New Proposed Server 2012 Build Machine

[BigWorm]

Hello,

I am looking at finally replacing my WHS V1. I am looking for a multi use server and will run Windows Server 2012 w/ Hyper-V role. I plan on creating a VM for WHS 2011 which will run Flexraid. I also would create another VM for Essentials 2012 to play around with that. The main OS will be a domain controller as I want to switch my home to all be on a domain. This is my proposed build specs.

Operating System: Windows Server 2012 w/ Hyper-V Role and Domain Controller
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2
Motherboard: Supermicro X9SCM-IIF-O
Chassis: Norco RPC-4220
OS Drives: 2 WD 160GB Raid 1
VM Drive: ? Not sure what I should do for this. Maybe get one drive to host all the VMs
Data Drives: Whatever inexpensive drives I can get
RAM: 2 x 8GB Kingston DDR3 1333 ECC (KVR13E9/8HM)
Add-in Cards: IBM M1015 w/ Intel RES2SV240 expander
Power Supply: SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W (Already own)

Use of this server will be:
Domain Controller
Backups
Movie repository
Music repository
Photos repository

Does this look like a good build? Should I change anything?

 

[Mike]

Domain at home, sucked for me to keep them login times low

Hardware wise I would maybe look at two 128 gb ssds. Ya could mirror and stripe them to have a, say, 64gb raid 1 mirror and 128gb raid0/rest. That would yield you a fast OS, and perhaps even some of your more important VM's too.

 

[Patrick]

I would also look at inexpensive SSDs to replace the 160GB spinning drives. With prices these days, 120GB+ drives are very reasonable.

 

[BigWorm]

Domain at home, sucked for me to keep them login times low

Hardware wise I would maybe look at two 128 gb ssds. Ya could mirror and stripe them to have a, say, 64gb raid 1 mirror and 128gb raid0/rest. That would yield you a fast OS, and perhaps even some of your more important VM's too.

What do you mean keep the login times low?

 

[BigWorm]

I would also look at inexpensive SSDs to replace the 160GB spinning drives. With prices these days, 120GB+ drives are very reasonable.

True. Was just trying to save some money since I have these 2 drives sitting here. Figured for the main OS it would not be a big deal to go SSD.

 

[RimBlock]

What do you want to do with WHS-2011 that you cannot do with Win Server 2012 ?. The main one I can think of is media streaming although there maybe options / add-ons that enable that as well.

I am migrating away from WHS-2011 at the moment on to Win SBS 2011 (VM on vSphere) as I am using it for my business and see no point running two servers OSs that can do the same thing. I play my media via file shares though so don't need streaming and since I have my P812 up and running I will be using hardware raid for storage.

Having a home domain can be very valid. Another reason for moving the home PCs on to a domain is to have all the documents etc located on the server which is on Raid 1 protected drives and will be regularly backed up on the server. Whilst I was doing this sort of thing with WHS-2011 with additional libraries previously it was not so neat and tidy and relied in part on user compliance with the way they did things.

My SBS 2011 is running off a 3 drive raid 5 array at the moment and is ok speed wise. I may move to a SSD and see what the differences are but I am getting 16GB more ram (making 32GB total in the Virtual Host) before doing that.

RB

 

[BigWorm]

My big reason for a new build is for a movie server and machine backups. I originally was just thinking of Essentials 2012 only running on this machine but need some type of storage pooling. Flexraid seems like a good option but it does not seem to work in Essentials 2012. So I figured if I am building this type of machine just to run vms.

I am open to other ideas.

 

[BigWorm]

Damn starting to rethink my plans. It seems from some ready today that it is not recommend to run any roles on the domain controller. So maybe I should do some testing and see if I can get Essentials 2012 and Flexraid working together. Keeps things simple.

 

[RimBlock]

My big reason for a new build is for a movie server and machine backups. I originally was just thinking of Essentials 2012 only running on this machine but need some type of storage pooling. Flexraid seems like a good option but it does not seem to work in Essentials 2012. So I figured if I am building this type of machine just to run vms.

I am open to other ideas.

I would imagine the warning concerning Domain control and Roles is more for production multiuser environments where the resource requirements from one may conflict with those for the other. For a home or small business environment. Remember SBS 2011 runs Server 2008r2 + Exchange + Sharepoint Foundataion + IIS + WSUS +++ for up to 75 concurrent users.

I would be surprised if Win Server 2012 Standard is significantly worse.

RB

 

[Ragious]

Hi,
I have been reading about Flexraid and being a former WHS 1 user i also consider this for my definitive build (still experimenting at the m). But if you would use w2012, why not use the storage spaces functionality that comes with it? It would save you a vm...
Cheers R

 

[BigWorm]

I would imagine the warning concerning Domain control and Roles is more for production multiuser environments where the resource requirements from one may conflict with those for the other. For a home or small business environment. Remember SBS 2011 runs Server 2008r2 + Exchange + Sharepoint Foundataion + IIS + WSUS +++ for up to 75 concurrent users.

I would be surprised if Win Server 2012 Standard is significantly worse.

RB

Very true.

 

[BigWorm]

Hi,
I have been reading about Flexraid and being a former WHS 1 user i also consider this for my definitive build (still experimenting at the m). But if you would use w2012, why not use the storage spaces functionality that comes with it? It would save you a vm...
Cheers R

Storage spaces is not turning out to be so hot. Speeds are horrible. That is what I originally planned on doing.

 

[daniel_browning]

Storage spaces is not turning out to be so hot. Speeds are horrible. That is what I originally planned on doing.

I looked at that too and came to the same conclusion. I think the idea is "If you have to ask how fast it is, Storage Spaces are not for you."

 

[michaeld]

Storage spaces is not turning out to be so hot. Speeds are horrible. That is what I originally planned on doing.

I'm running the Evaluation version of Server 2012 Essentials and I didn't bother w/Storage Spaces due to the negatives I read about slow speeds and "non-traditional aspects" of how it uses HDs. I never used WHS or Lime RAID (or whatever it's called) at all, so I guess I'm in the minority here. Been using Server 2003 Standard as a file server OS since about 2004. Only migrated to Server 2012 Essentials a few months ago.

I just reused my trusty 3Ware 8-port 9650SE with five, 500GB Samsung HDs (I know, low-tech and low-capacity for THIS crowd!) in RAID5 in a traditional shared folder setup (again, real low-tech). Over my wired Gigabit network the minimum read speeds I see are in the high 70MB/s range. Highest peaks at about 105MB/s. I have the 3Ware 3DM2 management software configured to email me alerts. Works great. Sometimes old-fashioned is the way to go.

I have every intention of buying an Essentials license when the trial period is up (I'm a server admin/server room rat by trade, so maintaining a domain controller with 4 clients at home is cake). I also suck at Linux. So this is pretty natural for me. When I outgrow my meager 2TB of storage I'll buy some "real man's hard drives" in the 2TB+ size range. Right now, what I've got suits my needs.

If using Server2012, it is also a domain controller by default, so be sure to disable SMB Signing in Group Policy. Until I did this I didn't get more than 12MB/s reads.

 

[BigWorm]

I have been playing around with Flexraid in Server 2012 Essentials which seems to work pretty good. Still testing it out though. I did decide to build a standalone Server 2012 box as a domain controller. I am in the middle of getting parts for this guy so that I can build it and move forward on the storage server. I may just go with stand alone Server 2012 Essentials box instead of running it as a VM.