Planning New WHS2011 Sage Server Build - Please comment

[WellThen]

I am planning to replace my dying WHSv1 Server with a new WHS2011 server built from scratch. My goals for the new system:


-Lowest Power consumption I can manage and still have quick performance for Sage
-Work with my existing HD-PVR and HD Homerun (dual) tuners
-Rip Blue-Rays
-At least 5 years before I have to build again
-Optionally, I would like the new server to be able to work as a Sage display in a pinch

Below is the build I've planned. Please let me know if you think I would be better off with different components. Or even a different O/S. I've really liked having WHSV1 as my Sage server, except for the inability to back up the primary partition where Sage is installed. And I gather that this is now possible with WHS2011. Thanks for your input.

OS
WHS2011 $50

CPU
AMD A8-5500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor $96.99 FREE $96.99 SuperBiiz

CPU Cooler
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler $29.98 Outlet PC

Motherboard
ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6 ATX FM2 Motherboard $104.99 Amazon

Memory
G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory $68.46 NCIX US

Storage
>WHS OS Drives for Regular WHS storage, 1 is boot drive,
(2)Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive $92.95 Amazon

>Sage Media drives
(2)Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive $122.93 Amazon

Case
Fractal Design Define R4 (Titanium Grey) ATX Mid Tower Case $89.99 NCIX US

Power Supply
Corsair Professional 750W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply $89.99 Newegg

Optical Drive
Asus BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer $47.99 Newegg

[MattHelm]

First, my recording system is something like what you are looking at. (I have 5 HD, 4 old green ones, and 1 new RED. All new ones will be 2TB RED)

This is what I'd change if I was building your system:

OS
Your call. I use W7 Pro, and just do my own backups.

CPU
A8-6500 or A10-6700 (or their big brothers, everything I've ready, the 65W idle at the same power level as the 100W) If you already have the other A8, don't change, but if you are ordering new, it's worth the price difference for the newer chips.

CPU Cooler
I use the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus. Not sure without looking it up, the difference.

Motherboard
I really like the Gigabyte Ultra-Durable series. (but using the ASUS F2A85-M PRO, because it's MicroATX and number of PCIe slots.) Just be careful installing anyone's crapware.

Memory
Look for some good 1.35V RAM. That WILL save some power. How much???? If you plan on using the GPU and CPU at the same time, you might look at 1866.

Storage
OS, Samsung 840
Others, get the RED drives, as they are rated for 24/7 for 3yrs vs. 8/7 at 2 yrs.

Case
Your call

Power supply
Yours is a bit overkill, and you'll be way down on the efficiency curve, 99% of the time. I have a SeaSonic SSR-360GP 360W. I did need a few HD power splitters, but the supply handles the load fine. Unless you are going to add a high end graphics card....

Optical Drive
Your call

[WellThen]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the feedback! I took most of your advice - here is my new list.

OS
WHS2011 $50

CPU
AMD A10-6700 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor $148.00

CPU Cooler
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler $29.98 Outlet PC

Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-F2A85X-UP4 ATX FM2 Motherboard $99.00

Memory
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory $76.98

Storage
>Boot Drive
Samsung 840 Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk $164.99

>Data Drives (WHS Storage)
Western Digital Red 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive 2@104.99

>Sage Media drives
Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive 2@136.99

Case
Fractal Design Define R4 (Titanium Grey) ATX Mid Tower Case $89.99 NCIX US

Power Supply
SeaSonic G 550W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply $79.99

Optical Drive
Asus BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer $47.99 Newegg


It comes to about $1222. Any other suggestions? I'd love to get it back down in the vicinity of $1K, but I don't want to skimp.

[Skirge01]

I'm not sure what your plans are for backups, but I know I was sorely disappointed when I found out that I couldn't use network shares for my WHS2011 backups. It will only back up to local drives and there's absolutely no way to "trick" WHS2011 into writing to network shares to store backups.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by WellThen

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the feedback! I took most of your advice - here is my new list.

CPU
AMD A10-6700 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor $148.00

I managed to get an A10-6800 (4.1 GHz) for $139 at Fry's (in California).

So far seems OK. Runs around 60-65 watts (out of 100) when doing transcoding so not too hot; temp with a cheap import push/pull cooler in the low 50's C. Idle's around 30 degrees.

I think you'll be happy with the AMD, but these Richlands are newish and some BIOS' aren't completely up to speed yet.

[MattHelm]

Well, 1/2 your money is going into drives, so lets look there first. BTW, just asking, as I know everyone has different usage.

1. Do you need 250GB for the OS? (I'm using 128 on my servers (which has other software on them) , and 64GB on clients, and have zero space issues)

2. Do you need to split the WHS Storage and recording drives? (have no idea)

[WellThen]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I'm not sure what your plans are for backups, but I know I was sorely disappointed when I found out that I couldn't use network shares for my WHS2011 backups. It will only back up to local drives and there's absolutely no way to "trick" WHS2011 into writing to network shares to store backups.

Thanks for the info. Since part of my goal is to minimize my electricity footprint by shutting off all of the other machines and just having the (relatively) low-power server running 24/7, I had not really thought about backing up to a network share. But it's a good point, and would relieve crowding in the server.

I'm also debating about whether to try Windows Server 2012 Essentials instead of WHS2011.

[WellThen]

Originally Posted by phelme

I managed to get an A10-6800 (4.1 GHz) for $139 at Fry's (in California).

So far seems OK. Runs around 60-65 watts (out of 100) when doing transcoding so not too hot; temp with a cheap import push/pull cooler in the low 50's C. Idle's around 30 degrees.

I think you'll be happy with the AMD, but these Richlands are newish and some BIOS' aren't completely up to speed yet.

Thanks for the info. I wish there was a way to definitively know whether the A10-6800 works with the BIOS versions available for the Gigabyte GA-F2A85X-UP4 motherboard, and that all of them work well with WHS2011 or WS2012 Essentials. So much of this seems like experimentation...

[WellThen]

Originally Posted by MattHelm

Well, 1/2 your money is going into drives, so lets look there first. BTW, just asking, as I know everyone has different usage.

1. Do you need 250GB for the OS? (I'm using 128 on my servers (which has other software on them) , and 64GB on clients, and have zero space issues)

2. Do you need to split the WHS Storage and recording drives? (have no idea)

Hi Matt,

Appreciate the suggestions/questions!

On 1. I am forced by by my desire to use a server O/S. Both WHS2011 and 2012SE require a minimum 160GB drive, from what I understand. There are workarounds, but I hate to start a new setup with a kludge.

On 2. I will reconsider this. Since this machine really is a file server for my home, and does backups for all of my PCs, my current WHSv1 machine is using about 1.2TB for those functions. I forgot to say so, but my plan is to mirror the WHS storage drives (the 2TB drives), so I end up (with room for growth) at 2TB of room on the new server.

[WellThen]

Originally Posted by phelme

I managed to get an A10-6800 (4.1 GHz) for $139 at Fry's (in California).

So far seems OK. Runs around 60-65 watts (out of 100) when doing transcoding so not too hot; temp with a cheap import push/pull cooler in the low 50's C. Idle's around 30 degrees.

I think you'll be happy with the AMD, but these Richlands are newish and some BIOS' aren't completely up to speed yet.

Hey Phelme,

Which motherboard and BIOS are you running with your A10-6800? Perhaps you can lead the way!

Thanks.

[Skirge01]

FWIW, I'm using Windows 7 Pro (64-bit) as my server's OS. I use it for P2P, storage pooling and parity protection (via FlexRAID), security cams, among other things, and it works just fine. You could run Sage on it, too, if you wanted. I originally planned to use WHS2011 for backups and storage pooling, but MS implemented them with critical flaws in usability, IMHO. I use EaseUs ToDo Backup (not free) for nightly, weekly, and monthly backups (of SageTV folders and client PC images) to my storage pool. The only thing I run WHS2011 for is remote access, since it provides you with a static domain to use.

[WellThen]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

FWIW, I'm using Windows 7 Pro (64-bit) as my server's OS. I use it for P2P, storage pooling and parity protection (via FlexRAID), security cams, among other things, and it works just fine. You could run Sage on it, too, if you wanted. I originally planned to use WHS2011 for backups and storage pooling, but MS implemented them with critical flaws in usability, IMHO. I use EaseUs ToDo Backup (not free) for nightly, weekly, and monthly backups (of SageTV folders and client PC images) to my storage pool. The only thing I run WHS2011 for is remote access, since it provides you with a static domain to use.

Thanks for the info. I haven't been really bothered about the need to backup on the WHS server - I'm used to it. I guess I should consider the idea of a separate storage box like your Addonics units. Is there any power-related savings associated with having your storage separated in this way? I guess you could say I'm having a hard time thinking "outside the box"

[panteragstk]

I use Server Essentials 2012 and Drive bender for pooling/mirroring. I haven't moved everything over yet, but I plan to use this for everything but sage (file server, MyMovies, Plex, backups including the server drive, HA when I get the time, Subsonic, anything else I decide to make it do). My current W7 server in my sig isn't going anywhere. It works. No reason to break anything, plus I have all the hardware already.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by WellThen

Thanks for the info. I haven't been really bothered about the need to backup on the WHS server - I'm used to it. I guess I should consider the idea of a separate storage box like your Addonics units. Is there any power-related savings associated with having your storage separated in this way? I guess you could say I'm having a hard time thinking "outside the box"

This is surely the place to bounce ideas around!

For full disclosure, all my "servers" are virtualized on one physical server using ESXi (free for personal use). I run a VM of XP for SageTV/comskip, a VM of pfSense, a VM of WHS2011, and the VM of the W7 setup I previously mentioned. I also have a VM of XP with Colossus drivers installed for testing that setup's reliability. I did this because I wanted to be able to "lock" the SageTV setup and also mess with the W7 OS without impacting Sage in any way. I don't back up my WHS2011 instance since reinstalling it would be very simple and there's nothing to lose.

Previously, I did have multiple computers handling some of these tasks and consolidating them definitely lowered my power usage. Additionally, when I rebuilt my server, I decreased the number of drives due to the increased capacity of modern HDDs and used a CPU with a lower TDP. Everyone's situation is different, so your results will surely vary.

[btrcp2000]

Just food for thought, I once tried to make my WHS box and sage server one and the same. The WHS o/s drive failed (not microsoft's fault), and there was absolutely no way to recover it without reinstalling from scratch, including having to buy a second set of drives because you couldn't simply plunk them back into the new install with files intact. All that part was definitely msoft's fault. Maybe this has been addressed in newer versions, but that was about a week with no sage not to mention all the baby pictures and other things WHS was backing up. WAF took a massive hit, I would never do this again.

Do your research, I lost 3-4 of those green drives (WD, I think?) to failure. Warranty replacements were blue ones, so even the mfr gave up on them.

Now, I have a storebought WHS box that backs up all PCs, including my W7 sage box, which I have had to restore once or twice. No worries.

I would like to reduce the power footprint, but I would also like to have a life outside the basement sage dungeon. Spent way too much time screwing with why drivers didn't work in WHS, and why playback would stutter (also had something to do with green drives), etc.

[Skirge01]

btrcp2000 pretty much echoed my thoughts, but that may have gotten lost in my reply. WHS2011 is more resilient (hey, you can back up the OS drive! ), but it's still its own beast. I also agree with his sentiment about less maintenance. Since changing up my configuration, I spend about 90% less time figuring out what went wrong. The remaining 10% of the time spent when things get messed up is usually from my own tinkering or hardware failure. Also, keep in mind that the WHS line is dead to MS.

[maninblack_30]

Just to throw some other thoughts in, I'm running 2 HP N54L Microservers, One running server 2008R2, with SageTV on it, and another running 2 virtual servers (SBS2011 and WHS 2011 plus 3 or 4 other VM's that I fire up and use for testing) these little boxes are amazing! Really, really quiet, low power, and compact. oh, and cheap too!
As long as you aren't doing real-time transcoding, they don't miss a beat.
I too got burned twice with the WHSv1 system drive failure on my old SageTV machine!

Fraser

[WellThen]

You know, the ESX idea has some appeal for me. I like the isolation that separate VMs would provide. Problem is, pretty much everyone I see using ESX is running on much, much more expensive hardware than my $1200 start-to-finish budget. Is the hardware price of entry (to support a Sage VM and a Server VM) out of my reach? My current Sage setup can record 3 HD streams while playing back another, and Comskip is done after every recording. On the new server, I'd like to be able to transcode if possible. I know that's not a lot, but I wanted to mention the kind of throughput I want.

That, and I keep reading about the "black art" of getting passthroughs to work for Sage. I use VMWare at work, but very simply to kick-the-tires try our software on different OS/s - no real tinkering beyond "set up a Red Hat/AIX/Win 8/etc. VM and confirm whether our software works there when you try XYZ". Any opinion how hard it would be to set up ESX to use Sage for an ESX newbie?

[Skirge01]

Not hard at all. I had zero experience with VMs when I started using ESXi and I managed to set up quite a complex (for home use) system. When you throw a firewall VM into the mix, getting the networking aspect going takes a bit more time, but you're not going there (yet?).

Looking over your hardware again, I have a hard time offering suggestions on what to change. I'm not sure how that AMD processor will handle ESXi and/or transcoding, but my gut tells me any AMD CPU may be underpowered. (Hopefully someone else can offer some REAL insight on that, though.) While I have 32GB of ram and my VMs have never needed anywhere near that much, 16GB wasn't enough for all my VMs. I intentionally overbuild every time, so I have some room to grow. I have up to 3 comskip instances running in the XP VM, all of which use the CPU "LOW" setting from SJQ3. If I can wait about 5 minutes to start watching an active recording, the comskip can generally keep up with me, but not always.

If you give it a try, I would recommend installing the ESXi hypervisor onto a flash drive so you can save money on unnecessary hard drives. Passthrough is easy enough to get working* for HDPVRs and other supported hardware, such as my IBM M1015s. I think where many people run into problems is when they use hardware which ESXi doesn't support. The other area where I think people get confused (I know I did) is getting their storage visible to ESXi and then getting the VMs to see it.

I'm not the only one running ESXi around these parts, so you should have lots of help along the way. I have a very strong recommendation to you: When you get the parts, build a 2nd server and get things working slowly and correctly before switching to the new server. This way you can let the current server continue chugging along with minimal impact.

* After I wrote the rest, I recalled that passthrough may have some issues with the later releases of ESXi. I'm still running 5.0u1 for that very reason. I believe the issue started with 5.01 and it may have been fixed by now, but I haven't had a reason to upgrade or look into it. Honestly, I don't even know WHAT the issue is; I just read about it and steered clear!

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

* After I wrote the rest, I recalled that passthrough may have some issues with the later releases of ESXi. I'm still running 5.0u1 for that very reason. I believe the issue started with 5.01 and it may have been fixed by now, but I haven't had a reason to upgrade or look into it. Honestly, I don't even know WHAT the issue is; I just read about it and steered clear!

I have three instances of ESXi running 3 SageTV servers. All are 5.0 ESXi. I didn't want to upgrade because I was using PCI pass through and the first release of 5.1 broke that along with USB pass through. As far as I know the only thing that might still be broken in 5.1 is USB pass through.

I was passing through a PCI based USB 2.0 controller for my HDPVRs on one ESXi instance and an nVidia Dual TV card (for SVideo SDTV recordings) on another ESXi instance. PCIe cards had no problems with pass through in 5.1 ESXi - from what I've read anyway.