Silent F'NP Server!

Silent-Guy · Post by **Silent-Guy** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 1:27 pm

Hi Guy's. I'm planing on building a system to act as a file 'n print server.

Im thinking something along the following specs:

1GB Ram - generic
Via C7 CPU/Motherboard with passive cooling
Fanless CPU - 350 watts? Not sure of a brand?
3 x 500GB Drives, SATA, to be put in Raid 5
Raid Card to go with - recommendations?
Some form of solid-state drive for a windows installation (also toying with the idea of using a linux distro instead?)

The server will act as a file server, a print server (Networked Printers) and a download server.

What is important to me:

Silence!

I will suspend the hard drives, use the solid state disk for a OS so i need the OS to shut down any spinning drives when not in use - will this function correctly over a raid card?

I understand the Via Chips are quite slow performers - can any lower-end Intel/AMD Chips be run passive?

I will also need a case to stick it all in, any reccomendations?

Thanks in advance - and sorry for so many questions!

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 6:13 pm

If this is purely a file and print server, then I wouldn't worry too much about the CPU power of the system. Chances are your network would bottleneck before the system slows down.

For a simple file server, you probably won't need 1GB of RAM. 512MB should be enough.

For a RAID controller - Highpoint makes good cheap cards. They're software based, but if you're not doing anything else with the system, there's nothing to worry about here.

I would actually recommend getting a simple 40GB or 80GB 2.5" drive for the system drive. Notebook hard drives are extremely quiet, and any "solid-state" drives (such as flash or RAM) are either too expensive or don't have a very good lifetime (flash drives have a maximum number of read/write operations). Just make sure you get a SATA drive to save yourself the headaches of adaptors and whatnot. SATA is SATA, there is no difference between laptop SATA and desktop SATA.

I've built a couple of Celeron D systems in the past few months, and even with the stock coolers, they're quite quiet once Q-Fan is enabled. I haven't done it myself, but I'm pretty sure that you could run it passively, or near-passive, with a decent aftermarket heatsink. The price of a basic Intel based motherboard, Celeron D, and heatsink would probably also be less than that of the VIA system. I don't know how the power consumption measures up though (if that's at all a concern).

Hope this helps!

Silent-Guy · Post by **Silent-Guy** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 7:53 am

Hi Nick - thanks for the reply

I'm not too bothered about the CPU power - hence the reason i was looking initially at the Via Chipsets.

As for the ram - I have 1GB of both DDR and DDR2 lying around, so it might aswell go in if its doing nothing!

Thanks for the headsup on the Raid Controller - do they offer anysot of Software or web-based management from within windows do you know? .... I want to know when a drive from my array has failed asap!

A Laptop drive is something i didnt actually consider - will the OS shut down other drives when not in use? How are laptop SATA drives powered?

I would prefer to run Passive - can anyone confirm that the Celly systems can run passive? This would be ideal as it gives me a lot more motherboard options (namely more PCI slots) Power isnt really a concern (within reason!)

Thanks again and I look forward to hearing a reply!

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 7:43 pm

I'm not sure if the OS will be able to shut down the RAID hard drives when they're not in use. You might be able to configure this from the RAID card's control software.

Yes - some of the HighPoint cards have web administration. The RocketRAID 1740 for example (PCI, SATAII, RAID5 supported) has the following nice remote administration features:

Web browser-base software (Web GUI)
Command Line Interface (CLI)
SMTP email notification for events and error reporting
Remote array management through (Web GUI, RAID GUI and CLI)

From HighPoint website

All SATA connectors are the same regardless of whether the drive is a 3.5" drive or a 2.5" drive. No need to worry there.

To be honest - you could run a Celeron D effectively silent by strapping a Scythe Ninja on it, and running a 120mm Nexus at 5-6V. It's not completely passive, but inside any decent case, I can pretty much guarantee you that it'll be silent. Ultimately, I think a decent motherboard, a low end Celeron, the Ninja, and a Nexus fan would still cost you less than the VIA boards (anything worth talking about), and leave you with more options for expandability.

Meato · Post by **Meato** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 1:03 am

Wouldn't even need something Ninja'esque. This POS Dell i'm using at the moment has a Celeron D 315 with stock heatsink, but fan removed, and one 80mm fan to exhaust.

Silent-Guy · Post by **Silent-Guy** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:27 am

Excellent News!

So now im thinking:

Intel Celeron D 331 2.66 GHz @ Â£27ish

Abit AS8-V SKT775 FSB800 @ 25quidish (unless someone reccomends anything else .... I just picked a low-end board with a few PCI slots. As I will probably never upgrade this sytem - It is scrap once anything newer filters down!

1GB Generic DDR @ free

Hard Drives - 3 x Seagate Barracuda 500GB @ Â£128 ea. 1 x Western Digital 2.5" 40GB SATA 5400rpm @ Â£34

The 1740 Raid Card looks nice - My only reservation is that in none of the documentation or reviews can I find anything that sys it will power down the drives when not in use.

This is fairly important as it will help keep the temperatures down (in a passive case fairly important!) and noise down.

Power Supply - Advise please!

Case - Advise Please!

Thanks again Nick, and thanks for your input Meato - I will probably go with te Ninja HS to be safe rather than sorry!

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 1:39 pm

If you can, get the WD Caviar 500GB instead of the Barracuda. Seagate unfortunately hasn't been working on keeping drives quiet, and with the WD drives suspended, you'll have a hard time hearing them in a good case.

I tend to go with ASUS motherboards, just because I've never seen a dead ASUS motherboard. I've got three of them at my place, all with PIII CPUs. These motherboards are over 6 years old, and they're in perfect working condition. If you can find a basic ASUS mobo with onboard video for about the same price, go for it. ASUS motherboard with Intel chipsets (for Intel systems) - a combination that just can't be beat when it comes to reliability and stability.

I actually take back what I said about spinning down the hard drives with the RAID card. Most RAID cards are designed for data safety, so spinning up and down the drives will (a) cause more wear on the motors, and (b) make it a PITA to program the drive controllers. The WD drives I mentioned run pretty cool to begin with, so as long as you keep them in an area of cool airflow they'll be fine temperature wise.

Case - Antec P150 with the NeoHE 430 PSU. Comes with a quiet PSU, and no extra work needed to suspend your hard drives. A big plus IMHO.

Silent-Guy · Post by **Silent-Guy** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 10:21 am

Thanks Nick - sorry for the delayed reply. I've been away for a few days.

Cheers for the info on the WD drives - are thay fairly reliable now? I still remember the ever-dying WD drives of a few years ago and have steared away since!

I'm a big asus fan aswell - also never had a problem. Might aswell stick with what i know 'eh!

Its a shame about the Hard Drives, I'll take your word on their being nearly no noise.

Thanks for the info on the case - I have just read the review and all looks good!

I think I will go for the Antec "Solo" Simply Because I can use my own PSU - it is the same case but PSU-less.

Thanks for all your advice - I will report back when i have built the system (probably late Jan/Early Feb)

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:27 pm

Western Digital has had a couple of bad batches of drives. If ever you see a drive with 2MB of cache - stay away. They're built cheap, and sell cheap. In other words - boo.

Other than the 80GB and 120GB drives with 2MB cache, Western Digital drives are pretty rock solid IMO. The recent Caviars are very trustworthy, and perform well.

I'm looking forward to hear about your build!

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 4:04 pm

Silent-Guy

Are you planning on building right away or are you waiting a while to really have a good think about everything you have learned.???

You are certainly on the right track, and it looks like you have one addition to a really low power/performance PC, the RAID drives, no doubt some arrangement can be reached with cooling various components with the minumum noise.

My personal feeling is that a passive heatsink for your CPU, an SS S12-3xx PSU, and a quiet case fan, a laptop HDD, and 2 large capacity desktop drives will be good enough (I cant comment on SATA RAID in any way).

With a little ducting from the PSU fan to one HDD would keep that cool with no fear of the PSU ramping up, and the case fan would be fine for the other HDD and the CPU.

Just a thought

Andy

Silent-Guy · Post by **Silent-Guy** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 3:22 am

Hi Andyb - I will be waiting a little while and seeing if anything new comes about!

Im quite set on having raid-5 array. It will be serving video files for my network media player in the living room so a bit of fault tollerence and a lot of space is required.

I am certainly looking at going passive on the CPU, I will probably have a 120mm fan running low down at the bottom drawing air in over the 3 drives. The PSU fan can draw air out of the back. If i need extra cooling I will look into it when its built - as I say its no hurry to build the system so waiting a few more days for a quiet fan isnt a problem!

Thanks for your input.

Nick - I will avoid those! I will probably order WD drives because of the noise aspect. I will order each drive from a seperate supplier (dif batch) so if/when they do die they dont all go at once!

Thank you all again!

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:07 am

Nick Geraedts wrote: I tend to go with ASUS motherboards, just because I've never seen a dead ASUS motherboard.

I've had less than desireable ASUS MBs, but for the most part they're good.

That being said, for this sort of application, just get an Intel motherboard. There isn't any point in getting some overclocking motherboard packed with bells and whistles for a F+P server, and the Intel motherboards are going to be the most stable, well-tested platform available.

jackylman · Post by **jackylman** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:27 am

Why a Celeron and not a Sempron? (The Sempy should consume less power and would probably be a better undervolter).

Silent-Guy · Post by **Silent-Guy** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:40 pm

Beyonder - Cheers, either way im not too bothered .... its unlikely to save me more than a few pounds either way. so long as it performs reasonably well i dont mind!

jackylman - no reason! simply the celly D's were thrown up in this conversation. I have no real preference to which CPU brand I will eventually run, If you can suggest anything I will take it on board!

Cheers

Shukuteki · Post by **Shukuteki** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 4:19 pm

Watch it if you plan on using a Celeron D. They are Prescott core based, and the one i have (2.8ghz) idles fairly cool at around 35-37C. Put any load on them however, and temps go up quick (40-47/48C). These temps are with a Scythe Katana, and with the stock cooler it would regularly run 50C and up. This wasn't the LGA775 style cooler though, it was a solid aluminum one with a crappy 60mm delta fan on it.

So anyways, keep that in mind.

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 10:42 pm

Really? I'm sitting at a 2.66GHz Cel D right now with the stock heatsink, and it rarely goes above 45C. That's also with the stock thermal pad. Maybe I just got a particularly good one here... *shrugs*

Then again, we've seen plenty of examples of people effectively cooling Prescott systems, even with low-noise restrictions. It's a little bit more difficult, but not impossible.

@jackylman - I'll happily admit that I'm partial to Intel systems. I've just found that Intel systems with Intel based chipsets result in the least amount of headaches when it comes to drivers. The Celeron D does come from the Prescott family, but it doesn't generate nearly as much heat.