I neesd an advice about hardware fore an home server

[yonatan]

Hi,
I want to build an home server, I've decided I would like to configure it as raid 5. I also want to install 4 harddrives and for now I tend to go with WD Red series . I also plan to start with 8 GB of ram and I would like to be able to upgrade later on.
At this point I meant ask in this forum for an advice about motherboard cpu and power supply considering I would like to have 4 memory slots , at least 5*sata3 connectors and would still like tha machine to be as low power as it can (given those demands) (and one more thing, be able to download torrent while being sort of multimedia server).
At this point I finished reading the pinned article and became confused as what the author basically said was to buy premium server hardware and that wasn't my plan.
so please help me what would you suggest as hardware (cpu, mobo, power supply)?

 

[jgreco]

No, it is not "premium server hardware." You can sub out the Xeon processor for something else (think the G2020 is a popular choice) but the remaining hardware is just solid stuff. You can certainly GET premium server hardware: IBM, HP, and Dell make lots of it. But that is just wasting $$$$.

We face people coming in here all the time trying to use either the cheapest junk out there, or the most ridiculous $400+ prosumer boards, neither of which will work all that well. By the time you finish addressing the no-name SATA controller problems and the Realtek ethernet performance suckage, you've burnt slots, time, and money you hadn't planned on.

So you have some choices:

1) You can follow the advice, which is documented as to what and why. That stuff is there to help you make intelligent choices.

2) You can punt and pick a prebuilt like the N54L or Gen8 MicroServers, which are reasonable choices with some tradeoffs.

3) You can do whatever you want while ignoring the loud booming voice of experience. That's absolutely fine! Just expect to hear the loud booming voice of "we told you so" if it goes wrong.

When you look at the desirable features for a NAS, and the requirements for ZFS, such as ECC, and little stuff like Intel ethernets, and power efficiency, etc., the choices become obvious... and won't be a $40 APU with $35 mainboard.

 

[DrKK]

JGreco, I think what he means by "premium server hardware" is "premium/server hardware", i.e., anything above consumer grade :)

 

[jgreco]

I know what they mean. The level of shock is invariably between "you mean I can't buy the cheapest POS noname crap rotting on a retailer's clearance shelf" to "butbutbut this was my great ASUS gaming rig!" and I even feel their pain. But it changes nothing. The beauty of FreeBSD is it runs on so much. The curse is that it runs on PC hardware, and poor hardware yields poor results.

That's mainly for everyone else's enlightenment...

 

[joeschmuck]

The basic rules are: Have enough ECC RAM (8GB for a home server should be fine), pick a good MB and the price could be anywhere from $60 to $180+ depending on the features you want. My MB costs $54 right now. The CPU is around $100. The ECC RAM is about $80 (if you can fine it). The power supply must be of good quality and is the most important part of all. You don't need Gold certified, any 80% certified power supply will be fine but I personally prefer Seasonic. You do not need a Haswell certified power supply unless you are using or expect to use a haswell CPU in the future. The hard drives are where your money will go quickly, ~$400 for 4 drives. And the case, just ensure it has room to breath. If you are not moving it around a lot and an ugly case is okay, a cheap case will be fine, no need to spend $100 on a case when a $20 case will do fine but it's up to you.