Custom PC builds

[blm14]

I work in IT so it's been a very long time since I've had to assemble my own machine (as I usually just pilfer what I need), but I want to create a really large file-server for my apartment and am thinking that a custom build would be the best way to go.

My criteria:

- MB will need on-board video with either ATI or NVIDIA chipset, as well as 6xSATA on board with RAID5 support

- I could pretty much care less about all the other components. Probably a dual-core or even P4 would be fine for this project, but given the 6xSATA requirement I will probably have to buy something beefier. Thinking AMD M2?

- Needs to be able to run linux

My plan is to throw 6 750GB drive in there at RAID5 and use this machine as a headless network device, so I really don't care about having a lot of RAM, 1GB is probably fine, nor do I care about video performance. A crappy 64meg 32bit card would be fine. Don't need blueray, keyboard, mouse, monitor, none of that.

Anyone on here have any advice as per a setup that meets this? Anyone build their own machines? I figure this thread could serve as a general custom PC build thread. Didn't see one in the index...

[AstroWolf]

This thread is beyond me, but i approve with great interest.

Post some cool pics people.

[zenii]

I custom built my computer a couple weeks ago but it's not a file-server so I can't really help you there.

Anyway I guess I'll post specs;

AMD Athlon II X3 3.1Ghz

ASUS AMD 770 ATX Mobo

G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GB RAM

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 5770

Rosewill Challenger ATX Mid tower Case

Antec NEO ECO 520W PSU

Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB HDD

Windows 7 Home Premium

Seriously though putting together a computer is almost as easy as IKEA furniture plus you save a lot more money, don't know why more people don't do it.

[FADEtoDARKNESS]

Link a tutorial on how to figure out which parts to get and where to place them etc.

[Analog]

blm14 - depending on your budget, have you considered NAS appliance e.g. QNAP, Thecus, Synology, etc.

[blm14]

I was considering a NAS but the cost of the enclosure without the drives is almost as much if not more than a full-fledged machine, for example, this build:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127475

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148147

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103087

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119203

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171038

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103022

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130275

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103908

Is just a hair over $300 with no drives, and I can get 6 of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148445

For about $350, which brings the total cost up to about $650 for 4.5TB raw, and I get on-board RAID5 as well as a general-use server that I can use for stuff other than just raw network storage. I may actually go with that exact build!

Zenii - that's a pretty nice one, how much did it set you back?

Fade - at this point all you need you can get from newegg or an equivalent. I like newegg a LOT because a) They have a HUGE selection, they constantly update prices and have specials on things, c) they have an enormous and knowledgeable user community that constantly post reviews and d) their warehouse is in NJ which means I get my stuff like in a day!

There's lots of tutorials out there but the main things are:

1) Choose an architecture, which essentially means a motherboard. That will determine what peripherals you can attach, that CPUs you can use etc

2) Pick memory and a CPU that are compatible with your motherboard

3) Choose other stuff (video card, hard drive, etc) that match your expansion slots and ports

4) Get a chasis and power supply and make sure your P/S provides enough wattage for your components and you have enough cooling

Building is pretty easy these days compared to what it used to be like (tons of screws, unpolished razor-sharp sheet metal, DIP switches to set interrupts, impossible to take apart chasis, etc). You can get setups that literally only have like 3 screws in them!

[FADEtoDARKNESS]

Thanks alot. I guess I'll build a new one next year. I'll make it a summertime project.

[zenii]

About 600$ more or less? And yeah it took me about an hour to put my computer together + install the OS but took me a shitload of time to transfer all my music and stuff from my old computer to the new one...

Also I thought I had a chart about best computer components by price but I can't find it. I'll post if I do though.

[blm14]

zenii are you running windows? If so, in the future, you could probably have made an image of your old drive and just formatted the new one with that image and made a partition of the remaining empty space. Much faster.

Unless of course you also switched O/S's like from XP -> 7 or Vista -> Linux or something.

One of these days I want to do a PC build that will run macos just to fuck with people at work.

[Solix]

Wouldn't imaging your hard drive mean including everything else on your old hard drive though?

It's faster, but if I'm building a rig, I'd want a fresh start (aside from important docs, media, etc). Just my $0.02

Unless there's a utility out there that features "selective" imaging, which would be awesome and something I'm not aware of.

[Magsåvningsreserven]

i think i'm finally making the plunge for an SSD

[FADEtoDARKNESS]

WHY SON why you need an SSD for?

[Magsåvningsreserven]

it's the most effective upgrade you can make, my current boot drive is my system's bottleneck.

[FADEtoDARKNESS]

How so? (elaborate my friend, because isn't it just harddrive space?)

[Magsåvningsreserven]

it's f a s t

my mate's an early adopter and all the programs just pop up almost instantly, Windows boots up in like 10 seconds. They're even faster now, and you have TRIM and shit.

just imagining a couple in RAID 0 :eek:

[blm14]

We have some servers that house databases that we switched from raid5 to raid 1+0 on SSD and that shit is redic fast.

Hard drive access speed measured in milliseconds.

SSD access speed measured in microseconds.

That's THREE ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE difference in access times. Plus you don't have to wait for drive heads to position OR for platters to rotate around to get to the data that you need. The only downside is that they tend to decay a bit quicker than magnetic drives, so you should either mirror or just do backups.

[Scais]

SSD has cut my boot time from 30sec to 10. fuck yes.

only downside is now when im using anyone elses computer I get extremely impatient.

[Analog]

i think i'm finally making the plunge for an SSD

Yea do it. I've got 'em in my MBP and PC, and they're great. Once you go SSD there's no turning back. Wait till the end of the year when Sandforce and Intel release their next-gen devices.

[zenii]

I've heard good stuff about SSD but my computer is pretty fast already, it boots up in like 10seconds and programs already load instantly so it doesn't really matter to me. Maybe it's just because I don't have a lot of crap on my HD yet? Only using like 60GB of my 500 so far.

Also I think going from XP to 7 changed a lot of stuff. Used to take like a full minute to boot up, could've just been because my HDD was almost always full though.

[blm14]

Yeah W7 is a lot smarter about how it preloads stuff into memory. Too bad I hate the window manager that it uses. Once XP is EOL'd I think I am going 100% linux