I am looking to build a small home server. Compared to most regular people I consider myself computer savvy but compared to most people here I am probably more a novice. I guess I would probably be in the prosumer category.
Purpose:
Store my personal movie collection to stream to small media players connected to my televisions.
Also double as backup storage for personal documents, photos, home videos from our main computers.
Parts:
Case: Already got a Lian Li PC-Q18 from a friend. It has found a good location in my home that my wife is happy with. Don't really want to change this.
Hard Drives: 6 x 3.5" drives, probably 4TB wd reds
I am thinking of running Freenas via a usb drive. I have used freenas before and like it's web interface because it's something I can handle. I do not feel comfortable leaving everything to CLI.
So the drives will probably be run in a raidz2.
The server will be connected via gigabit ethernet.
Question:
Motherboard/CPU options.
Mini-itx seems like the limiting factor. The two options I am considering are either something xeon 1220v3 based or something avoton c2750 based, but it seems like in either case there's not a lot of options. I know some might say bag server parts and ecc but I want to stick with it.
So if I go 1220v3, what mini-itx motherboard options are there? I see the Asrock E3C226D2I
It looks like a viable option.
If I go avoton the two options seem to be either Supermicro A1SAi-2850F or Asrock C2750D4I
I only need 6 sata ports so all those options seem to fulfill that. Part of me kind of prefers the Avoton options because things are going to be tight in the case and the case is going in an area without a lot of airflow. Either way I will probably put in 16GB ECC memory.
So do those options seem reasonable for what my uses are? Are there any other Avoton or haswell xeon mini-itx options out there? I'm getting ready to pull the trigger and these parts don't seem widely available yet. Also, what are good store for buying server parts like this? I'm used to amazon and newegg but their sever part selection doesn't seem the greatest.
This seemed like a good forum for the types of questions I had. Thank you all for your help.
Purpose:
Store my personal movie collection to stream to small media players connected to my televisions.
Also double as backup storage for personal documents, photos, home videos from our main computers.
Parts:
Case: Already got a Lian Li PC-Q18 from a friend. It has found a good location in my home that my wife is happy with. Don't really want to change this.
Hard Drives: 6 x 3.5" drives, probably 4TB wd reds
I am thinking of running Freenas via a usb drive. I have used freenas before and like it's web interface because it's something I can handle. I do not feel comfortable leaving everything to CLI.
So the drives will probably be run in a raidz2.
The server will be connected via gigabit ethernet.
Question:
Motherboard/CPU options.
Mini-itx seems like the limiting factor. The two options I am considering are either something xeon 1220v3 based or something avoton c2750 based, but it seems like in either case there's not a lot of options. I know some might say bag server parts and ecc but I want to stick with it.
So if I go 1220v3, what mini-itx motherboard options are there? I see the Asrock E3C226D2I
It looks like a viable option.
If I go avoton the two options seem to be either Supermicro A1SAi-2850F or Asrock C2750D4I
I only need 6 sata ports so all those options seem to fulfill that. Part of me kind of prefers the Avoton options because things are going to be tight in the case and the case is going in an area without a lot of airflow. Either way I will probably put in 16GB ECC memory.
So do those options seem reasonable for what my uses are? Are there any other Avoton or haswell xeon mini-itx options out there? I'm getting ready to pull the trigger and these parts don't seem widely available yet. Also, what are good store for buying server parts like this? I'm used to amazon and newegg but their sever part selection doesn't seem the greatest.
This seemed like a good forum for the types of questions I had. Thank you all for your help.