Windows Home Server 2011 – My Custom Build

I was previously a big fan of Windows Home Server (v1) and had purchased HP’s MediaSmart server.  This served me and my family well until the OS drive failed.  I replaced the drive and reinstalled the OS using the appropriate CD’s from HP.  Thankfully I didn’t lose any data (that’s the point of WHS after all), but remote access never worked for me again.  Given that I have a lot of geographically distributed family that used the server, a non-working remote access is a serious problem.

About this time, WHS 2011 went RTM so I thought it was the perfect time to go for an upgrade.  Unfortunately, a software upgrade wasn’t really an option from Microsoft (even more so since HP has dropped future WHS hardware).  I thenI looked at re-purposing the MediaSmart hardware and doing my own installation.  The first hurdle is that the MediaSmart server I have is 32-bit and WHS 2011 is a 64-bit only OS.  I considered upgrading some of the internals, but ultimately decided against it because Drive Extender was dropped from WHS.  DE’s removal from WHS 2011 caused a lot of angst and gnashing of teeth among enthusiasts, but I’ll save my thoughts on that for another post.

The point is that Drive Extender created a pool of storage that enabled an easy approach to redundancy (mirror) and different size drives that will definitely be missed.  Now that it’s gone, I needed an alternative…enter RAID.  Since my MediaSmart server didn’t support RAID, I figured it was time to build a new server.  More important than form factor, I wanted something cheap.  I’ve already got a big desktop and another tower server, so one more wasn’t that big of a deal.

Here’s the hardware I ended up with (all from Newegg along with the pictures):

Qty	Product	Price
1	G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL	$49.99
2	3ware CBL-SFF8087OCF-05M 1 unit of 0.5m Multi-lane Internal (SFF-8087) Serial ATA breakout cable, forward	$39.98 ($19.99 ea)
1	Antec earthwatts EA500 500W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.2 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC “Compatible with Core i7/Core i5” …	$69.99
1	SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive	$49.99
1	GIGABYTE GA-H55M-USB3 LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard	$109.99
1	Intel Core i3-540 Clarkdale 3.06GHz LGA 1156 73W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80616I3540	$119.99
1	HighPoint RocketRAID 2680 SGL PCI-Express x4 SATA / SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) Controller Card	$99.99
1	Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case	$59.95
	Subtotal	$599.87
	Shipping	$18.53
	Total	$618.40

I plan on using the hard drives from my existing WHS which is why you don’t see more space here.  The form factor sucks compared to the MediaSmart or Tranquil PC’s Leo HS4, but it’s got room for the future.  Plus, the major reason I went with a custom build is to incorporate RAID while still keeping it pretty cheap.  This price point is about the same as the MediaSmart and less than the Leo, so I hit my goal.

In a later post, I’ll detail out what I did with the hardware in terms of how I set up my shares.