So, I'm looking at building a storage server that will primarily be used to store/transcode video content. Since it's most likely to be up in the bedroom at this point I'm wanting it to be fairly quiet. I already took advantage of the great deal on the Antec P150 at Fry's ($60 AR).
I'm planning on getting 3 500GB Samsung's that I'll suspend to keep the vibrations down. That'll get me 1TB of RAID-5 storage.
The key missing ingredients are CPU and motherboard. I'm leaning towards Core2's, as they seem to run cool and offer excellent encoding/decoding performance (I'm intending to have HDTV content getting transcoded, so a lot of CPU is going to be used). I was looking for confirmation that this wasn't a bad idea, and also advice about what motherboard/CPU combination would make sense for my needs (keeping things quiet but still getting pretty good performance). Thoughts?
P.S.: Does it make sense to get 2 92mm intake fans? I'm thinking with 3 drives in there it would probably be a good idea.
Quiet Storage Server/HTPC BE?
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I've got a similar system - 3 x 250gb HDDs suspended (plus an older 80gb for my system drive), mainly for transcoding (although only SD so far).
I recently upgraded from a sempron 3000+ to an e6400, with a gigabyte 965p-S3 motherboard. I picked the board because it overclocks well - I'm running it at 2700MHz, which makes transcoding much quicker over stock speed. If you're not going to overclock, you could go for a much cheaper board (just check that it supports c2duo, not all socket 775 boards do). I'd look for something with plenty of sata ports to give room for expansion - I ran out on my previous board!
I agree with the front intake fan - I'm using a 120mm. Now that I've overclocked, my whole case is also getting pretty warm (causing my drives to heat up too), so I'm planning on one or two 120mm exhaust fans shortly.
I recently upgraded from a sempron 3000+ to an e6400, with a gigabyte 965p-S3 motherboard. I picked the board because it overclocks well - I'm running it at 2700MHz, which makes transcoding much quicker over stock speed. If you're not going to overclock, you could go for a much cheaper board (just check that it supports c2duo, not all socket 775 boards do). I'd look for something with plenty of sata ports to give room for expansion - I ran out on my previous board!
I agree with the front intake fan - I'm using a 120mm. Now that I've overclocked, my whole case is also getting pretty warm (causing my drives to heat up too), so I'm planning on one or two 120mm exhaust fans shortly.