Home Network Equipment

GrahamMG said:
......BTW, I find that sending hi-def 1080i files around to more than a couple of PC's needs the extra bandwidth of gigabit ethernet. I've not seen a wireless G solution that works with HD files either without stuttering....

I streamed the new Project Gotham 3 (xbox360) trailer (1080i) over my 54g network to my xbox (Xbmc) last night, worked a treat ;) From this and other posts ive seen here im begining to think im either a god or Linksys stuff rulez! (Im thinking its the later :) )

Its nearly the weekend, have a good one!


P.s. Thats with WEP turned on as well.

*edit* My mistake, it was 720p not 1080i. <--- worlds worst memory. :confused:
 
Graham

I understand what you are saying, my experience is in the coporate environment also with Foundry equipment (BigIron 15000 with 480Gbps max throughput is aaaaaawesome! :thumbsup: ) however i would expect higher utilisation rates. We certainly get closer to 60-70% for 100Mb Full duplex with FSEs/4802s and 70-80% utilisation for GB!

We are however moving multiple GB (6GB +) files around the network core!

Why do you need a server to stream your data something like this would work;
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10587
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=8955&GroupID=634

Obviously it depends on price but the can be daisy chained via USB2/Firewire!
 
jaymz said:
Sticking my oar in.......



I have found this happens when you are running the NIC's as half duplex make sure they are full duplex i.e. communicate in both directions at the same time without waiting packets completion at each end.

You need to take account of the fact that the 100m/bit speed is raw maximum pottential throughput. Collisions will reduce this (on a switch you will still get collisions as multiple clients try to talk to the server). Latency will reduce this (the switch takes time to route). Ethernet framing will reduce this (about 38bytes per frame, in the best case a (non jumbo) frame will have 1500 bytes of data). Then you have TCP/IP headers, typically another 40 bytes per packet. Then TCP ACK packets. If you are using http style streaming app then you have mime conversions, if you are using windows file sharing then you have the smb overhead.

To be fair I may have been a little pessamistic when I said half, but don't expect to get anywhere near 100mbit/s in terms of end user/application data.
 
Well you've lost me guys, things are starting to get way over my head.

I have managed to pull out some info you have supplied, to help me decide what to put in my server, could some kind soul go over what I have so far, and tell me if I'm going down the right path or not.

Also, there are still a few things I haven't decided on yet, so if you could also fill in the blanks for me with a couple of suggestions that would be great.

Once I've got all the components, all I need to do then is put it together, so I will be living on here from that point, well unless some kind soul offers to put it all together for me, for a ridiculously small charge (HINT HINT!!!!)


Case: Coolermaster Stacker

PSU: SUGGESTIONS REQUIRED - Would I need more than one?

Motherboard: Asus NCCH-DL (Gigabit ethernet, and PCI-X)

CPU: Intel Xeon 2.8ghz (800mhz, 1mb Cache) - May put dual in, if required

Memory: 1gb DDR400 (2 x 512mb) - SUGGESTIONS ON BRAND REQUIRED

HDD: 5 x 250gb Maxtor Diamondmax plus 10 (7200rpm, 16mb)

O/S: Windows XP

So guys, can someone please fill in the blanks, and let me know if there's anything they think should be changed or added (More cooling for example)

Cheers
 
The Dude said:
Graham, I have made plenty of posts in the last year on this forum, with regards to how to properly terminate Cat5... there is also a bit more to it than getting the right colour wires in the right holes..

Your cable engineers probably shake their heads in disbelief at you 'turning things off, then turning them back on again' for a living... :rotfl:

A pre-made professionally-made, nice looking, strain-booted Cat5/6 patch cable costs less than £1.... nice business plan. :smashin:

I actually used to be a Cat5 engineer, these days I just reboot servers.... :rotfl:

I know far more than our cable installers as well, I normally settle on them being able to get the right wires in the right holes as explaining bend radii and maximum unsupported length usually results in a blank expression on their faces............ ;) I just despair at what they think is good enough...... Of course patch leads are ten a penny the difficult bit is teaching a bloke to use a Krone tool properly..... :D How we suffer for our art mate eh.....
 
jaymz said:
Graham

I understand what you are saying, my experience is in the coporate environment also with Foundry equipment (BigIron 15000 with 480Gbps max throughput is aaaaaawesome! :thumbsup: ) however i would expect higher utilisation rates. We certainly get closer to 60-70% for 100Mb Full duplex with FSEs/4802s and 70-80% utilisation for GB!

We are however moving multiple GB (6GB +) files around the network core!

Why do you need a server to stream your data something like this would work;
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10587
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=8955&GroupID=634

Obviously it depends on price but the can be daisy chained via USB2/Firewire!

Your speeds are not a million miles away from what I get at home :rotfl: :rotfl: Seriously our figures for practial maximiums are not far apart....
At home I use NAS units (five in the loft at last count.....).....
 
Well you've lost me guys, things are starting to get way over my head.

I have managed to pull out some info you have supplied, to help me decide what to put in my server, could some kind soul go over what I have so far, and tell me if I'm going down the right path or not.

Also, there are still a few things I haven't decided on yet, so if you could also fill in the blanks for me with a couple of suggestions that would be great.

Once I've got all the components, all I need to do then is put it together, so I will be living on here from that point, well unless some kind soul offers to put it all together for me, for a ridiculously small charge (HINT HINT!!!!)


Case: Coolermaster Stacker

PSU: SUGGESTIONS REQUIRED - Would I need more than one?

Motherboard: Asus NCCH-DL (Gigabit ethernet, and PCI-X)

CPU: Intel Xeon 2.8ghz (800mhz, 1mb Cache) - May put dual in, if required

Memory: 1gb DDR400 (2 x 512mb) - SUGGESTIONS ON BRAND REQUIRED

HDD: 5 x 250gb Maxtor Diamondmax plus 10 (7200rpm, 16mb)

O/S: Windows XP

So guys, can someone please fill in the blanks, and let me know if there's anything they think should be changed or added (More cooling for example)

Cheers

If I've understood your requirements properly then this spec seems like overkill.

If you're just serving dvds/cds to a few media pcs then you can get away with a MUCH less expensive system than that. I currently use a server which is cobbled together out of old bits, it has an athlon 1500+ (i think!) and 256MB of RAM. a xeon processor is WAY too much for this sort of task, as is the RAM spec.

As far as the PSU goes something like a 400W tagan would be fine for that kind of machine.

Personally I'd go for gigabit ethernet, but only because its cheap.

As for ripping on a separate PC, I do all my ripping from a client, over the network to the server, the ripping process is bottlenecked by the read speed of the optical drive so I doubt that a gigabit connection would make much difference here either.

just my 2p,
owain
 
Thanks for that Owain.

To be honest the reason why I went for the Xeon, was because of the motherboard.

It was suggested by Maff, and that board supports dual Xeons, but you can use only one. He suggested this board because of the inbuilt gigabit ethernet, and PCI-X.

I was going to go for software based RAID 5, and this is the only inbuilt board I can find, and as Maff said, the PCI bus on gigabit cards is only 133mb/s, which he says isn't enough.

As far as memory is concerned, I said 1gb to try to obviously match performance of the rest of the spec.
 
If you don't want the hassle of building it all yourself, have a look at the dell servers (there's a poweredge 1800 sat on the desk infront of me). Base spec is a good price, but they charge a ton for extra's. So buy the base spec and then add drives yourself.

If you're willing to not have the max throughput on the raid then you can go for non PCI-X (get inbuilt gigabit however, so the PCI bus is free for the disk array). You should still be able to max out the network throughput and it'll free you up to use different boards/processors.
 
Thanks for that Owain.

To be honest the reason why I went for the Xeon, was because of the motherboard.

It was suggested by Maff, and that board supports dual Xeons, but you can use only one. He suggested this board because of the inbuilt gigabit ethernet, and PCI-X.

I was going to go for software based RAID 5, and this is the only inbuilt board I can find, and as Maff said, the PCI bus on gigabit cards is only 133mb/s, which he says isn't enough.

As far as memory is concerned, I said 1gb to try to obviously match performance of the rest of the spec.

Personally I would say that it's all a bit too much for serving DVDs and audio to a few home PCs. If I were you I'd save the money, get a more reasonable CPU/MB/memory combination and invest the rest in more storage.

My 750GB RAID array is almost full after about a year :(

What exactly do you have in mind for the network - what type of media? how many clients? how many simultaneous streams are you likely to need? what about in the future?

owain
 
I was going to store all my CD's and DVD's (full version, except amybe without extras) not compressed in any way.

Maybe some photos, but that's it, mainly for DVD's and CD's.

There will be 5 medias pc's running on the network, and the most accessing the server at the same time would be 3 pc's, and there is only 3 of us. To be honest most of the time there will be 2 pc's accessing at the same time, thats the lounge one, and my daugther's bedroom.

That's likely to be the maximum usage, but as far as the future is concerned, I must admit I would prefer to go down the gigabit ethernet route, then I should be covered for at least a while.

Hi-Def TV is obviously going to be part of everyones future, but I can't see that taking off for a while, but at least with gigabit ethernet installed, I should be covered for that.
 
In that case, save yourself a heap of cash, get a cheap CPU, a decent MB with built in gigabit and a LOT of storage. A xeon for that kind of use is just chucking money away (IMHO). I run exactly that kind of system with my crappy old athlon.

Some examples I'd look at would be: http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=301029&cks=PRL

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=74299

one of these: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=156689

and one or two of these: http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=48122

Now I'm not saying definitely these products, but thats the maximum sort of cash I'd be looking to spend.
 
I figure it's better to have space to expand. If you're going to be spending nearly 500 quid just on your disks you want a system that can cope with more disks when you've filled them.

If your not interested in expandability, take the easy option and buy a terrastation.
 
Thanks for the advice Owain, I'll take a look at the links, and do a bit of hunting around.

Maff, I am interested in expandability, all I was saying was that as far as more pc's being on the network is concerned, then 5 will be the max (got no more rooms left). I want the system to be as future proof as possible, otherwise why would I be spending hours of my life running at least 2 Cat5e cables to each point, plus coax, speaker cable etc.

I want this system to be the dogs danglies, that is why I would like to build my own server, and media pc's, to give me what I want in them, and to make sure I can easily upgrade as and when I need.

But I figured, I would ask advice of you guys, as most of you have a lot more experience at this than I do, as this is my first time at networking or building a system (I'm a PC building Virgin!!!!).

I will listen to what everyone has to say, and then make my decision based on what performance I want, in comparison to the budget for each machine I have set.

As far as the server is concerned, I have set a budget of £1,000, but that must give me at least 1tb of storage, gigabit ethernet, and be able to cope with the demands of 3 users accessing it at the same time.

Now you have suggested that Asus motherboard, which seems to do exactly what we talked about, but as Owain says, twin Xeons are a bit of overkill for now. But on the other hand, the one that Owain has pointed out, doesn't have PCI-X by the looks of it (although it does have gigabit ethernet). I think I will try to find out some more info on both boards, and also have a look around myself, now that I know what to look for, but thanks to everyone for the help, you have given me a lot of help, and I now feel a little more confident as to what is entailed in building a server.
 
Hi Stevie

As has been mentioned before, another option is to use NAS units, which are pretty much plug and play, compact, and quiet. Of course you dont get RAID, but if you encounter a failure your loss is limited to the content on that drive.
Also dont forget that RAID isnt backup, so in any case you would still need to make sure that you keep copies of the non-replaceable content (photos etc) spread around the client machines, and ideally burnt to CDR as well just to be safe.
The whole gigabit and HD thing is debatable, in the world of PC hardware there is little point these days specifying for future capacity, as it is often cheaper to buy again if and when you require it. As long as your cabling infrastructure is in place (which you are doing) then that is the main thing.
If you can do it then run cat5 as well to cater for home automation, such as smart light switches, wall mounted touch screens etc. As has been mentioned, the cable is so cheap it is worthwhile.

good luck
 
Get a bigger PSU, if you're starting at 5 x 250gb SATA drives, then in the next upgrade, you'll be getting another 4 or 5 drives, so thats 10 HDD's in one PC!

Spend the money and get a good PSU!
 
Thanks for the suggestion of just buying an NAS unit, they are a great idea if you don't fancy building your own, but at the moment prices for a unit with the storage size I want as minimum are about the £1,000 mark anyway, and there is a big jump in price to units of a bigger size. I had a look at the Lacie units someone suggested earlier in the post, and for a 1tb unit your are looking at £996.00, so I may as well build my own for that price and get a better spec.

MJC, I see what you mean about getting a bigger PSU, the advantage of the Coolermaster Stacker case is that it supports 2 PSU's, so when I do upgrade in the future I may as well buy an additional PSU then.
 
Hi Steve

I was actually talking about multiple NAS units, you can get 300gb for around £250, and of course the prices are improving all the time. If you buy them as you need them, you enjoy the benefit of these falling prices, and you dont have the issues of extending RAID arrays, which is non-trivial unless you have a high-end solution.
Finally, even though you are 'only' getting 100mbits, you are splitting your network up so increasing the distribution of your bandwidth.
Oh, and finally finally :) , you havent got a single point of failure, so you would still have some network functionality (and yes I know that as you add more units you start to get statistical increase of suffering a failure - but this is more manageable when it only represents a fraction of your storage)

Honestly, you should *really* think long and hard as to whether a full blown server is worth it for simple file storage.
 
hi david,

the one thing that would conern me about NAS drives is the lack of fault tolerance. when it comes to ripped CDs 300GB is going to be getting on for 900 CDs, not something I would relish re-ripping if/when it fails. I know that RAID 5 is not 100% safe but at least it can stand a single drive failing without dying completely.

When it comes to expanding my storage solution I think I'll just add another array rather than being concerned about online expansion. atm I have 750GB, I could add a new array (a larger one, say 1.5TB), shift my DVDs onto this new array and keep the 750GB one for music (surely more than I'll ever need).
 
Thinking about David, I think I would have to agree with Owain.
NAS units are a great idea if you want to expand a small system, but having multiple NAS units isn't going to be practical for me either.

Just the logistical problems of stacking them somewhere near a PC would be a nightmare, and the thought of having 30 units stacked up somewhere in 5 years time doesn't bear thinking about.

I know RAID isn't perfect, but it's the best solution for mass storage at the moment IMHO, and if you want to store all your movies and music in one place, what better way to do it?

I have had a thought about my own system, and I am thinking about going for a motherboard that has gigabit built in, but I think the necessity for having PCI-X ports for now, isn't really needed. If in the future I decide to upgrade, then maybe I will consider that (there maybe more boards around then as well), but for now stick to PCI Express.

Should give me a few more options on the motherboard front now, and no need to get Dual CPU's or Xeons.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/72093/gigabyte-gak8nxp9.html

This boards seems quite good, PC Pro have added it to their A-List, does anyone know if it supports RAID5, or have any experience of it. Plenty of options on it though.
 
If you fancy nas, the terrastation has 1TB of disk space, this can be put in a raid 5 (giving 750mb usable). http://www.buffalo-technology.com/products/product-detail.php?productid=97&categoryid=19 - infact it looks like they now have a 1.6TB version.

Disadvantage of NAS is it will only do file serving, if you want run stream serving software of anything like that it won't.

Best thing is to work of the rough cost of things you will need no matter which way you go (clients, switches, cabling), then compare the extra cost of a) a pre built nas (or several), b) a home built unit with enough performance for what you think you want to do now (celeron / semperon, 5hd, controller, gigabit, 512mb ram), and c) something with more power than you think you need (or the ability to expand to it, e.g. single xeon, ncch board, 1gb ram, 5hd, controller).

Either of the home built approches will give more power and flexability then the nas, the doing it as cheap as I can approach will save a little money (compared to the nas), the room to grow approach will cost about the same as a nas.

The client / infrastructure costs will be about the same no matter what you use, with regard to the two build it yourself approches, PCI-X support will add to the cost. But as so much of the server cost is disks and controllers it's liable to not cost that much extra.

Also, don't think because you have 5 rooms that means 5 devices. You may have a PC, a media center extender (or something similar), networked PVR, music player, laptops, pda's.

No matter which approch you take you will be spending alot of money, I would spend the extra to have more room the grow (and once you total up the cost of everything it may not be that much extra).

My point isn't that you need the power of the Xeon processors, but rather you wan't the bandwidth that at the moment is best obtained via PCI-X, and the NCCH is the cheapest board to do that, and it takes Xeons. Once an affordable PCI Express raid controller is available then you will have much more freedom for motherboards. Talking of bandwidth, no matter howmuch memory you use, you need it in 2 dimms to enable dual channel memory access (which doubles the memory bandwidth).
 
Mmmmmm some really good points there Maff.

I have got plenty to think about over the next few months, as this is the time span I have set to get this system up and running.

I don't think the NAS route is for me, it seem too restrictive.

As far as 5 PC's is concerned, I know there will be definitley 2, one in the lounge and one is my daughter room. As for the others, I'm still looking for the right route. The problem with extenders is the file formats they accept, all of them seem to support some but not all audio/video formats, so really to allow me acces to all formats and have the option to access the net the only real way is to go down the pc route, AT THE MOMENT!!!!

I think I will have a good think over the weekend, and make a decision after a bit more investigation work, but you can be assured I will post back when I have decided on which route, as I am bound to need some help putting everything together (I'm sure I'll forget something, I always do!!)
 
HI, sorry if this is unuseful or stupid, but I am running a home network similar (i think) to waht you want.

I have an old Asus A7N266-VM-L SKT A motherboard with an AMD Athlon 2000+ processor. I've got 500g total in hdd. I have a netgear DG834gt wireless router and three other pcs (and a kiss 1504 for the lounge) all access music and movies from the server pc.

I never have any probs with it and i don't have aload of wires running throughout the house.

praps i've misunderstood what you are trying to do tho.
 
Maff, just thought I would let you know, I've had a hunt round for more info on that Asus NCCH-DL motherboard, and it appears that it doesn't support RAID 5, only 0, 1, and 0+1.

If that is the case, need to keep looking.
 
People.......
The server thing is indeed vast overkill for storing and streaming video and music files to other PC's on a network. When you consider that disk pace is what we all want the NAS idea has a certian appeal as others have mentioned. You can out them anywhere you like in the home (mine are in the loft) all they need are power and CAT5 connection to your hub/switch. They are all RAID5 capable and many have built in print server and backup functions (auto back up from one to another..), the beauty is that you can add as many as you like at any time, just plug them in....So until you run out of letters of the alphabet just keep adding them..... Think about how you are going to add additional storage to a PC on that scale (one device per SATA cable and two via IDE) and the benefits start to make sense. Money obviously has a lot to do with this but I hope that I've given some food for thought. As many have realised ripping all those DVD's and CD's to hard disk is something you only want to do once and having a well thought out backup solution and delivery method is quite important.

Basically a NAS can be seen by any PC on the network as appropriate and just looks like another drive, run the player from any PC and just point it at the file and it plays....... A gigabit network can easily play the same file to loads of PC's at the same time even with different start times....I ran out of PC's top try it on at home (4) with an High Def movie file and they all played seamlessly.
 

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