Home Upgrade

I finally got everything together to upgrade my home base. I’ve been wanting to build a home server using Windows Home server so I can offload all of my data to something small instead of leaving my big rig on all the time. I also really like Microsofts Windows Home Server OS with all of its cool little add-ins and services to do neat things like iTunes media server, media server for my Xbox 360, desktop backups, archiving, offsite backup, etc..

The Home Server Specs:
Intel Atom 330
2GB Ram
Firewire card
LianLi PC-Q7 Case

In total, this was about $190, I also got a replacement 40mm fan for the motherboard as the reviews said it could be noisy, which was a good idea it turns out later. I had a spare laptop SATA drive lying around along with a 1TB 3.5 inch SATA drive, both of which I put in the case. Same goes for a 500 Watt PSU and CDROM, except the CDROM was only to load Windows, I took it out later after the install. The final install was a bit cramped only because the case can take a full size PSU (and all of it’s cables), but other than that, I love the case. It’s the perfect size for sitting on our bookshelf with the switches and modem. Speaking of switches, I opted to get a gigabit switch off ebay and since I have the venerable Linksys WRT54GL (Hacked with DD-WRT and bigger antennas). I found the older model Linksys EG008W so they stack nicely, costed 20 bucks. After I got some short Cat5 patch cables I got it all hooked up I noticed the fan in the gigabit switch (yes, it’s got  a fan!) was noisy and grinding. I popped it open and low and behold, it’s a 40mm fan! So I dropped in the stock fan from the Atom motherboard as an easy fix, runs fairly quiet now.

Firewire?? Yes, the Atom board doesn’t have onboard Firewire but I still use an OWC Mercury Elite Pro dual drive firewire 400/800 enclosure I got a while ago that houses two 500gig IDE drives. All my data is on these so I opted to keep using it. I am currently moving all of my data to the internal 1TB drive, then I will use one 500gig drive as backup drive for the system, then add the other to the drive pool for share duplication. This has the added benefit of letting me unplug it in a hurry and having all of my data and server data if I need to restore it. My extended plan is to eventually get a Drobo and just fill it with 1TB drives BUT I wanted it connected over FW800 so I could get the best throughput. USB2 is limited to about 480Mb/s which is abysmal compared to FW800’s 800Mb/s. It’s not eSATA speed but I can still switch to that later if I want.

In a past post I mentioned I use a series of online services for backups. Now that I have a central server, I am going to move to using iDrive to backup just the server data offsite and stop using it on my desktop. That move will include redirecting my “My Documents” folder to the Home Server so everything is centralized. Now I know there are a few add-ins for Home Server to backup to the cloud, like KeepVault or JungleDisk, but I am still not as happy with either as much as I am with iDrive, so far..

As for streaming and accessing the Home Server remotely, I have opted to keep using Orb because I like how it can handle encoding/transcoding to either my 360 or my iphone; and I have been using the free LogMeIn service for basic remote access to the desktop. I think this keeps things a little more secure and keeps from having to punch holes in my firewall (or worse UPnP) to grant remote access. I also have DynDNS running on my router so my address is always up to date allowing me remote access to the home server’s webpage. So far so good, I haven’t run into any major issues other than not scheduling iDrive correctly which let it suck up all my bandwidth all day as it ran its backup. Oops. I’ll come back later and writeup a long distance test drive review.