A Promotion for The Server!

This is a diagram of the AC-130 "Gunship" adaptation of the venerable Lockheed C-130 transport. When the American armed services had a need for a close support platform that was a little more "heavy duty" than helicopter based solutions, Lockheed created this. OK, it was of course preceded by the "Puff The Magic Dragon" of the Vietnam Era that was based on the C-47, but that was basically a "one-off". Anyway, mini-military history lesson aside; what this has to do with me is I've decide my Windows Home Server 2011, network name "Hercules", needed an upgrade. Really, not as much an "upgrade" per se, but a revamp that will change it radically!

I'm an avid reader of the website Silent PC Review. http://www.silentpcreview.com/ This guy does a really good job and I've become a strong believer in the concept of quiet computers. To cut to the chase; my server is annoyingly loud! I hate it. It sits in the credenza just to the left of my knee and when it's running, it wears me out. There are all manner of culprits when your trying to deal with a computer's noise issues. The current hardware has an MSI G41 Motherboard with a pretty low level (E4300) C2D processor, but never the less, that's a processor fan, and in this case, the stock Intel fan....which most people know is a noise disaster. Then there are case fans and the power supply. In this case, I'm not motivated get a "silent" power supply of enough capacity for a file server, so I'm probably going to stick with the mid-level Cooler Master 550w that's in there. Plus I really don't think that it's the issue. I have a 600w version of the same PSU in my main workstation and it's almost silent. I can get a quiet case fan for around $20 most anywhere, so that leaves the CPU situation. 

My solution? Why a new motherboard of course? In this case it's the ZACATE! OK, for regular people is the AMD implimenation of an integrated processor concept with both a CPU and GPU on the same die, making what they call an APU (Advanced Processor Unit). You can read the reviews yourself and I'd recommend the Anandtech ones. In the big picture, it kind of slots nicely between the Atom chipped boards and the newer i3s. 

 

For me, the draw of this particular design is as follows: It not only has integrated video (which lots of platforms have), but it runs very cool (note the lack of fan on the heatsink), AND unlike the Atom platform which are almost exclusively Mini-ITX, Asus makes a Micro-ATX board that gives me more than just the one PCI-e slot that the Mini-ITX boards do. Also, since the "CPU/GPU" are already onboard; I don't have to buy that. This gives me 2 PCI-e slots, plus 2 old fashioned PCI slots allowing me to move my Intel Gigabit board and tuner card over, plus a place for a caching RAID card to go. 

 Yup, you read that right.....I'm going "Big Time"! A few months ago, I ran across and article talking about a HighPoint Caching RAID controller that's designed to use "off-the-shelf" SSDs for that function! Although this type of things have been around for a while, there were almost universally specific to some particular manufacturer's SSD. This was of course a very expensive way to go, but these HighPoint controller put pretty much any SSD in play! Although, they tend to go for something like $150 or so. Of course, I was like a kid at Christmas.....with "sugar-plums dancing in my head". 

 ....Which brings us to the last item of this concept....the SSD. A couple of days ago, I ran across an ad on Craig's List advertising 32Gb, Patriot PS-100 SSDs for sale at $20 a piece. Normally, I'd completely be disinterested in very small used SSDs, but here was exactly what I need to attach to a caching controller. Yes; I'm aware that the PS-100 is is terribly slow, and that these used drives could have their "writes" all used up. But in this situation, since it's being used simply as cache, I'd just replace it if it goes bad, plus even a slow SSD is going to be far faster than simply using a hard drive! I picked up the MB for $75 (after shipping), the two SSDs for $40, the HighPoint controller will run about $150. I'll also need to pick up some PC3 memory, but that'll only be about $25, thus making this whole rebuild come in at right around $290 total.

So there you have it; the combination of a silent motherboard/processor combination, a caching RAID controller with the ability to use a comparatively huge (and cheap) SSDs. This is essentially, my file server on steriods.....thus earning a new name.....the Spectre.