Build Advice Super storage box plans

Hey there, this isn't the usual build, to get to the point, I'm considering building a home server wi-fi storage gizmo. The purpose of this will be to move all mechanical storage away from my workstation and HTPC into the proposed unit. The build would provide large fault tolerant storage accessible via wi-fi on my home network, and perhaps via the internet for my friends.

This is the hardware/configuration I'm considering and please I'm very open to suggestions, being told this wont work etc:

Mainboard: some kind of Intel atom board with 2gb of ram

Maindrive: budget 40gb SSD

Storage: up to 4 x 2TB; brand to be decided

Controller: Would appreciate advice here as I'm intending to use a dedicated RAID card either PCI or PCI X depending on board. Budget...not too much if I can get away with it. What would be the best array for fault tolerant storage?

Case: undecided

Power supply: at appropriate wattage...modular and energy efficient.


I've also considered dropping the atom idea and going for a low energy Sempron or waiting for the new Celeron. I would ideally like to use linux as this is free, what do folk think?

 

Have a look at one of the many NAS linux distros, or Windows home server
http://freenas.org/ is a good one to try

For RAID, especially as you're aiming for WiFi, hardware RAID is complete overkill.
As it's a standalone box with it's own CPU, software RAID overhead is pretty irrelevant and using WiFi negates any speed benefits of hardware RAID

 

+1

 

QNAP 8-bay jobbie if you want a "super storage box"

Yes I've become a shill since visiting this week but they are really impressive (I joke, but they are good, I want one)

 

I don't know how well an atom will be able to act as a server and run a software RAID. The controller might be a good idea.

 

nice http://www.span.com/product_info.php?products_id=28474&source=gbaseuk&currency=GBP

 

You may be better off with a energy efficent s775 mobo combined with a Pentium Dual Core E6300 (or a E3300 celeron). That should give you Raid5 off of the chipset and more power under the hood. The chipset (ultimatly software Raid) generally only gives 10-15MB/s write so a cheap 4 port card from highpoint (still software-ish) may be worth it.

Other thoughts:

Skip the SSD boot drive
Case dosn't matter; it should be headless and out of sight + earshot.
Power supply: 400W should suffice and 85% efficency is probably worth it.

 

Thanks for all the advice so far. I think I will opt for the motherboard/cpu/raid card route, rather than the Atom(I was just thinking small form factor). This allows for greater flexibility. I will also use Linux if I can get my head round it, and get my windows machines to connect easily. I could in theory have the work station pc wired in with a network cable with reference to the wi-fi point.

I like the look of this this case, it has 3 internal drive bays that could easily hold 3 x2TB drives; plus the optical drive bays could hold a boot drive of some description.

 

H55 mini ITX + G6950 + unRAID software (free for 3 drives)?

 

Nice mainboard, but doesn't that CPU use a lot of juice?

 

Not really. Just underclock it if you need to. Also use 1.35V or less (Kingston LoVo - we did a feature on it) and that'll drop the power too

 

I looked into the ram, and it's rarer than hens teath

 

I'm asking Kingston now and will get back to you later - it's available in the US, just not here right now.

OCZ and G.Skill sell 1.35V stuff, and Corsair probably do too, but finding it in shops is kind of difficult because etailers still only list by frequency.

 

Thanks for that man