Building Web Server

[Brandon_G]

Hello,

 

   I am building a web server for deployment at my own house, I have a line run specifically for this purpose which was cheaper than a datacenter's rental fee and shared speed.

 

   I've decided to go with the following list of part's: (Prices are Newegg, I can only use my line of credit.)

 

• ASRock Tachi x370 (170$)
• AMD 1800x (239$)  -- The 1700x was 10$ more!
• NXZT H440 Midtower Case (110$)
• DDR4-3000 16GB Memory from a QVL (i'll overclock the RAM)
• EVGA 500w Power Supply (Modular)
• **IF Required RX 570 Video Card
• 1TB Crucial SSD for OS (Will Run CentOS 7)

  

   Now when it comes to hard drives, I have a choice,  4x4TB Toshiba Enterprise Hard Drives, or wait for a deal on 6TB HGSTs and up. I won't use Seagate I've just had to much bad luck with them even their new Ironwolf Pro's I've had to send 3 back after a week of use because drives started disappearing and re-appearing in the BIOS on reboot's I ran Seatools and they failed SMART and had bad sectors so I'm not going to even deal with them. I'll stick with what I know works and what I like and can afford

 

   Now I got 3 HGSTs 6TB's on sale about six weeks ago and I plan to add 4 more if they do go on sale, however, I have six of these 4TB Toshiba Enterprises which are 94$ a lot better than the 6TB's price wise and warranty wise.

 

  What RAID card would you recommend for drives 6TB+ because for all I know I might put nothing but 12TB's in it and expand it out as time goes buy. I don't plan to put all the drives in at once. When it comes to RAID level's I want to do a RAID 5. 5E, I'll be running ffmpeg a lot due to video compression/conversion for mobile to 260p/360p/480p/640p/720p/1080p and 2160p. I do so many of these because not everyone can yet fully watch a video in as fast speeds.

 

  What would be the best card, and affordable I'm looking to spend no more than 150-200$ on it. I'm on a limited budget for this site so i'm taking drives from computers are replacing them with other older drives I had. Also I can only get this card through Newegg. I'm sorry but that's where my line of credit is.

 

   Thank you for any help you may provide. Please do not ask me why I chose the CPU/Board/RAM/Case/PSU I have my reasons.

 

 

 

 

 

[r2724r16]

13 minutes ago, Brandon_G said:

• EVGA 500w Power Supply (Modular)

Buy a EVGA G2 650W or a Corsair CX550m instead. 

[TSL]

6 minutes ago, r2724r16 said:

Buy a EVGA G2 650W or a Corsair CX550m instead. 

 

18 minutes ago, Brandon_G said:

Please do not ask me why I chose the CPU/Board/RAM/Case/PSU I have my reasons.

Did you not read?

[Brandon_G]

35 minutes ago, r2724r16 said:

Buy a EVGA G2 650W or a Corsair CX550m instead. 

 

30 minutes ago, TSL said:

 

Did you not read?

I Looked at both, and those look better. I have the EVGA 500w PSU already which is why I didn't put a price next to it, but I can use it in a home theater PC. It's okay to make recommendations I guess, I had my choices because of my budget.

I also read somewhere the 1700x is more configurable in the BIOS of that board and can be overclocked, but 10$ saved it 10$ I can use on something else.

[NelizMastr]

On 7/22/2018 at 12:24 AM, Brandon_G said:

Please do not ask me why I chose the CPU/Board/RAM/Case/PSU I have my reasons.

I'm going to do it anyway. 

 

What makes you think you need all this hardware for a webserver? Are you starting a hosting company or something around this PC with a frontend the likes of Plesk?

If so, then this PC and your home internet connection will both be single points of failure and it'll be a tad overkill for hosting even 100 of your average websites.

 

Without knowing your specific requirements, it's hard if not impossible to provide you with any solid advice.

[Mikensan]

The storage leads me to believe this website will be streaming movies? If so, maybe consider Plex or Emby instead of a webserver.

 

I understand your line of credit is with NewEgg, but consider saving money by buying used from Ebay. Majority of webservers and even transcoders don't need much in the ways of CPU. If nothing else, get your raid card from them assuming you want a hardware based raid. Also if you haven't spent the money yet, consider cancelling the NewEgg line of credit and use Paypal. They have 6-9 month 0% financing and are accepted both at Newegg and Ebay (and a few other merchants).

 

On the topic of RAID, I'd advise if windows: Storage Spaces, if linux/BSD then ZFS. A good hardware card that allows you to expand storage is going to be expensive if you buy brand new. Used however you might find some good deals. There are other advantages to storage spaces / ZFS but that would make this really long.

 

As for raid level, the more parity you throw at it only ensures uptime, not data protection. So a single parity solution with backups is just fine for home use. You won't need compression if you're dealing with movies. 

 

Personally I would save money on the case for a server or even a HTPC that would just be tucked away anyway. Spend the difference on go-fast parts. Though I do own the H440 for my desktop and it is beautiful.

[jkirkcaldy]

On 23/07/2018 at 10:42 AM, NelizMastr said:

What makes you think you need all this hardware for a webserver? Are you starting a hosting company or something around this PC with a frontend the likes of Plesk?

This ^

You can run a web server on a RaspberryPi with little difficulty. Even with a larger website you don't need that much power. You could buy a celeron or pentium which would save more than $10 for the 1800x.

 

You need to put in what you want the web server to actually do, how many visitors are you expecting, are you going to need a huge SQL database? is it just for media streaming? Any advice without any of that information is useless.