Advice on home file server

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: Madwand1

Originally posted by: Atheus
I have 2 320GB Seagate drives in software RAID-1 on a cheapo Adaptec card stuck in a 66Mhz PCI slot. This modest bus is able to handle the throughput of both drives absolutely fine, and the drives themselves are able to push as much data as my client's WD Raptor can handle, and stream a movie to the HTPC upstairs at the same time. The (cheap) Pentium-III processors run a LAMP server with a couple of websites, a mail server, and they compile my Linux programs, all while keeping an average CPU usage of only a couple of percent.

Multi-processor 66 MHz PCI = low-end cheap hardware? Maybe it's cheap now because it's obsolete and used, but it wasn't cheap originally. If you're actually saying that your server can sustain 60 MB/s file transfers, then great. Are you? BTW, what are the specs in detail? Perhaps the OP can consider that as an alternative.

Yea, well, that's the point isn't it. Hardware like this is not only cheap becaue it's old, but also reliable, because it was built for server-class machines.

Specs in detail:

- Tyan Thunder LE-T motherboard, serverworks chipset, dual socket 370, I think I got if for about £50 on Ebay. Can't find another second hand one right now, but there's Tyan K7s with similar specs (SCSI, 64/66 PCI, dual Intel LAN, etc) on Ebay USA for like $100. This was the most expensive component.

- 2 ~1Ghz PIII processors at like £10 each. Less maybe.

- 512MB of ECC PC133, maybe £30? £40? Memory is more expensive these days though.

- Fortron Source power supply and HDs, new, you know the prices on these I assume.

So that's a little over £100 on the main system, then like £150 for the drives and PSU, and for that I can take a HD failure, processor failure, and a memory stick failure, without a crash.

I'll measure the actual disk and network throughput if you want, but you'll have to wait, the thing is in bits on the floor. Those old 1U heatsinks are too damn loud and I'm replacing them.


/Edit: I realize this is quite a powerful system - I'm not recommending everyone buys something like this - my server gets more workout than the vast majority of home servers. The point is you can get good performance with old hardware.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: Atheus
I realize this is quite a powerful system - I'm not recommending everyone buys something like this - my server gets more workout than the vast majority of home servers. The point is you can get good performance with old hardware.

Heh, I thought you were kind of making my point for me... But thanks for the details; that's a good price for the processors; cheaper than I'd have guessed.

But when someone says "get a cheap old computer", they're probably not thinking of server-class computers such as you've made, on a budget. If I was to try to match your system's performance with new hardware at the low end, I could probably come close or even exceed it in some cases, with pricing that's not far off, trading off server-class for new. If someone wants to pursue such a build ("honey, it's a cheap old computer" (?)), I'd think that's cool...

OK, the comparably-priced new build wouldn't start with a Core 2 Duo.. I see that the OP has a particular wish for such a processor, and I think "~ $50 for a budget processor, or ~ $200 for a new dual core that will make him happy and give him occasional significant performance advantage for other tasks?" I say let him spend his $150 if it makes him happy; it will give some performance advantage in non-file server tasks. In the whole scheme of things in AT hardware, it's still not really expensive, and probably less than what many of us here spent on our now out-performed processors in the past.

But I think the point about e.g. 266 MHz computers giving really good file server performance would still need to be demonstrated in this, the gigabit age.

Let's try this: New build with a ~$50 CPU and ~$100 MB incorporating on-board video, SATA RAID, and GbE. Say a Sempron with an nVIDIA 430 chipset or comparable Intel build. This can do 60 MB/s and higher with the bits aligned properly etc. (so to speak). Anyone demonstrate matching that performance with something older & much cheaper, say all else equal?

 

[Bodine]

I had almost forgotten about this thread... and had no idea the reaction my noob questions would bring. Yes, I'm going with the C2D for encoding performance. Along with the occasional DVD, I encode a lot of home video - both for my own family and the immediate family. I tend to procrastinate and do it in batches - so speed is worth something to me when I have a pile of vids built up. It's taking my 4 hrs+ to do a couple hours of raw video on my Dell 400SC 2.8 prescott. The C2D seems the lowest-power setup for box that has reasonable encoding times.

On the RAID front, I'm not doing it for performance. I'm doing it to maximize drive capacitiy and still have redundancy- this box will be a (non HD) streaming media server too. I already have four 160GB drives. I just hate giving up 320GB (or more as I get larger drives) with RAID1 so I'm going with RAID5. And I want PCI cards so it's not as much of a hassle if the RAID controller goes out. I'll just buy 2 cards. I guess I could buy 2 mobos for the same price (or less - the cards I'm getting are aroun $130), but that's a huge freaking headache to swap out.

I had almost decided to build a cheaper box to be my file-server, as some suggested, and keep my prescott server as the encoder... But I just decided it was easier to have it all in one box and donate the Dell to a family member, and was annoyed at the slow encoding, so this just seemed to be the right fit.

Thanks for all of the opinions.