Self-builders: What’s the Best Processor for a Home Server?

By on March 2, 2009 in Hardware, Windows Home Server

Computerworld points to Microsoft researching the use of low-powered processors in server farms, such as Intel’s Atom processor, which was designed predominately for the thriving netbook market, but is popping up in home servers from Tranquil PC, Acer and others.

If you were building a new home server today, what would be your choice of processor and why?

More Info: Computerworld


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Terry Walsh is the founding editor and owner of We Got Served. Since February 2007, the site has provided detailed coverage and analysis of the emerging home server category, and has subsequently grown into a trusted outlet for digital home news and reviews.
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  • Ivenoclue

    This is a setup I'd like to hear about. I've been toying with the idea of replacing all the kids and wife's computer with VM's. Whats your setup? How does it run?

    K

  • Jacko

    I am building a new WHS (replace my P4 2.8Ghz 2 GB 1.5TB), it be build using the following specs :

    Gigabyte E7AUM-DS2H
    E8400 Dual Core
    2 x 1TB WD disk
    4 GB Memory
    And any disk that is left of the old machine

    The system will host WHS and a Microsoft Virtual XP image.

    System will be used as a storage server for my HTPC , usenet and office tasks (done in de Virtual XP).

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Jacko_Ammerlaan Jacko_Ammerlaan

      The system is up and running. Its fast the only problem that I am having is the lack of Windows 2003 drives for this Mobo. The internal 1 GB Nic will not work, so I placed a old 100 MB nic in the system. (Will be replaced with a 1GB Nic with Windows 2003 support).

      So when building a WHS with new hardware be sure to check if there are W2K3 drivers.

  • EddyKilowatt

    I'm planning a build and eagerly awaiting the new "Johnstown' mobo from Intel: http://www.logicsupply.com/products/d945gsejt. Atom 270 plus 945GSE (netbook) graphics appear to allow it to run fanless… though too bad about only 2 SATA ports.

    I have a C2Q desktop for heavy lifting, so my WHS just needs to cover the NAS/backup/remote-access duties, and that pretty much only for audio and photo files… not much video streaming around here.

  • Mark

    Currently celeron 440, due to low power consumption. Soon to be Core 2 Quad Q9550, since over time i discovered so many additional task for my home server, that it is running out of power! and with future video serving (hopefully WHS v2) or otherwise a virtual machine running VMC/windows 7) there will be lots of work to do for the processor! Maybe even some home automation!

  • ShadowVlican

    the Atom CPU works fine if you're using WHS solely for file serving

  • Urban

    I got lazy over this (too many other projects and honey do's) and bought the Tranquil PC SQA-5H home server. 330 Atom based box that has a very good SATA setup including E-SATA that can talk to a SATA box that has a SATA expander, Tranquil has one that lets you add 5 more hard drives. It comes with WHS installed and they also have some add-ins also. The are in UK, I am in USA and from order to delivery was 10 days (Easter holidays), came via air to me. Love the box, is quiet and easy to work with. Now I am getting everything configured for my lan and usage.

  • bob sagget

    Atom processor…? No way. Maybe if you just have 1 user, and dont plan on allowing remote access. I went with a Core2Duo E7400, and I have 8 remote users and 2 local LAN users, always using it, and it works great. I put it in a Shuttle XPC, 2gb ram, dvd burner, with (2)x1.5TB drives=3TB…all cost under $400, even with WHS OS purchase.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/badm0j0 badm0j0

    I have an AMD Athlon 3000+ which is a socket 939 from what I understand. If I put a 4000 in there, I can save power and gain processor strength, right?

  • Chris

    Here's my WHS Box specs:
    e5200
    4GB Ram
    MSI p43 comes standard with 8 Satas
    2-1.5TB SGs 5-1TB drives

    It streams HD video to 4 diff Lan users. No encoding yet.

  • hometech99

    I’m using my old:

    Asus P5WD2 Premium
    840D Processor
    4GB ECC DDR2 667 RAM (anyone else using ECC?? errors DO happen- especially at higher elevations!)
    Areca ARC-1220 RAID6 controller ($230 used)
    8 WD 400GB RE2 drives ($33 a piece- a steal)
    PC Power& Cooling 850 watt PSU
    Thermaltake Armour case-holds 12 drives- with 9 in the front 5 1/4 bays with 3 large fans on them. Cool drives are happy drives.

    I wont just be file serving on it.

    The case hold 12 drives total. I have 4 old 160GB drives RAID10 in there to use for non-storagebank purposes.

    ——

    I have 3 old slot1 boards and some P3 1Ghz slot1 processors and several sticks of 256MB ECC RAM- i wonder what a slow machine will do? I have to try and build those also (have some old Promise PCI IDE RAID cards to use too)

    • Dave

      I built my server using a 500 MHz PIII with 512 MB of RAM about 2 years ago. I let it do its thing and don't run any programs on it and I can't tell that its running on slow hardware.

      I do shrink and then store video files on it and once had 12 videos playing on a laptop at the same time without hiccups. The laptop ran out of CPU on the 13th.

  • BenG

    My WHS is a HP ProLiant ML350 G5 with 8GB RAM (configured as 4GB with 4GB hot-spare), two XEON 5345 quadcores, and currently 5x 750GB hard drives in RAID5 config connected to a HP Smart Array P400 SAS RAID controller with 512MB battery-backed cache (I have disabled the drive extender because hardware RAID is the better solution IMHO). Software is WHS with PP2 and TwonkyVision streaming server. It's not the most powersaving setup (~200Watts in idle up to ~350Watts when recoding to H.264) but it's reliable, and I can switch on and off the server from everywhere in the network because of its integrated remote administration processor.

    But I still wish there was an x64 version of WHS.

  • AndyH

    given that people are selling atom based homeserver devices, i thought i could get away with an old Athlon XP2200+ with 2Gb ram and a stack of disks on a promise PCI SATA raid controller.

    no such luck. it is usable, but slow. still pleasantly surprised to see file copies going over at 35% network utilisation on gig networking (jumbo frames turned off!).

    given that i want to bang some TV tuners in there for TV streaming and recording with SageTV, i’m definatly upgrading to quad core goodness. not sure if i should save money and get a cheap intel Q6700 and G45 based mainbaord, or go i7 with a 920 CPU and x58. i know one thing. i tested my Athlon 3200+ with 3GB ram, and it can handle encoding a pushing two standard definition TV streams, or stream and one recording at “best quality”. so lots of horse power is required. especially for HD TV. so core2 architecture i’d consider a minimum.

  • Ultim8pc

    1.6GHZ Pentium M in a PM45 low power mini-iTX motherboard in a Casetronic case and a single HD. Very low power and silent!

  • TuFoZ

    Q6600… Install a little bit of this and a little bit of that then a sprinkle of Antivirus/spam app – what you got? Sloowdownn… After all, it is only windows. It cannot help itself.

    Quad core Q6600 + 4GB DDR2 and an Energy Efficient :) PSU… Oxymoron? perhaps, but an extra $150 a year in energy costs is well spent money in my eyes since I will be using this server day and nights… Transcoding mkvs? check! Vmware check! Future proof uhmm ok check for now! And a server that I know will handle everything I throw at it? Priceless!!!

    C'mon guys!! Atom processor? Saving energy costs? Which one of those guys have an SUV of 13mpg? hehehe.. $75 a tank every 2-3 days…

  • erail

    q6600 quad intel with Supermicro 8 hotswap storage server chassis and PDSME+ motherboard. Runs great and will do just about anything you ask of it.

  • anotherguyD

    Specs:
    Q6600
    4GB of ram
    Asus Quad gigabit Lan motherboard.
    7 1TB drives (various manufacturers)
    1 1.5tb drive seagate.
    ATI 2400PRO => going to Nvidia for cuda

    Runs XBMC for HTPC as well. Go Aeon!

  • Casperse

    Anybody tried building a WHS with the new AMD X4 9350e (65W) ?
    I wanted a lot of CPU power but nothing above 65W…so is this the one?

  • Brandon

    I use the Celeron 430. Fully booted but idle I pull 46 watts with 2 1TB HDs

  • teq

    I use exactly the same system as Inglix above – an Intel E5200 together with Intel's Mini-ITX DG45FC board. Makes a nice, compact, quiet system – but powerful enough to handle video streaming/transcoding.

    Before that I used a Asus B202 eee Box (Atom single core), which is a nice little machine suitable for most purposes, but a little weak on the more CPU intensive tasks.

  • Fredrik

    I built one yesterday and i chose a Intel Pentium Dual-Core 2,6 GHz.

  • StraponXG

    I used an Atom N330 (Dual Core) with the ION nvidia northbrdige. Don't do much transcoding.. yet… suppose it might be a problem in the future since I don't know of any WHS software which takes advantage of the IONs abilities.

  • http://www.bestlaptopreview.co.uk Laptop

    I like the mobile sempron range too its just so power efficient!

  • Ash

    I use a Proliant ML115

    - Quad Core Xenon 2ghz
    - Build in GB/Ethernet
    - ECC and buffered DDR2 RAM (2gb)
    - 5x Hotswap SATA drives

    But use it for eBox like usage for work, and home server at the same time streaming HD vids.

    Something i would like to see is intergration of the Mobile support for Blackberry’s like you can get for the iPhone!

    • Neo

      Hi
      I also have a ml115 wich I have tried to use SATA disks, used a rocketraid card. What SATA controller are u using?
      Cheers

  • omar

    i wanna ask you guys if any wan know if i can use this cpu on EX475 i wana opdate my CPU
    i have this on AMD Phenom X4 9950 black edition
    2.6 GHz, Agena core (quad core)
    Socket AM2+
    2048 KB L2 og L3 cache
    Integreret DDR2-1066 memory controller
    65 NM fabrikations process
    MMX, SSE1-2-3-4A, x86-64

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  • http://public.presalesadvisor.com/Common/BuildByFamily.aspx?identity=2301&dso=en-GB Jeraldine Dodsworth

    The x3200 is a good machine, also includes two high-speed PCI Express 2.0 x8, one PCI Express x4 (dedicated to the RAID controller), and two PCI X slots, all full-length and standard height.

  • mackintire

    AMD Fusion E-350 50% more powerful than a dual core Atom and the same power consumption.

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  • Bill V

    That's (almost) exactly what I used. I started out with an AMD 5050e on a basic 780G board (6 Sata and one IDE for my cdrom). Later, I started thinking that I might want a little more hp depending upon what plugins I start using (or, more likely, when moving to WHS 2 – which I understand to be based on Server 2008 I was thinking about loading Hyper-V and running someone else inside my home server) I upgraded to a Phenom X4 9150e.

    It's only 1.8Ghz, but it's been doing great for me.

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