[jaydash]

Hello, I'm looking to build a new home server! I currently have an HP ex495 with an eSATA enclosure attached (about 21 TB total), and I've received significant help and ideas browsing this forum in the past! Everyone involved here seems tremendously helpful, so I thought I'd post a cry for help!

I've built a good gaming rig, and a real nice HTPC, so I'm at least passingly familiar with the components for those types of builds... but I have NO IDEA what's going on when it comes to the components necessary to have a server reliably handle 10/20+ hard drives! Something about a hard drive controller card? What's a really good one that can handle 10 - 20 drives? Can I build this rig for around $1,500? I figure I've already got all the hard drives I need to start, so that's probably a reasonable budget for a good server.

I'm running WHS 2011 and Stablebit Drive Pool and Stablebit Scanner on my ex495 (installing WHS 2011 was a trip for me!). I think I'm happy with this OS combination, but I'd be willing to shell out for a new OS if there's a definite benefit -the only caveat, I'd like to stick with MS/Windows... not a fanboy, I'm just familiar with it, and between work and family I don't have the time or desire to learn a new operating environment. Plus I REALLY like WHS's JBOD-type ease of use and data duplication (with Stablebit's Drive Pool in WHS 2011). Just plop in a disk and add it to the pool. Awesome. It has been easy to set up and worked great. I don't know anything about RAID, etc. other than those options exist and they're very good at what they do. But with my limited free time, I'm afraid they're just not for me... I need relative simplicity -something I can put together and don't need to "learn"!

I rip my movie and music collection to the server, and I've got all our home video and photos stored on it as well. Everything's duplicated via the OS, so there's a pretty significant need for space... Between the ex495 and the drive enclosure I've currently got about 20/21 TB of usable space spread across nine 2 and 3 TB drives, and I'd like it all contained with one system (less to troubleshoot?!) and room for expansion. For instance... a giant case that can accomodat?

The server's mostly used to serve files to an HTPC running XBMC (LOVE me some XBMC eye candy -plus tack on some Angelscry's Advanced Launcher action and you can do anything!) across the house (mostly blu-ray/dvd rips, music, photos and HD home video), also looking at running Plex on the server to serve/transcode my full BR rips for some Rokus in other rooms (don't hate -I just don't have time to maintain multiple lovely XBMC builds)... and room to grow is always a good thing! I'm okay with a little overkill, "future-proof" is good -unless my budget's unrealistic!

I have a love/hate relationship with my current HP ex495 home server -mostly love, it's the attached Rosewill eSATA drive enclosure that causes all the hatin'). I'm TIRED of the eSATA enclosure dropping random drives out of the drive pool. I want something that just works. The weird thing... whenever a drive gets dropped from the drivepool you've gotta reboot the system, no big deal. But if you try just rebooting, it won't come back up about 50-75% of the time. However, if you unplug and re-seat the eSATA connections then it will come back up and run flawlessly for days before dropping another random drive for no apparent reason. I've tried trouble shooting, and other eSATA cables, and an entirely different (yet identical) drive enclosure, same issue. I've found tips on this, and other forums, but nothing has worked... And so, I'm done. My wife's tired of me complaining and she is at least somewhat-mostly okay with me going ahead with another build (as my Father's Day gift, I'm told)!

I need reliable.

But I need help...

Any feedback would be VERY much appreciated. Thanks!

[saitoh183]

I run a similar setup to you (WHS2011,DP+scanner) with about 11.8TB of space. I have 2 HTPCs that both read media off server(often simultaneously). My server runs 24/7 and its has all our family stuff on it as well. I also run Flexraid for parity support instead of using DP duplication. My system is the following:

Asus P5KLP-AM EPU with intel Core2Duo E6300 + 4GB of Ram
2x Syba SD-SATA2-2E2I 4 Chnl SATA II Card
Mediasonic HF2-SU2S2 Pro Box 4 Bay (esata)
Adata 64GB SSD for OS
I uses my old gaming case Thermaltake armor+

My server runs a Teamspeak server, Sabnzb, NZBDrone (all automated systems) all while serving my media.

Mediasonic had some issues till i changed to the proper esata card for it.You dont need a bomb of a server just to feed media and storage. If you want to get rid of your Esata enclosure, you need to find a MB that has many sata ports, and PCIx slots. A decent case with many HDD slots (8+) and has good ventilation. As for the CPU, if your planning to rip with a Bluray drive, get a the cheapest i5, if not any CPU will do. Same for Ram..4GB if your not ripping..6 to 8Gb if you are.

[jaydash]

Thanks for the suggestions! An SSD for the OS is great, I have that in my gaming and HTPC rigs, but it didn't occur to me for the server for some reason.
I see a lot of positive comments about FlexRaid, users appear to be big fans -and it runs on top of a Windows environment, huh? Worth looking into...
Thanks again!

[Dougie Fresh]

A lot of people will say an SSD is a waste in a server but I found for WHS2011 it really helps with RDP and bringing up the dashboard in a big way.

[saitoh183]

A lot of people will say an SSD is a waste in a server but I found for WHS2011 it really helps with RDP and bringing up the dashboard in a big way.

yes it does help. As for Flexraid, yes it does run on top of windows file system thats why it plays nice with Drivepool

[jaydash]

Any suggestions from anyone as to a good controller card for managing 10 to 20 hard drives?

Is that all that's needed in addition to the "normal" setup of a motherboard, memory, power supply, etc?

And thanks, I'm looking into Flexraid...

[Rick P.]

I use a Supermicro SAS2LP-MV8 expansion card in my server running Linux but I assume it would work just as well under Windows. Just using SAS breakout cables it will support 8 SATA hard drives. If you want more on the card you'll probably have to pay a lot more for it so I just bought a motherboard with extra 16 lane expansion slots for the future - I'll just buy another card (I only use 14 drives now since it's cheaper to replace smaller drives with multi-terabyte drives these days.
For lots of physical space a relatively cheap Norco case with SAS backplanes is hard to beat. You'll need reverse SAS breakout cables for it (not forward) and someplace out of the way to put it unless you replace the noisy fans. Also buy the highest efficiency power supply you can afford.