Home Server 2015 Upgrade

[hansolo77]

So for those of you who were somewhat interested and followed my exhaustive thread here: "Finally going to try WHS 2011" and actually read my step-by-step upgrade plan here, I felt like I needed to move the whole topic to a new thread. Reason mostly being because I've ditched using Windows Home Server 2011 as my OS of choice. I'm still dealing with Microsoft though, but it's been easy going for the last month or so.

Basically, I was looking around on the internet to try and come up with a solution to a major problem I had with WHS 2011, where my user accounts got corrupted. They were preventing me the administrative access I needed to be able to make essential system changes (like running regedit, adjust networking, etc). It wouldn't even let me create a new user admin user account and delete the old one because the account that creates it needed to be an admin account (which it was). It was such a mess I decided to just chuck the whole thing (the OS that is) and try something new. I found that if I wanted to, Microsoft was offering a free, 180-day (6 months!) trial of Windows Server Essentials 2012 R2, which was the next step in the Home/Small Business server tree after WHS 2011. I really like it so far, and I'm only about 1.5 months into the usage of it. So now I'm using WSE 2012 R2 and simply loving it. There were some initial hiccups with the configuration of DNS/Domain and things, but that's all been worked out for the most part, and now I'm just using it as I originally intended; a media streaming file server with client PC backups.

The latest news that I don't think I've posted about yet, is I got that Norco RPC-4224 server chassis! You know, the one with the 24 drives? It got sorta busted in shipping, at the fault of FedEx, but it still works. And it's only a minor blemish on an otherwise amazing case. I'll never even really see it since it's hidden away out of sight anyway.

So here's the part where I ask for some help from the tech geeks around here. If you remember, I created a Phase 1..2..etc of the plan to upgrade. I've deviated from that with the help of some new friends over at the StableBit forums. I'm now on the mark for a complete overhaul. I've gutted all the parts out of the old case, and it's now at the dump. My new case (24-drive one) now has all the drives from the old case, plus I added 6 more tonight that I had been saving under the bed for emergencies. My next upgrade (saving for now) is a brand new motherboard / cpu / ram combo. The first thing I have to do is decide on the motherboard and that's where I need your guy's help. This is a basic run down of the minimum requirements I'm going to need:

- ATX, mATX, EBB Form Factor

- 1 PCIe 8x slot (to install the SAS Controller Card in)

- 1 PCIe 8x slot (to install the SAS Expander Card in that I plan to order after everything else is installed)

- 1 SATA for SSD OS Drive

- 1 IPMI Network Interface Jack

- 2+ GB NICs (for better throughput and stability on the network)

- Xeon Capable (my ultimate CPU purchase I'll probably ever make)

- ECC RAM Capable (required for Xeon)

As it is right now, I'm looking at server-grade motherboards, and have narrowed it down to 1 board in particular. ASRock Rack E3C224-4L. This meets all the requirements I need, and is a fairly good price. The only downside is that the board is only capable of Xeon E3 chips, which at the moment only go up to 4 core, 3.6 Ghz Speed, with 8MB L3 Cache. The newer E5 chips, while capable of 12 core, 30MB L3 Cache, are also over $2k!!! I don't need anything like that. But I would like a beefy system. I am willing to look at others, but I think for the most part I'm comfortable with the E3 chip, and plan on that route. Once the motherboard is completely decided on, I will buy whatever cheapest ram and cpu I can get to make it work so I can verify the mobo isn't DOA. Then I'll upgrade to more ram and cpu.

So what do you guys say? Got an alternative motherboard in mind that I can use? What would you recommend?

[tthurman]

Man, that chassis is HUGE!

I have never built a hog like this, but if you're cool with the CPU limitation, that motherboard looks like a good value to me. 4 Intel nics , will your switch take advantage of link aggregation?

As for the CPU, more cores and L2 cache is always sweet, but unless your planning on throwing up a bunch of VM's, 4 cores should preform well, I would think. VM's also are RAM hogs, which could be somewhat of another limitation at 32 GB, but I don't recall that being a thing for you anyway. Seems like good bang for the buck to me!

[hansolo77]

I actually don't have a switch yet. I will buy one later after I've upgraded everything else. Probably before I get the Xeon though. I plan on getting the lowest end Celeron that it supports first. Also, I don't plan on doing anything like VMs. I have no use for it. In fact, I've never even attempted setting anything like that up before, so I would be completely lost. Since my requirements are just solid media streaming and maybe transcoding, I think this is the most I would ever need.

Thanks tthurman for your input. It's nice to know at least that I'm on the right track.

[stigzler]

My god! 24 drive bays!? That could be like 100TB or something. Are helping out the NSA or something?

Looks like a beast + sure it'll be futrue-proofed for a couple of decades?

[hansolo77]

LOL. To be honest, in my old system, I had 15 drives. 7 internal (SSD not mounted anywhere, and 6 in bays) and 8 External via hotswap bays using converters that transform 3 5.25in bays into 5 3.5in bays, and 2 5.25in bays into 3 3.5in bays. It worked great, but I was having a lot of issues when I wanted to upgrade to more space. I'd have to find the smallest drive, and replace it with a newer/larger capacity one. Then I was having trouble because all the hotswap bays were all Sata 1 only, and not compatible with drives over 2TB. So I was ending up replacing my larger capacity drives in the inside drive bays (connected directly to the motherboard) and that required taking both side panels of the case off, and a lot of hassle getting the plugs setup. This upgrade to a 24-bay system was just the next step. I could have went with the Norco RPC-4220, which gives you 20 hot swap drives, 3 SSD/Laptop Drives, and an Optical drive. But I figured if I'm going to do all that and spend that money, I might as well get the big daddy. As it is right now, before I buy the new motherboard/etc, I have 17 drives installed. This is only because of hardware limitations, where I only have 2 mini-SAS reverse breakout cables (totaling 8 drives) and 2 mini-SAS direct cables (totaling 8 drives) and 1 direct connected SSD.

I don't even really have all to much on my drives either. Using Drive Pool, I have it configured with EVERYTHING in the pool being duplicated twice for redundancy (which has come in handy very often with cheap desktop drives). My plan is to eventually upgrade all these drives to either 4TB NAS drives or 8TB Storage drives. The NAS drives are actually a pretty good price right now, but they're not designed for typical gaming PC/etc usage. They spin slow, and have error checking to help eliminate bad sectors. The Storage drives are the latest/greatest, and actually use SMR for read/write which is also slow spinning and typically used in large storage arrays.

[hansolo77]

Want something REALLY crazy? Check this guy out:

http://www.45drives.com/products/storage/xl60.php

[stigzler]

....I might as well get the big daddy.

Sounds like you got the name of the behemoth:

"The Big Daddy" - like it!

[nullPointer]

....I might as well get the big daddy.

Sounds like you got the name of the behemoth:

"The Big Daddy" - like it!

Pictured - Han's new server:

Now you just need to name one of your smaller satellite systems Little Sister.

[hansolo77]

Friend of mine at covecube (DrivePool website) posted this guy:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/4U/946/SC946ED-R2KJBOD.cfm

Now that's crazy. My piddly 24 case don't seem so bad now does it?

[tthurman]

Just goes to show you that storage is king!

Soon, digital storage will be running the stuff out of the garage that ran the cars out of the garage

[stigzler]

Seriously though - what on earth would you need that much storage for!?

Before that fantastic BioShock character, we had this here in the UK:

]

Some days I feel so proud to be British...

[hansolo77]

Seriously though - what on earth would you need that much storage for!?

With data duplication and redundancy, I really only have about 8tb storage right now. Currently, it's hosting HD versions of about 75 complete TV shows, and another 25 that are just SD. I also have about 30 BluRay's backed up so I can protect my disks. That's where most of my storage is being used. I also have a complete digital archive of all our photos, scanned in uncompressed high resolution, as well as new photos from digital cameras. When Dad got married, we added all of his new wife's photos too. Then we've got our entire CD collection ripped in 320/CBR (about 200 CD's give or take) along with a huge amount of downloaded music from iTunes and Audible audiobooks. Then we have a folder where we store all our eBooks, which includes a digital version of (almost) all our books, which is over 1,000 now since Dad married. I also keep a backup of all my disc based console games so I play them without worrying about scratching/damaging all my originals.. Lastly, I use the server for client PC backups of the other computers in our house, so whatever data they have are also being copied and taking up space on the server.

[stigzler]

Whoa. Just whoa....

[Draco1962]

Hey Han, I am a little late to this party, but if you don't mind explaining how Drivepool works. I am going to build a server based off of Windows 2012 R2 in the near future and thinking about using, at minimum, 2 WD Red 4TB NAS drives (not including the OS drive). What can I feasibly expect in total storage? I am building this on an older Dell XPS 420 as a file and print server initially. Not a lot of room for additional hard drives and mainly for music and picture file storage, as well as backup storage for mine and my wife's PCs.

[hansolo77]

It all depends on your plans. DrivePool can essentially merge those 2 drives into 1 large drive. In my case, I have the C drive (Windows OS installation) and the D drive (DrivePool). The D drive is split amongst all the drives in the case, minus the SSD the OS is installed on. Without configuring redundancy, you can essentially have an 8tb drive. WITH redundancy it depends on what you want to do. You have the power to perform duplication on a drive level or down to the file level if you wish, with as many multipliers you want. For me, I'm doing a folder-level duplication of 2x. That gives me 2 copies of everything in my DrivePool's root path. DrivePool then does all the backend work as far as remembering which drive the folder/file I want is stored on, and with the 2x setting it guarantees that 1 copy exists on 1 drive and another exists somewhere else. That way if a drive fails, whatever is on it still exists on another drive. By using the 2x setting, I am also in effect cutting my storage space down by half. So even though I have about 40tb worth of drive space, only 20tb is available. However, like I said, you can set your duplication anywhere you want. So if you want to just have your /Music path set with 2x duplication, you can set the rest of your pool with NO duplication, and give yourself more storage space. But you have no way of knowing which physical drive your stuff is on, so if one drive fails, it may or may not have what you wanted. You could also set your /Music to 2x, and your Photos to 3x, etc. It's completely open to whatever you want to do.

The way it works, DrivePool installs a kernel driver into Windows during bootup. So when you are looking at the Device Manager, it actually shows up as a device. The same is true in the Disk Manager, it actually shows up as a physical drive. Once you have it installed, you open up the DrivePool tab in the Server Essentials program (built into Windows Server 2012), and you see the pool and all the drives attached to the system. Select a drive you want, and just add it to the pool. Within seconds, that drive is now part of the pool. The neat thing is, you don't even have to have a clean/formatted drive either. It basically creates a hidden folder on the existing partition, where it stores any new files you put into the pool. If you decide you want to remove a drive from the pool, just click on it and select REMOVE.. within a few minutes (it has to calculate what files/folders need to be moved/copied to other locations) it's back the way it was before. It's really not difficult to use at all.

[hansolo77]

So get this. Newegg sent me their Cyber Monday ad in my email today. I took a look at their deals on storage, as I need to add some more space to my server. I've been waiting for a good price on the Seagate 4tb NAS drives. And boy do they have the sweetest deal ever. Normally $229.99, it is now $119.99. That's almost HALF the cost. When I clicked on it this morning, it was in stock. I initiated the order, and got to the final SUBMIT page, which I saw the final price and thought I'd better check my bank account. Sure enough, there's wasn't enough in there. So I got in the car and drove to the bank to transfer some money into it to cover the cost. Drove all the way back home and clicked the SUBMIT button. It craps out. Gives me an error about no items in the cart, or insufficient quantities (very generic error). I go back (thinking maybe the order timed out) and try to resubmit again, and it gives the same error. I go clear back to the original link, and see now that the item is on BACK ORDER. I could still click on it and initiate an order, but it continues to give me the same error. Now when I look at the item, it says OUT OF STOCK, and doesn't even allow me to place an order. What a bunch of BS. I had an order 99% of the way completed, but because I had to take like 10 minutes to get some more money I'm not out of luck? That's not right, not at all.

I emailed NewEgg to see if they can do something. I doubt they will. What really pisses me off is that it's going to cost me 10% for that pay advance to cover the cost, and now I'm not even going to be able to get that. It'll probably go back up to full price after today too. And I had a fricken order already in place. UHG! Finger's crossed that the NewEgg guys have some Christmas Spirit.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178393&ignorebbr=1

[Draco1962]

Given that Seagate is notorious for hard drive failures compared to the other brands, I would rather save up and try to catch a deal on some WD Reds. They are presently $139.99 at Amazon.

[hansolo77]

I've thought about that, but I've never had any issues with Seagate. There's that whole "your mileage my vary" thing, but honestly without any issues I'm happy with their products. I already own one of these 4tb NAS drives, and am really impressed with it. For my purposes of just media storage, they work great. Normal temps rarely go above 29c and high usage (moving files, not actually playing them) will spike at no more than 32c. That's awesome for a case that has 24 drives in it. The only time I've ever had an issue with Seagate was when I purchased a drive (labeled as generic on their website) a few years ago from a reseller. They guaranteed the drive would work for at least a year. It worked for 3 years then started showing wear signs. I was unable to initiate an RMA though because it was ripped out of a HP OEM computer, and Seagate requires the HP customer number in order to replace it (they tracked the serial number and know it came from an OEM).

On the good news side of things, I got a reply back (instant?) saying they would reply back in 2-3 days. Woo. But I went back to refresh their page again, and it looks like they got more in stock. I was able to order one! This is a helluva good deal if you're looking for one of these drives. I'd like to get a bunch of 8tb's but they're too expensive right now. 1 drive at a time, when I can afford it, is good enough.

[nullPointer]

But I went back to refresh their page again, and it looks like they got more in stock. I was able to order one! This is a helluva good deal if you're looking for one of these drives.

Awesome news Han! Glad you were able to score what you were looking for

1 drive at a time, when I can afford it, is good enough.

Ha, yeah I'm in the same boat with my NAS. I've been on the lookout for one more 3TB WD Red drive. The sale that Draco linked is fantastic, but unfortunately my whole saga described over here has pretty much expended my computer part budget for at least a few months. But hey at least my gaming machine is operational again!

[Adultery]

I need one too... Gonna go for the 3TB RED, drive #7. Maybe I can finally finish up my DVD collection. My wife has been impressed with the miniDLNA and she don't get impressed ever when it comes to technology.

[tthurman]

I've been having positive results with Toshiba drives,

[hansolo77]

@Adultery - Can you help me with my DLNA? I can't really get it to work right. I'm not sure if you use Emby or not, but needless to say I have it set up to use DLNA and blast announcements every 30 seconds (default). However, when I try to see it on my network from a connected BluRay player that supports DLNA, it doesn't show up. Strangely, what DOES show up is Media Player's "Digital Media Server". However, when using that, all I can see/play are AVI files because it's not performing any transcoding. The BluRay player is capable of playing mkv files, so it shouldn't even be transcoding. I suspect it's because the Digital Media Server doesn't recognize MKV as a video and doesn't include it in it's list of available streams. I used to use Serviio, but it was using too much system resources to have running all the time when Dad would only use it once or twice a month. Do you have any suggestions of what I should try?

@tthurman - I have a "spare" Toshiba drive, but it's flaky. I started to notice the last 2 or 3 months I had it connected that the temps on the drive were increasing rapidly. Where they originally leveled around 38c, the temps gradually increased 3-4 degrees every 12 hours or so. I pulled it when it started hitting 50-55c. I put it in a safe place as an emergency backup and forgot all about it. When I rebuilt my server with the new 24-drive case I decided to reconnect it to add more storage, then I remembered the issues. Now it not only gets extremely hot, but the drive itself is constantly dropping connections. Either with the power completely dying or the data connection will disappear with the drive still spinning. I'm not sure if there is a way to RMA this drive, especially considering it's a rather old one (it has both SATA power and ATA power). Do you (or anybody else) know of any way I can try to replace this?

@Everybody - So you guys all like WD huh? I've got my fair share of WD drives in my server. They perform just as well as the rest of them. My decision to buy Seagate, honestly, is purely based on cost. Time and time again, they're usually cheaper than WD. The NAS drives seem better quality than WD in comparisons I've seen, and they have extra business/enterprise features that I don't see with WD. Time will tell I guess, but if it'll make ya'll happy, I'll buy a WD next time.

[Draco1962]

Make me happy dammit!

[Adultery]

Yo Han, I decommissioned my Windows Server installation and moved over to Nas4Free instead, which uses miniDLNA (used to be Fuppes but miniDLNA was recently added to the shell, although I have it installed in a jail anyway). I handbrake all my own stuff really and it's mp4 anyway unless it's a really old video or a home movie, and none of my devices have trouble with any of them, so transcoding is a non issue.

To be honest, the overhead on Windows Server was just too much for what I needed. With Nas4Free, I get the redundancy I require. Some of my drives are raided, some things are backed up in a cron script using rsync if I don't need to back up the whole drive and only want to back up certain files instead).

Transmission works out of the box with little or no setup.

Owncloud is in a jail, fully functional thanks to full DDNS integration (although my router also supports DDNS I have a better control over it on the server).

SMB works great with as much network transfer speed as my network allows (which will be great once I update the rest of my nics to take advantage of the GB switches).

All this and more, on a i5 with 8 GB RAM. Pretty much any computer can handle it no matter how old... If you're looking to build a server on the cheap or just to repurpose an old computer, it can't be beat.

So I'm probably the wrong dude to ask. Sorry to ramble on about Nas4Free, but I just adore it.

[Draco1962]

One drive to store them all... at around $800.00 US.