Comments on: Build a Windows Home Server: CPU & Motherboard Selection

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:14:00 +0000

With that build, I would guess somewhere in the range of 40->50w draw (so, 50->70w depending on PSU efficiency)…for what it’ll provide, you really can’t say no to that – it looks great mh65!

My wife has the NSK6580 for her gaming machine, you’re right the space is great to work in given the features/price/etc.

By: mh65

mh65 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:19:09 +0000

Hey Paul,

Finally decided on the final specs for my own WHS, and it’s looking like this:

Antec NSK6580
Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H
Athlon X2 BE-2350
2GB DDR2
1 x 500GB WD GP
1 x 750GB WD GP
old IDE DVD/CD drive

The Antec case is nice to work in, although it is a little noisier than I expected it to be. Don’t really care about this as it is going into a corner in the basement. I like the EarthWatts power supply as it has enough connectors for my requirements (with 2 SATA connectors left over for later expansion) and is 80Plus certified. The two Western Digital Green Power hard drives are nice and quiet and certainly fast enough for a home server. The only other thing I added was a SATA to eSATA bracket so that I have eSATA capability on the system. Total cost was just over C$700. I haven’t yet run the system through kill-a-watt, but I would expect it to be quite frugal on the power side.

By: Build a Windows Home Server: Case and PSU - Paul's Blog - Australian MSP

Build a Windows Home Server: Case and PSU - Paul's Blog - Australian MSP — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:53:55 +0000

[...] been a month since part one (CPU+Motherboard), and I must admit the comments didn't help me choose at all! Why? The comments didn't lean [...]

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:49:05 +0000

Yeah, I had a feeling that it wouldn’t really matter what speed the processor was, so long as its clocked at 1ghz to pass the software checks ;) 30->32w for 1TB is very impressive! When 2TB drives are released, they’ll not have the same value as 1TB drives will, and since this is a budget system, future expense does come into play.

Unfortunately, I think you’re right about it being discontinued. I can’t find any reference to it over here in Australia :(

By: szz743

szz743 — Mon, 19 May 2008 06:00:48 +0000

I’ve got D210GLY2 + a single 1TB WD GreenPower drive running WHS + torrent + emule. Power consumption is 30-32W during normal operation. My HTPC is connected over 1GB LAN, the only time some performance issues appear is when there are more than 4-5 torrents downloading intensively – at this time a video played on HTPC may suffer.
Regarding 2 SATA ports: until MS resolves data corruption bug with multiple hard drives I don’t rhink I need another SATA port. At that time 2TB drives appear I guess and I’ll be happy with the single drive again. :) Maybe I’ll add one more HDD especially for downloads and see what happen.
By the way D201GLY2 is discontinued by Intel as far as I know.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:37:53 +0000

@mh65: oh! for some reason I completely forgot about the 780g chipset! I think if I go the AM2 path, that is THE motherboard to get. It has everything I could imagine needing, the only things I can think that it lacks is inbuilt wifi or esata, but I don’t need either. For barely over AUD$100, the value is undeniable.

@szz753 with the WHS requirements stating it needs a 1ghz CPU, I wonder how the 1.2ghz Celeron would perform. I wonder what difference the CPU speed makes anyway…backup compression on server side?
The only concern I have with the D201GLY2 is the limitation of two SATA ports…but if nothing else, the CPU on it is interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Celeron_microprocessors#.22Conroe-L.22_.2865_nm.29

I find it very interesting how the 220 has half the TDP of the 420. If only it was an LGA775 CPU!

By: mh65

mh65 — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:56:56 +0000

Currently looking at the Athlon X2 BE-2350 (2.1 GHZ) on a Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H motherboard. I like this board as it has 6 SATA ports to allow for a fair bit of expansion without needing to add in a card.

By: szz743

szz743 — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:00:01 +0000

How about Intel’s D201GLY2?

By: Low Power/Noise CPU’s and Motherboards for WHS « MS Windows Home Server

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:32:58 +0000

[...] Low Power/Noise CPU’s and Motherboards for WHS May 14, 2008 — Philip Churchill Paul Jenkins has a great article on selecting a CPU and Motherboard for WHS that have low power usage and low noise output. Meet the contenders here. [...]