ECC or Non ECC - HomeServer build question.

[Ralms]

Hi there guys,

 

So Ive been wondering if Im going to build a home server or not and Im really close to doing it.

I just have some questions I wanted to get answered before I do my final decision. 

 

I will be running most likely windows home server since I want to be doing weekly backups of all the PCs at home.

The Home Server will be pretty much just to do PCs (running Windows) backups, NAS, media server (Plex) and some other stuff that I decide to do in the future (related to music at home, home automation, etc)

 

So my big big if is that since I dont want to spend more than 400€ on CPU, Motherboard, Ram and power supply, I already have the case, should I go for ECC memory and some server components or will it be overkill??

The server is supposed to be running 24/7 or near that.

 

What are you guys suggestions?

 

Thanks,

Ralms.

[Sonefiler]

ECC

nessecary for servers and useful for NASs

[Freaky_spider]

no, no need for ECC,

[Vitalius]

You could actually get close to €400 for all that and get server grade stuff. Such as here:
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
 
Power Supply: SeaSonic EVO Edition 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (€134.94 @ Amazon Espana) 
Other: ASRock C2550D4I Mini ITX Server Motherboard (€206.00 @ Newegg)
Other: 2 Kingston 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DIMMs (€150.00 @ Newegg)
Total: €490.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-18 21:01 CEST+0200

 

Now, the 2 8GB Kingston dimms, you could get 1 and push it down to €415, and buy the other dimm later, or you could just get 2 x 4GB DIMMs (as long as you weren't going to have over 4TB of storage).

Up to you though. Not sure if Newegg ships to Portugal or if you can find those parts in/near Portugal for similar prices.

It's up to you of course. I highly recommend ECC RAM and FreeNAS if you can make it work with your budget.

[Enderman]

no need for ECC

you are not doing any massive calculations that need to be perfect

[Student]

NO ECC it is overkil,

You realy dont need Error-correcting code memory, it is not nessesarry for home use!
Or did you ever had problems with Flipping bits in your memory,...

[AlwaysFSX]

Nah, you won't (shouldn't) run in to situations where you'll need it.

[Ralms]

ECC

nessecary for servers and useful for NASs

no, no need for ECC,

no need for ECC

you are not doing any massive calculations that need to be perfect

NO ECC it is overkil,

You realy dont need Error-correcting code memory, it is not nessesarry for home use!

Or did you ever had problems with Flipping bits in your memory,...

Nah, you won't (shouldn't) run in to situations where you'll need it.

 

So... 1 yes to 4 no.

 

In what situations would I need it?

 

Thanks.

[AlwaysFSX]

So... 1 yes to 4 no.

 

In what situations would I need it?

 

Thanks.

Large scale rendering or computations, not a file system.

[Vitalius]

So... 1 yes to 4 no.

 

In what situations would I need it?

 

Thanks.

If you intended to use ZFS or other data integrity features to prevent your data from corrupting over time. WHS wouldn't need it at all. Amahi wouldn't need it at all. FreeNAS with ZFS would require it (basically), and Ubuntu with ZFS would do the same.

 

Large scale rendering or computations, not a file system.

.... Pfff, ahahahaahaha. Depends on the file system.

ZFS (Zettabyte File System) pretty much requires it to do it's job correctly. And yes, you can use that in a home file server. I do. I'm not normal, but it isn't hard to do. It's great for long term storage (mostly for photos and important documents/backups) for varying reasons.

[AlwaysFSX]

If you intended to use ZFS or other data integrity features to prevent your data from corrupting over time. WHS wouldn't need it at all. Amahi wouldn't need it at all. FreeNAS with ZFS would require it (basically), and Ubuntu with ZFS would do the same.

.... Pfff, ahahahaahaha. Depends on the file system.

If it's something simple, and doesn't use terrible hardware, ECC isn't necessary. 

[Ralms]

Large scale rendering or computations, not a file system.

 

So if there any chance I get corrupted files due to memory errors? 

 

 

You could actually get close to €400 for all that and get server grade stuff. Such as here:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

Power Supply: SeaSonic EVO Edition 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (€134.94 @ Amazon Espana) 

Other: ASRock C2550D4I Mini ITX Server Motherboard (€206.00 @ Newegg)

Other: 2 Kingston 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DIMMs (€150.00 @ Newegg)

Total: €490.94

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-18 21:01 CEST+0200

 

Now, the 2 8GB Kingston dimms, you could get 1 and push it down to €415, and buy the other dimm later, or you could just get 2 x 4GB DIMMs (as long as you weren't going to have over 4TB of storage).

Up to you though. Not sure if Newegg ships to Portugal or if you can find those parts in/near Portugal for similar prices.

It's up to you of course. I highly recommend ECC RAM and FreeNAS if you can make it work with your budget.

 

I cant order stuff from outside of Europe due to taxes. Gets too expensive.

Well, FreeNAS is out of the question due to high system requirements, complexity and limitations since its really good as a NAS but than limits you on everything else.

 

Thanks for the build suggestion, Im just afraid that CPU is not strong enough for the amount of stuff I wanna do, am I wrong

[AlwaysFSX]

So if there any chance I get corrupted files due to memory errors?

Corrupted files comes from an error with the hard drive, not the memory. You could get a corrupted transfer (highly unlikely, considering your computer still handles files fine, right?) but I highly doubt it.

[Vitalius]

If it's something simple, and doesn't use terrible hardware, ECC isn't necessary.

 

True. But simple isn't always best. And it doesn't sound like what OP is wanting to do is simple. At least, I wouldn't call Plex + Backups + future home automation/music streaming (I assume) simple. May just be me.

So if there any chance I get corrupted files due to memory errors? 

 

I cant order stuff from outside of Europe due to taxes. Gets too expensive.

Well, FreeNAS is out of the question due to high system requirements, complexity and limitations since its really good as a NAS but than limits you on everything else.

 

Thanks for the build suggestion, Im just afraid that CPU is not strong enough for the amount of stuff I wanna do, am I wrong

Depends. It's a very low chance when writing (like, low enough that it doesn't matter). It's not memory errors that cause your files to be corrupted. It's bit rot over time. The only way to defend against that is checksums which is what ZFS rocks at. It's overkill data protection for the average consumer, but it's useful non-the-less.

Ah, alrighty then. That makes sense.

Well, FreeNAS doesn't require that stuff. ZFS does. FreeNAS can use either UFS or ZFS, but UFS limits you in plugins (like Plex), so you are right about that.

You're welcome. No, that CPU is plenty for what you want to do. Without doubt. However, considering what you want, I suggest just using Amahi and some basic M-ITX hardware (no ECC). That seems like it will be fine for you.

Here's a better (price-performance-feature) build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD 5350 2.05Ghz Quad-Core Processor (€52.90 @ Amazon Espana)

Motherboard: Asus AM1I-A Mini ITX AM1 Motherboard (€39.79 @ Amazon Espana)

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€43.36 @ Amazon Espana)

Power Supply: SeaSonic EVO Edition 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€134.94 @ Amazon Espana)

Total: €270.99

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-18 21:33 CEST+0200

The CPU being only 2.05GHz is fine. I underclocked my AMD Phenom X4 to 2.00GHz and Plex ran relatively well. Plex transcoding is probably the most intensive thing you'll be doing. 4 cores is preferred to avoid bottlenecks when streaming media. More speed (GHz) isn't necessary with it, just more cores for the multi-tasking process of transcoding multiple media streams.

The Power Supply is beyond overkill, but it's the cheapest Fully Modular PSU PC Part Picker can find. If you know of a better, cheaper, lower wattage one, go for that. 

I assume the case is small. That's why Fully Modular is preferred. If it isn't, then don't worry about it and go with this PSU: SeaSonic SSR-450RM for €62.62 which puts the price just under €200.

Corrupted files comes from an error with the hard drive, not the memory. You could get a corrupted transfer (highly unlikely, considering your computer still handles files fine, right?) but I highly doubt it.

This^

[Ralms]

 

True. But simple isn't always best. And it doesn't sound like what OP is wanting to do is simple. At least, I wouldn't call Plex + Backups + future home automation/music streaming (I assume) simple. May just be me.

Depends. It's a very low chance when writing (like, low enough that it doesn't matter). It's not memory errors that cause your files to be corrupted. It's bit rot over time. The only way to defend against that is checksums which is what ZFS rocks at. It's overkill data protection for the average consumer, but it's useful non-the-less.

Ah, alrighty then. That makes sense.

Well, FreeNAS doesn't require that stuff. ZFS does. FreeNAS can use either UFS or ZFS, but UFS limits you in plugins (like Plex), so you are right about that.

You're welcome. No, that CPU is plenty for what you want to do. Without doubt. However, considering what you want, I suggest just using Amahi and some basic M-ITX hardware (no ECC). That seems like it will be fine for you.

Here's a better (price-performance-feature) build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD 5350 2.05Ghz Quad-Core Processor (€52.90 @ Amazon Espana)

Motherboard: Asus AM1I-A Mini ITX AM1 Motherboard (€39.79 @ Amazon Espana)

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€43.36 @ Amazon Espana)

Power Supply: SeaSonic EVO Edition 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€134.94 @ Amazon Espana)

Total: €270.99

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-18 21:33 CEST+0200

The CPU being only 2.05GHz is fine. I underclocked my AMD Phenom X4 to 2.00GHz and Plex ran relatively well. Plex transcoding is probably the most intensive thing you'll be doing. 4 cores is preferred to avoid bottlenecks when streaming media. More speed (GHz) isn't necessary with it, just more cores for the multi-tasking process of transcoding multiple media streams.

The Power Supply is beyond overkill, but it's the cheapest Fully Modular PSU PC Part Picker can find. If you know of a better, cheaper, lower wattage one, go for that. 

I assume the case is small. That's why Fully Modular is preferred. If it isn't, then don't worry about it and go with this PSU: SeaSonic SSR-450RM for €62.62 which puts the price just under €200.

This^

 

Thank you for the suggestions and clarifications. 

When I said home automation, I mainly lights and stuff like that, most likely using stuff like Rasperry Pi or something like that, so the load from that is pretty much 0 lol.

And the music streaming the idea is, if its even doable, was to have the server control where to play music from my Android phone or PC. 

The power supply I dont really think it needs to be modular, Its kinda a perk if it is, but if its not Im fine with it. 

I probably could go with something like: SeaSonic SSR-450RM. I really really dont understand the price difference to the 550W lol, is like 40€ cheaper.

 

The build I was looking at before coming here was:

Asus Gryphon

Intel Core i3 4150 3.5GHz (2C/4T)

A Gold and good power supply, like that Seasonic SSR-450RM (I think it should be enought)

Corsair Vengeance Pro 2x4GB 1600Mhz or normal vengeance.

Everything is around 135.30€ + 103€ + 62.62€(+ shipping) + around 80€ = around 400€.

My fear on CPU power has been really Plex Transcoding and Raid. Since I want to have Raid 5 or that windows home server equivalent without a raid card for now due to money, using 4 to 5 3TB drives. 

So Ive been looking for around 6 Sata ports on the motherboard, if all 6Gbs the better although I think it wouldnt do much difference since no mechanical drive can max out a 3Gbs Sata port lol.

 Do I really need 8GB of memory, or 4 would be more than enough? 

I really need to take a look at AMD stuff, but I have the impression they consume much more power to do the same.

[Vitalius]

Thank you for the suggestions and clarifications. 

When I said home automation, I mainly lights and stuff like that, most likely using stuff like Rasperry Pi or something like that, so the load from that is pretty much 0 lol.

And the music streaming the idea is, if its even doable, was to have the server control where to play music from my Android phone or PC. 

The power supply I dont really think it needs to be modular, Its kinda a perk if it is, but if its not Im fine with it. 

I probably could go with something like: SeaSonic SSR-450RM. I really really dont understand the price difference to the 550W lol, is like 40€ cheaper.

 

The build I was looking at before coming here was:

Asus Gryphon

Intel Core i3 4150 3.5GHz (2C/4T)

A Gold and good power supply, like that Seasonic SSR-450RM (I think it should be enought)

Corsair Vengeance Pro 2x4GB 1600Mhz or normal vengeance.

Everything is around 135.30€ + 103€ + 62.62€(+ shipping) + around 80€ = around 400€.

My fear on CPU power has been really Plex Transcoding and Raid. Since I want to have Raid 5 or that windows home server equivalent without a raid card for now due to money, using 4 to 5 3TB drives. 

So Ive been looking for around 6 Sata ports on the motherboard, if all 6Gbs the better although I think it wouldnt do much difference since no mechanical drive can max out a 3Gbs Sata port lol.

 Do I really need 8GB of memory, or 4 would be more than enough? 

I really need to take a look at AMD stuff, but I have the impression they consume much more power to do the same.

You're welcome. Yeah, but its more so the OS that I'm curious about being good for all that stuff at once. 

Not sure what you mean about music streaming. Plex can stream music, photos, movies, tv shows, and home videos (the default 5 categories it has), so ... yeah. You can stream them to anything with a browser or the Plex app (I stream to my Chromecast for example).

True. I would just go with the 450RM then. It's a great PSU for the price.

You don't need that much RAM and that CPU would be fine mostly. Unless you try and stream multiple 1080p video files from Plex. Then it would probably be the bottleneck at or over 2 at the same time and cause buffering on all of them.

What specific HDDs are you looking at for RAID 5? I personally don't like parity RAID (That's 5, 6, & 7) unless using NAS drive. Then it's fine. Never use "green" or cheaper consumer drives with parity RAID. It defeats the purpose of having RAID. You may as well just go with JBOD at that point. 

You don't need a RAID card. The main advantage of a RAID card is moving the CPU load to the card, cache, and battery backup. None of which you would need, and the money spent for a good RAID card (over €200 more than likely after taxes) would be better spent on your CPU/RAM/Motherboard hardware.

No normal 7200RPM HDD can saturate SATAI (150 MBps). So SATAII (300 MBps) would be completely fine. 

4GB of RAM should be more than enough.

It doesn't really matter. Energy will be next to irrelevant for this build, even if it's on 24/7 (depending on your cost of electricity), and I'm pretty sure either vendor is fine for CPU stuff for file/media servers.

[Ralms]

You're welcome. Yeah, but its more so the OS that I'm curious about being good for all that stuff at once. 

Not sure what you mean about music streaming. Plex can stream music, photos, movies, tv shows, and home videos (the default 5 categories it has), so ... yeah. You can stream them to anything with a browser or the Plex app (I stream to my Chromecast for example).

True. I would just go with the 450RM then. It's a great PSU for the price.

You don't need that much RAM and that CPU would be fine mostly. Unless you try and stream multiple 1080p video files from Plex. Then it would probably be the bottleneck at or over 2 at the same time and cause buffering on all of them.

What specific HDDs are you looking at for RAID 5? I personally don't like parity RAID (That's 5, 6, & 7) unless using NAS drive. Then it's fine. Never use "green" or cheaper consumer drives with parity RAID. It defeats the purpose of having RAID. You may as well just go with JBOD at that point. 

You don't need a RAID card. The main advantage of a RAID card is moving the CPU load to the card, cache, and battery backup. None of which you would need, and the money spent for a good RAID card (over €200 more than likely after taxes) would be better spent on your CPU/RAM/Motherboard hardware.

No normal 7200RPM HDD can saturate SATAI (150 MBps). So SATAII (300 MBps) would be completely fine. 

4GB of RAM should be more than enough.

It doesn't really matter. Energy will be next to irrelevant for this build, even if it's on 24/7 (depending on your cost of electricity), and I'm pretty sure either vendor is fine for CPU stuff for file/media servers.

I will be using Seagate NAS 3TB drives. Already have 1 actually lol. 

I was looking and to get the same CPU power, I will spend the same on either vendor. 

 

Well, thanks for all the help

[Vitalius]

I will be using Seagate NAS 3TB drives. Already have 1 actually lol. 

I was looking and to get the same CPU power, I will spend the same on either vendor. 

 

Well, thanks for all the help

You're welcome bro. Don't expect too much performance out of RAID 5. I mean, it will be on par with a single 7200 RPM HDD (40-70 MBps), but not great.

[Ralms]

You're welcome bro. Don't expect too much performance out of RAID 5. I mean, it will be on par with a single 7200 RPM HDD (40-70 MBps), but not great.

I know, well since I will do it with the CPU, Im happy with 70MBps. I hope is not much lower than that.

But on WHS if you do a back isnt it going to use the boot drive as kinda a temp drive? That would be epic.