[FakeMerton]

I wanted to know your power settings on your media server. I have a tower with 4 hard drives and would like them to last as long as possible but don't want to have to go turn it off and on to watch something. What I want is for all the hard drives to go to sleep except the 80gb C: drive. Any way to custom set that and to only spin up when I want to access media or it wont go to sleep while I'm reading the drive.

Or Any other recommendations would be great.

[rbonon]

Hi FakeMerton,

Here is what I did: after being a NSLU user for some years, I wanted to migrate for a full blown server. I wanted low-wattage, no-noise, no exotic CPUs and to make my HDs to last the longer possible.

I decided to go for the lowest possible AMD Semprom CPU at the time (L-1250), avoiding more exotic CPUs that would make choices for the OS narrower. This CPU is very low-demanding on power consumption and it is easy to be cooled passively (no noise). I topped that with a Noctua NH-U12P CPU cooler from which I removed the fans, keeping just the Heatsink.

For the HDs I chose 5 Western Digital WEADS1000 1Tb Green Caviar drives. They are very silent, power-efficient and reliable. They do spin-down automatically independent of the OS when they are not in use after a certain time. You can get them in 2Tb flavour nowadays.

I decided to go with Debian Lenny Linux OS (Ubuntu server would also do fine), as I am a Linux admin. I think that even Windows would do a good job in there, if you feel more comfortable with it.

I am *very* happy with my server. Runs quiet (it has only one case fan, a Noctua silent fan) and cool, serving files over a Gigabit LAN (using normal CAT5 cables). I normally schedule it to boot up at 09:00AM and to shutdown at 01:00AM, so as to be always on when it is needed.

[FakeMerton]

Hi FakeMerton,

Here is what I did: after being a NSLU user for some years, I wanted to migrate for a full blown server. I wanted low-wattage, no-noise, no exotic CPUs and to make my HDs to last the longer possible.

I decided to go for the lowest possible AMD Semprom CPU at the time (L-1250), avoiding more exotic CPUs that would make choices for the OS narrower. This CPU is very low-demanding on power consumption and it is easy to be cooled passively (no noise). I topped that with a Noctua NH-U12P CPU cooler from which I removed the fans, keeping just the Heatsink.

For the HDs I chose 5 Western Digital WEADS1000 1Tb Green Caviar drives. They are very silent, power-efficient and reliable. They do spin-down automatically independent of the OS when they are not in use after a certain time. You can get them in 2Tb flavour nowadays.

I decided to go with Debian Lenny Linux OS (Ubuntu server would also do fine), as I am a Linux admin. I think that even Windows would do a good job in there, if you feel more comfortable with it.

I am *very* happy with my server. Runs quiet (it has only one case fan, a Noctua silent fan) and cool, serving files over a Gigabit LAN (using normal CAT5 cables). I normally schedule it to boot up at 09:00AM and to shutdown at 01:00AM, so as to be always on when it is needed.

Nice! I got Windows 7 Pro for 29.95 with a student discount so I went ahead and used that but my CPU is Intel Quad Core, not too loud at all but I admit when I bought it it wasn't for a server it was to make a Photoshop machine that had good multitasking, until I got a Mac Pro, But I will look into scheduling the computer to turn off and on. Maybe a way to do it so it stays on later or cuts off earlier on certain days.

[dan1son]

I use a dual core atom 330 with 2gigs of ram running Ubuntu server 9.10 (karmic). I have a Hitachi 2tb hard drive, and an additional external 1tb for backups of very important data that I take offsite.

The whole system with case, mb, ram, and cpu was about $150. Hard drive was about $170 at the time (cheaper now).

The system is quiet, hard drive access is the only thing audible. System runs NFS/SMB/UPNP (I usually use NFS). Has gigabit ran into a 802.11N router. I then use bridges (gaming adapters) at my xbmc boxes and can stream 1080p with no problem.

[rbonon]

Maybe a way to do it so it stays on later or cuts off earlier on certain days.

You can schedule power on via BIOS (not flexible though, usually you have to stick with fixed hour to boot everyday), and schedule power off via the OS which allows you a lot of flexibility.

[Corban987]

I use FreeNAS with 6 - 1.5T Green SATA HD's. set up using Raidz1 (OS installed on 4Gig Compact Flash), and FreeNAS set to spin down drives after 1 hour of no use putting them into low power mode. The box is just an AMD 64Bit with 4Gig RAM dedicated to serving music, TV, Movies as well as storing my personal files on the ZFS file system. The FreeNAS serves the media to 2 PC's for files, has built in Torrent engine with Web Interface (saves leaving main PC on) as well as serves my 4 Media Centers - 2 XBOX's and 2 MCPC's with all my media requirements (Wireless and wired).