Hardware for Server running WHS 2011, TVServer, ExchangeServer and being a NAS (1 Viewer)

[MrCrabs]

Hello community,

I am thinking about setting up a homeserver running on WHS 2011 as OS. It should also be my TVServer, maybe ExchangeServer later on and should be a good NAS for my HTPC being a client then and maybe more clients in the future. I am also interested in using it for some homeautomation activities. As a NAS it should be able to connect to many HDDs as I would like to run three or more in RAID5.
As I am totaly new to running servers and I don't have no clue what power it needs where (more CPU or more RAM?). Since the system might run 24/7 in the future it should not be too powerhungry.
What might be a possible setup? What are the most fragile parts that might lower performance and where should I not put too much effort into? I am happy about any info!
Thank you!

 

[MrCrabs]

Noone with a suggestion or any experience on this topic?

 

[flintstone99]

AW: Re: Hardware for Server running WHS 2011, TVServer, ExchangeServer and being a NA

Hi,

while I am running WHS V1 and not the 2011 one, my server specs should work for you too.
I have hmailserver running on thatbox, 3HDDs connected with more SATA ports available, 1PCIe dual DVB S TVcard and a USB DVB S2 card.
Serves as a file server ("NAS") and usually is far below 15% CPU load. Actually 15%peaks occur only when I stream a HD channel to one client and another SD stream to another client. The driveextendermigrator services causes a lot more load, but you do not have that on WHS 2011.
Nowadays there is the E-450 but I read that improvements are mostly on the graphics side which you will not need at all in a server. the 2GB RAM is totally sufficient for me.
See the specs in the signature and the "MY System" link

regards
flintstone

 

[bwg]

Hi. I am also starting to look at building a home server that will run MP TV server to feed 2 clients, and am interested in whether MP / TV server will install and run ok on WHS 2011 (since it is officially "unsupported"). I have a Hauppauge HVR-2200 pci-e card. Let me know your experience!

 

[hafblade]

At the moment I am also thinking about a WHS system for my new home.

Due to the fact that I love building my own pcs I first thought of
1) Using my normal pc as server and buying a new fancy one as my new standard pc
2) Buying some i3 + 4gb ram + 6-sata / usb3 / 2xGigabit LAN server

But after some further thougths I came to some completely build whs servers which do really have compatible hardware and support like this one:
http://www.chiligreen.com/shop/produkte.asp?typ=275

If you are able to read german you could also look here:
http://www.home-server-blog.de/2011...nergieverbrauch-performance-und-fazit-teil-3/
http://www.home-server-blog.de/hardware/

The completely out of the box systems have the ability to be calm, low power consuming (chili green <50w) and they have support which I could possibly not achieve when building the system on my own.

The nice thing about whs 2011 is that you do everything over remote and an on-cpu-graphic should be enough to install it.

pros prebuild system:
- support
- ready to go
- most time calmer then own system
- low power consumption

cons:
- nothing to tinker
- perhaps not all ports (usb3 esata) which I would like

That's all I suppose. So a prebuild system would be sooo bad.

 

[MrCrabs]

Hmm, it's nice, but there is no way to put a tv-card in there except for usb.

 

[hafblade]

Yes you are right. I'm using one pci and three usb cards so I would loose perhaps one which is not so hard for me but it's really one no go when you have a larger amount of tv cards.

But what I wanted to say is that it could be a good idea also to look for prebuild systems instead of building some own systems.