Build a Windows Home Server: CPU & Motherboard Selection
After my HTPC building series of blog posts, a Channel8‘er was disappointed that I didn’t include others in the building process of it. This time I’ve decided to make a Windows Home Server box, this time including the community to help me choose the parts.
Unlike Channel 8’s Max Builds a PC series, I cannot be giving this away (finances simply don’t allow it), so its’ purely for participation value. I’ll try and round up some prizes (maybe Expression Studio 2? I’ll have to see what restrictions the copy I’ll be getting has), but can’t promise anything.
Why build a server, based on WHS? WHS is easy. It’s easy to setup, it’s easy to use, it’s easy to maintain. I have better things to be doing that learning the ins and outs of either Windows Server or Linux to perform the same functions that WHS does out of the box. Well, that and Nick has one, so I’m jealous.
Minimum system requirements
The following specifications are the minimum defined by Microsoft for Windows Home Server
- 1.0 GHz Intel Pentium 3 (or equivalent) processor
- 512 MB RAM
- 80 GB internal hard drive as primary drive
- 100 Mbit/s wired Ethernet
My requirements
When building most “normal” computers (desktop use/work use/whatever), the two main factors are usually performance and price. The usual process is to get as much power in to as small a budget as possible.
While this remains true for my desired server, there are other characteristics that have equal or greater importance. For example, low power usage is very important due to the “always on” nature of a server, and because of the location the server will run, low noise is equally important.
In order of importance, those key factors are:
- price
- low noise
- low power usage
- performance
Price
The budget for this project is AUD$600 (give or take $50) for case, power supply, hard drive(s), motherboard, CPU, ram and any additional cooling needed. This does not include the WHS license cost.
Meet today’s Contenders
This post looks specifically at CPUs and Motherboards. Why both? Well, for the lowest power/noise solutions, often the CPU either only comes with a motherboard or is actually soldered in.
From a CPU point of view, my research based on pricing and/or power usage leads me to believe that the “real” contenders are:
- From AMD’s low power series, the BE X2 2350. These have the advantage of having very good performance per watt as well as being a standard AM2 socket CPU so that it can be used in any standard AM2 motherboard, but suffer from slightly higher price (over $100) and power usage compared to some of the other contenders.
- From VIA, the C7 range of CPU’s, which range from 1.1 to 1.7ghz, all come bundled with a motherboard. The main downside to VIA is the limitation to just two SATA ports, effectively limiting the server to (with technology available now) 2TB
- From Intel, the yet unreleased “Atom” range of CPU’s. With little known about the Atom apart from its low power usage, it is hard to know what socket it will use, let alone pricing or availability!
- Again from Intel, the Celeron E1200, weighing in at a tiny AUD$55 currently, and like the BE X2 2350, is able to used in a standard (LGA755)/readily available motherboard.
Information
- Digit-Life’s Pentium E2140/2160 And Athlon X2 BE-2350: Low-Power CPU Benchmarks (E2140 “beats” BE-2350, by having lower power usage)
- XBit Lab’s Dual Core Shootout (E1200 “wins”, again by having lowest power usage)
From the motherboard point of view, it depends on the CPU chosen.
- For AMD, I actually don’t know what motherboard would be ‘worth while’, since all I’ve looked at over the last few months has been Intel (gaming rig for my wife, or HTPC). That being said, I think any 690g based board, such as Asus’ M2A-VM would be more than suffice, given gigabit Ethernet and 4xSATA controller capabilities of the chipset.
- For VIA, a good combination seems to be the MM3500 (not actively promoting Pioneer Computers Australia, but they had a good product page), which has a 1.5ghz C7 CPU, gigabit Ethernet, but is limited to just two SATA ports.
- For Intel’s Atom, there isn’t enough information to judge, but for the E1200, Gigabyte’s G31M-S2L or Asus’ P5KPL-VM both feature gigabit Ethernet, 4 SATA ports, on board video, etc. The mATX form factor also helps by not limiting our case selection down the track. These boards both come in at about AUD$75
Decision Time…
What would you choose, for both CPU and motherboard, taking cost, power and features into consideration? Is limiting the server to 2TB (before buying a PCI/PCIe SATA controller) balanced out by low power usage of VIA, or do the ‘big boys’ from AMD and Intel win the day? Have I rounded up all the viable options?
Comments
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[...] 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. [...]
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[...] 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 [...]
How about Intel’s D201GLY2?
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.
@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!
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.
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 :(
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.
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.