W7 based media server
#1
Hi,

About ready to start building a server box. Computer will be always on and handle Sickbeard, SAB, Couch Potato, uTorrent, and sundry other things, in addition to serving video to 2 or 3 xbmc front ends. I'm going to run with Win 7 x64, with the intention to eventually setup Flexraid once I start filling drives, and once Flexraid's upcoming version is released.

I already have these parts:

[CASE] Antec Three Hundred Illusion - $55 (on sale a couple weeks back)
[PSU] Antec TruePower TP-550 - $60 (shell shocker last week)

I'm leaning towards going with:

[CPU] AMD Athlon II X2 250 - $59
[MOBO] ASUS M4A88T-V - $108


I'd then add 4GB of whatever DDR3 is on sale.

Does this seem like a solid setup for what I'm after?

Thanks
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#2
This is pretty much what I have except

1. Windows Server 2k8 R2 - I used W7x64, and I had terrible samba issues (I have linux and window clients). Windows always works with windows, but the server edition works for everyone, at least in my case.

2. I have a quad core, which lets me transcode blu-rays on the fly for any dlna client such as the ps3, or the 360 using ps3 media server. Power usage barely increases due to AMD cool and quiet.

Flexraid 2.0 is the BOMB.

edit: if you know a student in college, server is free. Check out Dreamspark.
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#3
I would also add that W7 has throttling set by default when hosting services such as network streaming and the like, something a server OS or a Linux box wouldn't have.
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#4
Thanks spartan. I had not heard of Dreamspark before, but I keep my "registered student" status for just these sorts of reasons! It's paid off more in cheap pizza than in software though so far. Smile

I'm very glad to hear that you're happy with Flexraid 2.0. Would you mind describing your experience a bit (# of drives, are you using flexview?, complications you came across, live parity, etc). The flexraid forums have been down for a while now, making it tough to find solid info.

I'm currently running W7 on the PC with all my content. It's now streaming fine to my ubuntu based XBMC machine (haven't noticed any choppiness or other symptoms of throttling), but I do remember that it was a real PITA to get it setup initially. And I gave up trying to give the Ubuntu box write-access to the shares, so unless I can figure that out, I would be pooched on trying to setup one of those fancy "shared database" setups. (Of which I'm very interested in hearing other users impressions).

I've decided to upgrade the CPU to an AMD Phenom II X4 925 It's on sale for $100 shipped and I figure will give me a bunch of added headroom for the future. I can always underclock it initially for power savings if I need to.

Thanks again
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#5
spartan711 Wrote:Flexraid 2.0 is the BOMB.

Is it just me or is the flexraid site done / download unavailable?
Server: Asus Sabertooth Z77 | Intel Core i5 3.4 GHz | 16 GB DDR3 | 128 GB SSD, 82 TB (9 x 6 TB, 7 x 4 TB)
HTPC 1: Raspberry Pi 2 | HTPC 2: Raspberry Pi 2 | HTPC 3: Raspberry Pi
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#6
yeah, it's been down for a while now. Owner/developer having trouble with his hosting provider. It was supposed to be back up on Monday, but haven't heard anything since then...
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#7
Hmmm.

This guy seems to have gotten the shared DB working with a Win7 box as the server: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...0&p=784686

I think I will try this first, rather than learning how to configure server 2k8.
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#8
My server has windows 7 and I am not sure what you guys are talking about with throttling. I have streamed 4 blu-ray Remuxes simultaneously with no issues.
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#9
My plan was to get a 60GB SSD drive and use this for both the OS as well as the temporary download location for SAB, before the post processing extracts and moves the files to the 2TB drives.

Is this advisable? Or should I have the SSD strictly for the OS and programs, and have the temporary stuff on one of the HDDs?

Thanks,
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#10
1. Win2k8 R2 is SUPER easy to setup in terms of shares. The built in helper is super. Also, its much more easy on resources. Plus, it can do sooo much more. NFS is supposed to be more efficient than SMB, and its literally a 1 click difference to set those up.

2. Flexraid is back up, he was out of town and something happened with the forums.

3. I didn't have issues streaming from w7, just setting up shares.

4. My experience with flexraid - nonexistant? After my initial testing, I have 3 2TB hard drives, 1 as parity, and its been going fine. Flexraid doesn't touch your data, which is very nice. SAB and utorrent write to my flexview drive, so whenever i add a new drive, I don't change any download settings, all I change is flexraid's settings. Autorenaming is off as of right now though, as it get funky sometimes, I need to find the problem (it doesn't find files properly). I'm sure its an easy fix.

5. use NSSM to set up couchpotato and utorrent as a service.
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#11
My SMB , mySQL , SickBeard, SABnzbd+ servers are a all running on the same PC I use as a fairly lightweight workstation in my office that I use for primarly web, email duties. It is w7 64, 1.8Ghz quad core Phenom, I do have 8G or RAM, I use to run 4 and I was having issues with page faults causing performance issues, but once I upgraded the ram the performance is great and it can handle multiple 1080P over the SMB, The only "issue" I have is SANnzbd+ can chew up the IO on a drive and spike the CPU when it starts PAR2. I am currently using the same drive that holds my TV programs on for the SANnzbd post processing. When PAR2 kicks up, it can cause my clients when watching a TV show to buffer because they are not getting data fast enough, do to what I think is Disk IO channel being saturated. The same does not seem to be true when watching movies, as they are on different disks. I plan on moving the SANnzbd post processing directory to a different drive that does not contain any media content to see if that resolves that issue. Based on what I think I am seeing, I would recommend isolating the SABnzbd post processing directory to a physical volume that is not being used to share media content.
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#12
I wouldn't even use a SSD in a server. Unless you plan to reboot your server multiple times a day (why??) it will never do any good and not last as long as a mechanical drive.
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#13
hick Wrote:I wouldn't even use a SSD in a server. Unless you plan to reboot your server multiple times a day (why??) it will never do any good and not last as long as a mechanical drive.

Yes they will last a long time, especially on a server that rewrite them very frequently. When / if they fail because of the flash rewrite limitation, they do so in a read-only mode so you can always replace them safely.

I run my 2 micro servers on SSDs with OS and apps installed on them. I love when everything reacts in a snap, they don't add heat and noise to the server and environment. Data is stored on high capacity disc drives.
XBMC Live: i3 530 / GT210 / 2GB / SSD + 2 x Zotac HD01 / 2GB / SSD
unRAID Pro: 6 x 1TB + 2 x 1.5TB + 2 x 2TB + 2 x 500G over GbE
HP Micro Server: SABnzbd+, Sickbeard, Couchpotato, uTorrent, Media Companion, MySQL, MKV Toolnix
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