Maxim Posted December 8, 2014 Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 So for a while now I've been toying with the idea of a Windows server to act as a backup for my phone and Google Drive as well as a Plex server for hosting all of my media for streaming. Once Cyber Monday rolled around I saw some deals on Newegg and decided they were too good to pass up. Here's a breakdown of the components: Case: Fractal Design Node 304 CPU: Intel Core-i5 4440 Motherboard: Gigabyte H97N-WIFI RAM: 8GB (2x 4GB) Corsair Vengeance 1866 MHz Boot drive: Crucial M550 256GB Data drive: 2x WD Red 6TB in RAID 1 PSU: Corsair CX 600M The case, CPU, mobo, and 6TB drives were bought on Cyber Monday for a little under $900 (the 2 drives alone were $520 of that). The RAM, SSD, and PSU were spares I had lying around. It was my first mITX build and I had been looking for an excuse to check out the Node 304 so it worked out perfectly. The currently has the 2x 6TB drives in a RAID 1 mirror configuration but is expandable up to a 5x 6TB RAID 5 config. This is all running off of the Intel on-board RAID controller so performance in RAID 1 is around the same as it would be for a single drive. I'd definitely recommend this sort of build over a standalone 2- or 4-bay NAS, especially if you have some spare components to use. I was originally looking to buy Synology's DS415+ 4-bay NAS but saved around $200 with this build and got the storage space as well as a fairly power-efficient server for Plex and a few other functions. No build log is complete without pictures. Sorry in advance for potato quality cell phone pics. More coming in the next post. The cat realized I was doing something and had to come rub her face on everything. wtf is lolcats? I'd def get a fat hooker if i had to resort to that kinda thing. I feel like they'd be grateful and work harder. Also its more bang for my buck, more real estate for my dollar if you catch my drift. its like the Costco of streetwalkers. I was hoping for 150 . I was hoping she would let me put it in her butt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxim Posted December 8, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 Here's the case with the "shroud" removed. The top and sides are all one piece that come off together. It's not my favorite design but it makes sense for the size of the case and I don't anticipate pulling this apart very often. The hard drives are installed in these white trays and hang down from the top rail. It's the only case I know of that uses this sort of design and fits 6x 3.5" drives with room for airflow. The cat didn't go too far away. Here's a shot of the front of the case. Removed the front cover to reveal the 2x 92mm fans behind a dust filter. wtf is lolcats? I'd def get a fat hooker if i had to resort to that kinda thing. I feel like they'd be grateful and work harder. Also its more bang for my buck, more real estate for my dollar if you catch my drift. its like the Costco of streetwalkers. I was hoping for 150 . I was hoping she would let me put it in her butt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxim Posted December 8, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 The power supply was an easy install once all of the drive trays were removed. I always assemble the basic components of the system outside of the case before I assemble it all inside to make sure nothing is DOA. It actually made the build much easier because once the PSU and motherboard were inside the case it became much harder to fit my hands in and connect everything. I was originally leaning toward the Core-i5 4440S instead of the normal 4440 due to its lower TDP (65W vs 84W) but after some thought decided that this thing will be at idle 99% of the time and the extra cost for the S-edition wouldn't save me any money on my electrical bill. When the normal 4440 went on sale for $30 off on Cyber Monday I pulled the trigger. Stuck with the stock Intel cooler for this build. The machine will rarely see more than a 15% load and the Intel cooler is quiet enough at idle. If I need something better later on then the case has enough room for some tower-style coolers like the Hyper 212-EVO and Noctua's NH-U12s. Had some spare Corsair Vengeance sticks that I tossed in. 8GB should be enough but I can bump to 16GB later on if the need arises. wtf is lolcats? I'd def get a fat hooker if i had to resort to that kinda thing. I feel like they'd be grateful and work harder. Also its more bang for my buck, more real estate for my dollar if you catch my drift. its like the Costco of streetwalkers. I was hoping for 150 . I was hoping she would let me put it in her butt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyma1026 Posted December 8, 2014 Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 I like it man. Looking good. You got some nice equipment there. I've wanted to try N.A.S. but was always to cheap to attempt it. I definitely need backup storage for media as well, and a lot of it. Never heard of Plex Server before but it seems pretty cool after doing some research. Watching to see how it goes for you. If all goes well I may give this a try. Good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxim Posted December 8, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 Once I verified it would boot and all of the devices were detected in the BIOS I went ahead and began the installation into the case. Definitely a tight fit between the board and power supply. It was a bit of a pain to wire up some of these connectors but that's a given in a mITX case. I actually might have made it easier on myself to pull the power supply, run these wires, and put the power supply back in but I'm dumb and didn't. And so begins the cable spaghetti nightmare. I knew it would be tough keeping all of these cables neat in this case. I'm not using a graphics card so I had some extra room to work with and definitely made use of it. Next step was to install the drives in the trays. The 6TB drives were impressively heavy. Twins <3 The drives are installed on the caddies using these shoulder screws. The rubber spacer prevents the drive from touching the metal and dampens vibrations. I bought a few six-inch SATA cables hoping to keep the cable clutter to a minumum. Unfortunately they were just a few mm too short to reach the SATA ports on the edge of the board. And a little over an inch too short to reach the SATA ports in the middle of the board. I was afraid of this happening so luckily I threw a few ten-inch cables into the order as well. I think an 8-inch cable would be perfect but it's not worth buying new cables and taking the machine apart to swap them out. wtf is lolcats? I'd def get a fat hooker if i had to resort to that kinda thing. I feel like they'd be grateful and work harder. Also its more bang for my buck, more real estate for my dollar if you catch my drift. its like the Costco of streetwalkers. I was hoping for 150 . I was hoping she would let me put it in her butt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxim Posted December 8, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 Installed the other two drives in their trays along with the SATA power cable for the drives and a Molex cable for the integrated fan controller. It got cluttered pretty quickly. I did what I could to keep the cables neat but it only helped so much. The area around the CPU socket is pretty clear and with a little tidying I could fit a tower cooler if needed. wtf is lolcats? I'd def get a fat hooker if i had to resort to that kinda thing. I feel like they'd be grateful and work harder. Also its more bang for my buck, more real estate for my dollar if you catch my drift. its like the Costco of streetwalkers. I was hoping for 150 . I was hoping she would let me put it in her butt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxim Posted December 8, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 I like it man. Looking good. You got some nice equipment there. I've wanted to try N.A.S. but was always to cheap to attempt it. I definitely need backup storage for media as well, and a lot of it. Never heard of Plex Server before but it seems pretty cool after doing some research. Watching to see how it goes for you. If all goes well I may give this a try. Good luck Plex is awesome and is the best way that I've found to manage and enjoy my media. It's totally free for normal use and the paid Plex Pass unlocks some other awesome features. Prior to building this box I was using an Intel NUC as the media server and had a few external drives plugged in via USB which worked but wasn't the most ideal solution. I had initially been looking at the Synology NAS because that model and a few others support running a Plex server right off the NAS but for the cost it wasn't as powerful as I could get by building this sort of box myself. Having a full Windows install on the same box for things like BitTorrent Sync and Google Drive makes managing everything simple and is really what drive me toward building this. If you're looking to build something similar it's really not that expensive to build a small, simple, cheap box. Your highest cost will most likely be the cost of drives and if you only want to start with one or two TB of storage it's really not that expensive at all. I wound up going with the 6TB Red drives because I planned to store more than just my media on them and wanted the capacity and liked the NAS-specific features. If you want to save some money a few cheap WD Greens, WD Blues, or Seagate Barracudas would work just fine for mass storage. wtf is lolcats? I'd def get a fat hooker if i had to resort to that kinda thing. I feel like they'd be grateful and work harder. Also its more bang for my buck, more real estate for my dollar if you catch my drift. its like the Costco of streetwalkers. I was hoping for 150 . I was hoping she would let me put it in her butt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n8ball2013 Posted December 8, 2014 Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 why win8.1 THERE IS NO BUILD LOG! 1998 Chevy Silverado ext cab Alpine CDA-9887 4 Team Fi 15s 2 Ampere Audio TFE 8.0 2 Ampere Audio 150.4 3 Digital Designs CS6.5 component sets Dual Mechman 370XP Elite alternators inbound! 8 XS Power d3400 6 XS power d680 Second Skin Stinger Tsunami Wiring Sky High A Real Voltmeter not a piece of shit stinger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxim Posted December 9, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2014 why win8.1 I was fiddling with the idea of FreeNas but didn't want to pony up for a Xeon and ECC memory. I have an Intel NUC that I was using as the server previously and it had 8.1 on it and already handled everything I wanted this one to do. I already had the 8.1 and didn't see the benefit of buying Server 2012 or going with Home Server 2011. And as much as I love Linux I'm definitely a Windows guy and if anything goes wrong it'll take me several times as long to troubleshoot it in Linux as it will in Windows. So basically because I already had it and knew it. Now that the NUC is free I might install Debian or Ubuntu and make it a little project box. wtf is lolcats? I'd def get a fat hooker if i had to resort to that kinda thing. I feel like they'd be grateful and work harder. Also its more bang for my buck, more real estate for my dollar if you catch my drift. its like the Costco of streetwalkers. I was hoping for 150 . I was hoping she would let me put it in her butt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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