servers Show us your Servers - 2014 Edition

[AnotherITguy]

Wow, bonus points for the tidy wiring there :)

I have a feeling I am one of the last few out here running WINDOWS HOME SERVER 2011

[+John Teacake MVC]

Probably not that few  :shifty:

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

I have a feeling I am one of the last few out here running WINDOWS HOME SERVER 2011

Server 2012 Essentials R2 is a pretty good replacement, you can connect client PC's without joining a domain with a registry setting.

Sadly it costs around ?300 vs around ?30 for Home Server 2011.

[ndoggfromhell]

Wow, bonus points for the tidy wiring there :)

I have a feeling I am one of the last few out here running WINDOWS HOME SERVER 2011

I'm still using it.  DriveBender is more stable on it so I've got no reason to upgrade.  

 

Plus it works... and if it ain't broke, don't go breaking it.

[The_Observer]

Currently work in progress. House move soon, so new cabling to do. Just need a gigabit switch.

 

Nothing fancy, pfSense and storage.

 

 

 

Whats the case on the bottom. Looking for something like this.

[Crisp]

Whats the case on the bottom. Looking for something like this.

 

3U Supermicro 933T or Steelhead Riverbed 3520. I managed to pick it up as a dead server off eBay on the cheap, stripped the Opteron / mobo out, and put in my own hardware. :)

[AnotherITguy]

Sadly though, WINDOWS HOME SERVER 2011, sees its support die off in 2016. I'm currently looking at putting my home server in a VM running it with WINDOWS SERVER 2012 R2 ESSENTIALS

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

Sadly though, WINDOWS HOME SERVER 2011, sees its support die off in 2016. I'm currently looking at putting my home server in a VM running it with WINDOWS SERVER 2012 R2 ESSENTIALS

 

I did exactly that. I went from Home Server 2011 to Server 2012 R2 Essentials which runs in a VM. I've passed a Highpoint Rocket 2720SGL SATA controller through to the VM so it has direct access to physical drives. Currently I have 4x 4TB drives connected up, with space for 4 more in the future.

There?s also a registry hack which allows Windows Server backup you devices without them been joined to a domain, exactly like Home Server 2011 could do.

[AnotherITguy]

Good job chap, would you kindly pm the specs, I will give this a serious look when the time comes for my server to go VM mode! :)

[FiB3R]

Work in (very early) progress.

 

 

I have 2 drive cages (only 1 installed in the pic) but Antec will send me another one with the LED fan for the princely sum of ?25 inc. postage

 

If they were not available, I was thinking of buying this...

 

 

So that will be a total of 9 drive bays.

 

I still have the CPU (C2D 6600), RAM (4 x 1GB), PSU (Seasonic 500W) and a gfx card to use while setting it up.

 

The motherboard in my HTPC well and truly died, so it now has the old gaming rig mobo.

 

So I'm looking for a motherboard with 10 SATA ports, any ideas?

It's intended purpose is just a home file server.

[SharpGreen]

So just because I like looking at different server setups (and to kind of revive the thread ) I thought I'd contribute my own. It's nothing impressive, but certainly gets the job done.

 

The one the left hardly runs anymore because it's old and the PSU fan is just about worn out, from running 24/7 for so long. It's got an Atom D525 processor, 4GB of RAM and 500GB HDD in it. It's current use is as a knock around machine for when I want to experiment with something with fear of breaking something. The one the right was built because I couldn't find a non-sketchy-looking replacement for the PSU in the left machine nor a replacement fan since it's a low profile fan that apparently was made specifically for the PSU its in.. It's powered by a special lower-TDP model Core i3-2120, 8GB RAM and a 256GB SanDisk SSD. It currently runs 24/7, just because I can't be bothered to remember to turn it on/off every day.

 

It's currently my workhorse machine running an AD DC, DNS, somewhere between 2 and 5 (can't remember ATM) mostly internal websites and web services, a VCS to stash all my code, an automated build system CI duities on some of that code, an IRC bouncer, and a Minecraft server all of which runs across a mixture of 4 Windows and Linux Hyper-V VMs on a Server 2012 R2 host, and I still have around 15% of my 8GB of RAM left

 

I know this isn't a describe your servers thread, but I like talking about them so I did anyway...

 

Oh and both machines are custom built.

 

[TPreston]

Work in (very early) progress.

 

Resurection.png

 

I have 2 drive cages (only 1 installed in the pic) but Antec will send me another one with the LED fan for the princely sum of ?25 inc. postage

 

If they were not available, I was thinking of buying this...

 

$_1.JPG

 

So that will be a total of 9 drive bays.

 

I still have the CPU (C2D 6600), RAM (4 x 1GB), PSU (Seasonic 500W) and a gfx card to use while setting it up.

 

The motherboard in my HTPC well and truly died, so it now has the old gaming rig mobo.

 

So I'm looking for a motherboard with 10 SATA ports, any ideas?

It's intended purpose is just a home file server.

Get a smartarray p400 which has 8 ports and can do proper hardware raid 6

[FiB3R]

Get a smartarray p400 which has 8 ports and can do proper hardware raid 6

Are you sure that is the correct part number? What I'm seeing on ebay doesn't seem to tally up.

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

I combined my HP Micro Server and custom built ESXi server in to one Home Nas / ESXi server. The server has 8x 3.5" drive bays and is small (L 316mm x W 254mm x H 180mm), which is not something a lot of cases offered i found.
 
Specs:

• Case: U-NAS NSC-800
• PSU: FPS 1U FLEX 250W PSU
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI
• Processor: Intel CPU Core i7 3770T Quad Core IvyBridge Processor
• CPU Cooler: Akasa AK-CC7118HP01 Low Profile Mini-ITX Cooler
• Ram: 2x Corsair Memory Vengeance Jet Black 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9-9-9-24
• SATA Controller: HighPoint Rocket 2720SGL Internal 8x SATA/SAS 6Gb/s HBA?s Controller (None-Raid) PCI-e
• SSD (Primary VM?s): Corsair 120GB Force 3 SSD ? SATA-III 2.5? ? Read 550MB/s Write 510MB/s
• Hard drive (Secondry VM?s): Western Digital Scorpio Blue 1TB 2.5?
• Storage (NAS VM): 4 x WD 4TB Green Drive 3.5? SATA-III 64MB Cache

 

OS and VM's:

 

The server boots VMware ESXi 5.5 from a USB drive which is mounted internally. ESXi has two data stores for Virtual Machines, the SSD has a Windows Server 2012 Essentials R2 VM which acts are the ?Home Server?. This has the HighPoint Rocket 2720SGL SATA controller passed through to it, giving the Virtual Machine direct access to any of the hard drives present in the 8x drive bays.

 

The majority of this space is used for TV Show and Movies i have ripped from Blu-rays / DVD?s (legal to do here in the UK), downloads and of-course daily backups from each of the PC?s around the home. I also have a secure FTP server setup with takes automated Inetpub and SQL backups from a webserver I have in a data center.

 

I have Plex Media Server installed which will share my entire media library to any device around the house running Plex Home Theater, XBMC or even a web browser. Thanks to the processing power of the Core i7 3770T the server is more than capable of transcoding media in real time for playback on any device, no matter what codecs it supports.

 

I also have an Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS VM which runs OpenVPN so i can securely connect to my home network from remote locations, or simply browse the internet securely when in a public location.

 

Finally i have an old Windows Server 2003 VM which is running a dedicated game server for Unreal Tournament 2004. This server was setup back in 2008 originally on a dedicated server paid for by myself and three other friends, however as upload speeds have gradually improved on home broadband connections and people lost interest in the game i ended up hosting this at home for when we randomly want a game.

 

I do plan to also set-up a PFSense Virtual Machine so the server can also be my home router. The Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI motherboard has two on-board gigabit NIC?s so one of them will be directly connected to the modem and the other a switch, really making this server the centre of my home network.

 

I also have various other VM?s for leaning and experimenting with, useful as i have been experimenting and learning more about Windows Server, having a virtual network has certainly been handy for this.

 

Power use:

 

Before combining my ESXi server and HP Micro Server the components were chose with power use in mind.

 

3x Idle VM's - 31.5w

3x VM's in use - 35-50w

3x VM's with 1x VM encoding a video with 4x cores assigned - 58w

3x VM's with 1x VM running Prime 95 with 8x cores assigned - 96w

 

I imagine now with the HighPoint Rocket 2720SGL SATA controller and 4x 3.5" drives the power usage will be a bit more, however i've never done any tests since i combined the two servers.

 

Photos: 

 

[TPreston]

Are you sure that is the correct part number? What I'm seeing on ebay doesn't seem to tally up.

Its a SAS card you need to use 2x SFF-8484 > SATA cables

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-447029-001-P400-DL380-G5-Smart-Array-Raid-Controller-512MB-Cache-Battery-Cabl-/251694086499?pt=US_Server_Disk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item3a9a22f963

 

[+Fahim S. MVC]

I combined my HP Micro Server and custom built ESXi server in to one Home Nas / ESXi server. The server has 8x 3.5" drive bays and is small (L 316mm x W 254mm x H 180mm), which is not something a lot of cases offered i found.

 

Specs:

• Case: U-NAS NSC-800
• PSU: FPS 1U FLEX 250W PSU
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI
• Processor: Intel CPU Core i7 3770T Quad Core IvyBridge Processor
• CPU Cooler: Akasa AK-CC7118HP01 Low Profile Mini-ITX Cooler
• Ram: 2x Corsair Memory Vengeance Jet Black 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9-9-9-24
• SATA Controller: HighPoint Rocket 2720SGL Internal 8x SATA/SAS 6Gb/s HBA?s Controller (None-Raid) PCI-e
• SSD (Primary VM?s): Corsair 120GB Force 3 SSD ? SATA-III 2.5? ? Read 550MB/s Write 510MB/s
• Hard drive (Secondry VM?s): Western Digital Scorpio Blue 1TB 2.5?
• Storage (NAS VM): 4 x WD 4TB Green Drive 3.5? SATA-III 64MB Cache

...

 

 

 

 

Awesome - can I ask a few questions?

1) where did you source the case from? I've not found anyone in the UK that does it.

2) any particular reason for choosing an i7, instead of an i5, Xeon or Centeron?

3) how noisy is it?

 

Thanks...

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

Awesome - can I ask a few questions?

1) where did you source the case from? I've not found anyone in the UK that does it.

2) any particular reason for choosing an i7, instead of an i5, Xeon or Centeron?

3) how noisy is it?

 

1. I purchased the case directly from U-Nas. U-nas sent it out promptly via FedEx, I did get a nice letter a few weeks later saying i owed around ?25 import duty, so keep that in mind. The case was sent from China and took around 7 days to get here.

 

2. We're going back a bit here, however i originally put the spec together in Jan 2013, I then purchased and built it in Feb 2013. I wanted a powerful system, that had enough power to handle a few transcodes in Plex if required and possibly cope with hosting a game server in the future. However i also wanted something that didn't eat power, especially when idle. The GA-Z77N-WIFI motherboard got good reviews for power efficiency compared to other similar motherboards. The bonus was the on-board dual Ethernet and SATA controller were both supported out the box on ESXi 5.1 (latest at the time).

 

That limited me to an i7, i5 or i3 processor due to the motherboard choice. The i7-3770T had 4 cores and 8 threads and supported VT-x and VT-d meaning i would be able to pass a SATA / Raid controller though to a VM in ESXi. In comparison the i5 equivalents were only 2 cores and 4 threads, had a much lower clock speed and were only around ?30-40 cheaper at the time. I guess you could say i perceived the i7-3770T to be best choice when taking in to account power use, performance and price. I think i got a good balance of all three with the i7-3770T.

 

3. It's not silent, however its not excessively loud either. Its quieter than my 360 (original phat console) however louder than my Xbox One. A sound app on my phone says around 38dB. That's about the best i can tell you in that respect, I have the system sat out the way in a cupboard so never hear it.

[+Fahim S. MVC]

1. I purchased the case directly from U-Nas. U-nas sent it out promptly via FedEx, I did get a nice letter a few weeks later saying i owed around ?25 import duty, so keep that in mind. The case was sent from China and took around 7 days to get here.

 

2. We're going back a bit here, however i originally put the spec together in Jan 2013, I then purchased and built it in Feb 2013. I wanted a powerful system, that had enough power to handle a few transcodes in Plex if required and possibly cope with hosting a game server in the future. However i also wanted something that didn't eat power, especially when idle. The GA-Z77N-WIFI motherboard got good reviews for power efficiency compared to other similar motherboards. The bonus was the on-board dual Ethernet and SATA controller were both supported out the box on ESXi 5.1 (latest at the time).

 

That limited me to an i7, i5 or i3 processor due to the motherboard choice. The i7-3770T had 4 cores and 8 threads and supported VT-x and VT-d meaning i would be able to pass a SATA / Raid controller though to a VM in ESXi. In comparison the i5 equivalents were only 2 cores and 4 threads, had a much lower clock speed and were only around ?30-40 cheaper at the time. I guess you could say i perceived the i7-3770T to be best choice when taking in to account power use, performance and price. I think i got a good balance of all three with the i7-3770T.

 

3. It's not silent, however its not excessively loud either. Its quieter than my 360 (original phat console) however louder than my Xbox One. A sound app on my phone says around 38dB. That's about the best i can tell you in that respect, I have the system sat out the way in a cupboard so never hear it.

 

Thank you!

Not having PCI passthrough on Microserver N36/40/54L is one of its few downsides.

[Brian M. Veteran]

Yet another N40L :p.

 

The sponges are there for sound deadening (stops it resonating through my floorboards which drove me mad!).

 

Middle box is the UPS which powers the box, my router and network switches. The box itself has 4 x 3TB drives in RAID 5, 8GB RAM, a DVDRW and Blu-Ray drive (external/on top) and is running Debian 7. Has a Windows XP install running in virtual box which is solely for iTunes (the VM has it's own dedicated gig port).

 

Edit: Upload failed, hosted externally :p Edit 2: there's also a 2TB boot drive.

 

[Haggis Veteran]

Yet another N40L :p.

 

The sponges are there for sound deadening (stops it resonating through my floorboards which drove me mad!).

 

Middle box is the UPS which powers the box, my router and network switches. The box itself has 4 x 3TB drives in RAID 5, 8GB RAM, a DVDRW and Blu-Ray drive (external/on top) and is running Debian 7. Has a Windows XP install running in virtual box which is solely for iTunes (the VM has it's own dedicated gig port).

 

 

cant see anything lol

[Brian M. Veteran]

cant see anything lol

 

Attachment didn't work, I've uploaded it elsewhere :p

[jakem1]

I have the system sat out the way in a cupboard so never hear it.

 

How do you prevent it overheating in the cupboard?  I want to move my Microserver into a cupboard but I'm worried about ventilation.

[Dick Montage]

Mne lived in a cupboard for 2 years with no issue.

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

How do you prevent it overheating in the cupboard?  I want to move my Microserver into a cupboard but I'm worried about ventilation.

 

It doesn't really get much warmer than the rest of the room, even in summer. I have a tiny bit of blu-tack on the door so when it's closed theirs a tiny gap for air.

[beanboy89]

Dell "server." Kinda a pathetic machine but it serves me  well, no pun intended. It's an eight-year-old Dell desktop a friend gave to me a while back. Pentium 4 524 (one of the very latest Pentium 4 processors that Intel made and was 64-bit). I maxed the RAM out at 4 GB and am running Windows Server 2012 pretty well.