? A reinstall is just crazy out of the question because it would take literally a month. Is there a way to uninstall all the drivers for the current CPU and motherboard and then sneak this board in while booting in safe mode? Anyone have any experience with this?

Heres the new porn









oh yeah the heatsink it came with was garbage, looks cheap too.. Luckily I had my unused HSF from my 1090T sitting on the shelf. Which is pictured.


----------



## fg2chase

Any ideas guys?


----------



## darknight670

Well in theory it should work just fine. But you're right : when dealing with Windows everything can go wrong









You could always do a copy of the boot drive,disconnect ALL data drives and try.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darknight670;13735942*
> Well in theory it should work just fine. But you're right : when dealing with Windows everything can go wrong
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You could always do a copy of the boot drive,disconnect ALL data drives and try.


Yeah I suppose that is my best option.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *daveyjones;13688023*
> Woah :| you made some white liquid come out my laptops usb port... :/


umm... Gross?


----------



## Sodalink

Now you made me sad again because I regret selling my Antec 1200 which I loved for the capability of what you just did and had thought about doing at some point.

I need into building a server again I sold all my parts because I never bought all the HDDs I needed. But seeing how 2TB HDDs have gotten as low as 59.99 after rebate I should try again.


----------



## Sodalink

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13731793*
> Well guys here goes..
> 
> A few weeks ago the server started locking up, like the screen would stay on but it would drop off the network and freeze. I traced it back to the CPU long story short, ended up taking heatsink off and re-applying paste and all that junk. And it got a little better but eventually it came to be having to reboot the damn thing every few hours or so.
> 
> Now as soon as newegg shipped these to me,
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103916
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131595
> 
> the damn thing started running fine again but I don't think its permament. I think that the CPU is on its way out for whatever reason.
> 
> My next question is what would it take to install this new CPU and motherboard on my current installation? A reinstall is just crazy out of the question because it would take literally a month. Is there a way to uninstall all the drivers for the current CPU and motherboard and then sneak this board in while booting in safe mode? Anyone have any experience with this?
> 
> Heres the new porn
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> oh yeah the heatsink it came with was garbage, looks cheap too.. Luckily I had my unused HSF from my 1090T sitting on the shelf. Which is pictured.


double post? sorry...

You could try to sysprep the Windows current state which will remove drivers. You could capture the image before you put in the new hardware or even before you do anything to it just in case something goes wrong. if it doesn't work either restore your main image or put your old hardware back.


----------



## Ooimo

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AyeYo;13059842*
> Pron storage?


I was thinking the same thing lol


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Sodalink;13738069*
> double post? sorry...
> 
> You could try to sysprep the Windows current state which will remove drivers. You could capture the image before you put in the new hardware or even before you do anything to it just in case something goes wrong. if it doesn't work either restore your main image or put your old hardware back.


I thought about this but ran into this

The reference and destination computers must have compatible HALs. For example, Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC)-based MPS (multiprocessor systems) must use the same APIC HAL. A standard HAL Programmable Interrupt Controller (PIC)-based system is not compatible with either the APIC HAL or the MPS HAL.


----------



## ounderfla69

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13740016*
> I thought about this but ran into this
> 
> The reference and destination computers must have compatible HALs. For example, Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC)-based MPS (multiprocessor systems) must use the same APIC HAL. A standard HAL Programmable Interrupt Controller (PIC)-based system is not compatible with either the APIC HAL or the MPS HAL.


Image the system drive, then run a repair reinstallation on the sysdrive. It may or may not work. I used a USB CDrom and it screwed up on the reload, it turns out it had something to do with the usb cdrom. instead of plugging it in to the IDE or sata port.


----------



## deafboy




----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *deafboy;13757107*


Damn, What is hosted on that?


----------



## BLOWNCO

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13761115*
> Damn, What is hosted on that?


that's ridiculous if that's in a home lol


----------



## snelan

How much does it weigh with all those drives? (Serious question)


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *snelan;13774172*
> How much does it weigh with all those drives? (Serious question)


86lbs now...


----------



## BLOWNCO

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13778090*
> 86lbs now...


how many HDD's?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *blownco;13778417*
> how many hdd's?


16


----------



## kujon

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13761115*
> Damn, What is hosted on that?


you know what they say, pics or it didnt happen


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kujon;13795607*
> you know what they say, pics or it didnt happen


Touche


----------



## kamikaze_

That's INSANE looking.


----------



## fg2chase

Thanks!


----------



## shadow5555

I am a fellow windows home server build/user myself and its a very nice setup. I am not even posting my system because you put mine to shame.

/me bows before you I am not worthy iam not worhty!!!

Would you be able to give me access to your whs addin collection by chance?

Also what would it take to get a login account to your server ? xD


----------



## kujon

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;13796521*
> Touche


we never did get pics of his server, FAKE!!


----------



## orlywutlol

thats crazy! tbh just a crazy dream of mine is to have a 1 petabyte storage system before I die


----------



## raiderxx

This isn't WHS 2011 is it? I don't seem to have all the extras in the WHS Console. All I have is Computers & Backup, User Accounts, Shared Folders, and Server Storage. I don't have Disk Management, Advanced Admin Console, or any of the others. How do I get those?


----------



## kujon

Quote:



Originally Posted by *raiderxx*


This isn't WHS 2011 is it? I don't seem to have all the extras in the WHS Console. All I have is Computers & Backup, User Accounts, Shared Folders, and Server Storage. I don't have Disk Management, Advanced Admin Console, or any of the others. How do I get those?


those options are located in whsv1. if you're interested in disk management and the storage pool, look into drivebender. advanced admin console is an add in for whs v1


----------



## raiderxx

Thanks! I just wasn't understanding WHS quite yet I guess.. I didn't realize I had to download the add-ins externally before installing them. I thought the add-in would just populate a list like Windows Update.. >_>

Very nice server though!!


----------



## kujon

Quote:



Originally Posted by *raiderxx*


Thanks! I just wasn't understanding WHS quite yet I guess.. I didn't realize I had to download the add-ins externally before installing them. I thought the add-in would just populate a list like Windows Update.. >_>

Very nice server though!!


yes, i cant wait to get whs 2011 when it's been out in the wild for a little bit. add ins dont populate a list because those addins are mostly written by developers, microsoft doesn't write them. you basically pay/dl what you'd like on your server


----------



## raiderxx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kujon;14064213*
> yes, i cant wait to get whs 2011 when it's been out in the wild for a little bit. add ins dont populate a list because those addins are mostly written by developers, microsoft doesn't write them. you basically pay/dl what you'd like on your server


That makes sense.


----------



## fg2chase

Server is still chugging along.. no updates, no failed HDD's its just serving up content like its supposed to.. I kinda forget about it sometimes.


----------



## Icekilla

OP: What are the entire specs of that rig? A friend wants to make an exact copy of it as his personal data center. I need CPU, Motherboard model and RAID cards, mostly.


----------



## illace

Not sure if anyone has asked you this already but have you ever considered running unraid. I am sure at this point it's too late since you have everything running on this setup but its extremely easy to use and it has parity so there is a little more "protection" than running whs.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Icekilla;14128913*
> OP: What are the entire specs of that rig? A friend wants to make an exact copy of it as his personal data center. I need CPU, Motherboard model and RAID cards, mostly.


The specs are in my profile and the first post. But personally If I had to start over I wouldn't use a Pentium 4 spec machine.. I would get something more modern and effecient.

also I have not considered unraid or any alternatives to WHS.. WHS works just fine.


----------



## Mako0312

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fg2chase*


Yes, all my PC backups.. I also need to be able to access my files from anywhere in the world. I used this server while I was in Afghanistan so I could VPN into home and get my files which most of the time was movies. And I like never having to carry removable media around, I haven't used a thumb drive or CD-R in ages.

My wife is in California right now, she is logs into it periodically and gets important documents and streams music from it..

It is actually pretty Amazing.


I saw this right here.

How do you make it so you can log into a home server, and stream music + movies?


----------



## jebus101

you must have a heck of a lot of porn


----------



## Rob0tuss1n

get rid of the windows sticker...


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Rob0tuss1n;14185868*
> get rid of the windows sticker...


No thanks...


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Mako0312;14185799*
> I saw this right here.
> 
> How do you make it so you can log into a home server, and stream music + movies?


I use built in windows VPN support..


----------



## fg2chase

It's still kicking!


----------



## fventura03

cool


----------



## fg2chase

indeed.


----------



## spice003

very nice thats a lot of effing drives. this give me an idea what to do with my rocket fish case that i got laying around,you guys remember those?


----------



## fg2chase

nope but I am going to look it up!


----------



## spice003

http://www.overclock.net/computer-cases/308390-rocketfish-aluminum-full-tower-case-club.html


----------



## HopeUTKN

Nice server...and pajamas!


----------



## fg2chase

Thanks! Rocketfish.. lol looks like a nice case but waaay to small for me.


----------



## fg2chase

Well im officially in the Market for a new server, I think as soon as the 32nm AMD parts are released im going to put one of those in my gaming rig, then use the 1090T I have in my rig now and build a server out of it. All I am going to need is

CPU
RAM
MOTHERBOARD
3x 2TB harddrives, (I am currently using 6TB of files, but "using" 12TB because of duplication"

Then I will just copy and paste my data from the old server to the new, then reharvest the old drives from the WHS now to make it nearly 35TB


----------



## Quantum Reality

I am in awe, good sir!









My webserver's 2 x 500 gig RAID 1 shrinks in shame


----------



## cubanresourceful

I think one of your HDDs is one fire.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cubanresourceful;14971788*
> I think one of your HDDs is one fire.


lol yeah, stupid bugs!










As you can see it has naturally balanced out the data over most of the drives, dunno why it favors that one drive and keeps it over 90% lol. Whatever though


----------



## Quantum Reality

So this is a JBOD configuration?


----------



## raisethe3

fg2chase, are you using WHS v1? Not Vail right? Very nice.


----------



## fg2chase

Not really JBOD and not really RAID0, it's Kinda like a hybrid and it uses something called drive extender.. This is indeed V1 and NOT vail.. I don't use VAIL because of the lack of Drive Extender.

And this is still a 32bit cpu.


----------



## raisethe3

Would the v1 work on a AMD 64 x2 and 4GB of Memory?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;14978851*
> Not really JBOD and not really RAID0, it's Kinda like a hybrid and it uses something called drive extender.. This is indeed V1 and NOT vail.. I don't use VAIL because of the lack of Drive Extender.
> 
> And this is still a 32bit cpu.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *raisethe3*


Would the v1 work on a AMD 64 x2 and 4GB of Memory?


Yeah yeah for sure, I have seen it run on a 1Ghz Pentium III. A 64x2 is way better than what I am using for a WHS. SPecs are in my sig.


----------



## raisethe3

Thank you so much for the reply. Since I am going to build a new sig rig, besides the Intel setup I have and this current AMD setup. I am thinking of scrapping this one as a server and build a new AMD setup when Bulldozer comes out.

I find that the WHS v1 extremely hard to find. I am contemplating on getting VAIL, but that would mean I have to fiddle with RAID.









Rep+
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase;14980556*
> Yeah yeah for sure, I have seen it run on a 1Ghz Pentium III. A 64x2 is way better than what I am using for a WHS. SPecs are in my sig.


----------



## Quantum Reality

How do you get Windows Home Server anyway? I've never seen it for sale in a store.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Quantum Reality;14980803*
> How do you get Windows Home Server anyway? I've never seen it for sale in a store.


I bought it on newegg for $100 like two years ago.

I have an ASUS TSMINI with WHS already on it if you are interested. It has 1TB in it but it is capable of supporting 6TB inside, has 6 USB 2.0 and 2x Esata ports.


----------



## Quantum Reality

Eh, shipping on that would be crazy. But I'll see if NCIX might have a copy. I'm decommissioning my webserver soon so turning it to another use might be handy.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Quantum Reality*


Eh, shipping on that would be crazy. But I'll see if NCIX might have a copy. I'm decommissioning my webserver soon so turning it to another use might be handy.










um not really, this thing is little. It's like 10" high and 4" wide it would fit in a flat rate box lol


----------



## Starbomba

I'm planning to do something similar to what you're doing with your huge server, but in a smaller scale for now (only 15 TB for now, but if it should grow i want to be able to grow it out) and i've gotten some questions. I have an idea of how to get them working together (had 2 RAID arrays on my sig rig for a while but i upgraded HDD then i needed another for another PC) and i can ask/Google around, so the setup is no problem. But i'm wondering what hardware did it took to get it rolling.

What cards do you use to make that run?
Did you mixed PCI and PCI-E cards?
Do you connect anything to the motherboard?
What method do you use to gang the discs?


----------



## fg2chase

I have read your questions and will respond tommorow when I am not laying in bed about to fall asleep..

I will edit this post.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Starbomba*


I'm planning to do something similar to what you're doing with your huge server, but in a smaller scale for now (only 15 TB for now, but if it should grow i want to be able to grow it out) and i've gotten some questions. I have an idea of how to get them working together (had 2 RAID arrays on my sig rig for a while but i upgraded HDD then i needed another for another PC) and i can ask/Google around, so the setup is no problem. But i'm wondering what hardware did it took to get it rolling.

What cards do you use to make that run? 
Did you mixed PCI and PCI-E cards? 
Do you connect anything to the motherboard?
What method do you use to gang the discs?


I am using Two Rosewill PCI Sata II cards and 1 Syba PCI-E card. So far having them mixed like this has not been a problem, in fact has been seamless and transparent.

I am using all 4 ports availiable on the motherboard, I currently have NO ports availiable and no more places to mount drives anyways. lol, to expand any further I would have to get one more PCI-E card, and find a way to mount 5 drives where 3 drives were designed to go.

I am using Windows Drive Extender native to WHS V1 to "gang" the discs. It is a pretty awesome technology and requires almost no maintenance.

hopefully I have awnswered your questions.


----------



## Starbomba

Oh, i thought mixing PCI and PCI-E would cause bottlenecks. As i'll be recycling an old E2140 775 CPU+mATX mobo (hope they rip blurays fast







), i only have 3 slots to play with: a PCI, a PCI-E x1 and a PCI-E x16 along with 4 slots on mobo which i plan to fill with 2 TB HDD's (unless i could add a couple IDE HDD's, tho i doubt i can find them in 1-3 TB size







).

I got a couple more questions tho:

- What version of WHS you got? Seems i need to get one of those as well if you're not using regular RAID or JBOD.
- Is it easy to add HDD's, or is there a process? I wouldn't like to reformat everything when adding an HDD...
- Where did you got such sweet-looking SATA cables?








- Has a disc ever died? And if it did, what did you do?


----------



## fg2chase

I don't really care about bottlenecks dude, This thing isnt built for speed, its built for absolute storage capacity, seldom do you get both.

I have WHS v1 PP3

It's very easy to add HDD's I needed even my wife to be able to add hard drives to the array even while I was deployed to Afghanistan.

Sata cables are from newegg somewhere.

Discs have died before and I didn't even notice! This has happend twice and Seagate RMA's both drives. The only reason I noticed is because I logged into the console and WHS was like "hey man, one of my drives died... All data was replicated with DE so.... Move on with life".

Popped the new drives in and forgot about it again.

This system rips Blu Rays fast (15 mins usually) and streams them fantastically! just make sure you have a gigabit network. I have streamed them to three different computers in the house at one time all while having two VPN's dialed into it from family across the country.

Easy... Profit!


----------



## Starbomba

Yeah, but i thought of massive bottlenecks, like not being able to fully handle blu-ray/AVCHD streaming or something like that. If i want speed, i'll have my sig rig and direct-access HDD's. I just want to have a centralized area for my movies/anime/family pics for me and my parents to access them.

If you can rip and stream blurays, then my hardware should have no issues. I just phased out my old 100 mbps ethernet with a new Netgear N750 router and recabled everything with CAT6. My parents also got a new HTPC, a Zotac Zbox, and that little thing can handle AVCHD and bluray video, and has gigabit, plus i've tried streaming and works awesome. Only other PC i had to upgrade with a NIC is my own HTPC and my dad's PC, as they're old hardware.

So the fault tolerance is pretty good. That always worried me a bit (i have a hefty amount of DVD and bluray backups of almost anything, and i doubt i'll stop) but if you had 2 HDD's dying but no harm done then it should be good. Not that i'd use Seagates anyways (had 4 drives dying on me on 3 years, and it's not like i can RMA easily)


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Starbomba;15018523*
> Yeah, but i thought of massive bottlenecks, like not being able to fully handle blu-ray/AVCHD streaming or something like that. If i want speed, i'll have my sig rig and direct-access HDD's. I just want to have a centralized area for my movies/anime/family pics for me and my parents to access them.
> 
> If you can rip and stream blurays, then my hardware should have no issues. I just phased out my old 100 mbps ethernet with a new Netgear N750 router and recabled everything with CAT6. My parents also got a new HTPC, a Zotac Zbox, and that little thing can handle AVCHD and bluray video, and has gigabit, plus i've tried streaming and works awesome. Only other PC i had to upgrade with a NIC is my own HTPC and my dad's PC, as they're old hardware.
> 
> So the fault tolerance is pretty good. That always worried me a bit (i have a hefty amount of DVD and bluray backups of almost anything, and i doubt i'll stop) but if you had 2 HDD's dying but no harm done then it should be good. Not that i'd use Seagates anyways (had 4 drives dying on me on 3 years, and it's not like i can RMA easily)


Yeah, well it's not like 5900 RPM LP drives are saturating even a PCI bus, theres plenty of bandwidth. There are no bottlenecks and the system has no problems. Also there was no need to use CAT6, cat5E would have worked just fine for gigabit.

I have a PCIE intel gigabit NIC I no longer use if you want it. Who told you that using PCI and PCI-E at the same time would cause bottlenecks? That doesn't even make any sense to me. The bottlenecks are they drives themselves, they aren't very fast lol.


----------



## Starbomba

True. I plan to use as many 2 TB Samsung F4 EcoGreens (5.4k RPM) as i can, as those are the only locally available high capacity drive. They run pretty cool, and they do are pretty reliable.

Seeing as PCI is slower than PCI-E, and you're driving 4 HDD's per slot, i thought the PCI card would be at disadvantage. Just (stupid, it seems) assuming from my part.

The network setup is already done, but thanks for your offer. It has been actually setup for a while, and since i had old cable (it wasn't Cat5e but regular Cat5) i replaced it all (i think i had around 250 mts of Cat5 cable which i got for free and which i used to get the network to the whole house 3 years ago or so and seemed to have been damaged in some parts due to weather or bad location). It was pretty cheap tho, it's not like it's worth it's weight in gold. And gigabit adapters aren't too expensive as well.

I'm actually doing this server project as an add-on to the media network i already have, other than being the core of it. Mainly to avoid sharing my external HDD's/DVD drives and stop worrying about local space (around 2/3 of the disc usage on my PC's is for music, videos or photos which i could get somewhere else or share it easier), and a place to store security backups of my main PC's. I will be doing it little by little (do nto have the funds at the moment to build it all at once) but for now the cards and at least 4-5 HDD's would be fine for now.


----------



## ionstorm66

I haven't read though the whole thread, but why not use linux and use LVM to manage the drives? It would run better on that hardware, and most likely get you some better throughput. MD raid and LVM both far surpass window's softraid.

Though I have to admit that 25TB server dwarfs my poor 5TB server, but mine is just a feeble underclocked pentium dual core, and I get close to the GBit cap.


----------



## Volvo

I am jelly.

Don't even have a file server. :3


----------



## fventura03

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Starbomba*


True. I plan to use as many 2 TB Samsung F4 EcoGreens (5.4k RPM) as i can, as those are the only locally available high capacity drive. They run pretty cool, and they do are pretty reliable.

Seeing as PCI is slower than PCI-E, and you're driving 4 HDD's per slot, i thought the PCI card would be at disadvantage. Just (stupid, it seems) assuming from my part.

The network setup is already done, but thanks for your offer. It has been actually setup for a while, and since i had old cable (it wasn't Cat5e but regular Cat5) i replaced it all (i think i had around 250 mts of Cat5 cable which i got for free and which i used to get the network to the whole house 3 years ago or so and seemed to have been damaged in some parts due to weather or bad location). It was pretty cheap tho, it's not like it's worth it's weight in gold. And gigabit adapters aren't too expensive as well.

I'm actually doing this server project as an add-on to the media network i already have, other than being the core of it. Mainly to avoid sharing my external HDD's/DVD drives and stop worrying about local space (around 2/3 of the disc usage on my PC's is for music, videos or photos which i could get somewhere else or share it easier), and a place to store security backups of my main PC's. I will be doing it little by little (do nto have the funds at the moment to build it all at once) but for now the cards and at least 4-5 HDD's would be fine for now.


how much is a 2tb drive down there anyways? you'll probably one of the few with a server in their home in El Salvador


----------



## Starbomba

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fventura03;15036065*
> how much is a 2tb drive down there anyways? you'll probably one of the few with a server in their home in El Salvador


Well, i got mine for $110, and that's cheap. They're usually around $130-$140, and the cheap ones (around $120-$130) are Seagate, which i stopped trusting years ago. And i trust my customs office even less, so no shipping for me, at least for HDD's. I do plan to order the RAID cards online, that'd eat away around $150 off my $700 budget (for now) but i only need 6 TB to have a startup.

Hell, i think i'm one of the few with dual cards and over 2 TB HDD on one PC. Most people here _still_ purchase Cellys (or Pent. Dual Cores) with 1-2 GB RAM and 300/500 GB HDD's and they're set. A bit sad, but yea. At least we're getting some quality hardware locally, tho it comes at a price (i actually bought my HAF here).


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ionstorm66;15035706*
> I haven't read though the whole thread, but why not use linux and use LVM to manage the drives? It would run better on that hardware, and most likely get you some better throughput. MD raid and LVM both far surpass window's softraid.
> 
> Though I have to admit that 25TB server dwarfs my poor 5TB server, but mine is just a feeble underclocked pentium dual core, and I get close to the GBit cap.


It's actually 30TB now and I use WHS because I needed my wife to be able to add a disc to the drive pool even while I was in Afghanistan or Iraq. I needed it to be automatic.


----------



## fg2chase

I beleive I had a processor failure today, system froze and would not respond... then would not reboot. I swapped out the CPU for a 3.0Ghz P4 and it is running fine again.


----------



## fventura03

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Starbomba*


Well, i got mine for $110, and that's cheap. They're usually around $130-$140, and the cheap ones (around $120-$130) are Seagate, which i stopped trusting years ago. And i trust my customs office even less, so no shipping for me, at least for HDD's. I do plan to order the RAID cards online, that'd eat away around $150 off my $700 budget (for now) but i only need 6 TB to have a startup.

Hell, i think i'm one of the few with dual cards and over 2 TB HDD on one PC. Most people here _still_ purchase Cellys (or Pent. Dual Cores) with 1-2 GB RAM and 300/500 GB HDD's and they're set. A bit sad, but yea. At least we're getting some quality hardware locally, tho it comes at a price (i actually bought my HAF here).


oh that's cool, I actually go to El Salvador A LOT (check avatar), I'd help you out with better prices for hard drives (right now $70 for 2tb seagate @ microcenter.com - which is 20 minutes from me), but I know if i put them in a luggage, they most likely will get damaged.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fventura03*


oh that's cool, I actually go to El Salvador A LOT (check avatar), I'd help you out with better prices for hard drives (right now $70 for 2tb seagate @ microcenter.com - which is 20 minutes from me), but I know if i put them in a luggage, they most likely will get damaged.


no they wont man, I have taken hard drives to Afghanistan and Iraq and trust me.. the luggage at airports isn't even close to how bad and heavy army gear is. I just wrapped them up in t shirts and kept them in original packaging.


----------



## fventura03

^I'd be willing to try it out, I havent had anything broken yet, the most fragile item I've taken over was a 26" LED, well packaged (with clothes), it got there fine.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *fventura03*


^I'd be willing to try it out, I havent had anything broken yet, the most fragile item I've taken over was a 26" LED, well packaged (with clothes), it got there fine.


Hard Drives really are not "THAT" fragile, I mean they are prob the most sensitive part of a computer but if they are off it's really difficult to damage them.


----------



## parityboy

^^^ pfft so you say. I remember an Hitachi drive I had that got dropped 1cm at one end, onto the floor of my case. It died.


----------



## Kimon

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy;15074405*
> ^^^ pfft so you say. I remember an Hitachi drive I had that got dropped 1cm at one end, onto the floor of my case. It died.


Was it powered on? I assumed so long as no moving parts were active they could withstand minor drops. Maybe not.....


----------



## fventura03

I dropped an external hard drive like 1 foot on carpet and it started acting weird after that, it'd work but really slow, and it'd CLICK. I took the data off of it, and threw it out







.


----------



## fg2chase

^ lies...


----------



## fventura03

true story, it was old, like 4 years old...


----------



## Bonz(TM)

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fventura03;15077766*
> I dropped an external hard drive like 1 foot on carpet and it started acting weird after that, it'd work but really slow, and it'd CLICK. I took the data off of it, and threw it out
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .


I dropped a 2TB WD Green external on the ground (tile) while powered on and working from about 1.5-2ft and it refused to do anything after that.

I dropped an old 500GB Maxtor external on the ground (carpet) while running from about 4ft. It never skipped a beat.


----------



## rickyman0319

fg2chase, what os are you using? whs 2011 or whs 2003 r2


----------



## fg2chase

um... WHS V1...


----------



## parityboy

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kimon*


Was it powered on? I assumed so long as no moving parts were active they could withstand minor drops. Maybe not.....


Nope, it was off while I replaced a power supply and moved a couple things around. Surprised me, that's for sure.


----------



## rickyman0319

is whs v.1 same as vail?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:



Originally Posted by *rickyman0319*


is whs v.1 same as vail?


no, they are two seperate operating systems.


----------



## rickyman0319

do u know which os has windows home server console?

cause i bought dell sas 6/ir hba card, i tried to monitor temp on hd on crystaldiskinfo and it didnot show it.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *rickyman0319;15330572*
> do u know which os has windows home server console?
> 
> cause i bought dell sas 6/ir hba card, i tried to monitor temp on hd on crystaldiskinfo and it didnot show it.


Both of them do I guess.


----------



## rickyman0319

them u mean vail and whs v.1


----------



## Abula

Really impressive your antec 1200, im building something very similar, with antec 1200 and http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Module-Device-STB-3T4-E3-GP/dp/B00129CDGC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318828063&sr=8-1]coolermaster 4n3[/URL], i have a couple of questions if you dont mind.

1) What 4n3 are you using, i see you still have the default antec 1200 fronts, just wondering what you bought or if you mod them.

2) My antec 1200 only came with 3 cages, where or how did you get the 4th? I mean for the fan filter and probably the fronts to mod into the 4n3 cages.

3) Im about to install WHSv1 PP3 to a 500gb 2.5 lapotp drive, to have full 16x 2tb on the 1200, wondering if you have any advice on the installation, what i mean is anything i should setup in the bios or after installing WHS, anything i should do before starting to add the hdds?

Thanks again for your thread, really impressive stuff, ill post some pics once i get all things working, but its still a work in progress

Take care,


----------



## ryanpowell1989

@fg2chase- Nice system! You may have already answered this question, but how do you remote access this server 24 hours a day? Do you leave it running in sleep mode or some sort of standby mode, and it powers on when files need to be accessed?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ryanpowell1989;15360780*
> @fg2chase- Nice system! You may have already answered this question, but how do you remote access this server 24 hours a day? Do you leave it running in sleep mode or some sort of standby mode, and it powers on when files need to be accessed?


The server is running continiously, the only exception to this is when I am performing some kind of maintenaince whether it be preventative or incidental. The HTPC is continously recording TV to it and family all over the country uses is as well as my wife in Iraq so it must stay on all the time.

As for the cages and such I will see if I can find them on newegg again, I had to mod the Antec fronts to work with them so that I could maintain the filters. They are just kind set in there though, eaily removable for cleaning.

I have no advice other than to run chkdsk on those drives a few times, especially the system drive, verify that there are no bad sectors.

Sorry it took so long to reply.


----------



## fg2chase

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817996019

here are the cages I used.

here ar the ones I want lol

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817998145

but it would cost $450 to get as many as a I need


----------



## morgofborg

Not sure how I first missed this thread, that is sweet. I think I found what will become the final use for my antec 1200 sometime down the road.

With the price of HDD's right now, that server has greatly increased in value lol.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *morgofborg;15587187*
> Not sure how I first missed this thread, that is sweet. I think I found what will become the final use for my antec 1200 sometime down the road.
> 
> With the price of HDD's right now, that server has greatly increased in value lol.


say what??


----------



## fg2chase

omg I did some research and found out why the drives are so expensive.. wow I paid $80-$100 for these drives!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148725

I have two spares too in the closet.


----------



## ChRoNo16

What are you using for controller cards?


----------



## fg2chase

I think some cheap masscool cards.


----------



## fg2chase

Had some issues with Diskeeper crashing the server, I uninstalled it, reinstalled the latest version and it's back up running just fine. Love this damn thing.


----------



## NKrader

i could only imagine how heavy that would be with the supermicro bays. i have one i bet it weighs 10lb empty lol.. and you could hold 4.. lololl


----------



## fg2chase

OH yeah, it's almost 90lbs.... It's heavy for sure.


----------



## amidget

That is a beautiful, beautiful thing.


----------



## ruairi

With these harddrive prices lately this this would be worth like a couple million or some shiz


----------



## fg2chase

Actually, if the drives were bought new right now it would cost $3200....

I bet I could make a killing if I was parting it our right now, I bet i could make $2000


----------



## AMD guy

so like in total, how much did this add up to?


----------



## joshd

I would suggest selling it right now...

But then again prices might stay sky high for years or might even never come down.


----------



## fg2chase

If I sold it now where would I put my data? That is the whole point of it... I ahve no idea how much it cost in total.. likely less than $1500 remember its running on 6-7 year old hardware..


----------



## Abula

I manage to finish my antec1200 server build finally, here some pics,

  
   

With todays prices coudlnt change and fill all hdds slots, 14/16, so ended up with 23TB


----------



## fg2chase

^ very imprssive!!!

but why xeon? a core 2 duo or something like that would be been WAAAY more than enough for a file server. Also is your boot drive an SSD? Did you notice any increase in performance other than startup times?


----------



## Abula

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> but why xeon?a core 2 duo or something like that would be been WAAAY more than enough for a file server.


Long story short, i had issues with i3 2120 and Asus P8B WS, it had random restarts, i swaped PSU, Memory and hdds and no fix. Sudenly i was with $229 mobo that wasnt working so decided to go with Supermicro, but didnt know if the CPU was the issue, i return the mobo but coudlnt return the CPU (either way needed a cpu for HTPC build so kept it), so was wanting to build around Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1220L (3M Cache, 2.20 GHz), but its very hard to get, and its very expensive.... and also planning on doing transcoding on the fly with the server to mobile phones n tablets, besides short term i do want to drop WHSv1 because of the 2tb limitation, probably will move into ZFS/Openindianna/FreeBSD, so got a good offer on the E3 1230 and went with it.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Also is your boot drive an SSD?


Also another mess, my OS drive, a Hitachi 5k500b died on the second day that formatted the server, i had the option to either get another drive (too expensive atm with the flooding prices) or just use the X25m that i had laying around from a previous build....
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Did you notice any increase in performance other than startup times?


Probably slightly, specially before the HBAs were inside, but once i installed the Intel SASUC8I the boot time of the server increased a lot, so overall there is almost no gain, once inside the server everything is instant, but for a server its not needed, that said, it was just an option that i had due to the issues i encounter while building and the recent hdd prices are too high. You wont see much difference in transfer rates regardless over gigabit lan, the mechanicals almost saturate it, and even then WHSv1 PP3 always uses another drive if there is space before using the one that you installed the OS with, so i would have to practically filled the Server before i could use the storage in the partition of the ssd. Here a pic of the transfer rates im getting over gigabit lan,


----------



## fg2chase

Yeah im getting those same transfer rates with my setup too.. My server is plenty fast even with all 5900 RPM drives, I wouldn't waste an SSD on my server though lol..Fortunartely for me I got all 20 of my drives (16 installed 4 spares) before teh flooding.

I also transcode to Tablets and other Androids even with this Pentium 4..... horsepower not needed.... I guess if I was transcoding to more than one device at a time but it doesn't seem to ever have a problem. even with 3-4 VPN connections from family members, my HTPC doing its thing on it and everything..

I don't see me replacing this P4 unil my next scheduled server build sometime in 2014.


----------



## Abula

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> I also transcode to Tablets and other Androids even with this Pentium 4..... horsepower not needed.... I guess if I was transcoding to more than one device at a time but it doesn't seem to ever have a problem. even with 3-4 VPN connections from family members, my HTPC doing its thing on it and everything...


Do you mind sharing what programs do you use to transcode? What would be ideal for me is if its like add in / program that knows when a mobile device like phone/tablet has connected and when he clicks into a movie automatically transcodes it to MP4 and serves it at the same time that its transcoding it.


----------



## fg2chase

^ yhea I use a program called Webguide.. It should still be online but if not let me know I Can provide you the add ins...

WHS 2011 apparently has that already in it, Microsoft hired the guy that made webguide for hte original.


----------



## stubass

if i ever need 25TB i would invest in this Synology RS3411.

http://www.synology.com/products/spec.php?product_name=RS3411xs&lang=us#p_submenu

no matter what the price its better than messing arround trying to build your own...









tho with a decent HW FW at say $1500 for security and star your own small back up cloud service you need to be riding the gravy train


----------



## the_beast

But for a fraction of the price of that Synology setup you can put together a WHS or similar setup that can do much more for your home network. Prebuilt NASes like that are great for low to mid-end business storage, but they can't match the flexibility of a home server for most users. And building one is not hard at all.


----------



## stubass

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *the_beast*
> 
> But for a fraction of the price of that Synology setup you can put together a WHS or similar setup that can do much more for your home network. Prebuilt NASes like that are great for low to mid-end business storage, but they can't match the flexibility of a home server for most users. And building one is not hard at all.


your right, im looking at this as a business venture.


----------



## Slim Shady

Have you had any drive failures yet? Im not asking in a cynical way , just wondered how those consumer grade drives lasted on 24/7.
Also whats your usage like?
When I saw the price of drives today I felt a bit sick, ended up spending about €25k on Drives and fibre channel storage.


----------



## stubass

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Slim Shady*
> 
> Have you had any drive failures yet? Im not asking in a cynical way , just wondered how those consumer grade drives lasted on 24/7.
> Also whats your usage like?
> When I saw the price of drives today I felt a bit sick, ended up spending about €25k on Drives and fibre channel storage.


not sure if your post was aimed at me, anyway the Synology RS3411 and my business venture is a pipe dream unless my friend comes in with me..

as to my small 2 Bay DS710+ i have been playing with, the 2 WD cavier blacks 500GB consumer grade drives have been running now for maybe 5 months at avaerage moderate usage and still are going strong


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *stubass*
> 
> if i ever need 25TB i would invest in this Synology RS3411.
> http://www.synology.com/products/spec.php?product_name=RS3411xs&lang=us#p_submenu
> no matter what the price its better than messing arround trying to build your own...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> tho with a decent HW FW at say $1500 for security and star your own small back up cloud service you need to be riding the gravy train


Im good, I don't need 100TB and what I paid for this is nothing like what it would cost for that


----------



## Slim Shady

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *stubass*
> 
> not sure if your post was aimed at me, anyway the Synology RS3411 and my business venture is a pipe dream unless my friend comes in with me..
> as to my small 2 Bay DS710+ i have been playing with, the 2 WD cavier blacks 500GB consumer grade drives have been running now for maybe 5 months at avaerage moderate usage and still are going strong


It was kinda directed at everyone but thanks for the info.


----------



## fg2chase

Server is still trucking along, I shut it down yesterday for the first time in over a year to take it outside and give it a good dusting... wow was it dusty... powered it right back up and everything is nominal.


----------



## raisethe3

That's quite an accomplishment!







Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Server is still trucking along, I shut it down yesterday for the first time in over a year to take it outside and give it a good dusting... wow was it dusty... powered it right back up and everything is nominal.


----------



## fg2chase

Thanks,


----------



## NKrader

looking to buy supermicro hotswap?














hehhh ehhhhhhh?


----------



## fg2chase

nope


----------



## NKrader

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> nope


haha









i remembered that you had said you liked em back when I subbed this.

then i got one then moved into a tiny case. so no more spaces for that.

this is epic space.. i could only immagine all the prons i could keep on server with this much space


----------



## 2002dunx

I've just read through this thread again, love the work, and learnt a lot from here and the links.....

It is amazing that (if I had the cash !) I could get 6 x 4 TB drives into my Fractal case with an SSD for a boot drive and almost have as much storage !

Shame they are £250 each in the UK

Thanks fg !

dunx


----------



## Noctizzle

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *2002dunx*
> 
> I've just read through this thread again, love the work, and learnt a lot from here and the links.....
> It is amazing that (if I had the cash !) I could get 6 x 4 TB drives into my Fractal case with an SSD for a boot drive and almost have as much storage !
> Shame they are £250 each in the UK
> Thanks fg !
> dunx


drop to 3tb, and scan are offering 2x3tb drives for 190 quid xD

2 of these i believe

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3tb-seagate-st3000dm001-barracuda-720014-sata-iii-6gb-s-7200rpm-64mb-cache-8ms-ncq-oem


----------



## 2002dunx

I was really comparing like for like, my 5 x 1TB is just about enough for now, but with my case could "bodge" 3 more in with velcro....









I live near CCL ( £200 a pair )...

dunx


----------



## fg2chase

It is still running flawlessly from a hardware perspective anyways.... lol I should prob clean it out.


----------



## TheN00bBuilder

HOLY GOSH! Nice build, anyways, lol!


----------



## The_Rocker

Ever thought about using a Core 2 Duo or something? That P4 must SUCK at ripping DVD's etc...


----------



## subassy

I read...or possibly skimmed...this thread and I don't think you covered this:

Do you have a plan in case your motherboard were to go out? Have you ever considered virtualizing WHS? That would take a long time to move all the all the stuff to virtual hard drives (if that's how you did it) and would likely add complexity with physical drives died but....hardware independence has advantages, right? Ok perhaps it wouldn't be worth the time/effort/extra complexity.

Really great project/box by the way.


----------



## Muskaos

I have 9 TB available on my WHS 2011 box, 5.91TB used. And it is using drive extender, the 3rd party add-on that duplicates WHS V1's drive extender.


----------



## arukaen

Can I get those pants if I buy the server?


----------



## fg2chase

Box is still running, had about 3 months of downtime when I moved from Texas to Louisiana but she is running so nice, I clean it out every now and then but that's it really. I plan on upgrading it and basing if off a Phenom X4 HTPC that I built and have subsequently retired.


----------



## NKrader

i know you want to change cases to my file server chassis thats forsale lol


----------



## fg2chase

possibly, how many bays?


----------



## NKrader

15

http://www.overclock.net/t/1469705/lianli-a77fb-powdercoated-mdpc-supermicro


----------



## fg2chase

I think I have 16 now...


----------



## NKrader

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> I think I have 16 now...


technically could fit more

18 total - If using the oem drive bay thingy and took out the two cdrom
20 total - if you purchased another hotswap and took out the two cdrom

this chassis tho is a mix of form and function where you server is just function, i understand


----------



## fg2chase

lost one drive, popped in a spare and all is well..

one drive failure in 4 years is great!


----------



## fg2chase

I ended up having to completely redo the server.. It just didn't survive the moves I have made(TX to LA to NM) however all my data did just fine!
Pretty good upgrade though it is now 32TB and I have lost a total of 3 drives over a period of 6 years. I took my webserver offline 3 years ago so the only pics I have up of the original pentium 4 server are in my sig, as you can see I reused everything I could


----------



## raisethe3

You're doing pretty impressive! I hope you can keep that going.


----------



## Liranan

Those Phenoms are pretty good server chips. I put my old 955BE in my little server and it's running much better than the 235E. Sadly the cooler is inadequate with WMonitor reporting 80C max temp







. It doesn't really bother me as I will move soon and then disable two cores until I can replace the current tiny copper cooler with the old stock HSF or even the old H70 I have with only one fan. I hate that cooler due to the amount of noise it makes but with only one fan it should be quiet and still cool adequately.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *raisethe3*
> 
> You're doing pretty impressive! I hope you can keep that going.


Been doing it for since 09 so while it is done "growing" I think it will be fine. This one is a lot more robust than the old Pentium 4 that was at the heart of the original one.


----------



## NKrader

one of the old inspirations of many members, glad to see its still going hard and getting love


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NKrader*
> 
> one of the old inspirations of many members, glad to see its still going hard and getting love


Thanks sir! I found some old pics on FB I am going to move over here.. I wish I still had my webserver. =(

Nothing says overkill like a water cooled 32TB home server lol


----------



## fg2chase

made an upgrade, the X4 Phenom 925 wasn't cutting it so I went with the best CPU I could put in the socket at the right price, the 1090T was like $100 cheaper and it's only 100mhz slower than the 1100T

Also added some cooling to the mosfets and cleaned up a bit,


----------



## raisethe3

^^That CPU should serve you nicely.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *raisethe3*
> 
> ^^That CPU should serve you nicely.


yes sir I think I had one in 2009 in my main gaming rig back then with twin 6970's was quite awesome then too.


----------



## fg2chase

lol these temps are LOWWWWWW


----------



## ComGuards

Yeap... I'm definitely feeling old now. Definitely not as hardcore as these young turks... Don't really go for the whole all-internal-drive setup... I'd take a picture of the setup, but the externals are rigged all over the place; especially the iSCSI storage units







Approximately 30TB of mostly-redundant storage. Some stuff doesn't need to be redundant on that server...


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> 
> 
> made an upgrade, the X4 Phenom 925 wasn't cutting it so I went with the best CPU I could put in the socket at the right price, the 1090T was like $100 cheaper and it's only 100mhz slower than the 1100T
> 
> Also added some cooling to the mosfets and cleaned up a bit,
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!


Is this a Plex server?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ComGuards*
> 
> Yeap... I'm definitely feeling old now. Definitely not as hardcore as these young turks... Don't really go for the whole all-internal-drive setup... I'd take a picture of the setup, but the externals are rigged all over the place; especially the iSCSI storage units
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Approximately 30TB of mostly-redundant storage. Some stuff doesn't need to be redundant on that server...


how old are you? I will be 31 in a month.. idk why I would want to have all external drives I like being able to just move the server, it has two way mirroring to prevent data loss.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Is this a Plex server?


yes it is.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Is this a Plex server?
> 
> 
> 
> yes it is.
Click to expand...

I'm jealous, I've only just started my own Plex server and have managed to scrape 4TB of data. Dreaming of a 4U 24 bay chassis with dual Opeteron/Xeons (if they exist in ATX format). 24 3TB with 4 parity drives and two hot spares is my ideal sever, giving me just under 50TB of space (18*3TB). As I am picky as to which films I put on my server it will take me years to fill it.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I'm jealous, I've only just started my own Plex server and have managed to scrape 4TB of data. Dreaming of a 4U 24 bay chassis with dual Opeteron/Xeons (if they exist in ATX format). 24 3TB with 4 parity drives and two hot spares is my ideal sever, giving me just under 50TB of space (18*3TB). As I am picky as to which films I put on my server it will take me years to fill it.


I put **** on there I would never even watch, Someone in my family might. Everyone in my family has access to my Plex library and even some friends do as well.


----------



## ACleverName

I should setup plex, i have 24 TB's setup and tons of movies. Bleh


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> I put **** on there I would never even watch, Someone in my family might. Everyone in my family has access to my Plex library and even some friends do as well.


True dat. I have two 80TB Plex servers and I'd never watch 50% of what's on them.


----------



## fg2chase

I had noticed before that my plex media database and files are over 100Gb and growing now, I had an extra SSD/5900rpm Hybrid drive that I took out of my dell laptop when I upgraded it to an SSD so I decided since I have one extra SATA port on the board to throw it in the server as a dedicated database drive.

No place to mount it really so I had to get creative and I also took some pics of the MOSFET heatsinks I stuck on there recently.


----------



## fg2chase

I had noticed before that my plex media database and files are over 100Gb and growing now, I had an extra SSD/5900rpm Hybrid drive that I took out of my dell laptop when I upgraded it to an SSD so I decided since I have one extra SATA port on the board to throw it in the server as a dedicated database drive.

No place to mount it really so I had to get creative and I also took some pics of the MOSFET heatsinks I stuck on there recently.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> I had noticed before that my plex media database and files are over 100Gb and growing now, I had an extra SSD/5900rpm Hybrid drive that I took out of my dell laptop when I upgraded it to an SSD so I decided since I have one extra SATA port on the board to throw it in the server as a dedicated database drive.
> 
> No place to mount it really so I had to get creative and I also took some pics of the MOSFET heatsinks I stuck on there recently.


Yea my Plex database was over 500GB before I turned off thumbnail preview images for my TV Shows library. Shrunk to less than half that aftewards. Still keep the thumbnails on for my Movies library because that's where I find it comes in handy.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> Yea my Plex database was over 500GB before I turned off thumbnail preview images for my TV Shows library. Shrunk to less than half that aftewards. Still keep the thumbnails on for my Movies library because that's where I find it comes in handy.


Well now that I have a 1TB hybrid drive in there (just for plex database) I think I will be good for a while, I don't want to turn off the thumbs lol.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Well now that I have a 1TB hybrid drive in there (just for plex database) I think I will be good for a while, I don't want to turn off the thumbs lol.


Yea that'll last you just fine. I've got the space myself but my Plex database is in a VM that I backup every night so the lighter I can keep it the better. Also is nice to be able to vMotion it between hosts in a matter of minutes.


----------



## Liranan

That's a pretty good idea, my Plex database at 8GB isn't as large as yours but it is slowly growing. Sadly I can't make my server available to my family as they're all over the world but I do have six friends who use it and I still have yet to bog the lowly quad core down but I intend to put my FX8320 and Crosshair V in the server once I replace it with Zen. Once undervolted and maybe slightly underclocked it will be just fine for a media server.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Well now that I have a 1TB hybrid drive in there (just for plex database) I think I will be good for a while, I don't want to turn off the thumbs lol.
> 
> 
> 
> Yea that'll last you just fine. I've got the space myself but my Plex database is in a VM that I backup every night so the lighter I can keep it the better. Also is nice to be able to vMotion it between hosts in a matter of minutes.
Click to expand...

How did you do that? Just install Plex in Linux or Windows and have it access the drives with media on it?


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> How did you do that? Just install Plex in Linux or Windows and have it access the drives with media on it?


All my media sits on 2 mirrored 80TB UnRAID servers. My Plex server runs in a docker on a Linux VM (I know...Inception) in a VMware vSAN cluster full maximum uptime. You can check my build log in my sig for more details.

Also, I have family/friends in different countries who access my Plex server, what's stopping you?


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> How did you do that? Just install Plex in Linux or Windows and have it access the drives with media on it?
> 
> 
> 
> All my media sits on 2 mirrored 80TB UnRAID servers. My Plex server runs in a docker on a Linux VM (I know...Inception) in a VMware vSAN cluster full maximum uptime. You can check my build log in my sig for more details.
> 
> Also, I have family/friends in different countries who access my Plex server, what's stopping you?
Click to expand...

Because being where they are they have access to media easier than I have and some have download limits so it's not convenient for them to access my library.

That is a pretty sexy server you have set up and I will experiment with VM as well as I have my Plex natively installed in Windows and always have problems when I need to reinstall the OS. Something broke the OS two months ago and it took me a while to rebuild the library so a VM with snapshots will work much better.

At some point a dedicated SSD for Plex will become a necessity as it will slow down immensely due to the number of cached files.


----------



## fg2chase

@Liranan



Here is how I have it setup, the two windows "storage spaces" with two way mirror are spread out on the 16 Hard drives, set as D and E respectively, my OS is installed on the SSD which is C and that also holds the temporary transcoder directory for plex.

the database has all been moved to the new hybrid drive which is shown as F.


----------



## Liranan

I do not like to use Storage Spaces. ReFS may better than NTFS but due to its very nature you lose two thirds of available space so I prefer to stick to SnapRAID. I have considered UnRAID but I prefer SnapRAID due to the ability to assign as many parity drives as you like so with my current low end desktop case I will be able to have 10 to 12 HD's which will allow me to assign 2-3 (3 if I can fit 12 drives in there with a little modding) parity drives, one boot drive and the rest media storage.

I have been wondering whether I'm going about this all wrong and whether I should just get real RAID (software still) over SnapRAID but I can't afford to buy a lot of drives at once so I'm buying them one or two at a time and expanding my array that way. If this is going to cause problems when more than one or two people are accessing the drives simultaneously then I will have to somehow migrate to RAID 6 or 7.

Edit: I just played 7 films in VLC and it didn't slow the server down in the slightest so I will continue to use SnapRAID and spread the films and series out over the many HD's I will eventually have if necessary.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Because being where they are they have access to media easier than I have and some have download limits so it's not convenient for them to access my library.
> 
> That is a pretty sexy server you have set up and I will experiment with VM as well as I have my Plex natively installed in Windows and always have problems when I need to reinstall the OS. Something broke the OS two months ago and it took me a while to rebuild the library so a VM with snapshots will work much better.
> 
> At some point a dedicated SSD for Plex will become a necessity as it will slow down immensely due to the number of cached files.


Yes VM's make restoring, reconfiguring, and moving things around much easier. Also much easier to dedicate more/less Disk/CPU/Memory resources as needed.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> @Liranan
> 
> 
> 
> Here is how I have it setup, the two windows "storage spaces" with two way mirror are spread out on the 16 Hard drives, set as D and E respectively, my OS is installed on the SSD which is C and that also holds the temporary transcoder directory for plex.
> 
> the database has all been moved to the new hybrid drive which is shown as F.


Hope you backup that F Drive in some way. The thought of having to redo my Plex database from scratch after all the organizing I've done over the years makes me cringe.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I do not like to use Storage Spaces. ReFS may better than NTFS but due to its very nature you lose two thirds of available space so I prefer to stick to SnapRAID. I have considered UnRAID but I prefer SnapRAID due to the ability to assign as many parity drives as you like so with my current low end desktop case I will be able to have 10 to 12 HD's which will allow me to assign 2-3 (3 if I can fit 12 drives in there with a little modding) parity drives, one boot drive and the rest media storage.
> 
> I have been wondering whether I'm going about this all wrong and whether I should just get real RAID (software still) over SnapRAID but I can't afford to buy a lot of drives at once so I'm buying them one or two at a time and expanding my array that way. If this is going to cause problems when more than one or two people are accessing the drives simultaneously then I will have to somehow migrate to RAID 6 or 7.
> 
> Edit: I just played 7 films in VLC and it didn't slow the server down in the slightest so I will continue to use SnapRAID and spread the films and series out over the many HD's I will eventually have if necessary.


I've considered SnapRAID many times but there is not easy built in caching mechanism using SnapRAID unfortunately and with my network being 10Gb I need that caching layer for performance. Also with UnrAID 6.2 I now have dual parity and since I have a second array that mirrors the first I feel comfortable with two identical dual parity arrays. I also backup my irreplaceable files to my parents house via a Site-toSite VPN where I've got an 8TB Synology NAS.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> Yes VM's make restoring, reconfiguring, and moving things around much easier. Also much easier to dedicate more/less Disk/CPU/Memory resources as needed.
> Hope you backup that F Drive in some way. The thought of having to redo my Plex database from scratch after all the organizing I've done over the years makes me cringe.
> I've considered SnapRAID many times but there is not easy built in caching mechanism using SnapRAID unfortunately and with my network being 10Gb I need that caching layer for performance. Also with UnrAID 6.2 I now have dual parity and since I have a second array that mirrors the first I feel comfortable with two identical dual parity arrays. I also backup my irreplaceable files to my parents house via a Site-toSite VPN where I've got an 8TB Synology NAS.


Oh yeah it backs up to an external WD that I plug in every now and then.


----------



## cdoublejj

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> All my media sits on 2 mirrored 80TB UnRAID servers. My Plex server runs in a docker on a Linux VM (I know...Inception) in a VMware vSAN cluster full maximum uptime. You can check my build log in my sig for more details.
> 
> Also, I have family/friends in different countries who access my Plex server, what's stopping you?


No it's not inception, the VM would be considered a machine, unless you have a hyper visor that supports containers/docker natively (XEN maybe?) At least with my current knowledge and understanding of current trends. Even switches and firewalls are being replaced with VMs these days. Even on large scale networks/companies (There's some articles on these VMs versus hardware (silicon)). I'm sure to OCN standards there some/small performance hits this way but, VMs can be backed up migrated easier and I should probably shut up now.

So you plex is kind of like private netflix? Do you have to pay for PLEX? I heared there isa pay for and non pay for and sometimes the pay for version is needed.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cdoublejj*
> 
> So you plex is kind of like private netflix? Do you have to pay for PLEX? I heared there isa pay for and non pay for and sometimes the pay for version is needed.


Yes you got it. You can absolutely operate a Plex server for free. You do have to pay for the Plex apps for connecting from various devices and by subscribing to plexPass you unlock some extra features such as Mobile Sync (I use this one a lot) as well as some other nice features. I bought a lifetime subscription for $75 and to me that was an absolute steal.


----------



## fg2chase

Plex is on sale I got a lifetime for $118 today!


----------



## Liranan

I haven't paid for Plex and don't see the need to. A free alternative to Plex is Kodi but I don't think it's as nice to use as Plex as I couldn't get my films to play, so I will stick with Plex's easy to navigate menus.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I haven't paid for Plex and don't see the need to. A free alternative to Plex is Kodi but I don't think it's as nice to use as Plex as I couldn't get my films to play, so I will stick with Plex's easy to navigate menus.


I like to be able to sync a movie to my phone, get on a plane and watch it.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I haven't paid for Plex and don't see the need to. A free alternative to Plex is Kodi but I don't think it's as nice to use as Plex as I couldn't get my films to play, so I will stick with Plex's easy to navigate menus.


I can't live without Mobile Sync and Plex Home. Trailers and Extras is a nice feature as well. I've been testing out the Plex DVR beta as well since I use an Hdhomerun Prime to stream live TV to all the TVs in my house. It's still got a ways to go but once that is finalized with Live TV Plex will be my one stop shop for all media.


----------



## cones

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I haven't paid for Plex and don't see the need to. A free alternative to Plex is Kodi but I don't think it's as nice to use as Plex as I couldn't get my films to play, so I will stick with Plex's easy to navigate menus.


I'd consider Emby more of that versus Kodi, Kodi isn't a server.

Doesn't Plex allow you to save the NFO and thubnail files directly with the media?


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cones*
> 
> I'd consider Emby more of that versus Kodi, Kodi isn't a server.
> 
> Doesn't Plex allow you to save the NFO and thubnail files directly with the media?


Emby and Plex have very similar licensing structures. They are free but make you pay for additional features such as Mobile Sync, etc.


----------



## cdoublejj

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> I like to be able to sync a movie to my phone, get on a plane and watch it.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I haven't paid for Plex and don't see the need to. A free alternative to Plex is Kodi but I don't think it's as nice to use as Plex as I couldn't get my films to play, so I will stick with Plex's easy to navigate menus.


So that explains what mobile sync is but, i thought plex was as server and client and kodi just a media player. I thought it was possible to play movies off a plex server with Kodi? I though Plex was an open source deal? Is it commercial? Also sounds like my 200gb micro sd in my newish OnePlusX wasn't all for naught if i could sync movies to it!


----------



## burksdb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cdoublejj*
> 
> So that explains what mobile sync is but, i thought plex was as server and client and kodi just a media player. I thought it was possible to play movies off a plex server with Kodi? I though Plex was an open source deal? Is it commercial? Also sounds like my 200gb micro sd in my newish OnePlusX wasn't all for naught if i could sync movies to it!


someone correct me if im wrong as i havent messed with Kodi much, but there is plugin support for kodi to use plex. Plexkodiconnect or something along those lines.


----------



## cones

Plex is a "fork" of Kodi. They broke off back in the XBMC days, created a lot of drama in the communities. Also the issue of breaking the software license. Now Plex is supposedly all new code and uses non from Kodi. Hence why they can now charge for features.

As far as a plugin I assume there still is one but personally have no interest in Plex so I don't keep up with current features.


----------



## cdoublejj

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *burksdb*
> 
> someone correct me if im wrong as i havent messed with Kodi much, but there is plugin support for kodi to use plex. Plexkodiconnect or something along those lines.


That was my understanding as well.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cones*
> 
> Plex is a "fork" of Kodi. They broke off back in the XBMC days, created a lot of drama in the communities. Also the issue of breaking the software license. Now Plex is supposedly all new code and uses non from Kodi. Hence why they can now charge for features.
> 
> As far as a plugin I assume there still is one but personally have no interest in Plex so I don't keep up with current features.


I think you can get plex apps for various devices. idk i remember right, but, possibly even the sony ps3 as well.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cdoublejj*
> 
> That was my understanding as well.
> I think you can get plex apps for various devices. idk i remember right, but, possibly even the sony ps3 as well.


I don't know anything about all the dramatics but I do know that plex has replaced netflix and pandora for me.. the only reason I haven't cancelled amazon prime is because I use it for the free 2 day shipping.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

There is Plex Media Server which is the software you use to host/transcode your media and then there is the Plex app you use from various clients to actually access and play the media. Just an FYI for anyone who is confused.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> There is Plex Media Server which is the software you use to host/transcode your media and then there is the Plex app you use from various clients to actually access and play the media. Just an FYI for anyone who is confused.


You don't actually need the app, to access the server you can just as easily use a browser, which is what makes Plex great.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> You don't actually need the app, to access the server you can just as easily use a browser, which is what makes Plex great.


This is true and great for those who mainly watch their content on a computer. But in my opinion, to get the full experience of being able to watch on a big screen TV on the comfort of ones couch/bed, using the Plex apps is the way to go.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> You don't actually need the app, to access the server you can just as easily use a browser, which is what makes Plex great.
> 
> 
> 
> This is true and great for those who mainly watch their content on a computer. But in my opinion, to get the full experience of being able to watch on a big screen TV on the comfort of ones couch/bed, using the Plex apps is the way to go.
Click to expand...

In the future I will build a tiny HTPC for the living room as I never watch TV and that is what the Plex Home Theater was made for.

Edit: the A6-1450 quad core 1.4GHz laptop I have might be just enough for watching films on a TV.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> In the future I will build a tiny HTPC for the living room as I never watch TV and that is what the Plex Home Theater was made for.


I have a Shield TV hooked up to a receiver as my main home theatre solution in my living room right now but I'm considering picking up one of *these*.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> In the future I will build a tiny HTPC for the living room as I never watch TV and that is what the Plex Home Theater was made for.
> 
> 
> 
> I have a Shield TV hooked up to a receiver as my main home theatre solution in my living room right now but I'm considering picking up one of *these*.
Click to expand...

Too expensive for me. If the little A6-1450 isn't good enough to play Plex streams then I will just connect my G40-45 with A8-6410 to the TV though HDMI as that is more than powerful enough to play films and even play some games. Maybe in the future I will build a small purpose made low power, low cost system just as HTPC but right now that's not something I care about.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Too expensive for me. If the little A6-1450 isn't good enough to play Plex streams then I will just connect my G40-45 with A8-6410 to the TV though HDMI as that is more than powerful enough to play films and even play some games. Maybe in the future I will build a small purpose made low power, low cost system just as HTPC but right now that's not something I care about.


I feel you.

So back to media servers, I'll be upgrading the stock CPU heatsink in my two "computing" server nodes from the stock SuperMicro heatsinks to these new CoolJag 2U copper heatsinks this weekend. Here's a pic of what the new ones look like in comparison to the stock one sitting tot he right of it.


----------



## fg2chase

Awesome I fixed all the dead links in the beginning of the thread.. Now you can go back in time and look at the old screenshots.


----------



## fg2chase

Here it is trucking along living life in the closet lol





ugh why are they turned like that?


----------



## fg2chase

Server upgrades performed, PLEX database given dedicated SSD, PLEX transcoder given dedicated SSD, USB 3.0 added,

Turned out pretty nicely, users report it being much more snappy now.


----------



## burksdb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Server upgrades performed, *PLEX database given dedicated SSD, PLEX transcoder given dedicated SSD*, USB 3.0 added, [/img]


Slight overkill but nice


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *burksdb*
> 
> Slight overkill but nice


No such thing.


----------



## Net1Raven

I see drive D and E with 16tb each and I ask you how did you pooled together all these hdd? raid or any other tool?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ElBerryKM13*
> 
> I see drive D and E with 16tb each and I ask you how did you pooled together all these hdd? raid or any other tool?


You haven't seen the new 16TB sata drives?


----------



## MythTFLfan29

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> You haven't seen the new 16TB sata drives?


Pfft we all know that 16 TB drives do not have 15.9 usable....














But that is a lot of storage, I recently bought a 4 TB to add to the 6 TB I have in my HTPC and feel like 10 TB is absurd... Check back with me in 3 years and I'll probably laugh at the 10 TB amount as they'll probably be equivalent to the 2 TB disks now


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MythTFLfan29*
> 
> Pfft we all know that 16 TB drives do not have 15.9 usable....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But that is a lot of storage, I recently bought a 4 TB to add to the 6 TB I have in my HTPC and feel like 10 TB is absurd... Check back with me in 3 years and I'll probably laugh at the 10 TB amount as they'll probably be equivalent to the 2 TB disks now


LOL yeah man I have 12 2TB drives and four 3TB drives in this server.. I started the thread in 2011 back when it was a Pentium 4, it's evolved since then.. you should go check it out especially since i put my webserver back online with all the old images.

I used windows "storage space" which is the latest iteration on windows drive extender that premiered on windows home server in like 2007.

Works like a charm, fast enough for me. two way mirror and I have had ZERO issues with it OR it's predecessor.


----------



## MythTFLfan29

Yeah it's a cool massive setup, I think if I had that in a closet my wife would ask if she should be expecting CIA/FBI to come to our door any day now...


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> No such thing.


I think his point was you are unlikely to see any performance benefit from having the database and transcoder directory on separate SSDs.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> I think his point was you are unlikely to see any performance benefit from having the database and transcoder directory on separate SSDs.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> I think his point was you are unlikely to see any performance benefit from having the database and transcoder directory on separate SSDs.


I really just did that to keep the IO as separate as possible, the transcoder is constantly being written to all day (I have 43 users so a few are always on) and to reduce the chance of database corruption and the SSD's eventual MTBF will likely be sooner.


----------



## fg2chase

Starting to have issues with the server rebooting late at night and then hanging on the BIOS start screen. Weird.. I have to press the reset button on the server and it starts right back up and is in windows in 10-12 seconds being totally normal.

I am running Passmark burn in test now to see if maybe it's a power issue or something making it unstable. It is only happening late at night and early in the morning so I also uninstalled my UPS software thinking maybe that was it. Checked event viewer and it just says that it stopped abruptly and generated error 41.

Will run prime 95 after this and see if that makes it fall on it's ass. So far I have 2 mins left on the test and there are no errors.


----------



## fg2chase

Just ran prime 95 for an hour straight and had no issues whatsoever. Hell the CPU only got to 114F and the motherboard 116F. No issues.

I am scratching my head now. That kind of rules out the hardware being an issue?


----------



## bobfig

if you have a raid/expander card that could be the one thing that can cause a hang during boot.


----------



## fg2chase

it isn't hanging up on boot usually. I am primarily concerned with why the system is randomly rebooting between 1020PM - 0300 AM


----------



## cones

You said it was Windows? Probably some random your system has to reboot for updates.


----------



## fg2chase

I have had the updates disabled since october.


----------



## fg2chase

I am going to let it update, maybe there is some kind of stability update. I remember disabling it on my W10 machines because of that big rollout they did ended up breaking all my computers and I had to reformat.


----------



## fg2chase

Server stayed on all night and acronis did it's scheduled image backup so idk... so weird.

Windows update did complete and so far no issues.


----------



## fg2chase

it rebooted again and I found this

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000000a (0x0000000000000048, 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000, 0xfffff80318c27eb9). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: e0970209-7c09-46e5-b0c1-85c89dd30d0c.

www.hispeedchase.com/memory.dmp

I saved the file there if you want to help me look at it.


----------



## fg2chase

tracked it down to potentially being a outdated bios, I thought I had the latest one but apparently not, so now that I am updated to the latest we wait and see if the issue comes back.


----------



## technodanvan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> tracked it down to potentially being a outdated bios, I thought I had the latest one but apparently not, so now that I am updated to the latest we wait and see if the issue comes back.


Seems like an odd thing to all of a sudden cause problems like that. If there is a battery on your board I would see if it needs replaced.

I wish I had the patience to keep a proper server but I've finally just got tired of the maintenance and the size. I have a 2x 6 core Xeon server, but have swapped over to a Synology DS1815+ with 6 8TB disks in it (so far). I plan on either moving Plex operations to my desktop or setting up a much smaller, more efficient system for that purpose.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *technodanvan*
> 
> Seems like an odd thing to all of a sudden cause problems like that. If there is a battery on your board I would see if it needs replaced.
> 
> I wish I had the patience to keep a proper server but I've finally just got tired of the maintenance and the size. I have a 2x 6 core Xeon server, but have swapped over to a Synology DS1815+ with 6 8TB disks in it (so far). I plan on either moving Plex operations to my desktop or setting up a much smaller, more efficient system for that purpose.


Back in Early January I went from a 925 Quad core Phenom 2 to a 1090T and just tossed it in there and went. hoping that is the problem


----------



## OrangeRaptor

I need 5 pb for personal reasons


----------



## fg2chase

1006 was the old one, the latest here seems to specify it improves stability.


----------



## fg2chase

Performing GREAT! Love this thing! can't wait to get my second internet connection on Tuesday for Dual WAN load balancing.


----------



## Liranan

Why is it transcoding? I've never seen that happen on my sever.


----------



## Prophet4NO1

Mine transcodes all the time unless it can direct stream. Just depends on the device. All my content is in MKV files with no compression.


----------



## Liranan

Oh right, I see. That is one capable CPU, my quad core can only transcode two streams.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Oh right, I see. That is one capable CPU, my quad core can only transcode two streams.


looks like you have the newer DD3 version of my server board, you could put a 1090T or 1100T in that thing easily.

Also, the damn thing restarted at 548AM again this morning. I think my next step is to take it apart and maybe put my spare motherboard in it. idk.. im getting pissed.


----------



## Liranan

Actually what I intend to do is replace the board in the server with my CHV once I replace my system with Zen. The CPU consumes a lot of power but I intend to underclock and undervolt it so it uses less power and has a lot of encoding power. Considering most people who use my server have connections and PC's fast enough to view native resolution streams the CPU doesn't need to work that hard but once there are loads of people accessing the server it's better to have the power than have people unhappy with you.


----------



## bobfig

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> looks like you have the newer DD3 version of my server board, you could put a 1090T or 1100T in that thing easily.
> 
> Also, the damn thing restarted at 548AM again this morning. I think my next step is to take it apart and maybe put my spare motherboard in it. idk.. im getting pissed.


why not look into the event viewer and see if you can see what is going on that way. but since you are using win 10 it may just be updates happening and its auto restarting when the slow time is set on the computer


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *bobfig*
> 
> why not look into the event viewer and see if you can see what is going on that way. but since you are using win 10 it may just be updates happening and its auto restarting when the slow time is set on the computer


I have done that and all that shows up is error 41, it's not just updates. Error 41 just means it recovered from an unexpected shutdown. IT basically just falls on it it's ass.

I am about to order this motherboard and see if maybe that is the problem.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131942


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *bobfig*
> 
> why not look into the event viewer and see if you can see what is going on that way. but since you are using win 10 it may just be updates happening and its auto restarting when the slow time is set on the computer
> 
> 
> 
> I have done that and all that shows up is error 41, it's not just updates. Error 41 just means it recovered from an unexpected shutdown. IT basically just falls on it it's ass.
> 
> I am about to order this motherboard and see if maybe that is the problem.
> 
> https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131942
Click to expand...

It's a great board that has served me very well. While mine is second hand it's been stable and not crashed yet. It also supports ECC RAM in case you buy ECC RAM instead of non-ECC RAM. If you don't have spare DDR3 you could look into that as there is barely a price difference between ECC and non-ECC. Sadly the board is impossible to find new so I had no choice but to buy it second hand. The only alternative was the LX version but as the one you're going to get is the better version I got that.

Interestingly I was under the impression the board only supports 16GB RAM but it's actually 32GB.

Here is the Asus page:

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A78LMUSB3/specifications/


----------



## fg2chase

I put part of the log online if anyone wants to take a crack at it.. It's from last night into this morning

http://www.hispeedchase.com/***

okay apparently *** isn't allowed.. It's whiskey tango foxtrot if said phonetically.


----------



## fg2chase

my friend and I think it might be the power supply, I have been using the TX750 Corsair since 2009 with only a 2 year break in there somewhere.


----------



## Liranan

Accessing your logs results in this:

Quote:


> *Forbidden*
> 
> You don't have permission to access /*** on this server.


Windows crashes every day at the same time?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Accessing your logs results in this:
> 
> Windows crashes every day at the same time?


no it's random, sometimes it takes a week or two and sometimes it happens three times a night but it's usually between 2-5am. Also I don't think it's windows crashing, I think it's something else because when windows crashes it leaves a dump and puts an entry in the log.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Accessing your logs results in this:
> 
> Windows crashes every day at the same time?


here is the new url for the logs

hispeedchase.com/crashlog


----------



## fg2chase

well it did it again, I hooked up a monitor to it and this is what I discovered.

https://youtu.be/hWiLwMRiKE4

little artifacts on on the screen, totally non responsive of course.


----------



## fg2chase

I am so damn angered by this, I just ordered another motherboard with the Sb710 chipset and the same layout so I could plug and play and avoid a reinstall.. at least the new board supports DDR3 and AM3+ cpus so that's a plus. I also ordred an enermax RevolutionXt 750W..


----------



## cdoublejj

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> I am so damn angered by this, I just ordered another motherboard with the Sb710 chipset and the same layout so I could plug and play and avoid a reinstall.. at least the new board supports DDR3 and AM3+ cpus so that's a plus. I also ordred an enermax RevolutionXt 750W..


assuming you are running an os or hypervisor other than windows that sucks. IF you are running windows, https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html?s=6860e4c6e70e4be93ade4b0698954bd3


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cdoublejj*
> 
> assuming you are running an os or hypervisor other than windows that sucks. IF you are running windows, https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html?s=6860e4c6e70e4be93ade4b0698954bd3


Thanks man, done it before with windows. if is the same chipset it usually just reboots once and then that is all there is to it.


----------



## Liranan

I can't get the crashlog to load but Emmie is cute. How old is she?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I can't get the crashlog to load but Emmie is cute. How old is she?


where'd ya see that? eh


----------



## Liranan

When did you replace your 955 with the 1090 and did the crashing start after that? If so then it could well be a defective 1090, if it's not defective then it could, indeed, be the board that is defective and you didn't notice it until you put in the 1090.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> When did you replace your 955 with the 1090 and did the crashing start after that? If so then it could well be a defective 1090, if it's not defective then it could, indeed, be the board that is defective and you didn't notice it until you put in the 1090.


Come to think of it It did start rebooting then.... but not very frequently. Doesn't matter though, got an 8350 coming tomorrow


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> When did you replace your 955 with the 1090 and did the crashing start after that? If so then it could well be a defective 1090, if it's not defective then it could, indeed, be the board that is defective and you didn't notice it until you put in the 1090.
> 
> 
> 
> Come to think of it It did start rebooting then.... but not very frequently. Doesn't matter though, got an 8350 coming tomorrow
Click to expand...

So the problem could be a defective CPU or motherboard that wasn't stressed enough to fail.

Why don't you wait for Zen? It will be out in about two weeks and then you can replace your 8350 with Zen and put the 8350 in the server?


----------



## fg2chase

I think I was able to track down the problem, the back panel was putting too much pressure on the board and flexing it.

and the new 8350 IS going in the server.. this weekend.


----------



## Liranan

Regardless of what is said Vishera has higher IPC than anything prior and it has two cores more than the 1090 so it will be able to handle more streams either way.

I hope that Zen performs as expected, in which case the refined version of Zen (Zen 2.0) will be even better. Even though I am waiting for that chip I still won't have the money to buy two, which is sad as I'd love to have an 8 core, 16 thread in my desktop and server. I would invite every single person I know to the server and allow them to watch the collection I'm slowly amassing.


----------



## fg2chase

Okay got the new server in... The old one has NOT rebooted since I took it all the way apart the other day.


----------



## Liranan

Definitely looks better than mine because it's new and you are putting those copper heatsinks on it. I haven't bothered with that yet but it's something I should look into.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Definitely looks better than mine because it's new and you are putting those copper heatsinks on it. I haven't bothered with that yet but it's something I should look into.


it's good piece of mind. I put them all over and have for years, have quite a collection of them now. I even use a hairdryer to loosen up the sticky on the old ones and then place them on the new boards.


----------



## Liranan

I can't find heatsinks as tall as yours, the ones I find are short ones. They're cheap at like 6 USD and their performance will mirror their price.


----------



## fg2chase

here ya go brotha

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835708012


----------



## fg2chase

You guys like my router? I finished it on monday. Dual WAN load balancing both DSL and Cable.


----------



## Liranan

This is the best I can find here:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA3TR18A6845

Nice router, makes me feel I want to go back to experimenting with pfSense again.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> This is the best I can find here:
> https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA3TR18A6845
> 
> Nice router, makes me feel I want to go back to experimenting with pfSense again.


Why can't you get the ones I showed you a few post up? Are you really in China?


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> This is the best I can find here:
> https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA3TR18A6845
> 
> Nice router, makes me feel I want to go back to experimenting with pfSense again.
> 
> 
> 
> Why can't you get the ones I showed you a few post up? Are you really in China?
Click to expand...

I have been in China for over a decade, mate.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I have been in China for over a decade, mate.


is it possible for me to get some and mail them to you?

also check out these temps



They are accurate I left the A/C on full blast lol


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I have been in China for over a decade, mate.
> 
> 
> 
> is it possible for me to get some and mail them to you?
> 
> also check out these temps
> 
> 
> 
> They are accurate I left the A/C on full blast lol
Click to expand...











I think those are the temps I will get if I put my overclocked 8320 in the freezer and ran Cinebench.

You could mail them but they would take several weeks to get here and I have no idea how to pay you for them as I don't have Paypal.


----------



## fg2chase

update, the server has not rebooted by itself or locked up in over a week now.

the problem was definitely the cable management on the back cover and it was too tight causing some kind of short. I think


----------



## Liranan

That is fantastic. How is the server with the new 8350?


----------



## fg2chase

I didn't install that, this is on the original 1090T still..

What would cause the system to restart immediately upon a USB device being inserted? It just did that and I am scratching my head.


----------



## Liranan

Does it keep restarting? I've never experienced this before myself.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Does it keep restarting? I've never experienced this before myself.


lol well now it only restarts when I plug a USB device in. so weird.


----------



## fg2chase

I did some cable management on my firewall.. You guys like the switch on the side or on the top?


----------



## Liranan

Does the system restart when you insert a USB drive in all the ports or only certain ones? I'm wondering if there is a short somewhere that is causing the system to go crazy or whether it's a software crash.

Which switch is that? I have a cheap TP-Link switch that randomly switches some of its ports to 100Mbit instead of running at full Gigabit, thinking of replacing it with something of good quality.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Does the system restart when you insert a USB drive in all the ports or only certain ones? I'm wondering if there is a short somewhere that is causing the system to go crazy or whether it's a software crash.
> 
> Which switch is that? I have a cheap TP-Link switch that randomly switches some of its ports to 100Mbit instead of running at full Gigabit, thinking of replacing it with something of good quality.


Yes, every port usb 2 and 3.0 and about 80% of the time.

yeah that is a cheap TP link gigabit switch but it works. I also have this one that I bought to match the AP.


----------



## Liranan

Does the system restart with the IO shield removed and does it do this with external HD's or only USB drives?


----------



## fg2chase

It does it with external hard drives and I don't have an IO shield I lost it.


----------



## Liranan

Sounds like a short as the system can't handle the surge in power. How old is the board?


----------



## fg2chase

The board has about 3 years of total use, the PSU is from 2009 but I did buy a new Enermax PSU the other day to go with the new 8350 AM3+ board, I halted the install when this one started running ok.. I might just have to go for it and install it.


----------



## Liranan

There is one way you can test whether it's a hard- or software failure. Start the PC with a Linux distro and then plug USB drives in the ports. If it restarts again then it's a definite hardware failure, if it doesn't then obviously it's a software problem.


----------



## fg2chase

yeah, tbh it's probably the PSU riding right on the edge of what it can provide. it's a 750W but one of the rails might be right at its rating and with it's age it has probably lost efficiency. Might need to put the Enermax in there.


----------



## Liranan

I just realised the PSU is 7 years old, I totally missed that. If it's been on 24/7 the past few years it will have had lots of strain put on it so I wouldn't be surprised if it's at the end of its life. My media server has a 30 USD Super Flower 400W thing for the moment as I only have four 7200 RPM and one 5400 RPM drive in it. Once I get a few more drives I will consider whether getting a new PSU is worth it but that will be in a year or two the way I'm going (I'm very picky which media I put on my server as I don't just want to fill it with anything and everything I come across).


----------



## fg2chase

Well early 2009... it's actually 8 going on 9! And yeah it's been on pretty much the whole time except 2015

It's a Corsair! Should last forever


----------



## Liranan

It's even older than I thought, it's definitely due for retirement. Fortunately you have a replacement. This does prove that if you buy quality you spend more but it will last an incredibly long time and thus worth it.


----------



## fg2chase

I am expecting a $70,000 deposit soon, I think I may just wait it out and build a whole never server from scratch. I really don't feel like ripping the whole system apart to install a new PSU.


----------



## Liranan

If you're going to do that you just might as well put the 8350 in as well, though with 70 thousand you can build one hell of a Ryzen system, unless you want Xeon.


----------



## fg2chase

Yeah I already bought the 8350 and board so I might as well build it.


----------



## Liranan

My fear is that Ryzen won't be ECC compatible, I hope AMD continue their tradition by keeping ECC enabled in the IMC as I really would like to build a very nice Ryzen system in the future.


----------



## fg2chase

I have never really had the need for ECC, I have every bit of data I have ever wanted to keep since 1996. I backup my server to a few 8TB drives every month and then keep those at the office or at my girlfriends.


----------



## fg2chase

It randomly restarted again this time at 530PM yesterday..

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000004e (0x0000000000000099, 0x000000000007838b, 0x0000000000000002, 0x0a00015000159b8c). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\022717-16921-01.dmp. Report Id: 82838f7d-0a27-4410-be8c-1ae1c569eaa4.

This was in the logs.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2853579/-0x0000004e-stop-error-when-shadow-copying-fails-on-a-computer-that-is-running-windows-server-2012

Is what that means.. which I don't know what that means.


----------



## 86JR

I need a 30TB server

But on the other end of a >100mbps line which gets expensive.

I currently have 100gb on the end of a 10gbps line which is fantastic when it needs to be! A consistent 555MB/s (bytes not bits) is the record so far.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *86JR*
> 
> I need a 30TB server
> 
> But on the other end of a >100mbps line which gets expensive.
> 
> I currently have 100gb on the end of a 10gbps line which is fantastic when it needs to be! A consistent 555MB/s (bytes not bits) is the record so far.


I bet this is extortionate where I am.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> It randomly restarted again this time at 530PM yesterday..
> 
> The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000004e (0x0000000000000099, 0x000000000007838b, 0x0000000000000002, 0x0a00015000159b8c). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\022717-16921-01.dmp. Report Id: 82838f7d-0a27-4410-be8c-1ae1c569eaa4.
> 
> This was in the logs.
> 
> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2853579/-0x0000004e-stop-error-when-shadow-copying-fails-on-a-computer-that-is-running-windows-server-2012
> 
> Is what that means.. which I don't know what that means.


Sounds like a software failure. Time to reinstall the OS?


----------



## fg2chase

Ordered an 8TB external from Amazon to archive my data and got these in the box from Amazon. I'm not pleased,

14 year old IDE maxtor drives


----------



## cones

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> 
> 
> Ordered an 8TB external from Amazon to archive my data and got these in the box from Amazon. I'm not pleased,
> 
> 14 year old IDE maxtor drives


They might be worth the same now







Just shows that you get a return.


----------



## Liranan

I have to admit I laughed as it's ridiculous. Did they think you wouldn't notice the difference?

Zen is glorious! I want a 1700 for my Plex server but no money


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I have to admit I laughed as it's ridiculous. Did they think you wouldn't notice the difference?
> 
> Zen is glorious! I want a 1700 for my Plex server but no money


it looks good for a server CPU but for gaming it sucks. Bulldozer 2.0


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I have to admit I laughed as it's ridiculous. Did they think you wouldn't notice the difference?
> 
> Zen is glorious! I want a 1700 for my Plex server but no money
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> it looks good for a server CPU but for gaming it sucks. Bulldozer 2.0
Click to expand...

That is what BD was too, it was a server chip that was sold as a desktop chip. I am not disappointed with Zen at all, I think AMD have done well and for our use it's amazing value. Zen 2 should be even better, just like every single chip, so I am going to wait another year before I buy.

Now I need to find more users for my server.


----------



## fg2chase

need some opinions...

I had some issues with rebooting a while back as some of you may know. That has been totally solved at this point and the only time it reboots is when W10 forces them.

anyhow, I impulse ordered a new board, ram, PSU and ram during all that and that stuff has just been sitting on my desk since then. Think its worth it to install it and go from a 1090T to the 8350?


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> need some opinions...
> 
> I had some issues with rebooting a while back as some of you may know. That has been totally solved at this point and the only time it reboots is when W10 forces them.
> 
> anyhow, I impulse ordered a new board, ram, PSU and ram during all that and that stuff has just been sitting on my desk since then. Think its worth it to install it and go from a 1090T to the 8350?


If the 1090 is struggling then it's definitely worth it. If not you can still replace the 1090 with the 8350 and undervolt/underclock the 8350 as it will still outperform the 1090 simply due to its two extra cores.

If you don't have a need for the 8350 you could try to sell it though with Zen I assume the value of FX chips has plummeted greatly, at least I couldn't find a buyer for my system and I wasn't even serious about selling my system (waiting for Zen 2).


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> If the 1090 is struggling then it's definitely worth it. If not you can still replace the 1090 with the 8350 and undervolt/underclock the 8350 as it will still outperform the 1090 simply due to its two extra cores.
> 
> If you don't have a need for the 8350 you could try to sell it though with Zen I assume the value of FX chips has plummeted greatly, at least I couldn't find a buyer for my system and I wasn't even serious about selling my system (waiting for Zen 2).


it isn't struggling I just have this hardware as a spare I guess... A motherboard can go at anytime I suppose.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> If the 1090 is struggling then it's definitely worth it. If not you can still replace the 1090 with the 8350 and undervolt/underclock the 8350 as it will still outperform the 1090 simply due to its two extra cores.
> 
> If you don't have a need for the 8350 you could try to sell it though with Zen I assume the value of FX chips has plummeted greatly, at least I couldn't find a buyer for my system and I wasn't even serious about selling my system (waiting for Zen 2).
> 
> 
> 
> it isn't struggling I just have this hardware as a spare I guess... A motherboard can go at anytime I suppose.
Click to expand...

The biggest problem with FX chips is that they consume a lot of power. So, I will definitely underclock and undervolt mine when I put it in my server. While my electricity bill doesn't bother me that much I the heat FX chips produce does bother me.


----------



## Duality92

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> The biggest problem with FX chips is that they consume a lot of power. So, I will definitely underclock and undervolt mine when I put it in my server. While my electricity bill doesn't bother me that much I the heat FX chips produce does bother me.


I was able to run my FX-6350 (stable) at 4.0 GHz with 1.1v. With that kind of voltage, you should be able to see significantly less power draw.

If you deem your CPU needs at 3.5 GHz, just need decreasing voltage until your stability tests fail, when you've found your minimum voltage, add .05v to ensure your server is ultra stable.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Duality92*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> The biggest problem with FX chips is that they consume a lot of power. So, I will definitely underclock and undervolt mine when I put it in my server. While my electricity bill doesn't bother me that much I the heat FX chips produce does bother me.
> 
> 
> 
> I was able to run my FX-6350 (stable) at 4.0 GHz with 1.1v. With that kind of voltage, you should be able to see significantly less power draw.
> 
> If you deem your CPU needs at 3.5 GHz, just need decreasing voltage until your stability tests fail, when you've found your minimum voltage, add .05v to ensure your server is ultra stable.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, I will definitely do exactly this. I would rather run my CPU at stock than even a slight OC because a server will need stability over everything else.


----------



## fg2chase

I don't think I will ever downclock a CPU or worry about it's heat output, the server has an H70 on it and it runs about 80F right now under load. I am not concerned with power draw really either.


----------



## GreedyMuffin

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> it looks good for a server CPU but for gaming it sucks. Bulldozer 2.0


Nice thread! But I had to comment on that one. I got a 1700 in my custom watercooled rig along with a GTX1080Ti. No issues gaming at 1440P with this setup. I changed from a 7700K due to the 7700K reaching 100% CPU usage in BF1 with my old 1080 (non-ti).


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> I don't think I will ever downclock a CPU or worry about it's heat output, the server has an H70 on it and it runs about 80F right now under load. I am not concerned with power draw really either.


Then your ambient temperatures must be lower than mine because my H70 can barely handle the 955BE in the server at stock.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *GreedyMuffin*
> 
> Nice thread! But I had to comment on that one. I got a 1700 in my custom watercooled rig along with a GTX1080Ti. No issues gaming at 1440P with this setup. I changed from a 7700K due to the 7700K reaching 100% CPU usage in BF1 with my old 1080 (non-ti).


IDK man I think I might have just been a little emotional after seeing all those disappointing reviews right as it hit the market.

premature comment, ill admit that. I remember waiting and waiting for Bulldozer only to get it and see it underperform compared to Intel chips that were a few years older. By then I was stuck because I didn't make but 35k a year at the time.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Then your ambient temperatures must be lower than mine because my H70 can barely handle the 955BE in the server at stock.


Ambient temps are about 65F year round, even cooler if I can.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Then your ambient temperatures must be lower than mine because my H70 can barely handle the 955BE in the server at stock.
> 
> 
> 
> Ambient temps are about 65F year round, even cooler if I can.
Click to expand...

I had to look it up but it comes to less than 20C, which is less than half of my ambient temperature in summer so that's how your H70 can manage with the heat but mine can't, which is why I got this H220-X.


----------



## b0oMeR

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> IDK man I think I might have just been a little emotional after seeing all those disappointing reviews right as it hit the market.
> 
> premature comment, ill admit that. I remember waiting and waiting for Bulldozer only to get it and see it underperform compared to Intel chips that were a few years older. By then I was stuck because I didn't make but 35k a year at the time.


Think it is less about having issues, it is a high end CPU, shouldn't be having issues. It is more about out performance. The CPU is the least upgraded part of a PC, spending marginally extra to get some extra power is what I'd rather do. If money is a worry then look to step down on the GPU, you can always SLI later, you can't add another CPU.


----------



## fg2chase

You guys have any idea why plex would stop serving files? It randomly "goes offline" even though the application is still shown as running and the server is up just fine. (I can even remote desktop into it). Restarting the program fixes the issue but it's not available to stream from when this happens.

Weird.


----------



## Ubeermench

Have you tried updating plex or reinstalling it?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Ubeermench*
> 
> Have you tried updating plex or reinstalling it?


I didn't reinstall it but It did update recently.


----------



## Ubeermench

I would try a rollback and see if that fixes it. Have you recently changed anything else?


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Ubeermench*
> 
> Have you tried updating plex or reinstalling it?
> 
> 
> 
> I didn't reinstall it but It did update recently.
Click to expand...

As has been said, go bad to the previous version of that wasn't problematic. I waited several weeks before updating Plex because I allowed others to test it first to ensure it wouldn't cause problems (actually this is what I always do).


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> As has been said, go bad to the previous version of that wasn't problematic. I waited several weeks before updating Plex because I allowed others to test it first to ensure it wouldn't cause problems (actually this is what I always do).


Alrighty.. thank you

Can I just roll it back or does it need to be reinstalled?


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> As has been said, go bad to the previous version of that wasn't problematic. I waited several weeks before updating Plex because I allowed others to test it first to ensure it wouldn't cause problems (actually this is what I always do).
> 
> 
> 
> Alrighty.. thank you
> 
> Can I just roll it back or does it need to be reinstalled?
Click to expand...

I don't actually know as I've never tried but if you do need to reinstall do back up all that meta data just in case. It seems to be possible to just uninstall the old version and reinstall the new one.

https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/73802/how-to-roll-back-plex-media-server


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I don't actually know as I've never tried but if you do need to reinstall do back up all that meta data just in case. It seems to be possible to just uninstall the old version and reinstall the new one.
> 
> https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/73802/how-to-roll-back-plex-media-server


Yeah I have the database on its own dedicated SSD apart from the plex installation, then that SSD is backed up and I have the back ups backed up too! I am paranoid, if it does it again I will reinstall.

thanks..

You guys wanna see what I am working on now? I am gonna make another thread but here is a preview.


----------



## Liranan

A new NAS? Actually it's a good idea to use an SSD to store Plex's data on, sometimes it takes a while for data to load but I think 32GB is a little on the small side, I can imagine it filling up very fast.

By the way do 8i RAID cards mean that you can only connect 8 drives to them? I found the answer and I am disappointed but not surprised so now I know that in the future I should look at 8 port SATA cards rather than a RAID card that will need flashing to HBA mode.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> A new NAS? Actually it's a good idea to use an SSD to store Plex's data on, sometimes it takes a while for data to load but I think 32GB is a little on the small side, I can imagine it filling up very fast.
> 
> By the way do 8i RAID cards mean that you can only connect 8 drives to them? I found the answer and I am disappointed but not surprised so now I know that in the future I should look at 8 port SATA cards rather than a RAID card that will need flashing to HBA mode.


nah Pentium 2 1997 gaming rig.

My plex data is on a 480GB SSD, my database is almost 200GB

I have no idea what an 8i RAID car is....


----------



## Liranan

I thought those were IDE cables but I dismissed the thought.

LSI 9211-8i for example means 2 SAS ports allowing 8 drives.

This is an 8i card:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118230

8 Port SATA card:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124070

In my case I think the second option is the better one as I won't use the cards RAID functions anyway. I am still a few months away from buying a card but better to start doing research now than get the wrong thing later.


----------



## cones

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I thought those were IDE cables but I dismissed the thought.
> 
> LSI 9211-8i for example means 2 SAS ports allowing 8 drives.
> 
> This is an 8i card:
> https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118230
> 
> 8 Port SATA card:
> https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124070
> 
> In my case I think the second option is the better one as I won't use the cards RAID functions anyway. I am still a few months away from buying a card but better to start doing research now than get the wrong thing later.


If I'm correct the second card will probably be slower for the disks. You can use SAS expanders and get more drives per card.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cones*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I thought those were IDE cables but I dismissed the thought.
> 
> LSI 9211-8i for example means 2 SAS ports allowing 8 drives.
> 
> This is an 8i card:
> https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118230
> 
> 8 Port SATA card:
> https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124070
> 
> In my case I think the second option is the better one as I won't use the cards RAID functions anyway. I am still a few months away from buying a card but better to start doing research now than get the wrong thing later.
> 
> 
> 
> If I'm correct the second card will probably be slower for the disks. You can use SAS expanders and get more drives per card.
Click to expand...

I typed in expander in Bing translate, put that in Taobao and got some hilarious results. Let's just say they have nothing to do with SAS, are NSFW and would definitely earn me infractions


----------



## Liranan

Have you ever experienced seek error rates? One of my new drives is making awful noises and SMART is saying that it's got extremely high seek error rates and that failure is imminent. These drives are new and one is already failing, a little unhappy about it.


----------



## cones

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I typed in expander in Bing translate, put that in Taobao and got some hilarious results. Let's just say they have nothing to do with SAS, are NSFW and would definitely earn me infractions


We don't need to know what you look at when you're alone on the internet


----------



## Liranan

I think I've found the cause of all of my drive's premature deaths: vibration. I am going to get some pads to stick under the case and some elastic bands to see if I can reduce vibration. I really don't want to buy a new case yet despite the one I currently have being low end (15 USD). But as it can hold 12 drives it's the best I found short of spending 100 USD.

I am going to buy some elastic bands and see if that solves the problem as per the following site:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article8-page2.html

I will also buy some rubber like the picture below and stick them to the bottom of the case:



They are available in different shapes and sizes and are adhesive so I won't need to use glue, which is convenient. If necessary I will stick two together to raise the case further from the ground and as they can be obtained in massive quantities for cheap, depending on the size, I will experiment with these too. I just need to measure the feet of the case to get the right ones.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Have you ever experienced seek error rates? One of my new drives is making awful noises and SMART is saying that it's got extremely high seek error rates and that failure is imminent. These drives are new and one is already failing, a little unhappy about it.


The first sign of trouble from a drive I replace it... I keep spares handy
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I think I've found the cause of all of my drive's premature deaths: vibration. I am going to get some pads to stick under the case and some elastic bands to see if I can reduce vibration. I really don't want to buy a new case yet despite the one I currently have being low end (15 USD). But as it can hold 12 drives it's the best I found short of spending 100 USD.
> 
> I am going to buy some elastic bands and see if that solves the problem as per the following site:
> http://www.silentpcreview.com/article8-page2.html
> 
> I will also buy some rubber like the picture below and stick them to the bottom of the case:
> 
> 
> They are available in different shapes and sizes and are adhesive so I won't need to use glue, which is convenient. If necessary I will stick two together to raise the case further from the ground and as they can be obtained in massive quantities for cheap, depending on the size, I will experiment with these too. I just need to measure the feet of the case to get the right ones.


yep I was just about to suggest that, I made sure the cages that I bought had good rubber grommets to prevent this. Turns out I was right and even my LP green drives ran for 7-8 years.. most are still okay even.


----------



## Liranan

I'm going to buy a new one before I even RMA the defective one just in case one of the other two is defective and I could do with another drive anyway.

Can you post a photo of your grommet, please?

Interestingly I find us two discussing our servers far more informational and educational than the general 'Post Your Server' thread.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I'm going to buy a new one before I even RMA the defective one just in case one of the other two is defective and I could do with another drive anyway.
> 
> Can you post a photo of your grommet, please?
> 
> Interestingly I find us two discussing our servers far more informational and educational than the general 'Post Your Server' thread.


They came in some Xigmatek Cages... eh... I would have to take the side off the server and unhook everything to do that. let me see if I can find a stock image

https://www.amazon.com/Xigmatek-Cage-Hard-Drive-CCA-EMFCB-U01/product-reviews/B0078IWQGI

The grommets are in this drive cage, lots of rubber to insulate the drive(s) from bare metal.I have 4 of these.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> They came in some Xigmatek Cages... eh... I would have to take the side off the server and unhook everything to do that. let me see if I can find a stock image
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/Xigmatek-Cage-Hard-Drive-CCA-EMFCB-U01/product-reviews/B0078IWQGI
> 
> The grommets are in this drive cage, lots of rubber to insulate the drive(s) from bare metal.I have 4 of these.


Lots of these cages around for quite cheap. A while ago I saw one that could convert 2 5.25" bays into 3 3.5" ones but I can't find it again sadly. I've ordered a pack of 95x21mm rubber pads that I will stick to the bottom of the case. I will remove the hard plastic feet and use these instead, as this should heavily reduce the case vibrating.

As for the HD's themselves. I think suspending them isn't viable due to space constraints so I need to look at another solution.


----------



## bobfig

you could change the drive bays over to some quick change bays that are made for servers. i had a coolermaster drive bay like the xegmatek you posted and i think it started giving me drive errors after a while. got a supermicro quick change drive cage and it has been awesome. just it is a little long and needed a fan change to make quieter.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.TRS0&_nkw=CSE-M35T-1B+&_sacat=0


----------



## fg2chase

Check this out if you'd like

http://www.overclock.net/t/1627223/my-take-on-a-late-90s-pc


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *bobfig*
> 
> you could change the drive bays over to some quick change bays that are made for servers. i had a coolermaster drive bay like the xegmatek you posted and i think it started giving me drive errors after a while. got a supermicro quick change drive cage and it has been awesome. just it is a little long and needed a fan change to make quieter.
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.TRS0&_nkw=CSE-M35T-1B+&_sacat=0


It's hard to find non-proprietary HD cages. The only standard ones I can find are ones like this:



Others are Dell or HP server proprietary ones that are made specifically for 4U chassis.


----------



## parityboy

*@Liranan*

Is this the kind of thing you're talking about? I've used these in the past with great results.


----------



## BLinux

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> *@Liranan*
> 
> Is this the kind of thing you're talking about? I've used these in the past with great results.


i had the 2.5" drive version of that and the plastic eventually gets brittle and breaks. I've since gone with the ones that are all aluminum.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> *@Liranan*
> 
> Is this the kind of thing you're talking about? I've used these in the past with great results.


Something like that would be perfect but these generic ones are impossible to find. The only ones I can find here are Dell and HP server ones, which are not useful to me without modding and I do not have the tools to cut them.

Edit: Now I wish I'd bought a 4U chassis to begin with, I wouldn't have this problem and some can be had for quite cheap, though they aren't easy to work with.


----------



## parityboy

*@Liranan*

Could you ship them in from Hong Kong? If so, how about this?


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> *@Liranan*
> 
> Could you ship them in from Hong Kong? If so, how about this?


For the same price as these I can get a 24 bay 4U chassis:



I should have bought the following:





It is a low end 4U 15 bay chassis but the price is unbeatable and if it suffers from vibrations I know how to deal with it now. The bays aren't hot swappable but they can rotate, which is just epic and it only costs 40 USD. Right now I have other priorities (buy MOAR 3TB's) so I won't buy it yet.


----------



## parityboy

*@Liranan*

That's incredible that you can get something like that for that price. That would never happen where I live.


----------



## Liranan

Actually I found it right before posting it. What is amazing about it is that the HD cage swivels, making access really easy, the case has a filter at the front and lots of fans. The price difference between the 15 drive and 24 drive 4U chassis is pretty big (over 100 USD) but as the 24 bay one is hot swappable it is the right case for such large numbers of drives.


----------



## parityboy

*@Liranan*

To be honest, anything over four drives that isn't hot-swappable isn't worth buying. It's a real pain when you cannot positively identify a failing drive in an array.


----------



## Liranan

You remind me, while I only have three drives I need to tag them just in case. The more drives I get the harder it becomes to troubleshoot later without knowing which drive is which.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> *@Liranan*
> 
> To be honest, anything over four drives that isn't hot-swappable isn't worth buying. It's a real pain when you cannot positively identify a failing drive in an array.


Believe it or not I use a doctors stethoscope for that, put it on a drive and you can hear the one that doesn't sound like the rest.


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Believe it or not I use a doctors stethoscope for that, put it on a drive and you can hear the one that doesn't sound like the rest.


Technology at its finest.







Seriously though, a hot-swap bay with activity lights and _hdparm_ can't be beat.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> Technology at its finest.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Seriously though, a hot-swap bay with activity lights and _hdparm_ can't be beat.


Mine wasn't that much, but yeah.. I don't use hotswap bays in this current server, when I redo it and build another one I will have them.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> Technology at its finest.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Seriously though, a hot-swap bay with activity lights and _hdparm_ can't be beat.


http://www.scrubsandbeyond.com/prestige-neon-sprague-rappaport-stethoscopes.html?gclid=CJ2Elt7QltMCFY6FswodCjgBEQ

here is mine, works.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> Technology at its finest.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Seriously though, a hot-swap bay with activity lights and hdparm can't be beat.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.scrubsandbeyond.com/prestige-neon-sprague-rappaport-stethoscopes.html?gclid=CJ2Elt7QltMCFY6FswodCjgBEQ
> 
> here is mine, works.
Click to expand...

That is just wicked, I need to find a pink one too







.

Anyway, even if you use hot swap bays you still need to know which drive is which so you still need to label the drives.


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> That is just wicked, I need to find a pink one too
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .
> 
> Anyway, even if you use hot swap bays you still need to know which drive is which so you still need to label the drives.


No you don't.







Once you know which assignment is defective, just do "hdparm -t /dev/sd_x_". The activity light will flash according to the access pattern generated by _hdparm_, which will be different from the other drives. Easy.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> That is just wicked, I need to find a pink one too
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .
> 
> Anyway, even if you use hot swap bays you still need to know which drive is which so you still need to label the drives.
> 
> 
> 
> No you don't.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Once you know which assignment is defective, just do "hdparm -t /dev/sdx". The activity light will flash according to the access pattern generated by hdparm, which will be different from the other drives. Easy.
Click to expand...

I didn't know about hdparm, thanks.


----------



## fg2chase

OKay so there have been some changes, one day I got FURIOUS with the random reboots and hangs that had been an issue before.

I changed the following parts.

Motherboard
CPU changed to FX8350 out of my retired gaming rig that I updated to a 7700k
the RAM to DDR3 Corsair Vengeance went from 8gb DDR2 to 16GB DDR3
and the power supply, went with the MAxrevo 1500W PSU from my retired gaming rig..

system has been stable for 2 weeks, I didn't make any OS changes, it was literally a plug and play affair. The hardest part was getting the BIOS to boot from the right SSD but in the end it worked out great, it is now capable of streaming 4K video when before with the 1090T it was struggling.

my next Server will probably be a Ryzen 1700 in a few years when those things start showing up used.

the evolution has gone from

P4 northwood (2008,2009) -> P4 Prescott (2010-2015) -> Phenom 2 X4955BE (2016) -> Phenom 2 X6 1090T (2016-2017) -> FX8350 present. (all retired gaming chips of their day)

Went from windows server 2000 -> 2003 -> windows home server V1 -> windows 10


----------



## fg2chase

loyal followers and readers where are thou?


----------



## fg2chase

crickets.... =(


----------



## bobfig

if you really want to know imo you should of just gone with real server grade xeon and ecc ram.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *bobfig*
> 
> if you really want to know imo you should of just gone with real server grade xeon and ecc ram.


Want to know what? All that for a home plex server? The whole point of this is to use inexpensive desktop components.


----------



## bobfig

well you were like "um guys say something" well i said something. it seems ok but really the next step would of been full server grade stuff, doesn't need to be new can be used off ebay like my e3-1230/mb/8gbecc ram for $200. also instead of just plex there are other things you could do like network backups for all the computers in the house, host a game server that you may play.

over all it seems a really good step into network storage compared to a lot on here.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Want to know what? All that for a home plex server? The whole point of this is to use inexpensive desktop components.


I think the point being made is that you've got this extremely long thread, much of which is based on all the troubleshooting you've been doing. Much of that could have been avoided by going with server grade hardware and software. One thing people often seem to undervalue is their time. You may have saved money on hardware but how much time have you spent working on this server to get it "stable?" Server grade hardware and software is more expensive for a reason, it is intended to be set it and forget for the most part. This server may be "only" for a Plex server, but if you want that server running 24/7 with few hiccups the best way to do that is to build a system designed for just that.

And just a side note, while my "home" plex server is used for a lot more than just home use, I've grown to rely on it for 80%+ of my media needs so it being down is just not acceptable to me. Just my personal anecdote.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *bobfig*
> 
> well you were like "um guys say something" well i said something. it seems ok but really the next step would of been full server grade stuff, doesn't need to be new can be used off ebay like my e3-1230/mb/8gbecc ram for $200. also instead of just plex there are other things you could do like network backups for all the computers in the house, host a game server that you may play.
> 
> over all it seems a really good step into network storage compared to a lot on here.


I don't really store anything on my PC's except games, files are kept on the server and those are triple backed up, network backups aren't really needed anymore. Hell I even use onedrive for school now too.

ya gotta think though man, most of this stuff came out of my retired gaming rigs and in this case the motherboard used to me my HTPC which I got rid of because of plex.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> I think the point being made is that you've got this extremely long thread, much of which is based on all the troubleshooting you've been doing. Much of that could have been avoided by going with server grade hardware and software. One thing people often seem to undervalue is their time. You may have saved money on hardware but how much time have you spent working on this server to get it "stable?" Server grade hardware and software is more expensive for a reason, it is intended to be set it and forget for the most part. This server may be "only" for a Plex server, but if you want that server running 24/7 with few hiccups the best way to do that is to build a system designed for just that.
> 
> And just a side note, while my "home" plex server is used for a lot more than just home use, I've grown to rely on it for 80%+ of my media needs so it being down is just not acceptable to me. Just my personal anecdote.


Troubleshooting is part of the fun tbh, I may complain at the time but really I enjoy fixing problems which believe it or not are not that common. This server has been running continuously for years and usually breaks when I am tying something new or I have screwed up something or like a power supply starts dying. Which happens to "server grade" ones too.


----------



## bobfig

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> I don't really store anything on my PC's except games, files are kept on the server and those are triple backed up, network backups aren't really needed anymore. *Hell I even use onedrive for school now too.*
> 
> ya gotta think though man, most of this stuff came out of my retired gaming rigs and in this case the motherboard used to me my HTPC which I got rid of because of plex.


if you have a school email that ends in .edu then you may be able to get microsoft server 2012 r2 for free - https://imagine.microsoft.com/en-us/catalog


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *bobfig*
> 
> if you have a school email that ends in .edu then you may be able to get microsoft server 2012 r2 for free - https://imagine.microsoft.com/en-us/catalog


I have used windows server before for this, I ran into the problem of not being able to use home versions of things like diskeeper and even regular stuff like antivirus.

Windows 10 has all the functionality I need for a home server OS.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Troubleshooting is part of the fun tbh, I may complain at the time but really I enjoy fixing problems which believe it or not are not that common. This server has been running continuously for years and usually breaks when I am tying something new or I have screwed up something or like a power supply starts dying. Which happens to "server grade" ones too.


I enjoy fixing problems as well just not with my home servers that I rely on everyday. I have a whole test lab environment setup for exactly that so that it doesn't affect the stuff that my wife and I have come to rely on everyday (Plex, HDHomeRun DVR, Surviellance cameras, etc.).


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> I enjoy fixing problems as well just not with my home servers that I rely on everyday. I have a whole test lab environment setup for exactly that so that it doesn't affect the stuff that my wife and I have come to rely on everyday (Plex, HDHomeRun DVR, Surviellance cameras, etc.).


yeah, nothing mission critical here except entertainment.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> yeah, nothing mission critical here except entertainment.


My entertainment has become mission critical







.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> I think the point being made is that you've got this extremely long thread, much of which is based on all the troubleshooting you've been doing. Much of that could have been avoided by going with server grade hardware and software. One thing people often seem to undervalue is their time. You may have saved money on hardware but how much time have you spent working on this server to get it "stable?" Server grade hardware and software is more expensive for a reason, it is intended to be set it and forget for the most part. This server may be "only" for a Plex server, but if you want that server running 24/7 with few hiccups the best way to do that is to build a system designed for just that.
> 
> And just a side note, while my "home" plex server is used for a lot more than just home use, I've grown to rely on it for 80%+ of my media needs so it being down is just not acceptable to me. Just my personal anecdote.
> 
> 
> 
> Troubleshooting is part of the fun tbh, I may complain at the time but really I enjoy fixing problems which believe it or not are not that common. This server has been running continuously for years and usually breaks when I am tying something new or I have screwed up something or like a power supply starts dying. Which happens to "server grade" ones too.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. I do not think it's worth spending more on Xeons when AMD chips already support ECC just for the sake of having Intel so you can claim 'compatibility'.

I recently switched from Win 8.1 to Mint 18.1 on my media server and it ran wonderfully for a week until it crashed. Oddly the machine was actually still running but I couldn't remote connect to it and the screen I have connected to the server said that there is no connection so certain services crashed while the VM's running the Plex and Torrent sections were still running.

Personally I no longer like Windows as server OS and think Linux is far more stable, smooth and light and I use a regular desktop distro. If my server crashes again in a few days time I will look into another distro, maybe Ubuntu server, Manjaro or even CentOS. I am not averse to experimentation as Plex runs in its own dedicated VM so I only need to install VBox and Plex is back up and running. It would be less resource intensive if I ran Plex in a container but I think a dedicated VM offers more redundancy and security.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *bobfig*
> 
> if you really want to know imo you should of just gone with real server grade xeon and ecc ram.


AMD chips support ECC, unlike Intel and AMD's IMC is far more robust and compatible with a wide range of RAM.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Want to know what? All that for a home plex server? The whole point of this is to use inexpensive desktop components.
> 
> 
> 
> I think the point being made is that you've got this extremely long thread, much of which is based on all the troubleshooting you've been doing. Much of that could have been avoided by going with server grade hardware and software. One thing people often seem to undervalue is their time. You may have saved money on hardware but how much time have you spent working on this server to get it "stable?" Server grade hardware and software is more expensive for a reason, it is intended to be set it and forget for the most part. This server may be "only" for a Plex server, but if you want that server running 24/7 with few hiccups the best way to do that is to build a system designed for just that.
> 
> And just a side note, while my "home" plex server is used for a lot more than just home use, I've grown to rely on it for 80%+ of my media needs so it being down is just not acceptable to me. Just my personal anecdote.
Click to expand...

This is why I run my Plex server in its own dedicated VM. If the OS goes down I can reinstall the OS, install VBox and have Plex online in an hour.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *bobfig*
> 
> if you have a school email that ends in .edu then you may be able to get microsoft server 2012 r2 for free - https://imagine.microsoft.com/en-us/catalog
> 
> 
> 
> I have used windows server before for this, I ran into the problem of not being able to use home versions of things like diskeeper and even regular stuff like antivirus.
> 
> Windows 10 has all the functionality I need for a home server OS.
Click to expand...

Windows Server is terrible in some ways, Linux is far, far superior, which is why Linux dominates the server market.


----------



## fg2chase

I upgraded my gaming rig too btw... look at my sig


----------



## Liranan

Did you need the absolute best single core performance?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Did you need the absolute best single core performance?


yeah, I am just going to play games on here mostly.


----------



## Liranan

I hope you don't suffer from the serious overheating issues that plague these chips.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> I hope you don't suffer from the serious overheating issues that plague these chips.


so far the hottest it's got is 127F 53C


----------



## Liranan

Very nice. Hopefully I'll replace my system next year, while it does everything I need it to do I am not happy with the heat it produces, I need to turn the AC on before I wake my PC from sleep.


----------



## shadow5555

Hey Chase hows it going man? Long time no talk? I have done alot of upgrades to my file server over the last year so thought I would share.

freenassystem.PNG 231k .PNG file


freenas12hdd.PNG 91k .PNG file


16195831_10155185402902638_2328670707783992066_n.jpg 47k .jpg file


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *shadow5555*
> 
> Hey Chase hows it going man? Long time no talk? I have done alot of upgrades to my file server over the last year so thought I would share.
> 
> freenassystem.PNG 231k .PNG file
> 
> 
> freenas12hdd.PNG 91k .PNG file
> 
> 
> 16195831_10155185402902638_2328670707783992066_n.jpg 47k .jpg file


hey man how ya been? yeah that one looks good! When was the last time interacted on here?


----------



## fg2chase

haven't done much with the server lately, shes purring like a kitten without a hitch.

But I did build this.


----------



## fg2chase

you guys should check this out..

http://www.overclock.net/t/1632336/my-build-history-from-1994-2017


----------



## fg2chase

still chugging along, having a few bugs with plex but otherwise it's healthy


----------



## cdoublejj

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> haven't done much with the server lately, shes purring like a kitten without a hitch.
> 
> But I did build this.


looks like a gaming computer to me.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cdoublejj*
> 
> looks like a gaming computer to me.


Yes that is correct


----------



## fg2chase

still chugging along unchanged.. 2018 will be it's last year of service as I am replacing it with a Ryzen 1700X based server from all new components.


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> still chugging along unchanged.. 2018 will be it's last year of service as I am replacing it with a Ryzen 1700X based server from all new components.


What will the new server be doing that will require 8c/16t? VMs? Compute-heavy duties?


----------



## Liranan

How's the system running?

Quote:



> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> still chugging along unchanged.. 2018 will be it's last year of service as I am replacing it with a Ryzen 1700X based server from all new components.
> 
> 
> 
> What will the new server be doing that will require 8c/16t? VMs? Compute-heavy duties?
Click to expand...

Streaming 4K video's









Next year I will replace my desktop and replace the 955BE (unclocked to 3GHz and undervolted) with this FX8320 that I will underclock and undervolt.

Edit: I hope to get my hands on some beautiful 4K content to stream when I have upgraded to the FX. Sadly this quad core CPU can't direct stream 4K video's at all, it is way too slow.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> What will the new server be doing that will require 8c/16t? VMs? Compute-heavy duties?


Yeah I am averaging 10 streams/transcodes on plex right now during the weekend which is approaching the limit of the 8350's capabilities.

with 4k on the horizon this upgrade is much needed and a lot of my hardware is tired.


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Yeah I am averaging 10 streams/transcodes on plex right now during the weekend which is approaching the limit of the 8350's capabilities.
> 
> with 4k on the horizon this upgrade is much needed and a lot of my hardware is tired.


And those streams are...720p? 1080p? A mixture? Just trying to get an idea of what your current limits are.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> And those streams are...720p? 1080p? A mixture? Just trying to get an idea of what your current limits are.


Oh it's a mixture of everything from 480p to 4k I can handle ONE 4k stream but it kills everything else. I have taken them off the server for now.

Usually 720p or 1080p yes.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Oh it's a mixture of everything from 480p to 4k I can handle ONE 4k stream but it kills everything else. I have taken them off the server for now.
> 
> Usually 720p or 1080p yes.


Just get a client that can direct stream 4K.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> Just get a client that can direct stream 4K.


I don't have control over what 50 of my friends and family have.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> I don't have control over what 50 of my friends and family have.


Just create a 4K only library and don't share that one out. That's what I do. So I can stream 4K locally but no one can cripple my CPU by trying to transcode it.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> Just create a 4K only library and don't share that one out. That's what I do. So I can stream 4K locally but no one can cripple my CPU by trying to transcode it.


I only have two movies in 4k right now. not a big deal yet.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> I only have two movies in 4k right now. not a big deal yet.


Yea I feel you. I don't have that many either but I'm going to try and grow that library now that I just picked up 8 x 10TB WD Golds







.


----------



## Liranan

Even direct streaming 4K can kill the CPU. For example I can't direct stream 4K content with my quad core as the CPU goes to 100% and films stutter.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Even direct streaming 4K can kill the CPU. For example I can't direct stream 4K content with my quad core as the CPU goes to 100% and films stutter.


Really? Something doesn't seem right there. What software are you using?

*EDIT*: I do see that Plex has specific requirements for 4K content in order for it to direct play.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Even direct streaming 4K can kill the CPU. For example I can't direct stream 4K content with my quad core as the CPU goes to 100% and films stutter.
> 
> 
> 
> Really? Something doesn't seem right there. What software are you using?
> 
> *EDIT*: I do see that Plex has specific requirements for 4K content in order for it to direct play.
Click to expand...

I am experimenting with Emby and Kodi too but I like Plex more as Emby has problems finding the correct meta data for my media.


----------



## parityboy

*@Puffin,@Liranan*

Have either of you tried Serviio? What do you think of it? I tried it after trying Plex a while back (which I failed with) and it just works (mostly). I've never tried it with 4K content though.


----------



## Liranan

Does Serviio also download meta data and can it be accessed over the internet on mobiles?

Have you tried Emby or have you only tried Plex and Serviio?


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Does Serviio also download meta data and can it be accessed over the internet on mobiles?
> 
> Have you tried Emby or have you only tried Plex and Serviio?


It can download metadata, and the Pro version can allow access over the public Internet. I haven't tried Emby yet.









*EDIT:*
Just out of interest, how much network bandwidth is required for direct play of 4K streams? Is it possible over LTE or WiFi?


----------



## Liranan

It's definitely possible over 5G but I am not sure about N as I use wired everywhere. I do not trust WiFi connections at all.

If only the pro allows access over the internet then both Plex and Emby are better.


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> It's definitely possible over 5G but I am not sure about N as I use wired everywhere. I do not trust WiFi connections at all.
> 
> If only the pro allows access over the internet then both Plex and Emby are better.


For some reason, I thought extra-LAN access was also restricted to the paid-for version of Plex. If not so, what is Plex Pass for? From here:
Quote:


> Enjoy an app on us. Our mobile Plex apps (Android, iOS, Windows, and Windows Phone) are yours free.


Also, I didn't realise 5G was a thing...still stuck on 4G here.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> It's definitely possible over 5G but I am not sure about N as I use wired everywhere. I do not trust WiFi connections at all.
> 
> If only the pro allows access over the internet then both Plex and Emby are better.
> 
> 
> 
> For some reason, I thought extra-LAN access was also restricted to the paid-for version of Plex. If not so, what is Plex Pass for? From here:
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Enjoy an app on us. Our mobile Plex apps (Android, iOS, Windows, and Windows Phone) are yours free.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Also, I didn't realise 5G was a thing...still stuck on 4G here.
Click to expand...

The AC standard is 5G WiFi, BGN are 2.4G. 4G has nothing to do with Wi-Fi as it is a phone standard.

Plex Pass is for certain features that aren't available to standard users such as sync and mobile programs. I don't have a pass as I am now contemplating whether I should stick with Plex or switch to Emby.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> *@Puffin,@Liranan*
> 
> Have either of you tried Serviio? What do you think of it? I tried it after trying Plex a while back (which I failed with) and it just works (mostly). I've never tried it with 4K content though.


I tried Serviio YEARS ago before Plex was even big but at the time Plex was still better especially when it came to metadata. I had so much content even back then that I opted for Plex for the organization of my media. I'm now using mainly Emby because I like not needing internet to access my local content from Plex clients on my own local network. Emby has their own version of "Plex Home" and remote access that doesn't require any connectivity to Emby's servers. Emby also has much better Live TV support. I haven't tried 4K yet on Emby though, I will soon.

As for bandwidth needed for 4K it depends the bitrate of the file. Most I've seen are between 40Mbps and 60Mbps but I've evern heard of some as high as 90Mbps.


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> The AC standard is 5G WiFi, BGN are 2.4G. 4G has nothing to do with Wi-Fi as it is a phone standard.
> 
> Plex Pass is for certain features that aren't available to standard users such as sync and mobile programs. I don't have a pass as I am now contemplating whether I should stick with Plex or switch to Emby.


Ahhh you meant 5GHz or "5Gig", not "5th Generation".







btw, 5G is also a phone standard (or will be).

So without PlexPass, you can still natively stream your media over the public Internet? I assume this uses HTTP or RTSP? Does it support SSL/TLS as well?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> As for bandwidth needed for 4K it depends the bitrate of the file. Most I've seen are between 40Mbps and 60Mbps but I've evern heard of some as high as 90Mbps.


Well that'll have to be transcoded then.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> Ahhh you meant 5GHz or "5Gig", not "5th Generation".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> btw, 5G is also a phone standard (or will be).
> 
> So without PlexPass, you can still natively stream your media over the public Internet? I assume this uses HTTP or RTSP? Does it support SSL/TLS as well?
> Well that'll have to be transcoded then.


I just got FIOS Gigabit so I can try direct play via remote access.


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> I just got FIOS Gigabit so I can try direct play via remote access.


Can Kodi be used to connect to an Emby or Plex server over the public Internet?


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> I just got FIOS Gigabit so I can try direct play via remote access.
> 
> 
> 
> Can Kodi be used to connect to an Emby or Plex server over the public Internet?
Click to expand...

Yes it can but it's a paid feature.


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Yes it can but it's a paid feature.


For Kodi or the servers?


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> For Kodi or the servers?


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> Can Kodi be used to connect to an Emby or Plex server over the public Internet?


You need Plex Pass to use Plex for Kodi. Not sure on Emby as I don't use Kodi.


----------



## Liranan

To connect to Plex with Kodi you need a Plex Pass, you can connect to Emby over the net with Kodi without a problem. Sadly I feel Emby is really inferior to Plex as Emby has serious problems finding the correct meta data for my media. All of my cartoons are Batman ones according to Emby, yet Plex is able to correctly find meta data for Dexter's Laboratory, Power Puff Girls, The Tick and all the other funny cartoons I used to watch years ago.


----------



## fg2chase

Going to run this by you guys. I'm building a replacement server soon and this is what I have in mind.

I'm going to use my 750D with 18x3TB drives in it and my H115i to cool it.


----------



## bobfig

a server without ecc doesn't feel right to me. also are you just wanting more sata ports or an actual raid card?

would make a nice 10core 20thread server. also found a full system duel socket with everything and duel cpu "i7" xeon for just over $320 LINK

INTEL XEON E5-2680V2 2.80GHZ 25M SR1A6 10 CORE CM8063501374901 CPU - https://www.ebay.com/itm/INTEL-XEON-E5-2680V2-2-80GHZ-25M-SR1A6-10-CORE-CM8063501374901-CPU/132311516291?hash=item1ece618483:g:3GEAAOSw7NNUGNLy

Supermicro X9SRA Server Motherboard Intel Socket LGA-2011 - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Best-Price-on-eBay-Supermicro-X9SRA-Server-Motherboard-Intel-Socket-LGA-2011/182857447274?hash=item2a9327376a:g:Mt0AAOSwFLxZ341U

Lot of 2 Hynix 8GB PC3 ECC RAM HMT31GR7BFR4C-H9 - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-2-Hynix-8GB-PC3-ECC-RAM-HMT31GR7BFR4C-H9-HP-SB-500205-071-Servers/172941099722?hash=item284417c2ca:g:Fx0AAOSwZC1Z7RId

or

Hynix 48GB (6 x 8GB) 2Rx4 PC3-10600R HMT31GR7BFR4C-H9 8GB Modules - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Hynix-48GB-6-x-8GB-2Rx4-PC3-10600R-HMT31GR7BFR4C-H9-8GB-Modules/401431402327?epid=13005837057&hash=item5d772d1757:g:GqEAAOSwKQ9Z83oJ


----------



## bobfig

would make a nice 10core 20thread server. also found a full system duel socket with everything and duel cpu "i7" xeon for just over $320 LINK

INTEL XEON E5-2680V2 2.80GHZ 25M SR1A6 10 CORE CM8063501374901 CPU - https://www.ebay.com/itm/INTEL-XEON-E5-2680V2-2-80GHZ-25M-SR1A6-10-CORE-CM8063501374901-CPU/132311516291?hash=item1ece618483:g:3GEAAOSw7NNUGNLy

Supermicro X9SRA Server Motherboard Intel Socket LGA-2011 - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Best-Price-on-eBay-Supermicro-X9SRA-Server-Motherboard-Intel-Socket-LGA-2011/182857447274?hash=item2a9327376a:g:Mt0AAOSwFLxZ341U

Lot of 2 Hynix 8GB PC3 ECC RAM HMT31GR7BFR4C-H9 - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-2-Hynix-8GB-PC3-ECC-RAM-HMT31GR7BFR4C-H9-HP-SB-500205-071-Servers/172941099722?hash=item284417c2ca:g:Fx0AAOSwZC1Z7RId


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *bobfig*
> 
> a server without ecc doesn't feel right to me. also are you just wanting more sata ports or an actual raid card?


I've been getting by without ECC for over ten years...all it does is transcode Audio and video


----------



## parityboy

*@fg2chase*

If you have a spare boot drive lying around I'd use that instead of spending cash on an SSD. Yes, SSDs are nice and fast, but servers (by their very nature) tend not to be rebooted very often so to my eyes the advantages they hold would never be realised in your setup. They only other point I'd make would be concerning that Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 - which OS are you running?

I remember the PCI version of that card not being well supported _at all_ under Linux and seemingly it wasn't that great under Windows either.

*EDIT*
I just realised you're cannibalising your 7700K system. Would that be correct? Or not? If so, ignore me.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> *@fg2chase*
> 
> If you have a spare boot drive lying around I'd use that instead of spending cash on an SSD. Yes, SSDs are nice and fast, but servers (by their very nature) tend not to be rebooted very often so to my eyes the advantages they hold would never be realised in your setup. They only other point I'd make would be concerning that Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 - which OS are you running?
> 
> I remember the PCI version of that card not being well supported _at all_ under Linux and seemingly it wasn't that great under Windows either.
> 
> *EDIT*
> I just realised you're cannibalising your 7700K system. Would that be correct? Or not? If so, ignore me.


I have upgraded to a Z370 and 8700K so I am selling my 7700k system and getting a Ryzen 7 for my new server.

I am using windows 10 and I have no plans on using server specific hardware. I have had great luck using gaming hardware for making plex servers in the past and that Is what I intend on doing now. I am not concerned about the cost of things tbh and I want the server to reboot very fast when it does. Hence the m.2 960 evo.

Right now in my current server I have cheap PCI and PCI-e Sata cards that have been running great for YEARS. lol


----------



## parityboy

*@fg2chase*

So you're buying all of that gear you listed specifically for your new server? Or will you be transferring some of it to the server from your 7700K system? btw, that Supermicro card is enterprise server hardware.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> *@fg2chase*
> 
> So you're buying all of that gear you listed? Or do you already own most of it? btw, that Supermicro card is enterprise server hardware.


That card is the one exception but yeah I am purchasing this stuff as soon as I sell my 7700k and Z270


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> That card is the one exception but yeah I am purchasing this stuff as soon as I sell my 7700k and Z270


Ah hah! I see!









So just out of curiosity, are you selling off the 7700K system in its entirety? I ask because when you mentioned that you were using the 750D and H115i, I assumed you were cannibalising the 7700K system to do so. If so, could you not also use the PSU from that system (in fact swap it with the PSU in the current server- or would the current server PSU be too weak for your 8700K gaming system?).


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> Ah hah! I see!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So just out of curiosity, are you selling off the 7700K system in its entirety? I ask because when you mentioned that you were using the 750D and H115i, I assumed you were cannibalising the 7700K system to do so. If so, could you not also use the PSU from that system (in fact swap it with the PSU in the current server- or would the current server PSU be too weak for your 8700K gaming system?).


I am ordering another Hx1000i because I no longer have a spare PSU on the shelf. I put it in my daughters system.

I currently have this new system ready to go I am just waiting on my delidded 8700k to arrive. I will transfer my 1080ti's 960pro, corsair SSDs and NZXT grid and hue to this when that new CPU arrives. Added a fractal S36 AIO as well.


----------



## parityboy

*@fg2chase*

Many thanks for the clear-up.


----------



## cdoublejj

i wonder if 4k vs 1080p quality rip would be that noticeable even on a 4k oled tv?


----------



## jonespwns

forgive me if i overlooked.. but is this in raid? i didint see anything about it in there


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jonespwns*
> 
> forgive me if i overlooked.. but is this in raid? i didint see anything about it in there


No, It will be configured in a JBOD using windows storage spaces with 2 way mirroring which has never failed me.


----------



## Liranan

I assume you use Storage Spaces just in case something goes bad, in which case I would also recommend getting CC RAM instead of non-ECC as there is no price difference and you get that extra security of not having to deal with a single bad bye corrupting your entire array. Otherwise the system looks fine. While I don't have as many drives as you yet, and don't use Storage Spaces due to not wanting to lose two thirds of my possible space, I do use ECC RAM as I have already lost lots of data due to defective drives.

As for the Super Micro RAID card, why not get an LSI card instead and flash it to IT mode? That way you avoid having to use the drives in JBOD and you can let Windows handle the RAID on a hardware level.


----------



## fg2chase

have a link to this card? Does have SAS ports?


----------



## Liranan

LSI 9211-8i:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4A05M20945&cm_re=lsi-_-16-118-112-_-Product

IT Mode:

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/what-is-it-mode.328/

THe 9211-8i is wildly popular as it's tested and proven to be reliable and a great SAS/SATA card.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> LSI 9211-8i:
> https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4A05M20945&cm_re=lsi-_-16-118-112-_-Product
> 
> IT Mode:
> https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/what-is-it-mode.328/
> 
> THe 9211-8i is wildly popular as it's tested and proven to be reliable and a great SAS/SATA card.


apparently that card has a lot of issues with windows storage spaces.

I have decided to go with my original choice and I have ordered my server parts.

I will order all the hard drives on the 21st and I have ordered another Corsair 750D Airflow edition and I will remove the 5.25" drive bay to get 8 drive cages in it. When it arrives I will start a new thread and begin the decommissioning of my current server.


----------



## Liranan

Does Storage Spaces have problems with the 9211-8i after it's been flashed to IT mode? My server doesn't use Windows so I haven't looked into it.


----------



## fg2chase

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wHqyjc


----------



## burksdb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wHqyjc


i know most of that cost is drives but if all this is going to do is transcode and serve files i feel like one of the dual socket servers on ebay would be a much better buy (ive tried following the thread but im behind a little).

unless you have specific requirements to go with the Ryzen build but between cpu board and ram you can definitly save some $

Id also advise looking into a hba card along with a sas expander instead of the 3 individual hba's.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *burksdb*
> 
> i know most of that cost is drives but if all this is going to do is transcode and serve files i feel like one of the dual socket servers on ebay would be a much better buy (ive tried following the thread but im behind a little).
> 
> unless you have specific requirements to go with the Ryzen build but between cpu board and ram you can definitly save some $
> 
> Id also advise looking into a hba card along with a sas expander instead of the 3 individual hba's.


Not worried about the cost that much, I really want to have a Ryzen to go with my 8700k gaming rig and I'm kinda making them "sister systems".

What's wrong with the 3 sas cards? All of this has already been purchased and is on its way


----------



## burksdb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Not worried about the cost that much, I really want to have a Ryzen to go with my 8700k gaming rig and I'm kinda making them "sister systems".
> 
> What's wrong with the 3 sas cards? All of this has already been purchased and is on its way


if cost isnt an issue then really I don't have anything else to say. I just think the money could be moved around for more of a server build that would perform better. Everyone has their own preferences.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *burksdb*
> 
> if cost isnt an issue then really I don't have anything else to say. I just think the money could be moved around for more of a server build that would perform better. Everyone has their own preferences.


What is going to perform better than a Ryzen 1800x for plex transcoding? I do have 65 users on my system now and when 20 or more are streaming I have problems.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> What is going to perform better than a Ryzen 1800x for plex transcoding? I do have 65 users on my system now and when 20 or more are streaming I have problems.


How many simultaneous transcodes do you typically need to support at once? That is the figure you need to worry about, not streams. even the Ryzen 1800x won't handle 20 simultaneous transcodes very well. Also, what types of transcodes are you doing? What resolution to what resolution? What bitrate to what bitrate? Those details have a much greater impact on transcoding needs than just the total number of transcodes.

Regardless, if you have that many transcodes going at once, you should be looking into ways to decrease the amount of transcoding you need to support, not find a CPU that can handle more and more trancodes.


----------



## burksdb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> What is going to perform better than a Ryzen 1800x for plex transcoding? I do have 65 users on my system now and when 20 or more are streaming I have problems.


whoops missed this one as well

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> How many simultaneous transcodes do you typically need to support at once? That is the figure you need to worry about, not streams. even the Ryzen 1800x won't handle 20 simultaneous transcodes very well. Also, what types of transcodes are you doing? What resolution to what resolution? What bitrate to what bitrate? Those details have a much greater impact on transcoding needs than just the total number of transcodes.
> 
> Regardless, if you have that many transcodes going at once, you should be looking into ways to decrease the amount of transcoding you need to support, not find a CPU that can handle more and more trancodes.


Agreed completely.

Also what devices are being used.


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## fg2chase

I'll make a new thread soon.... but for now... the future has Ryzen


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## TheBloodEagle

FYI, seems like Plex does GPU transcoding now too (hardware acceleration).


----------



## Prophet4NO1

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBloodEagle*
> 
> FYI, seems like Plex does GPU transcoding now too (hardware acceleration).


On what OS? I run it on my FreeNAS box and I would not mind dropping a low power GPU for transcoding.

Never mind. Only supports Intel GPU acceleration. Not an option since my box runs an E3 Xeon for the extra transcoding power and ECC support.


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Prophet4NO1*
> 
> On what OS? I run it on my FreeNAS box and I would not mind dropping a low power GPU for transcoding.
> 
> Never mind. Only supports Intel GPU acceleration. Not an option since my box runs an E3 Xeon for the extra transcoding power and ECC support.


You're not missing out yet. The quality is far inferior to CPU transcoding at this time. And the bugs are far from worked out though that's basically Plex's MO for all their new features these days.


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## Prophet4NO1

Like the awful new Xbox1 UI for Plex. I could make a better functioning UI blind and using my butt.


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## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Prophet4NO1*
> 
> Like the awful new Xbox1 UI for Plex. I could make a better functioning UI blind and using my butt.


I don't have the Xbox1 but I've heard people are not happy with it. I'm not going to bash Plex though as I used it for a good 5-6 years and had a lot of good times with it. But I'm fully migrated to Emby now and not regretting it.


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## Liranan

Nice Plex sysetem, may it serve you well for years to come.


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## parityboy

*@fg2chase*

So what did you end up with: 1700X or 1800X? Also, did you install your current drives alongside the new ones or did you transfer->wipe->sell?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> *@fg2chase*
> 
> So what did you end up with: 1700X or 1800X? Also, did you install your current drives alongside the new ones or did you transfer->wipe->sell?


See new thread...

Old server will be kept 100% intact.


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> See new thread...
> 
> Old server will be kept 100% intact.


So what happened to the 30TB server being "decommissioned"? Does that simply mean "no longer used for Plex"?


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> So what happened to the 30TB server being "decommissioned"? Does that simply mean "no longer used for Plex"?


Correct, I might power it on a few times a year to backup to it though. idk..


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fg2chase*
> 
> Correct, I might power it on a few times a year to backup to it though. idk..


Would you consider connecting it to your new server and using it to expand the new server's storage? You could do something like this.


----------



## fg2chase

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> Would you consider connecting it to your new server and using it to expand the new server's storage? You could do something like this.


Nah I don't think so, not worth the power consumption.


----------



## cdoublejj

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> You're not missing out yet. The quality is far inferior to CPU transcoding at this time. And the bugs are far from worked out though that's basically Plex's MO for all their new features these days.


Yeah I thought was a misnomer until i did some research. Turns out the GPU hardware decoders are a sloppier.

I was wondering about a way to leverage vmotion and or clones instance VMs to distribute the load across multiple ESXi servers. I don't know how that would work because it probably can't work that way, Sure vmotion can move it to the server with the least load but, that's what? 1 or 2 trans codes more if at all?


----------



## PuffinMyLye

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cdoublejj*
> 
> Yeah I thought was a misnomer until i did some research. Turns out the GPU hardware decoders are a sloppier.
> 
> I was wondering about a way to leverage vmotion and or clones instance VMs to distribute the load across multiple ESXi servers. I don't know how that would work because it probably can't work that way, Sure vmotion can move it to the server with the least load but, that's what? 1 or 2 trans codes more if at all?


Yea vMotion won't help you because it won't spread the load over multiple servers. There was/is something called Plex Remote Transcoder that would do what you're looking for in a sense but I don't think it's well maintained any longer and I'm not even sure if it works with the latest versions of Plex.


----------



## cdoublejj

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PuffinMyLye*
> 
> Yea vMotion won't help you because it won't spread the load over multiple servers. There was/is something called Plex Remote Transcoder that would do what you're looking for in a sense but I don't think it's well maintained any longer and I'm not even sure if it works with the latest versions of Plex.


At work we had this deal where you'd make one VM but, many people could use it at once, via some kind of magical cloning but, not cloning process, i forgot the name of it. That sounds like something they should include majorly as we aren't the only ones running hyper visors. That sounds like it could not only be a standalone VM but, also a container which means the unraid could do a little work when on stand by. Not that I personally use the VM feature of unraid.


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cdoublejj*
> 
> At work we had this deal where you'd make one VM but, many people could use it at once, via some kind of magical cloning but, not cloning process, i forgot the name of it. That sounds like something they should include majorly as we aren't the only ones running hyper visors. That sounds like it could not only be a standalone VM but, also a container which means the unraid could do a little work when on stand by. Not that I personally use the VM feature of unraid.


Differencing disks I think they call it, or "linked clones".

Re: Plex, it sounds like you're looking for something more suited to a "cloud" type infrastructure. VMware have something called vCloud - I know almost nothing about it apart from the name, but I assume it would do what the likes of OpenStack and CloudStack do, i.e. spin up extra resources when certain conditions are met for a specified amount of time, e.g. CPU load. Being VMware though, it's likely to cost $$$$$.


----------



## cdoublejj

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parityboy*
> 
> Differencing disks I think they call it, or "linked clones".
> 
> Re: Plex, it sounds like you're looking for something more suited to a "cloud" type infrastructure. VMware have something called vCloud - I know almost nothing about it apart from the name, but I assume it would do what the likes of OpenStack and CloudStack do, i.e. spin up extra resources when certain conditions are met for a specified amount of time, e.g. CPU load. Being VMware though, it's likely to cost $$$$$.


Linked Clones! Anyone who has VMUG should have access to it. IDK for sure if it can truly be used to distribute trans coding load though.


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cdoublejj*
> 
> Linked Clones! Anyone who has VMUG should have access to it. IDK for sure if it can truly be used to distribute trans coding load though.


On paper it's possible. Of course, the _easiest_ way would be to have _n_+1 instances of Plex and some kind of network balancing in effect - round-robin DNS or an IP load balancer sitting in front of the Plex VMs. Not as sexy as the cloud-type stuff, but likely a lot less hassle.


----------



## shadow5555

Weekend project mode activated!!


Upgrading 4 of my 4tb drives to 8tb drives in my main flexraid storage server. Those drives will be going to the backup flexraid server once I move all data.


----------



## fg2chase

did you guys see my new server? link is in the sig!


----------



## Mikeethestud

At what price you are selling


----------



## fg2chase

Mikeethestud said:


> At what price you are selling


This system has already been parted out, all that remains is the case and the hard drive cages.


----------

