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Hello Everyone!

I am currently gathering information for what parts to purchase and put together for my NAS. I will need help on other areas that I am still confused.

I am now trying to decide what motherboard to purchase and what features will it have. My attention now is on the number of PCIe slot that I need. Below are the things I am planning.

I plan to add a 8 channel/port sata controller card in order for to accommodate a total of 12 HDD (1 OS, 2 Parity, 9 DATA), the mother board has 6 sata port. I also plan to have 1 to 3 of the 9HDD to be hot swappable, add a blu-ray optical drive, thermal meter display, a wake-on-LAN card, and possible an upgraded video card. Also an e-sata card if I decide to extend further beyond the 12 HDD.

I have my eye on mother boards that have built in graphics and audio and have enough SATA ports to start with. I do have a few question regarding the use and compatibility of the Expansion slots for my requirements.

So my inquiries are:

1. Can I add a video card to a motherboard that has an existing Graphics on board? Although I am planning to drop the video upgrade since the existing graphics on the mobo seem to be capable enough to play videos even on HD if required. Sort of a backup if my main media player will be having a problem.

2. Are the existing expansion slot enough to be able to cater my future requirements? Will there be any performance problem if I assgin it as below? It is based on P8H67-M EVO mobo.

1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (blue) - for 8 channel/port sata controller card.
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black) - if a card is required for the hot swapable drive/s.
1 x PCIe 2.0 x1 - for wake-on-lan capable ethernet card.
1 x PCI

Thanks in advance.

I forgot the e-sata card.

1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (blue) - for 8 channel/port sata controller card.
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black) - if a card is required for the hot swapable drive/s.
1 x PCIe 2.0 x1 - for e-sata card.
1 x PCI - for wake-on-lan capable ethernet card.

Hi Velle and welcome to the forums. Sounds like you're going to be building quite the beast

It's been a while since I genned up on motherboards and PCI slots so I'm a little bit rusty. However, that doesn't stop me having an opinion

Looking at your chosen mobo I see it already has an onboard gigabit NIC. Why the desire for an extra one? Most mobos these days support WOL (including your chosen mobo by the looks of it) or are you planning on using your beast for more than video streaming?

Yes, you can add a separate graphics card if you like (although as you’ve discovered the integrated graphics is plenty good enough for HD video).

In terms of the PCI slots verses cards, the key obviously is to check the particular card you’re planning on buying is compatible (ie. not a PCIx card for example) but your PCI plans seems sensible (although eSATA can run off a standard SATA port so you might not need a separate card for that).

Hopefully the above is of some help?

I can’t resist asking you some questions:

What case are you going for?
What processor/memory?
What are you planning on using your server for? Video streaming only or do you have other plans?
What client(s) will you be using for video streaming?
Are you going for hardware or software RAID?
What OS?
Tell us more about your thermal meter display please.

Ian.

Thanks Ian for giving me your opinion. I need all the help I can get .

Sounds like you're going to be building quite the beast.

I want to build a Media Server/NAS Server that will last me a lifetime... ok maybe 5 years :P. My original plan was to buy a 2 bay NAS(which I have now), then buy 4 bay, then 6 bay. But this seem to be more expensive in the long run and feature wise, limited.

Looking at your chosen mobo I see it already has an onboard gigabit NIC. Why the desire for an extra one? Most mobos these days support WOL (including your chosen mobo by the looks of it) or are you planning on using your beast for more than video streaming?

I am very ignorant now on pc hardware technologies. It has been centuries since I build my 1st, I have been using laptop ever since. Back then, a WOL capable card is very rare. I found a more expensive mobo that specified that it support WOL. I was thinking it was still a matter of finding a mobo that support WOL. So, if that is the case, then I won't need a separate card for WOL for this mobo, 1 PCIE slot freed .

Yes, you can add a separate graphics card if you like (although as you’ve discovered the integrated graphics is plenty good enough for HD video).

Thanks for the confirmation. I can use the integrated graphics card to connect it to the TV/LCD monitor incase my primary media player has problems.

In terms of the PCI slots verses cards, the key obviously is to check the particular card you’re planning on buying is compatible (ie. not a PCIx card for example) but your PCI plans seems sensible (although eSATA can run off a standard SATA port so you might not need a separate card for that).

This part is where my brains and googling skill is being put to the test :P. PCIE slots is so new to me that I don't know which type is best. As you can see, I am planning to use a PCIe x16 slot to an 8 channel/port sata controller card. The reason is I am assuming this will be the fastest port and I will need all that speed to handle 8 HDD (incase they all needs to be accessed, worst scenario that is). I just hope I can find the controller card I need and will fit to this x16 PCIe port.

I will need 12 SATA port for HDD. And I will need atleast 1 to 3 ports that can support a hot swapable bay, AHCI enabled I believe. This will be used incase I will go over my HDD limit and just decide to replace the full hdd with a new one and store the old HDD as archive. Just plug it in the hot swapable bay and copy the content if needed.

I believe I will also need 1 extra SATA port for the blu-ray writable drive. I will use it to rip and copy from blu-ray disc, if it comes to that.

And another SATA port for the eSATA. Since you're saying eSATA can run off a standard SATA port. I will use the eSATA for external expansion, that is if I go this way rather than the HDD swapping through the hot swappable bay. I found a mobo that is a little bit expensive but has dedicated eSATA port. I am trying to decide if I will go for that.

So, if I go with the P8H67-M EVO mobo. Then I will need a total of 14 SATA ports which is more than enough. I still need to research about the port required for the thermal meter display. My friend has this on his Gaming PC. It also has Voltage meter I believe and a sound alarm. If it will use a SATA port also, then I am 1 port short.

What case are you going for?

I really haven't decided yet but this, http://www.thepotterhouse.net/livestore ... ts_id=5895, might cater my drive bay requirements. I will just need to install something like this, http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/121304/HDD_ ... X-H22B.asp, to replace the 2 of the 5 5.25" bays. I will then have enough 5.25 bays for the blu-ray and temperature meter and an extra one for whatever future needs it will serve. I just hope I can find the same bay when it's time to order.

What processor/memory?

I haven't decide wich processor yet since the mobo is not yet final. But if I go with this original mobo, maybe an i7 2500K? what do you think?

What are you planning on using your server for? Video streaming only or do you have other plans?

Video streaming is one, music streamin, a NAS server also. A web server also so I will be able to install GUI that will be accessible on my LAN and the Internet as well. I will be storing other files as well like my manuals, ebooks, photos and video tutorials.

Also, as I mentioned above, can act as a media player if my primary media plpayer fails for some reason.

What client(s) will you be using for video streaming?

Right now, I might go with you mentioned in your article, MediaTomb.

Are you going for hardware or software RAID?

Software raid! FlexRaid is what I have in mind. This is one reason why I want to build one myself. I don't like how the hardware raids behave when HDD fails. Flexraid seem to solve those concerns. I have a 2 Bay right now with total of 4TB HDD, I didn't use any raid.

What OS?

Ubuntu is what I have in mind since its free and open source. Although Windows files system is wildly use and I can just get the HDD on this server and plug it in in an external HDD enclosure and plug it on my laptops USB port to retrieve files if the server fails. But I found a software that can make windows read/write on HDD with linux file systems.

Tell us more about your thermal meter display please.

This I need to get back and let you know about it.


BTW, I started from scratch on this project, like zero knowledge. Deciding if I should do this and what OS and raid software to use. Then I found your article, "How to build a linux media server". It was perfect and what I was looking for! Thanks for that article.

Velle wrote:This part is where my brains and googling skill is being put to the test :P. PCIE slots is so new to me that I don't know which type is best. As you can see, I am planning to use a PCIe x16 slot to an 8 channel/port sata controller card. The reason is I am assuming this will be the fastest port and I will need all that speed to handle 8 HDD (incase they all needs to be accessed, worst scenario that is). I just hope I can find the controller card I need and will fit to this x16 PCIe port.

I totally understand your concerns, everyone who builds their kit from scratch goes through the same process of trying to minimise bottlenecks. However, often we go through a lot of anguish for nothing. For example, let’s take your worst case scenario of needing to stream from each of your eight disks. Let’s say they’re each uncompressed blu-rays you’re streaming. So, that’s 400Mbps of required throughput (8*50Mbps = 400Mbps). ie. a mere 50 megabytes (MBps). If we take the bumf on this page you can see that even a PCIe 1x slot will support much more than this. 5 times more infact. Your PCI 16x will cope with 80x more throughput than you need! So, don’t worry too much, you’ll be fine! I’d wager that the card itself will be the bottleneck rather than the slot you push it into. But even it will be able to cope with your worst case scenario I’m sure.
Unless you’re planning on running a high traffic commercial server or a top spec gaming rig then I’d really not worry too much about bottlenecks. Obviously that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t care at all but for a media server in the home you’ll be fine. I used to stream multiple simultaneous DVD ISOs from a NAS that was less than half the power of my mobile phone!!
Streaming is one of the least intensive things you can do on a computer. In the end I focused on energy efficiency when speccing mine given it would be running 24/7.

Onto your point about hot swapping. I went through the same thought process too but in the end decided against it. Obviously it would be cool to be able to whip a disk out whilst it was still running and plug in another but do you really need that? I’d be so gutted at having to fork out for another disk the last thing on my mind would be the 10 minutes downtime I’d incur whilst I powered the machine off and swapped the disk out.

Velle wrote:So, if I go with the P8H67-M EVO mobo. Then I will need a total of 14 SATA ports which is more than enough. I still need to research about the port required for the thermal meter display. My friend has this on his Gaming PC. It also has Voltage meter I believe and a sound alarm. If it will use a SATA port also, then I am 1 port short.

On my rig I’ve got scripts running to monitor the internal temps. And if you look at this page you can see I was using a circuit to monitor room temps. I bet your mate often runs his rig at full throttle and thus generates a lot of heat. Your rig will spent 99.9% of it’s time just ticking over on idle (even when streaming) so you may not need such a fancy piece of kit.

Re your point about ripping from the blu-ray drive directly on your server. You'll need a keyboard, screen, gui and the required app to do that. The best apps tend to be windows-based so you'll need to also install Windows, perhaps as a VM on your server. Why not just plug one into your desktop and rip from there? Once ripped then copy it over to your server. Just a thought.

In terms of the processor, as mentioned above, anything more powerful than a mobile phone and you'll have plenty of spare capacity most of the time so don't go mad and shell out on the latest and greatest one unless you really want to. When you're building your RAID from scratch then a quicker processor will come in handy but after that it'll just be trickling along.

Hopefully the above makes some sense and doesn't come across as being argumentative or negative but having been through the same process and come out the other side I know I spent many many hours fretting over every little detail and whilst I now have a server that I'm chuffed with I could have just simply tossed a few cheap components into a case and had a server that worked just as well. Granted I wouldn't brim with pride every time I think about it but I'd have saved myself plenty of hassle!!

Good luck sir and keep us posted

Ian.

Thanks Ian! I appreciate the time and effort you are giving to help me, and others, on this project of mine. The article "How to build a linux media server" was already a big help and the information you are giving me here are clarrifying grey areas of this project.

You are right about the blu-ray drive and it's used to rip blu-ray on the server itself. I also forgot to mention that it will be my third option to archive my files since blu-ray have larger capacity than DVD. My 1st option is to expand the server storage capacity through e-sata and use a Port multiplier or Expander Card. The 2nd one is through HDD, and just using the hot swappable drive to plug it in seconds, copy the file on the server, then pull it out again.

I won't be needing and installing either of the 3 when building the server. One or 2 maybe added or all of them when the times come. I just want the mobo and the casing to be ready for that time. I don't want to buy another mobo or casing to replace it in the future. Unless the mobo will get fried or the casing will blast into pieces . I want to just add HDD and other hardware components such as the 8 port PCIE SATA Controller in the future and not upgrade for a long time. Hopefully a lifetime . I even want to avoid upgrading the CPU and memory, maybe memory if I decide to install and run a lot of software on the same server in the future. But that's all the upgrade I should be doing.

You are also right about the temperature meter. I't won't be usefull if I am not around and things get hotter. What you did is better, a device that will monitor the heat and then turn additional fan to remedy the temperature from rising. It would be good also if it will even shutdown the PC if the fan is not helping as a safe guard. This will save me from buying expensive cooling system to buy a UPS instead. Maybe you can share the circuit and more detailed explanation on how you did it.

I will get back on my research of hardwares this week since I will be free.

Velle wrote:You are also right about the temperature meter. I't won't be usefull if I am not around and things get hotter. What you did is better, a device that will monitor the heat and then turn additional fan to remedy the temperature from rising. It would be good also if it will even shutdown the PC if the fan is not helping as a safe guard. This will save me from buying expensive cooling system to buy a UPS instead. Maybe you can share the circuit and more detailed explanation on how you did it.

The circuit to run the fans was this. You attach the probes to the "hot bits" and then tweak the pots on the circuit for the fans to come on and/or speed up when the temperature rises.
I thought initially I'd need it to keep the cupboard cool. As it turned out it wasn't needed at all since the ducting I'd installed did a perfectly fine job.

The main thing I use to use to ensure the server doesn't overheat (due to a fan failure, someone covering the cupboard vents or some other disaster) are some scripts. You can read all about them here.
It sends you an email and then shuts the server down if any of the temps exceed your predetermined limits.
If you need help tweaking the CPU script to suit your CPU then please let me know since I could obviously only write it for my CPU and it's likely yours will produce slightly different output.

Ian.

Thanks for the info. Is the shutdown script dependent on the circuit or they operate independent to each other?

I had a chat with my friend. The temperature meter he has has a 5 probe sensor and can be program to control the fan speed. Haven't had a change to get the model and name yet because he was in a hurry.

Btw, do you have a pdf format or a single html page of the whole building procedure of the linux media server? Including the add on you made?

The scripts are completely separate from the circuit. The circuit controls the speed of the fans based on the temperatures measured by the probes (mine monitor the temperature of the cupboard but the sensors could easily be placed on the components inside the server), the scripts read the temperatures reported by the CPU/hard drives (this functionality is built into the components) and shuts down the server if any exceed your pre-determined values. The scripts are very simple and, hopefully, you can work out how to modify them to suit your kit. If not, just shout.

In terms of documentation, I'm afraid I've only got what's on the site, I don't have it in any other format. The homepage leads you to all the main sections or you can access things from the dropdown menus at the top of each page. All the scripts are accessible from the relevant pages.

Ian.

Thanks!

Btw, do you think 750watts of PSU going to be enough for my requirements? what brand would you recommend?
Assuming I have the following parts,

Motherboard: ASRock Z68 Extreme4
CPU: i7 2600K 3.4
memory: 16 GB
using intergrated motherboard graphics
an 8 port sata card
12 HDD to which 3 are inside a hot swappable bay
1 bluray drive
1 temperature sensor/fan control device
8 fans
5 usb HDD attached and drawing power from usb
1 e-sata card
temporary usb keyboard, mouse and monitor during setup

have you also installed a UPS? how much power? what brand?