My build "Scrappy"

Hello all!

I thought it was time to post my build on here after finally getting it working. Took a bit to learn the basics and i am no where near done learning but figured it was a good chance to see what people thought about "Scrappy". So as the name entails this build has had very little cost to it and seems to work for me for now until i get power hungry. The main point of this build was to have access to essentially a file server, media and bit torrent. All while having the ease of remote access and control. Now as for pictures those may be a bit hard to get as the way I have everything setup is kind of...... how you say rigged lol. Not all of it though just a few things I will point out here and there. Anyways back to the details. Ill list what I have below and if there was any cost and you be the judge on how I did and any pointers to improve. Still so much to learn.

So this is the brains of the operation here.

Dell Precision T3500
Intel® Xeon® Processor W3503 (4M Cache, 2.40 GHz)
3x4 gb of DDR3 Patriot Viper 1333
1x160 gb hard drive for the OS (This is one of the rigged parts. Its a laptop hard drive I attached to the top of the memory shroud cover since the T3500 only supports 3 drives total but has 4 sata connectors for drives. Go figure)
7x160 gb drives in an OMV raid 5 with EXT4. 1 of the drives is a hot spare)(3 drives inside the T3500 and 4 are in the secondary case I am using for just drive storage. Still have 6 drive slots free right now)
Rocket raid 2310 4 port. (The 4 drives from the secondary case are wired via sata cables from the drives in the hard case to the T3500)(I am working on a better cable solution. Maybe something with Esata connectors or something along those lines lol)
Antec 300 case. (For the extra hard drives)
Old 300w Dell power supply to power the secondary hard drives.
Cooler Master 4in3 device module for the 4 hard drives.

I still have 5 more 160 gb hard drives sitting around to expand the array I just lack another sata card. More than likely another rocket raid 2310 which will cover 4 ports. As for the 5th drive of this group the T3500 has an esata port so I can have a total of 10x160 gb drives active with a hotspare.

What I got for free:
T3500, Old power supply for hard drive case, 1x4gb Patriot Viper DDR3 and all of the hard drives and sata cables.

What I paid for:(USD)
Rocket raid 2310 (used) 29.98
Cooler Master 4in3 (new) 23.99
Antec 300 case (used) 10.00
2x4gb of Patriot DDR3 Viper (used) 30.00

So about $94.00. Not bad I think for a basic build but you tell me.
As for plugins right now I am running Plex, BT, Antivirus, and the FTP. I just did enough to get the server going and do what I wanted it to do so, so far so good.

Hope you enjoy and I will try and get pictures if anyone really wants them. It will just take some time and might not be that good lol.

Zitat von "Karle"

what is the power consumption of this system (idle/load)

Greets Karl

I haven't quite figured that out yet. I am in the process of setting up a dedicated APC battery backup.(currently sharing one with my other system) I do know with everything on one battery backup (my desktop PC, OMV system and the hard drive case) I am at 250-275 volts. My Desktop PC with monitor averages 160-175 volts idle. So my guesstimate would be 100-150 volts idle (if I did that correctly lol). Once I have the other APC backup Ill post a more accurate answer.

Meant to say volts not watts.

Zitat von "ryecoaaron"

I'm guessing 175 watts since that is a 130 W xeon. A new quad core haswell xeon system I built with 7 drives idles at 62 watts. The electrical savings alone would pay for most of the cost for newer components. I also wouldn't trust those drives because they are probably fairly old. You have most of the parts. I would just add a new motherboard and cpu.

All the drives I have a pretty old lol. I haven't really put anything important on the drives yet. Just mainly testing. i plan to do some cloud backup on things I don't want to lose. I was thinking of just upgrading the processor from the one it has to one of the quad cores. The "boss" is picky on me spending money thus why this system is essential old parts that were going to be tossed out. You think it would be best to change the board and proc? Any suggestions or what exactly are you using?

As of now I have the top and rear exhaust fan running in the antec as well as the 4in3 fan. Also I wouldn't say I use this as a true server lol. I have wol setup so pretty much it's off unless I'm using it which is maybe a few hours a day. Probably why I don't notice a hike in my electric bill. But I do want to upgrade to less drives and larger ones when funds are available. Do you think upgrading the prov to one of the quad cores would be a bonus in transcoding as well as a decrease in power? Or am I better off down the road reducing to larger drives with a different more efficient CPU. Also any thoughts on esata connectors for now to clean the cable organization up? I'm thinking photos might help to show my setup to get some more advice. Also my transcoding isn't too bad right now surprisingly.

I agree about the drives. Figured I'd start work with free hardware and go from there so for now I'll stick with what I have then see about a migration to the 300 case with a newer mobo and proc. I'll see about pics tonight. I am also assuming this board only supports Xeon procs but I'll double check. Also what are your thoughts on running backups of the os and data array. Isn't there a plugin that can help me with that. Maybe even incremental cloud backup?