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Home Server Power Needs

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nfinity

nfinity

Member
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Joined
Jul 8, 2012
Want to build a home server. It will be used mainly to back up my data. Thinking of having two 2TB drivers in RAID 1. I am thinking that I will be streaming movies off it too for my desktop or laptop. Thinking that would be the most demanding thing Ill do with it. Now.. I’m not sure what cpu I would need??? I would want to make sure that there was no chance of lag for video watching. Also not sure how much memory... 4GB I think would be ok?

Thanks guys
 
If you are just sharing files, you can go "lowest of the low" powered processors. Depending on the operating system, you could easily get away with 512mb RAM. 4 GB would be overkill, but fine.

Have you considered a pre-built NAS unit or do you want to build your own?
 
Yeah, but I want to stream videos from it too. NAS units that I have seen don't seem to special. Maybe I'm not looking at the right ones but they seem to be kinda slow and pricier then I thought they should be. thinking maybe a Intel Pentium G850?
 
Last edited:
That should work fine.

Even a lower power NAS should be fully capable of multiple video streams. My largest Bluray (10gb) is around 1 MB/s transfer rate. That is not even close to the limit of hard drives or a network.
 
thideras said:
That should work fine.

Even a lower power NAS should be fully capable of multiple video streams. My largest Bluray (10gb) is around 1 MB/s transfer rate. That is not even close to the limit of hard drives or a network.
Click to expand...

I didn’t know that. Maybe a cheap 2 bay NAS will work then. Do you have any recommendations? Looking for a 2 bay NAS for under $150, not including the storage drives. Personally I would hope a NAS could handle 10MB/s transfer speeds if you think pretty much all NAS units can do that? I would be moving a lot of files to it to start in the begin.

I can build a server for pretty cheap aswell. I have an 80GB drive I could use as a boot drive, windows home server 2008, case, keyboard, mouse, old monitor. I would need cpu(G850) and MD(H61) $145, psu $35, 4GB memory $22, total being $202 without storage drives.

Basically a NAS would plug into a router through rj45? Assuming any modern router will do?

thanks
 
nfinity said:
I didn’t know that. Maybe a cheap 2 bay NAS will work then. Do you have any recommendations? Looking for a 2 bay NAS for under $150, not including the storage drives. Personally I would hope a NAS could handle 10MB/s transfer speeds if you think pretty much all NAS units can do that? I would be moving a lot of files to it to start in the begin.

I can build a server for pretty cheap aswell. I have an 80GB drive I could use as a boot drive, windows home server 2008, case, keyboard, mouse, old monitor. I would need cpu(G850) and MD(H61) $145, psu $35, 4GB memory $22, total being $202 without storage drives.

Basically a NAS would plug into a router through rj45? Assuming any modern router will do?

thanks
Click to expand...

Have you considered hosting files from your daily driver rig? I mean setting up a simple read only share is all it takes.
 
nfinity said:
I didn’t know that. Maybe a cheap 2 bay NAS will work then. Do you have any recommendations? Looking for a 2 bay NAS for under $150, not including the storage drives. Personally I would hope a NAS could handle 10MB/s transfer speeds if you think pretty much all NAS units can do that? I would be moving a lot of files to it to start in the begin.
Click to expand...
Not all NAS devices are created equal. You would need to research the device, but I'm not sure how good of one you can get for $150.

If you can put it in your system, as Archer mentioned, that would be the cheapest and simplest option.
 
My current daily rig would have to be updated(psu, raid card, bigger case) to host my library of files so not thinking that’s worth it. I can see it possibly worth it for a new build next year but not sure I want to do that since it really would be running 24/7 or close too it. May be a little harsh on my electric bill for the machine I’m planning to build. Also If I had to restart the machine for let’s say windows updates, or a game install that would be a issue for my girlfriend if she was watching a movie or checking or files at that same time, but a doable idea never the less.

Really can’t see this being a cheap project since two 2TB drive cost over $200 total at this time. NAS and low end server seem to be the best bet, I’ll be waiting a bit, hopefully hard drive prices will fall a little by then
 
Drives are expensive right now, yes. Your best bet would be to get used ones with some warranty left. In the past month, I purchased 10x 750gb Seagates for $30/e and 8x 1.5tb Seagates for $45/e.

Why would you need to update your power supply for two hard drives? You also do not need a RAID card since you could do it on the motherboard or in your operating system. RAID 1 is very easy for software RAID.
 
thideras said:
Drives are expensive right now, yes. Your best bet would be to get used ones with some warranty left. In the past month, I purchased 10x 750gb Seagates for $30/e and 8x 1.5tb Seagates for $45/e.

Why would you need to update your power supply for two hard drives? You also do not need a RAID card since you could do it on the motherboard or in your operating system. RAID 1 is very easy for software RAID.
Click to expand...

Those are some good prices. Where did you find those if you mind me asking? Amazon, ebay, Craigslist?

I don’t think you understand how old my system is… haha. It’s a dell inspiron 531. Runs an amd athlon x2 5600. Has a 300 watt psu. I have upgraded the gpu to a 8600gt added a hard drive, a Fan and 2 sticks of memory. Basically that psu is maxed out for my liking. Its possible the motherboard can support raid 1 with 2 drives, I forget. Either way I think its best just to wait a bit. I’ll better decide what option for redundant storage is best for me.
 
I actually purchased them off the classifieds in this forum.

Now that you've clarified on the hardware you have, I can see the concern with the power supply. However, unless you are running it right at the limit, it should be ok. But, if you are going to be upgrading the system anyway, might as well wait.
 
thideras said:
I actually purchased them off the classifieds in this forum.

Now that you've clarified on the hardware you have, I can see the concern with the power supply. However, unless you are running it right at the limit, it should be ok. But, if you are going to be upgrading the system anyway, might as well wait.
Click to expand...

Yeah.. I don’t feel the need to push it anymore. I’ll wait. Thinking of going all out and getting haswell when it comes out next year. Hopping its going to be close to the % improve like how sandy bridge was to nehalem microarchitecture.
 
nfinity said:
My current daily rig would have to be updated(psu, raid card, bigger case) to host my library of files so not thinking that’s worth it.
Click to expand...

Just making sure you are aware - A NAS (even a fault tolerant RAID NAS) is not a backup by itself. You will still need to store your files in at least two separate locations if you want to have any form of data resiliency and not allow any single point of failure (like the NAS' PSU frying your drives) to result in a complete loss of ALL your files...

I'm assuming you have these files on external drives now? Or where do they currently live? If that's the case - just keep the files mirrored on these external drives as your backup - and use the new NAS as your "online" storage...

:cool:
 
Randyman... said:
Just making sure you are aware - A NAS (even a fault tolerant RAID NAS) is not a backup by itself. You will still need to store your files in at least two separate locations if you want to have any form of data resiliency and not allow any single point of failure (like the NAS' PSU frying your drives) to result in a complete loss of ALL your files...

I'm assuming you have these files on external drives now? Or where do they currently live? If that's the case - just keep the files mirrored on these external drives as your backup - and use the new NAS as your "online" storage...

:cool:
Click to expand...

it is possible. Have the files in two places. Desktop and external drive. I probably will still use the external drive as a 2nd back place as well. If the NAS’s psu dies and takes out my drives as well.. I’ll be pissed! Hope that’s rare.
 
If you have a quality power supply with proper safety mechanisms, you lower the chance of that happening significantly.
 
Of course - But you NEVER want to rely on any single storage location (even a RAID with redundancy) for your Data. Any number of issues can result in total data loss - ranging from multiple HD Failures (a second drive failing during a RAID rebuild is not uncommon) all the way to simple user error (been there, done that!)...

This can not be stressed enough IMNSHO. Some poeple get a NAS or external drive, and copy their files to it - and then delete the "orignals" to free up HD Space on their main PC. A big no-no unless you also have the data on other drives or in the cloud, etc.

If you need 2TB of storage to hold your important data, you really need 4-6TB of combined storage across your storage locations to keep it safe ;) ...

:cool:
 
Really thinking of going for a cheap server. If I can build one for $200-250 not including drives, it would so beat a NAS unit which could cost about the same. Even if I could get a NAS for $100 less, It would be nice to have the extra performance of a server since I may have other duties for the system.
 
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