{"id":38,"date":"2017-05-05T16:32:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T15:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/2017\/05\/05\/media-server-part-2-hardware-choices\/"},"modified":"2021-06-08T18:52:23","modified_gmt":"2021-06-08T17:52:23","slug":"media-server-part-2-hardware-choices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/2017\/05\/media-server-part-2-hardware-choices.html","title":{"rendered":"Media Server Part 2 – Hardware Choices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having decided I wanted to build a new media server, the first decision was what hardware to use.<\/p>\n

A few years back I had been intending to build one using a 9 bay tower case with multiple 4 sata disk enclosures, running Solaris x86 and ZFS. I even bought a couple of 8 port sas\/sata cards to use with it, however this build never really made it off the drawing board.<\/p>\n

Next I came across the HP Microserver and thought that it looked very promising with regards potential modification.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

This is a genuine HP server with dedicated onboard ILO 4, onboard raid controller, 4 x 3.5″ SATA drive bays and 2 x 1GB network interfaces.<\/p>\n

The standard configuration includes 4GB of RAM and an Intel G1610T<\/a> dual core 2.3GHz CPU (2327 benchmark rating).<\/p>\n

The base server cost me \u00a3175.99 inc VAT and P&P. If I had bought it from a different retailer, for slightly more I might have qualified for \u00a360.00 cash back, but as it was my claim was declined by HP.<\/p>\n

I decided to upgrade the CPU to an Intel Xeon E3-1220<\/a> V2 quad core 3.1GHz CPU (6557 benchmark rating) which I obtained second hand from Ebay for \u00a376.00, which should be 282% faster and hopefully not generate too much extra heat in the process.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

The memory I also wanted to upgrade, unfortunately the 2 x 8GB memory modules I already had were the wrong type, (8GB 2RX4 PC2-5300P) would not even fit, and then the next set of RAM I bought (8GB 2RX4 PC3-12800R) was not recognised by the motherboard, it seems it requires PC3-12800E DIMMs, so for now it is still running on the original 4GB DIMM.<\/p>\n

I also did not fare too well with my hard disks, I bought 5 x 3TB Hitachi 24×7 capable drives, again from Ebay, however the onboard raid unit will only spin up one of them, it is convinced that the others are dead, despite them being recently formatted on another PC!<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

I also happen to have 8 x 300GB 10K SAS drives that I thought would be a good idea to use in this box, along with one of my 8 way LSI SAS3081E cards, however it appears that the motherboard will not recognise this card either!<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

I ordered a Schoondoggy<\/a> disk bracket for mounting 2 drives on one side of the micro server.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

The bracket cost $15.00 and $6.50 shipping, I had it shipped to where I was staying on a recent trip to the USA.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

2 300GB SAS drives installed on the bracket<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Bracket installed in the HP Microserver.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

I also ordered a bunch of power splitter cables for 0.99 each from Ebay.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

4 x 300GB SAS drives installed on the top of the server<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

2 x 300GB SAS drives attached with velcro on the other side of the server.<\/p>\n

I have now ordered a Fujitsu 9211-8i 6Gbps 8 port SAS HBA, that should be recognised by the server.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

I am still deciding on how much extra RAM to install, based on the increased cost of the correct RAM over what I purchased previously.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having decided I wanted to build a new media server, the first decision was what hardware to use. A few years back I had been intending to build one using a 9 bay tower case with multiple 4 sata disk enclosures, running Solaris x86 and ZFS. I even bought a couple of 8 port sas\/sata…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,3],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-homelab","tag-networking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}