On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 11:23:53AM -0000, Rob Malpass wrote:
> 1) Is SATA still the bus of choice? According to Novatech, there is now
> "Serial attached SCSI". I don't think any of my mobos have this bus, and
> indeed it seems the drives sizes here are a lot smaller than I need - but is
> there anything pushing this over SATA?
Not really. SAS drives tend to be of higher reliability, have longer
warranties and are more commonly found in enterprise form factors
like 2.5" platters and 10 or 15kRPM spindle speeds. But they cost a
fortune compared to consumer SATA drives. Hard to imagine building a
cheap home server with SAS.
> 2) Presumably I need a stronger power supply. If there are 4 hdds and 1
> DVD drive - what sort of wattage should I be looking at?
It's not just wattage, it's also what it can supply on each of the
lines.
> 3) If, expense notwithstanding for the moment, I did this as 4*2TB external
> USB hard drives, I've had trouble sharing these with Ubuntu before now.
> For some reason they're mounted under /media under a strange (and seemingly
> random) string of characters (which change every time the server is
> restarted) such that permanent shortcuts from other devices on the network
> wouldn't work and would need to be re-established each time I connect. Has
> anyone worked around this?
>
> Any constructive suggestions very welcome.
I truly mean this to be constructive: the idea of building a home
server out of bits of repurposed old tat that you're not sure is up
to the job, and USB external drives, instead of spending sub-£150 on
an HP Microserver, gives me the shivers.
Four hot swap drive bays, modern hardware, good form factor,
excellent construction, pretty quiet, looks quite stylish.
I'm sorry if this didn't come across as constructive, it just
doesn't strike me as a practical alternative to me. Unless it's the
case that you really enjoy troubleshooting old hardware and stuff
that is not known to work together, for the sake for ~£150 I would
avoid it like the plague. The power savings on a Microserver vs the
PSU out of "an old tower" alone probably pays it back in a couple of
years.
Cheers,
Andy
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