New system (file / backup server)

lunadesign · Post by **lunadesign** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 5:59 pm

I'm building a new system to serve as a backup server for my home office. It will run the Retrospect Professional backup SW and 3-4 other systems will use the Retrospect client SW to do their nightly and weekly backups onto this new machine. This machine will also do some light file serving. I'd like to leave this puppy on 24/7 and have it be as quiet and low power as reasonably possible.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Case: Antec P180B
Mobo: MSI 945GT Speedster-A4R
PSU: SeaSonic S12-380
CPU: Core Duo (Yonah) T2400 or T2500
Memory: 2 x Patriot 1GB PSD21G6672 DDR2 667 (PC2 5300)
HD: Western Digital WD5000KS (see below for details
CD/DVD Burner: Sony DRU820A
Video: Using onboard
Audio: Won't need, but could use onboard
Removable drive bays: Storcase DX115
SATA controller: HighPoint RocketRAID 2310 (JBOD only for removable drives)

Initially, I'll have 2 or 3 WD drives as fixed drives. These will contain the OS and the nightly backups. However, I'll also be outfitting 3 of the 5.25" bays with the Storcase removable SATA drive carriers (each with their own WD drive, so I'll end up with 5-6 total) essentially serving as 500gb high-speed tapes for weekly offsite backups. I'll buy more carriers and drives as I need more "tapes". The removable drives will only be powered on during the weekend backup window. I'm hoping the system will be cool enough that I can disable the fans in the Storcase boxes.

Am I on the right track? Is my PSU big enough or is 380W overkill?

If this Yonah-based system works, I'll be building a Yonah HTPC box, but probably with a different Mobo and definitely a different case.

lunadesign · Post by **lunadesign** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:28 am

Anyone?

Bueller? Bueller?

Post by **MikeC** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 9:22 am

Maybe you're not getting any feedback because it doesn't look like you really need it. Looks like a pretty good, pretty quiet plan to me.

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 9:39 am

Yeah, I agree with Mike, looks real good to me.

One question: Are you considering going with the stock cooler? Or how about a Scythe Ninja for $30?

lunadesign · Post by **lunadesign** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 9:58 am

MikeC wrote:Maybe you're not getting any feedback because it doesn't look like you really need it. Looks like a pretty good, pretty quiet plan to me.

Thanks.....as a newbie, it's an honor to get a response from you Mike. Your site has been an excellent resource to help me get up to speed.

What do you think about the PSU? Considering I may be adding more drives in the future, do you think 380W is still overkill?

lunadesign · Post by **lunadesign** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 10:01 am

klankymen wrote:Yeah, I agree with Mike, looks real good to me.

One question: Are you considering going with the stock cooler? Or how about a Scythe Ninja for $30?

I've heard the stock cooler on the Speedster is a bit loud but I'm not sure if I can do much about it. From what I can tell, this board has a custom clip to attach a heatsink/cooler to the Core Duo. However, there's another forum user (mhv10) that picked up the same mobo and the MSI Mobile Pad, which looks promising. I'll have to check in with him. If you have any alternative ideas, I'd love to hear them.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:34 am

Is my PSU big enough or is 380W overkill?

The S12-380 is way more than you will ever need, even with the extra drives, but it's nice to have the larger heatsinks so on balance I'd say go for it. Everything else looks A-OK.

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:38 am

lunadesign wrote: What do you think about the PSU? Considering I may be adding more drives in the future, do you think 380W is still overkill?

I think 380W should be OK - as a rule of thumb you could figure on the drives presenting a maximum reactive load of, say 40W each when they're powering up (probably not even actually that much), and much less when they're up to speed of course. The rest of your system should be well within the remaining 140W, assuming you had six drives. I don't think you'd gain much by using a lower-powered PSU as the Seasonic is pretty efficient anyway - you might even want to go for the 430W version, just to give you a bit of extra headroom in case the system expands beyond what you'd originally envisaged.

I'm assuming you're not using a fancy controller which lets you perform staggered drive spinups, in which case the power requirements would be that much lower.

Not sure about disabling the fans in the Storcase carriers - you might need to play around with blocking vents in the bezel and elsewhere to direct the case airflow where you want it to go....

FireFoxx74 · Post by **FireFoxx74** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 3:27 am

I was considering a very similar setup myself, so I think you are on the right track.

Core2Duo's look very appealing as I'll be running a SQL server on the server also. (Currently got a Sempron 2600+) So good to see that the C2D can idle at a fairly low wattage.

simeli · Post by **simeli** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 7:01 am

@FireFoxx74

the dothan already was ridiculously fast for sql. the more ram you throw at it the faster it will be.

othewise the whole setup looks promising to me too. i personally run the older 915gm with a dothan, a zalman 7000 heatsink, 400w enermax liberty psu and a few samsung spin points. for now, the 500gig wd drives look like the way to go for the future. all in the p180 case is absolutely beautiful.

i also swapped the stock fans of the antec for 800rpm scythe fans. very good stuff...

trudodyr · Post by **trudodyr** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 11:59 am

lunadesign wrote:HD: Western Digital WD5000KS (see below for details

Make sure you get the 5000YS - it comes with a 5-year guarantee.

simeli · Post by **simeli** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 1:34 pm

Western Digital Caviar RE2, 7200, 16MB, 500GB, SATA II
that's the ys version

this would also be my bet. rated as a nearline storage drive for 24/7 operation. it's what seagate calls it's nl series. and, best of all, it's as quiet as the regualr desktop drive that has won a spcr award...

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 9:26 pm

There's nothing wrong with what you are doing, but in my opinion this is WAY overkill. I do the equivalent of what you have in mind on a headless 300MHz SPARC on FreeBSD and a DLT tape drive. It cost me $50 for everything (including a new SCSI drive), it is quiet and does not consume much energy (it has a 200W power supply). Tapes are about $10 each. This backs up 8 other systems (XP, Win2K and FreeBSD) on a regular schedule for complete and incrementals.

It also does fine for light serving duties, as well as print serving for all of the other computers.

Now there is a lot more you can do with your system down the road if you want. But for what you have listed, do you really need all this horsepower?

DrJ

simeli · Post by **simeli** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 8:03 am

i also had a sun netra running for a while as my home server. a very nice machine indeed. even though it does not consume a lot of power, they are very noisy. and the scsi drives used cost a fortune. this is a bit better with the newer suns that also use ide or sata drives.

as you can see in my earlier post, i also use quite similar hardware. the horesepower is definitely not really needed for light file serving, backups and the like. i also run mythtv on the same box and it's a real blast. there you are definitely in a good position with some beefier hardware. then get yourself a client machine to hook up to your tv. doesn't even need a hard disk. just a video card will do...

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 8:36 am

simeli wrote:i also had a sun netra running for a while as my home server. a very nice machine indeed. even though it does not consume a lot of power, they are very noisy. and the scsi drives used cost a fortune. this is a bit better with the newer suns that also use ide or sata drives.

The Suns lend themselves to noise reduction like any other computer. Refurbished SCSI drives can be rather inexpensive -- I recently bought a few 73GB Maxtor 10KV drives for $50 each, and that is overkill for this sort of machine. And most of the machines more recent than about 2000 do have the ability to use IDE drives for bulk storage.

My point was not really to push the Suns -- it is more that the task at hand does not require much horsepower. A garden-variety Pentium 3 would also do this task fine. Heck, a Pentium 2 probably would as well. Neither of these require a CPU heatsink, they don't consume much power, and can be made very quiet.

While using disk drives for backup is all the rage right now, tapes and tape drives are very inexpensive and probably more reliable unless you are saving terabytes of information.

Now not everyone puts together old computers for specific tasks like I do, and if you buy a new one it makes little sense to buy a Celeron, for example. But to use a Core Duo-based system for simple backups and light file serving is terribly excessive. If there's the money to do it, well, go for it, but you don't need to spend so much.

New system (file / backup server)

New system (file / backup server)

Re: New system (file / backup server)