New SageTV Server Build (First Draft) - Opinions Please

[makko]

Hi Guys,

So after like a year of building my house and wiring with CAT6 the time has finally come to start planning the good stuff, My Media Server (SageTV)!

I have come up with a first draft of the server I plan on building. I will provide the specs below for you guys to look over since I have no experience with the Sage Software and it's ideal requirements.

Also, please note that the hardware is based around an Intel Core2Quad CPU and not i7 (or i5). The reason for this is that I don't really feel Sage will need an "i" CPU. The 2.66Ghz Quad should suffice, if I am wrong then please let me know. Cheers!

Here goes for the specs: (all prices have been converted to Euro to give a ballpark overall build cost)

X-Case 4U RackMount Case €122
Corsair TX750W PSU €110
Intel C2Q Q9400 6MB 2.66GHz €170
Corsair 4GB DDR2 PC6400/800MHz €76.48
ASUS P5N72-T PREMIUM ATX €148
ASUS BR-04B2T Blu-ray Drive €57.68
Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB x2 (I Plan to Mirror these) €228
Total Build Cost: €912

The cost is a little high at the moment because I still need to add tuner cards. OS isn't a problem as I get Server2003 or 2008 from MS for free (Student). Will it work on Windows Server Editions??

Any advice on this build would be greatly appreciated..

Thanks in advance.

--Makko

[madpoet]

One of the advantages to the I series is low power consumption. I built mine around an i3 and am very happy with it. That's a seriously hefty psu. Are you planning to put a lot more storage in?

[makko]

Originally Posted by madpoet

One of the advantages to the I series is low power consumption. I built mine around an i3 and am very happy with it. That's a seriously hefty psu. Are you planning to put a lot more storage in?

Thats an interesting point. I thought the I series would be harder on power..

What i3 did you use, @ what speed? How do you find it for ComSkip and how many clients do you have I will have up to 3 clients running.

Also, for the PSU I thought I would need that because I plan on putting in Two tuner cards and possibly a 3rd one later. Also, I might like to add another two 3.5 drives later.

Thanks for your input.

[bastage]

Originally Posted by makko

Thats an interesting point. I thought the I series would be harder on power..

What i3 did you use, @ what speed? How do you find it for ComSkip and how many clients do you have I will have up to 3 clients running.

Also, for the PSU I thought I would need that because I plan on putting in Two tuner cards and possibly a 3rd one later. Also, I might like to add another two 3.5 drives later.

Thanks for your input.

The i3's are all easier on power then Most Quads. As far as the PSU goes, the extra hardware you have discussed doesn't warrant that PSU. a Quality 550 should still be a comfortable level of overkill. In a PC the Part that sucks down most of the power is the video card followed by the CPU. So with no High end video card the PSU gets to be light. I have heard of people running servers with 10+ 3.5" drives off of a corsair 400w PSU on more then 1 occasion.

[paulbeers]

If it were me:

Reduce your power supply and put that towards an i5 750 or one of the i5 6XX. No Sage doesn't "need" it, but they both draw about the same amount of power and you get a much faster CPU. That is if you really want to spend that kind of money on your Sage server.

Another question is why the rackmount server case? Are you anticipating needing the expansion? 3 hard drives hardly necessitates the need for a rackmount. Now I do use a rackmount server, but that is because I am currently using 15 hard drives with a plan to expand to 22 eventually.

Also, why an SLI board? If it is a server, there is no point to an SLI board unless you are planning on housing several x8 or x16 RAID cards.

You should also consider built-in graphics since if it really is a server, there is no reason to add a graphics card that will do nothing but cost you money in the form of higher energy usage.

OS: I would recommend sticking to main stream OS's such as XP, WHS or 7. I believe there are some driver issues with 2008.

[david1234]

It doesn't make much difference, but I'd save a few bucks and not buy Crucial memory. GSkill or AData work just as well, and save about 15 bucks.

[makko]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

If it were me:

Reduce your power supply and put that towards an i5 750 or one of the i5 6XX. No Sage doesn't "need" it, but they both draw about the same amount of power and you get a much faster CPU. That is if you really want to spend that kind of money on your Sage server.

Another question is why the rackmount server case? Are you anticipating needing the expansion? 3 hard drives hardly necessitates the need for a rackmount. Now I do use a rackmount server, but that is because I am currently using 15 hard drives with a plan to expand to 22 eventually.

Also, why an SLI board? If it is a server, there is no point to an SLI board unless you are planning on housing several x8 or x16 RAID cards.

You should also consider built-in graphics since if it really is a server, there is no reason to add a graphics card that will do nothing but cost you money in the form of higher energy usage.

OS: I would recommend sticking to main stream OS's such as XP, WHS or 7. I believe there are some driver issues with 2008.

Why the i5?? I'd really like to just cut the spend on the PSU/CPU and save for something else would this core i3 3.06GHz 4MB be ok?

Honestly, I bought a network rack to hold patch panel, switch etc and I just wanted to keep it cool by adding a rackmount case. Also, I wanted to have options for expansion later. I would like to be able to add many hard drives instead of deleting files. And most tower cases are tight enough on space..then the ones that have the extra space are just as, if not more expensive than my chosen case. Maybe i'm wrong on that.

With the SLI board, it was the only one on the german site with decent spec. I know I need to work on the choice of mobo. It would also ideally have integrated GFX as I would be adding my surplus GeForce 8600GTS for video out which is overkill.. All I need for my motherboard is:
- Onboard RAID 1,5
- Integrated GFX (Can you still buy ATX boards with integ. GFX?)
- Enough space for up to 3-4 TV Tuner cards.

I can go with Windows 7 Ultimate x64, would that do?

Originally Posted by david1234

It doesn't make much difference, but I'd save a few bucks and not buy Crucial memory. GSkill or AData work just as well, and save about 15 bucks.

Good to hear that my thoughts have been confirmed. I did think Crucial was a bit much.. I'll look at cheaper brands. Also, does RAM speed matter at all.. I was always under the impression that fast RAM was only needed for gaming. Will 800MHz suffice for me?

Also, what are your guys opinions on having the OS installed on the media drive. Ideally I would like to RAID1 two small drives and have them for the OS. Then have all my media on seperate RAID1 drives.. thoughts?

This is great input guys, really appreciated.

[david1234]

Originally Posted by makko

Good to hear that my thoughts have been confirmed. I did think Crucial was a bit much.. I'll look at cheaper brands. Also, does RAM speed matter at all.. I was always under the impression that fast RAM was only needed for gaming. Will 800MHz suffice for me?

Just match the speed to whatever the board takes, and put in as much as you can stomach the cost for. I personally think the sweet spot is 4GB, but I'm running 2 in my sage server and it runs pretty well (32bit XP). The limiting factor is really the processor anyway, once the system gets into an "equilibrium" of memory use I don't think it matters.

[makko]

Will do, thanks.

I think 4gb should be fine. I'll go with 64bit windows so I can just add more if needs be.

Thanks.