Hello StPCr!

Been reading a lot and it was just amazing on how many new things I learned in just a few days reading this forum.
I saw a few guys getting none or just one replies to their amazingly made posts. Just wanna tell you guys, even though not many replied you but you helped for tens or even hundreds of people with those posts. Thanks a lot!
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I am looking to build a low power, good build quality, quite linux server. I want it to be ugpradable in the future.
Main use: openvpn server, seedbox, backuping other computers, filesharing, learning linux (my first linux machine ever).
I came up with this:

HDD: $143 - WD Red 2TB, SATA3, 64MB - for torrenting

CPU: $52 - Intel Celeron G540 - for my needs seems more than enough

RAM: $45 - DDR3 Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) 1333MHz CL9, 1.5V - cheapest and my CPU supports only 1033 anyway.

PSU: $92 - be quiet! STRAIGHT POWER BQT E9-400W, 80 PLUS GOLD - seems to be extremely efficient at very load loads, 81% or so

MB: $116 - Intel DH77EB - I feel like it's pretty expensive. I am thinking about getting P8Z77-M, which would let me underlock and overlock if I ever

And I already have these two parts from previous builds:

CASE: NZXT 210 Source

SSD: Vertex 4 128GB - Do I really need to use this one on the server? Can't I just install linux OS on the WD RED drive or it's not advisable to have data and OS on the same hard drive?

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1. MY RAM doesn't have any heatstink, could this be a problem?
2. Will P8Z77-M consume a lot more watts compared to this Intel board? I am thinking of getting Z77 of Asus because of the ability to overlock and underlock.Also which board is more reliable?
3. Case. Sadly it's impossible to get any decent mini ITX case that's the reason I am going with mATX build. NZXT 210 is rather big, should I consider getting Fractal mini (
I can buy used one for $50).
4. I have no idea about fans. What should I do about them? Is stock cpu cooler loud? What about case fans? Do I need to use more than one?
5. What about power surges?Around once every two months electricity would disappear for a second. Will my PSU protect PC from getting damaged? Or should I consider getting UPS?

Anything else I need to know?

1) no
2) the difference is usually only in extra peripherials, if you disable them, you will end up with similar power consumption.
3) Bitfenix Prodigy ? Fractal Design Node 304 ?
4) Stock cooler is usually relatively noisy, i would suggest getting some tower cooler, it could handle G540 passively
5) You will see if you need more fans or not, that depends what HDD temps will you achieve.
6) then get a UPS, if for nothing else then just to protect the file system in case of the power loss. Even a 400VA/240W UPS will be more than enough.

While I would always suggest keeping your data and OS drives separate, a 128 GB SSD is way overkill. You could get away with a much smaller SSD, another HD or even a USB flash drive. Depending on what you install, Linux can fit in very little space. Speed (or lack there of) of the boot drive will have no effect on the speed of the file serving/torrenting/etc.

If you have the money to spend anyway, for the price of a 128 GB Vertex 4 you could buy a second 2 TB drive for backups.

2. So why would I go for Intel H77 chipset motherboard if I can get a decent Asus Z77 chipset board? Is intel motherboard more reliable?
3. It's this case: 1 2. Used for $50. New one here costs almost $120
4. Actually I use stock coolers on all of my machines even though not all of them overclocked. But those coolers are just massive. I don't know any reliable small ones. Though I did saw posted by a member 'kuzzia' some cooler which was cheap and almost inaudible but can't find it anymore.
6. Could you please give any example of those 400VA/240W UPS? How much one cost?


About 128GB SSD. Well it's the spare ssd I got for free. I am not using it and just keeping in case any of my SSD's fails. I have 2 laptops and 2 desktops equipped with SSD at home now.
But I believe that yeah, 128GB is totally overkill. Though 64GB ssd's are so expensive. For example 830 one costs $125, cheapest one being crucial m4 at $105.
How reliable is flash drive? I had quite a few problems with usb ports, losing power and such. Flash drives doesn't seem like the best thing as well. And I want this system to be pretty stable as I will be leaving the server location for a up to a month at times.

There are a few choices for mini-itx cases. There's the Lian Li PC-Q08 and if you want something smaller the Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced.


I've been using the PC-Q08 for my file server for a couple years and it works great, I have 6 hard drives in there in addition to a small 2.5" drive mounted in the 5.25" bay.

sadly I am not from US or UK and can't find any of these cases.
Anyway I will got with the fractal mini and micro ATX board.

Also ordered Arctic Alpine 11 Pro. Mainly because it's so cheap, paid just $13 with shipping.
I am not really afraid if in the end it ends up being not that good. Before I was using noctua nh-d14 and one more cpu cooler which was almost inaudible but they cost almost $100 here.

Yes, I'd say Intel boards are more reliable. I have no numbers to back that up. Intel boards usually have higher class components, like Intel NIC instead of Realtek etc.

With the Intel board you will not have the option to undervolt, so you might get lower power consumption at load with the Asus Z77 board, but you should see lower power consumption at idle with the Intel board.

Your selected components are EXTREMELY expensive and overkill for your purpose which has minimal requirements (besides storage). If that was your intent, fine. Otherwise you should start over from scratch.
I guess your chosen components allow you to put a checkmark next to "upgradable" but that's useless since you could do everything else for a lot less money and what you're planning to buy will lose value relatively quickly.

The lowest-power server and the cheapest server is no server at all. Why don't you start learning on a virtual machine? The day you'll have a real use for a physical server, your cash could well buy more server than it would right now.


Power drops are generally bad. For all I know an oversized PSU may provide some protection but the reason I've no idea is that I wouldn't even consider relying on that.

There's a tradeoff between storage performance and the risk of data loss in the event of a power loss. There are some ways to get good performance while minimizing the risk but since you can evidently afford an UPS, I think you should get one if your data has any value.
If you're going to use the server just for testing/learning on the other hand, you don't need a UPS. You might even learn something from power failures actually.

True. I also feel that this is way too expensive for my needs.
But the old pc I had wasn't really cutting it, board had no sata connections, psu was old and efficient, missing ram and old rams costs a lot and is kinda useless.

Well 'upgradable' is more like if this server project fails so I can turn it into a little i5-3570k beast (I am using oldish, inefficient QX6850 atm).
Also PicoPSU I can't really get it here and shipping costs the same if not more as the picopsu+adapter itself. Also big problem with picopsu - I have no idea how to attach multiple sata ports to it and I feel like my skill-set is not sufficient here.


It's not only for learning. I pay $200 a year for feralhosting (seedbox, openvpn, ftp access). Crashplan with sugarsync and psybnc is another $130. I will drop most of them if not all after getting a server. Electricity bill shouldn't be more than $80 yearly.

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Anyway, it's a bit too late to change anything as I just ordered my parts. Should be arriving some time soon.


Total: $432 including taxes and shipping.

I will add two 1tb harddrives from my desktop pc and will be using a NZXT 210 as case.
Not sure about the UPS yet. I can actually lose most of the data as I will be having my most important data (~100GB) on 3 different locations (including this server).

Will report back after it arrives and I run it a for a day or two.

Parts just arrived, still gonna take a week or so for cpu cooler and case fan to arrive.
Haven't installed linux yet, just tried win8 and it seemed blazing fast!

Anyway, I can already tell that the loudest component is HDD. It's just really noise, even cpu cooler or standard NZXT case fan isn't that loud. Should get Scyhte quite drive? Or just do elastic suspension?

So far extremely happy with the PSU. It's dead silent, pretty sure that the fan doesn't spin on low wattage because I can hear nothing after I disconnect hdd and fans, leaving it boot up with SSD.