October 2, 201015 yr Hello everyone I've been skulking around the site for a few months now and have decided to dive in and build my first server. The basis of which is an old Xserve Raid enclosure that i have. It has 14 drive bays and has been stripped (see picture). At the moment i don't have any other suitable hardware lying around besides a few old IDE harddrives so i'm pretty much starting from scratch. My major considerations are price, acoustics and price again. Heres what i'm thinking (with rough prices): Case: Xserve Raid £0 Motherboard: ASUS M4A77 or M4A785T-M 6xSATA 2xIDE £55 Powersupply: Corsair 650w £75 Processor: Sempron 140 £25 Fans: Cheap, quiet - recommendations? Storage Controller: 2x VIA VT6421 Generic 3xSATA 2xIDE PCI Cards £15 RAM: Cheap 1GB £15 Transfer speed isn't really an issue but i may put a cache drive in too since i will have a few IDE channels free Any help or advise would be appreciated
October 2, 201015 yr Author Am i right in thinking that this setup would allow me to use a total of 12 SATA and 6 IDE drives? Could i fit another cheap sata card in there in the future to go all SATA? Both motherboards support 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 1 x PCIe x1 2 x PCI 2.2
October 3, 201015 yr Author OK, well i'm just about to start ordering parts. Does anyone know whether i would be best to use thermally controlled fans or fans that can handle PWM. Do either of the motherboards i have selected support PWM? Will 3 fans set in the middle of the case be enough to cool it? I could always add another bank of fans at the back as the number of drives increases. Arctic Cooling Arctic Fan 12 PWM 120mm http://www.dabs.com/products/arctic-cooling-arctic-fan-12-pwm-120mm-73WR.html Arctic Cooling Arctic F12 Pro TC 120mm Thermally Controlled Fan http://www.dabs.com/products/arctic-cooling-arctic-f12-pro-tc-120mm-thermally-controlled-fan-73WT.html
October 5, 201015 yr Sorry we didn't get to you sooner. I think the ASUS M4A785T-M is a good choice. Add a SuperMicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 card and you've got support for 14 SATA drives, which perfectly matches your case. I know it may be tempting to put your old IDE drives to use, but I recommend against it. Not only will they slow down your server's parity checks and rebuilds from parity, they will generate more heat and use more power. Also, chances are you can consolidate all your IDE drives onto a single large SATA drive. You also won't have to waste any money on IDE expansion cards. Sorry, I don't know the answer to your fan questions. I think there may be some trial and error involved there, since I don't think any of us are using that same case.
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