My goal was to build an inexpensive scalable and expandable file and media sharing storage with build-in redundancy.

The power consumption was the next factor in mind. Physical dimensions played little role as I am going to re-use a standard mini-tower case and an mATX motherboard.

Hardware selection requiements:
My main research was aimed at finding mATX motherboard offering:

- More than 4 build-in SATAII ports.

- NCQ and AHCI support for the SATAII.

- 10/100/1000Mbps network connectivity.

- Good reviews and reliable platform.

- At least one PCI slot for future storage expansion with PCI/SATA controller card 

Motherboard, Processor, and Memory

I found a cheaper solution with AMD low power processor. I spent the most of the time researching the features that the chipsets used on the motherboards offer. The easiest accessible information was from a comparison table from Intel (1) comparing their I/O Controller Hub (ICH) chips and the supported features.

Suitable candidates were the Intel mATX boards but they were coming with a higher price. Nvidia and AMD chipsets comparison was more buried and more time consuming. A few emails with the Nvidia tech support helped me to find which chipsets support the NCQ and AHCI.

I settled on a combo with ASUS M3A76-MC and AMD Athlon 64 X2 4850e processor. I decided to use ASUS tested and supported DDR2 memory for full compatibility and reliability with their motherboard. I also looked to use the dual channel capability of that motherboard.

Power Supply
For my Power Supply the power supply selection: I choose Antec TP3-430W power supply due to its good reviews, 5 year warranty (I hope not to use it) along with the active PFC, three 12v rails and a 120mm quiet fan operation. It also comes with 4 SATA connectors (additional ones can be added with Molex/SATA adaptors)

After the power calculations using the Antec power calculator (2) for my scenario that includes: 1 AMD Athlon 64 X2 AM2 4850e, 6 SATA HDD,1 DVD-RW drive, 2 sticks of DDR2 memory, and one 120mm. case fan I end up needing only 295W. The 430W will be plenty than enough.

The hardware list (as of 8/2008)

MB               Asus - M3A76-CM

CPU            AMD - Athlon 64 X2 4850e

MEM            G.Skill - (2x1G, DDR2 800, F2-6400CL4D-2GBPK)

PSU            Antec - TP3-430

HDD            Western Digital - WD10EADS Green 1TB 32MB

HDD            Western Digital - WD10FALS Black 1TB 32MB

HDD            Seagate SATA 500GB 32MB

Case           Re-used existing mini-tower case with mounting capabilities for up to 12 HDDs.

Case Fan   Cooler Master - SAF-S12-E1 120mm

DVD             Used existing IDE DVD-RW (Disconnected for power reservation but still in the case.)

UPS             APC-BN600 600VA. (350W)

Upgrades, comparisons, etc

More hard drives will be added as my needs require.

From the Windows Home Server (WHS) instructions and forums (8)(9), I read that I need a large system drive for best results and large file transitions. The WHS installation is straight forward and without problems.

Next step will be to do some network benchmarking and compare the performance of my WHS. With my current WHS with 2.5 TB of storage space, the price per MB is close to $0.24. For comparison is the price per MB with 1.5TB for the HP 487 close to $0.60 (newegg.com price as of 8/08).

List of installed add-ins on the WHS

-  Grid Junction (4) – UPS power backup application that can shut down gracefully the WHS and through a script other PC’s. The application also shows and power events.

-  Advanced Disk Manager (5) – It shows detailed information, temperatures, etc. for each drive connected.

-  Advanced Admin Console (6) – Allows remote desktop administration and control to the WHS server.

-  Avast Anti-Virus for WHS (7) – Well, its antivirus designed for WHS. WHS is based on Windows 2003 with some file systems and disk organization tweaks. Regular AV might corrupt files or bring instability to the WHS (I haven't verified this).

Links

1) www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imst/sb/CS-012304.htm

2) www.antec.outervision.com/PSUEngine

3) www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=aU8effdifLvraVze&templete=2\

4) www.kentdome.com/gridjunction

5) www.tentaclesoftware.com/whsdiskmanagement/

6) www.home-server-addins.com/

7) www.avast.com/eng/avast-windows-home-server-edition.html

8) whsaddins.com/

9) www.wegotserved.com/

Krasi Piskov