[WIP] Overkill Home Server build

[Rmusic10891]

Background

So this is a project that I've been planning for a while, but haven't gotten around to because of time constraints.

A few weeks ago I decided it was time to go ahead and start work on this thing since I'm running out of space on

on my current array that is about 3TB. It's going to be a bit slow to come together because I work insane amounts

of hours currently and probably will be switching jobs here in the next few weeks so updates could be a bit wide

spread over the next month or so.  Also this thing is kinda expensive to build so there's that too.

 

Purpose

This is going to be a server predominately used for media storage. It's going to run FreeNas with ZFS zraid2

which means I needs lots of drives, lots of memory and a decent amount of processing headroom.  I might also

play around with iSCSI target drives for storing games.  Mostly though this thing is just going to hold full size

rips of blu-rays

 

Software

So like I mentioned this is probably getting FreeNAS installed and will feed a HTPC and a Roku.  Primarily

I'll just point a HTPC running XBMC at it to play blu-rays. I'll also install Plex for playback to a Roku sometimes

as well as some mobile devices maybe.  Plex probably won't get used too often because it takes about 2-3 minutes

to begin playback on one of my blu-ray files because they need to be transcoded for a Roku (my files are in MKV

but most use a h.264 level above what Roku supports, and using a h.264 version changer hasn't worked for me).

I also just plain like how XBMC handles content better, especially with box sets of which I have quite a few.

 

Hardware

The hardware list is evolving as time goes on since I've changed my mind several times about how I want this thing 

to function.  Here's where I stand currently:

 

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130T 2.9GHz Dual-Core Processor  Need to buy

Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme6 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  Need to buy

Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory Have (somewhere in my box of goodies)

Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk Need to Buy

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive Have 5x (Need 1 more)

Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 ATX Mid Tower Case  Have

Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply Need to buy

 

I know I have gotten things in kind of a strange order.. I bought the drives last month when they were on sale for $90USD,

but I could only get 5 at the time because that's all they had. Turns out they're on sale again this month so I'll have that 

soon.  

 

I also know that most people would say I should buy ECC memory. I'm probably not going to do it due to a couple issues. I haven't yet

found a board that supports ECC that I like.  Also they're more expensive, the memory is more expensive, and most of

the boards don't have enough SATA ports to give me the headroom that I want/need. That means I need an additional 

controller and that's more money. The data isn't really that critical or important to me.

 

TLDR

 

Current progress (sorry for all the noise in the photo I'm between cameras currently)

 

 

[TheNinjaNextDor]

I think this puts you in the 10+ TB club!

[Rmusic10891]

I think this puts you in the 10+ TB club!

It will, but I'll have to wait patiently until this thing is done 

[Hans Christian | Teri]

I like overkill, and I definitely like the case, very beautiful. Gonna look great with the last harddrive in there as well.

[Hikaru12]

If you're using ZFS what are you planning on using for parity? I was thinking about doing something similar but the cost of having to add 4+ drives at a time is a turnoff as that can easily cost $600+. Not that I would have to do that often but still.