24/7 PC

[For]

So I am planning on a new build, it's going to be a NAS-ish build I guess.

I have in my main rig atm so I am planning on making a second build, reason being I currently have a H220 mounted in the front of my build (case is a fractal design define XL R2) but I am planning on putting a 60-80mm thick radiator in there in the future so the HDD cage has to go. I am going to put them in a second build so that my main one can be the gaming rig (with the ssd ghetto mounted between the side panel and the mobo tray) and I can have the second rig with all the HDDs in them.

 

The idea is that the second rig will be on 24/7 running my current HDDs for storage as a NAS while also up/downloading torrents (and no they are not WD red drives because they will not be spinning 24/7 the HDDs themselves will be off 95% of the time) and I need some advice on the components. Basically I am thinking a Z87 build in a fractal design define case (not sure if I'll go for a mini, R4 or XL R2 yet see next paragraph) I won't need a GPU since I'll remote desktop into it, I might or might not need a new PSU see 2 paragraphs below, and I might need a new SSD for my main build see 3 below.

 

So for the case, I currently have and love my fractal design define XL R2. It's great so I am thinking of getting a mini, R4 or XL R2 depending on the options I have for the NAS. I am probably getting a haswell i3 with that low profile noctua cooler unless you guys know any more quiet coolers for this situation or maybe even a completely passive cpu cooler for an i3? Second factor in case choice will be the formfactor of the mobo, I could get a m-itx mATX mobo with a raid card or w/e sata expansion cards are called (since I am not planning on running a raid array) or I could get that one Z87 mobo that linus saw at CES with a shit ton of sata ports on it. (forgot what it's called looked for it but couldn't find it) Another reason why I am considering buying another define XL R2 (and you are probably calling me crazy at this point, why buy that big a case if you aren't going to put anything other than hdds in it) is because I'll basically have the 2 HDD cages from my current XL R2 and I think I might be able to squeeze them in there if I get the Xl R2, I eyeballed it a little and It should fit I think. Do you guys recon I should get another XL R2 so I can have room for 16 HDDs (currently have 4 for a total space of 7.5 TB) or is that a stupid idea since if I do ever end up putting HDDs in there the ones at the top of the 2nd cage will make it rattle like crazy.

 

For the PSU, what I noticed while running my main build 24/7 last year is that if you run it 24/7 shutting it down or rebooting it will take a lot longer for some reason. And once I didn't have it run 24/7 for a couple of days it disappeared. I have no idea what causes this issue, do I need to look for 24/7 rated components to put in the build? This is why I am not sure if I should reuse my old Be quiet 550W PSU, I'm pretty sure it'll be fine and more then capable of delivering power for this rig but on the other hand I don't want it causing issues in the long run. How much power do you think I'd need for this assuming I only have the i3 in there with no GPU and a couple of hdds? One of those passive PSUs sounds perfect for this really since they don't have a fan and this will likely require very little power.

 

As for the SSD I am planning on putting windows on my current desktop SSD (which is 250GB) and put my music for seeding on there so I can seed 24/7 without using a hdd 24/7 sending vibrations to the other drives. Which SSD should I get for my desktop build, the 250GB ssd has been enough for me atm but I do tend to be lazy about moving stuff over to the other hdds so I am thinking I'll get a 500GB samsung evo SSD to give me a little more flexibility. What do you guys think I should do?

 

Other then that price isn't really an issue but please keep in mind I don't plan for this to be a high end gaming build, and feel free to ask me more questions if you need some more information.

Also you deserve a cookie for reading trough all that.

 

[WoodenMarker]

If it's not for professional use and just a normal home server kind of thing, you won't need 24/7 parts. 

What kind of NAS are you going for? Media server or what? What's your budget? So is this a gaming build or a NAS?

An i3 is overkill for a NAS. A celeron is plenty--you might want to go FM2--they have cheap mobos with a good number of sata ports. (16 hdds is a lot though and you might want to get a pci-e expansion slot for more ports)

I'm not sure about fitting the hdd cage thing but you could just get a cheaper case with quiet fans. 

Don't worry about vibrating drives too much. I'd say a 250Gb ssd is already plenty--I'd get a 120GB (500gB is overkill for me and I'm not sure why you'd need the speed for anything other than programs and it's not worth it for games.)

[For]

It's going to be for storing my files (think movies, photos, music etc.) not going to be a gaming build at all that's what I have my main rig for.

As said budget itsn't really important (looking at around 300-600ish mark depending on if I can reuse my old PSU and which components turn out to be the best choice for me)

 

The main reason why I went with an i3 over a celeron is because I will be running windows on it and I am planning to turn it into a seedbox as well and I have a lot of torrents that need seeding, basically I used to seed from a raspberry pi but the last few months is hasn't been able to keep up since they CPU would get maxed out even once I overclocked it to 1GHz. Aside from that I don't really care if it's a 50 or 150 euro CPU as long as it's not complete and utter overkill, aside from that I am not sure if haswell celerons are out yet over here in europe.

 

The 250GB ssd on my desktop is usually full since I have my OS and games on there as well as stuff I download, to me getting a 500GB drive now would make sense since samsung has been pushing down the prices a lot with their 840 evo drives (300 euro for a 500GB drive 500 euro for a 1TB drive compared to 200 euros for a 120gb drive a couple of years ago) the way I look at it I won't end up getting a new SSD ever really once I have a 500GB ssd in my build and since ssds easily last for 10-20 years assuming you completely fill them up and empty them every day so getting an SSD that will last me until ssds are "old and slow" for gaming build seems like a worthwile investment to me. So I don't really care if I pay 300 bucks for an ssd today or 200 in a year from now since to me the SSD is worth more than the 300 bucks anyways.

[WoodenMarker]

It's going to be for storing my files (think movies, photos, music etc.) not going to be a gaming build at all that's what I have my main rig for.

As said budget itsn't really important (looking at around 300-600ish mark depending on if I can reuse my old PSU and which components turn out to be the best choice for me)

 

The main reason why I went with an i3 over a celeron is because I will be running windows on it and I am planning to turn it into a seedbox as well and I have a lot of torrents that need seeding, basically I used to seed from a raspberry pi but the last few months is hasn't been able to keep up since they CPU would get maxed out even once I overclocked it to 1GHz. Aside from that I don't really care if it's a 50 or 150 euro CPU as long as it's not complete and utter overkill, aside from that I am not sure if haswell celerons are out yet over here in europe.

 

The 250GB ssd on my desktop is usually full since I have my OS and games on there as well as stuff I download, to me getting a 500GB drive now would make sense since samsung has been pushing down the prices a lot with their 840 evo drives (300 euro for a 500GB drive 500 euro for a 1TB drive compared to 200 euros for a 120gb drive a couple of years ago) the way I look at it I won't end up getting a new SSD ever really once I have a 500GB ssd in my build and since ssds easily last for 10-20 years assuming you completely fill them up and empty them every day so getting an SSD that will last me until ssds are "old and slow" for gaming build seems like a worthwile investment to me. So I don't really care if I pay 300 bucks for an ssd today or 200 in a year from now since to me the SSD is worth more than the 300 bucks anyways.

What psu do you have?

A Haswell celeron is plenty. 

Where in Europe are you? Where are you shopping?

What do you mean by filling up and emptying ssds every day?

 

Fyi, you need to quote a post or tag a member or else they won;t get a notification you replied to them.

[For]

Oh ok I see, forgot about that silly me.

 

Anyways the PSU I have is a Be Quiet 530W 80+ PSU (non modular), as said before I don't think haswell based celerons are even out yet (at least not over here I think they will come H1 2014)

I live in the netherlands, probably buying the parts where I can get them for the lowest price (accourding to tweakers.net)

What I mean by filling and emptying SSDs every day is that nowadays SSDs break because of how much data is written to them (read/write cycles) unlike mechanical harddrives who die because of vibration or start/stop cycles.

 

The point I was making was that SSDs are extremely durable and if I were to get a 500GB one now I wouldn't have to buy a new one because the current one failed because of how many read/write cycles modern SSDs can go trough making it a worthwhile investment since most other components will degrade over time (like CPU/GPUs) or fail at some point (HDDs) forcing you to buy a replacement, an SSD will not have this problem meaning it makes sense to me to see a 500GB ssd as a long term investment. 

[SheriffHD]

EBuyer is selling haswell celerons(UK) so you mgith eb able to import one, or wait a few months.

 

If its a NAS that you're building, I wouldnt use a SSD, id buy something like a Barracuda as you can pick up the 1tb version pretty cheap and just raid em.

[For]

EBuyer is selling haswell celerons(UK) so you mgith eb able to import one, or wait a few months.

 

If its a NAS that you're building, I wouldnt use a SSD, id buy something like a Barracuda as you can pick up the 1tb version pretty cheap and just raid em.

 

Could you post a link? I hate sounding like a broken (or in this case misinformed) record but I am pretty sure that not a single haswell celeron has been released as of yet.

Just like with ivy-bridge where celerons didn't show up until 2 models were released early 2013 I highly doubt that we will see haswell celerons before feb 2014 especially considering intel released better clocked versions of ivy-bridge celerons just over a week ago, I highly doubt they will crush the sales of those CPUs by introducing haswell celerons in the next few weeks.

 

Also as I said right at the start of the first post the reason why I am building a NAS is because I want to move the 7.5 TB of HDDs that I already have out of my main rig and the reason I am not going for a dedicated nas is because I want it to run windows and function as a seedbox as well which is why I am also leaning towards an i3 because this will not simply be a NAS It will be a home server I suppose since it'll be on 24/7 (even though I don't like calling it a server since my plan is really to share the HDDs on the network using windows' built in network sharing feature while also seeding my torrents from it which is something any normal PC can do as well, it's not going to be a media server it's not going to be an FTP server or anything like that just a regular old PC that is on 24/7 to seed torrents and share drives on the network)

[WoodenMarker]

What I mean by filling and emptying SSDs every day is that nowadays SSDs break because of how much data is written to them (read/write cycles) unlike mechanical harddrives who die because of vibration or start/stop cycles.

 

The point I was making was that SSDs are extremely durable and if I were to get a 500GB one now I wouldn't have to buy a new one because the current one failed because of how many read/write cycles modern SSDs can go trough making it a worthwhile investment since most other components will degrade over time (like CPU/GPUs) or fail at some point (HDDs) forcing you to buy a replacement, an SSD will not have this problem meaning it makes sense to me to see a 500GB ssd as a long term investment. 

No, modern ssds will most likely outlive the rest of your system and would probably last 10-20 years--talking about 120GB models.

500GB would make it last longer but again, it's so long that it'd be irrelevant.

[For]

No, modern ssds will most likely outlive the rest of your system and would probably last 10-20 years--talking about 120GB models.

500GB would make it last longer but again, it's so long that it'd be irrelevant.

 

Read my posts again this is exactly what I said. 

Because SSDs have such a long lifecycle I am not too worried about getting an ssd that is "overkill" since that ssd is going to last me quite a while.

 

The reason for me why I'd get a 500GB ssd over a 120 or 250 is because a 120 will probably be full all the time because I will end up installing games on there, 250 will be ok but I will probably end up having to uninstall games because I ran out of space on the ssd just like I have now every once in a while which is less then ideal, also I haven't even installed or played a lot of new titles because I have been waiting for the 9000 series to come out because most games will not run at good framerates at all or even crash after a while. So taking that into account in the future a 250GB ssd is probably going to be filled as well which is why I'd rather get a 500GB ssd because it may be overkill but at least I'll not have to worry about uninstalling games etc. for a looong as time.

[WoodenMarker]

Read my posts again this is exactly what I said. 

Because SSDs have such a long lifecycle I am not too worried about getting an ssd that is "overkill" since that ssd is going to last me quite a while.

 

The reason for me why I'd get a 500GB ssd over a 120 or 250 is because a 120 will probably be full all the time because I will end up installing games on there, 250 will be ok but I will probably end up having to uninstall games because I ran out of space on the ssd just like I have now every once in a while which is less then ideal, also I haven't even installed or played a lot of new titles because I have been waiting for the 9000 series to come out because most games will not run at good framerates at all or even crash after a while. So taking that into account in the future a 250GB ssd is probably going to be filled as well which is why I'd rather get a 500GB ssd because it may be overkill but at least I'll not have to worry about uninstalling games etc. for a looong as time.

You forgot a few grammatical signs so I misunderstood what you were trying to say.

Anyway, it's kind of pointless putting games on a ssd.

[Clonzoo]

Just out of curiosity, what are you seeding? Did you partner with EZTV or something?

[SheriffHD]

Could you post a link? I hate sounding like a broken (or in this case misinformed) record but I am pretty sure that not a single haswell celeron has been released as of yet.

 

 

yeah I just looked, i thought it had celeron, just the pentium chip though.

[For]

You forgot a few grammatical signs so I misunderstood what you were trying to say.

Anyway, it's kind of pointless putting games on a ssd.

 

Sorry for the grammar, english isn't my first language.

As for putting games on an SSD, I agree with you but with my main rig it's not so much about putting games on an ssd or not. The main point is not having any HDDs in the build because I don't have enough room for a thicker radiator if I leave the HDD cage in. If I want a better radiator the HDDs have to go so my options are pretty limited, I could get a 250GB ssd and a 1-2TB 2.5 inch HDD but the problem with that mounting a HDD behind the mobo would mean decreased lifetime because it'll spin vertically instead of horizontally and spinning HDD means more sound which is something I don't want from my main build. Getting a 500GB ssd would fix that issue giving me a silent build as well as a durable build.

 

Just out of curiosity, what are you seeding? Did you partner with EZTV or something?

 

[sarcasm] obviously I'd never seed anything that was copyrighted, piracy is bad mkay [/sarcasm]

 

yeah I just looked, i thought it had celeron, just the pentium chip though.

 

Yep same here, the reason why I am leaning towards an i3 though is that I have seen celerons and pentium cpus used in netbooks before and they really do not perform well at all under windows 7-8.

From my personal experience celerons and pentiums are great for windows XP based systems but if you use them for windows 7 based systems they really aren't that great since windows 7 ends up taking a fair chunk of the CPU usage at any time. Also the i3 has a better iGPU which is kinda important since I don't want a dGPU in there.

 

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on the motherboard? Does anyone know the name of the mobo linus showed with tons of sata connectors?

[WoodenMarker]

Sorry for the grammar, english isn't my first language.

As for putting games on an SSD, I agree with you but with my main rig it's not so much about putting games on an ssd or not. The main point is not having any HDDs in the build because I don't have enough room for a thicker radiator if I leave the HDD cage in. If I want a better radiator the HDDs have to go so my options are pretty limited, I could get a 250GB ssd and a 1-2TB 2.5 inch HDD but the problem with that mounting a HDD behind the mobo would mean decreased lifetime because it'll spin vertically instead of horizontally and spinning HDD means more sound which is something I don't want from my main build. Getting a 500GB ssd would fix that issue giving me a silent build as well as a durable build.

 

Yep same here, the reason why I am leaning towards an i3 though is that I have seen celerons and pentium cpus used in netbooks before and they really do not perform well at all under windows 7-8.

From my personal experience celerons and pentiums are great for windows XP based systems but if you use them for windows 7 based systems they really aren't that great since windows 7 ends up taking a fair chunk of the CPU usage at any time. Also the i3 has a better iGPU which is kinda important since I don't want a dGPU in there.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on the motherboard? Does anyone know the name of the mobo linus showed with tons of sata connectors?

Modern hdds have no issue with whatever orientation you put them in--only vibrations.

 

Desktop cpus and mobile cpus are different. Celerons and pentiums are like i3's with hyperthreading turned off and a bit slower. 

Something like a Sandy, Ivy, or Haswell celeron/pentium will feel no different from an i3 until you do something more tasking like gaming.

If you want to stick with iGPU, you should go AMD for their APU's.

 

I'll check some printings later--gotta head out.

I think it was the z87 extreme 11 that was shown at computex with 22 sata ports.