Home server/network setup

[Jobobee]

Hello everyone, 

I might be moving house soon, so I decided that I'd make a nice home network set-up, with in-wall Ethernet, and of course the obligatory Windows Home server. 

I was also thinking of using the home server as a router with PFSense, I have been affirmed that this would be possible with a virtual machine. 

Can anyone help me come up with a set-up including the home server and switches etc...

This is what I've chosen so far, if you can save some money that would be great, but I'd like a good PSU so that I can save some electricity seeing as it's amazingly expensive in Italy...

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

 

CPU:  Intel Core i3-2100T 2.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£99.02 @ Scan.co.uk) 

Motherboard:  Gigabyte GA-P61-USB3-B3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard  (£48.77 @ Amazon UK) 

Memory:  Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£59.26 @ Amazon UK) 

Wired Network Adapter:  Intel E1G44HTBLK 10/100/1000 Mbps PCI-Express x4 Network Adapter  (£200.00 @ Ebuyer) 

Power Supply:  Corsair RM 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£91.99 @ Dabs) 

Other: LSI MegaRAID SAS 9240 (£204.00)

Total: £703.04

(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-09 20:48 GMT+0000)

[WoodenMarker]

Such overkill on the psu. Get a cheaper one. 

As for power savings, why not haswell? 

 

Edits: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2QfaW

[Jobobee]

Such overkill on the psu. Get a cheaper one. 

As for power savings, why not haswell? 

 

Edits: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2QfaW

Thanks!

Do you know of any good cases capable of 6+ drives?

Also, would the best switch be that Netgear one that Linus did an unboxing of a while ago?

[WoodenMarker]

Thanks!

Do you know of any good cases capable of 6+ drives?

Also, would the best switch be that Netgear one that Linus did an unboxing of a while ago?

Source 210 Elite: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/nzxt-case-s210e001

[Jobobee]

Source 210 Elite: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/nzxt-case-s210e001

Ah, thanks for that.

Last question (Hopefully), would I be better off getting cheap WD Blues, or something like Reds. I greatly prefer WD to Seagate, as I've heard from tons of people that they keep failing.

[Atlantisman]

The power supply is indeed overkill, i would get something around 500 watts maybe, unless you're putting a lot of hdds in it, then you may need all the power connectors. But instead of buying that psu you could buy cheap splitters like these: 

 

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Power-Splitter-Adapter-PYO4SATA/dp/B0086OGN9E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1391980216&sr=8-2&keywords=sata+power+splitter

 

Also, you can find good surplus NICs on ebay for cheap, such as this:

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-NC365T-Gigabit-Ethernet-Card-PCI-E-4-Port-593722-B21-593743-001-593720-001-/390767625021?hash=item5afb90c33d

 

You can also find nice surplus raid cards on ebay, such as this:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-M1015-ServeRaid-SAS-SATA-PCI-e-RAID-Controller-LSI-SAS9220-8i-FRU-46M0861-/141183546331?pt=US_Server_Disk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item20df31f3db

 

That raid card is a LSI Megaraid card and can be flashed back to the LSI firmware, instead of the IDM firmware. This will save you a ton of cash.

[Atlantisman]

Ah, thanks for that.

Last question (Hopefully), would I be better off getting cheap WD Blues, or something like Reds. I greatly prefer WD to Seagate, as I've heard from tons of people that they keep failing.

Don't get WD blues, they're not made for raid operation and will likely die quicker.

[Jobobee]

Don't get WD blues, they're not made for raid operation and will likely die quicker.

Anything you recommend?

[Atlantisman]

Anything you recommend?

WD Reds are fine. So are some of the options on the Seagate side.

[Jobobee]

The power supply is indeed overkill, i would get something around 500 watts maybe, unless you're putting a lot of hdds in it, then you may need all the power connectors. But instead of buying that psu you could buy cheap splitters like these: 

 

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Power-Splitter-Adapter-PYO4SATA/dp/B0086OGN9E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1391980216&sr=8-2&keywords=sata+power+splitter

 

Also, you can find good surplus NICs on ebay for cheap, such as this:

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-NC365T-Gigabit-Ethernet-Card-PCI-E-4-Port-593722-B21-593743-001-593720-001-/390767625021?hash=item5afb90c33d

 

You can also find nice surplus raid cards on ebay, such as this:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-M1015-ServeRaid-SAS-SATA-PCI-e-RAID-Controller-LSI-SAS9220-8i-FRU-46M0861-/141183546331?pt=US_Server_Disk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item20df31f3db

 

That raid card is a LSI Megaraid card and can be flashed back to the LSI firmware, instead of the IDM firmware. This will save you a ton of cash.

I'll have a look for some stuff on eBay. I'm in the EU, so it'd be best to buy from here. 

I plan on running RAID 5.

 

WD Reds are fine. So are some of the options on the Seagate side.

 

I didn't realize that Reds were actually quite cheap, I'll probably get some of those.

[Atlantisman]

I'll have a look for some stuff on eBay. I'm in the EU, so it'd be best to buy from here. 

I plan on running RAID 5.

Also, if you're going to run VMs then i would get a bit more RAM. Hypervisors will like a little bit for themselves and windows server will want some too, i would just get another 8gb DIMM.

[Jobobee]

Also, if you're going to run VMs then i would get a bit more RAM. Hypervisors will like a little bit for themselves and windows server will want some too, i would just get another 8gb DIMM.

4GB should be more than enough for WHS, and 2 for pfSense, I could even use 6 for WHS.

[WoodenMarker]

Ah, thanks for that.

Last question (Hopefully), would I be better off getting cheap WD Blues, or something like Reds. I greatly prefer WD to Seagate, as I've heard from tons of people that they keep failing.

Reds are good for raid. Seagate drives are fine. There are more complaints because Seagate doesn't break up their lines of drives into 'greens', 'blues', etc. The drives are just as good.

[Jobobee]

Reds are good for raid. Seagate drives are fine. There are more complaints because Seagate doesn't break up their lines of drives into 'greens', 'blues', etc. The drives are just as good.

Why are they so much cheaper then?

[Atlantisman]

4GB should be more than enough for WHS, and 2 for pfSense, I could even use 6 for WHS.

Yeah, but if you're anything like me once you have a virtual server up you will want more ram for everything else lol. I have 2 ESXi machines now with 32gb of ram each.

[WoodenMarker]

Why are they so much cheaper then?

They aren't?

[Jobobee]

Yeah, but if you're anything like me once you have a virtual server up you will want more ram for everything else lol. I have 2 ESXi machines now with 32gb of ram each.

For what else?

[Atlantisman]

For what else?

I run game servers (minecraft, terraria). Web servers, a torrent box, two windows servers, and a bunch of different linux distros just to test.

[Jobobee]

They aren't?

They're a little less, I always thought that they were way less..

Thanks so much for your help!

[Jobobee]

Would this NIC and this RAID Card work okay?

[Atlantisman]

i don't think the NIC would, it appears to have a non-standard interface. The raid card looks like it would work fine though.

[Jobobee]

i don't think the NIC would, it appears to have a non-standard interface. The raid card looks like it would work fine though.

How about this?

The RAID card is so cheap... I don't see how it's possible...

[Atlantisman]

That NIC would work, but it doesn't appear to come with a mounting bracket, so everytime you unplug and plug in a cable you'd have to be super careful not to push/pull the card out of the PCIe slot.

[Jobobee]

That NIC would work, but it doesn't appear to come with a mounting bracket, so everytime you unplug and plug in a cable you'd have to be super careful not to push/pull the card out of the PCIe slot.

That's fine. I wouldn't be unplugging anything, it'd just run straight to the switch.

[Atlantisman]

Also, with that mobo you won't be able to run both the raid card and the NIC, it only has 1 16x slot and 2 1x slots. Those cards are 4x and 8x PCIe.