Help building home server

[sted]

I'm thinking of doing something similar with my MicroServer using WHS 2011 (£38.70), an AMD Radeon HD 6450 (£39.17) and BlackGold BGT3620 PCIe x1 dual DVB-T2 TV Tuner (£105.60). The Radeon HD 6450 from XFX (P/N: HD-645X-ZNH2) is supplied with a low-profile bracket, has a passive heatsink (so is completely silent) and supports HDMI 1.4a too.

thats the tv card i had in mind was thinking of replacing my big pc in office and 360 connected to the tv with my microserver. So that 4650 fits ok? and can handle 1080p?

Has/does anyone use WHS? Is it set-up and forget or does it need regular housekeeping (i mean beyond the spring clean of files etc)? Just wondering whether to go down this route (HP system) or get a synology 211j as with a 3 month old at home my free time is sparse to non-existent!

Hope this doesn't constitute a hijack!

i found the old homeserver garbage would back up pcs but wouldnt ever restore anything just caused pc having files restored to hang. new one id rather have 08r2 std tbh

[Arthur]

So that 4650 fits ok?

I've got one coming on Monday so I'll let you know then. I don't see any reason why it won't fit looking at the photos of the card and heatsink.

and can handle 1080p?

The Radeon HD 6450 offers hardware acceleration for all the main formats (see list below), so 1080p video won't be an issue. It also supports bitstreaming of LPCM and HD audio (Dolby True HD, DTS-HD HR, DTS-HD MA).

H.264, VC-1 and MVC (Blu-ray/Blu-ray 3D), MPEG-4 Part 2 (DivX/Xvid), MPEG-2 (DVDs) and Flash.

[Brucy]

thats the tv card i had in mind was thinking of replacing my big pc in office and 360 connected to the tv with my microserver. So that 4650 fits ok? and can handle 1080p?



i found the old homeserver garbage would back up pcs but wouldnt ever restore anything just caused pc having files restored to hang. new one id rather have 08r2 std tbh

I got the blackgold tv card the other day, the only problem I have had with it is that it didn't tune correctly. I had to tell it which frequency to use which is a bit annoying but now thats sorted it running great, hopefully when/if new drivers come out they might fix that.

[sted]

I got the blackgold tv card the other day, the only problem I have had with it is that it didn't tune correctly. I had to tell it which frequency to use which is a bit annoying but now thats sorted it running great, hopefully when/if new drivers come out they might fix that.

i have heard some bad things about this card but if you want a twin tuner freeview hd card its the only game in town.

Any idea just how massive the file size for programs recorded in hd are?

[Brucy]

I think its about 3 gig an hour, as opposed to SD which is about 2. Not too terrible really (this is in WMC on Windows 7)

[gibbo_ap]

i thought id just ask here insted of starting a new thread but has anyone used? businessforce.ltd.uk

I was looking at getting the little proliant there as its £100 cheaper saving me faffing with the £100 cashback.

[CHR1S]

The one your looking at is £126 ex vat? Thats the older model 1st gen, the £165 is the 2ng gen and there is now a 3rd gen knocking about too. You will want the 2nd gen

[Arthur]

As Chris said, you can only get the £100 cashback on the model with part number: 633724-421.

ServersPlus have the best Microserver price at the moment (£119.95 inc. VAT after cashback).

[Arthur]

So that 4650 fits ok?

I'm happy to report that it fits perfectly...

[sted]

I'm happy to report that it fits perfectly...

http://i.imgur.com/wij8f.jpg

thanks i gave up in the end and just bought a sony pvr but wish i haddnt tv gets 100% signal strength/quality without a booster pvr gets 30ish with and keep missing recordings flaming thing

[jinnantonnixx]

I was going to buy a dedicated NAS and a WD TV Live, but this is far less of a faff and much more flexible.

[CyberDrac]

Was thinking of getting a case and building my own, Kustom PCs Windows Home Server Cases , had a few options, but my personal favourite at the moment is ... Kustom PCs Lian Li PC&#45Q25B Black Mini ITX Case , a few nice features and just enough internal drive space to accommodate what an ITX motherboard would normally be able to support (four to six) ... not cheap, but it's tidy, anonymous and suits my purpose.

[jinnantonnixx]

@Arthur
A couple of questions (apologies if I missed them in the thread)

1. Does it support hardware Raid (I'm interested in mirroring, but perhaps Raid 5)
2. Is it quiet enough to use near the telly?

Thanks.

[sted]

@Arthur
A couple of questions (apologies if I missed them in the thread)

1. Does it support hardware Raid (I'm interested in mirroring, but perhaps Raid 5)
2. Is it quiet enough to use near the telly?

Thanks.

as standard its pretty near silent

it supports on bios raid 1 and 0 (in windows is says it supports raid 10 but everytime you reboot it looses the array and all the data)
im also not entirely sure how hardware the onboard raid is

[Brucy]

im also not entirely sure how hardware the onboard raid is

from what i've read it doesn't have it's own dedicated controller, so you might be as well with a software raid? Think i'll use the raid from within WHS on mine.

Some people have reported better performance (transfer speeds) using win raid rather than this hardware raid.