We Got Served – Windows Home Server & Your Digital Home

As I mentioned in our previous article, “What is a Home Server?” an increasing number of manufacturers are releasing pre-built home servers, which combine small, great looking form factors with additional, often exclusive software add-ins and, of course, the convenience of plug and play.

However, building your own home server can be a great project to try, and, as home servers tend not to require fast hardware it can be cost efficient to re-use old components you may have around the home in old computers, or purchase what you need separately to build a bespoke home server to your requirements.

If you haven’t built a computer before, the thought of doing so may be a little daunting – but, if you take your time and follow our walkthrough below as a guideline, you’ll see that building your own home server can be a lot of fun and is quite straightforward.

As an aside, you’ll sometimes hear home server owners refer to their systems as “frankenbuilds” – generally, this means that their home server has been put together with lots of old components they had lying around, an approach to experimentation and building shared by Dr. Frankenstein, amongst others!

Windows Home Server System Requirements

So, before you get started, it’s well worth checking Microsoft’s official system requirements for Windows Home Server to see the grade of hardware recommended for a home server. As with other operating systems, Microsoft publish a “Minimum” and “Recommended” hardware specification for WHS which you should use as reference. For most home server scenarios, particularly if you wish to stream music and video around your home, or remotely and especially if you think you’ll want to try out many of the add-ins available for the platform, ignore the “Minimum” specification and use the “Recommended” list as your baseline. You can, of course, build your home server with more powerful hardware than listed but you’ll probably save a little money if you keep to the recommended specification.

A couple of important pointers – firstly, when selecting a processor, do make sure that your choice is a 64-bit compatible processor (that is, the processor will happily run a 64-bit (sometimes called x64) operating system). Why? Whilst the current version of Windows Home Server, based on an old version of Microsoft’s Windows Server operating system called Windows Server 2003, is a 32-bit OS the forthcoming version of the platform is based on the brand new Windows Server 2008 R2 OS which is 64-bit only. So, you need to ensure your processor is compatible with that new release of WHS, which will be available in 2010.

Generally, you’ll find most modern processors, including Intel’s Celeron, Atom and Core 2 Duo chips as well as some of AMD’s more advanced chips will be fine. If you’re tempted by VIA’s low power C7 processors then stop right there, as they’re 32-bit only. You’ll need to check out VIA’s Nano processor family instead.

When it comes to RAM, then start with 1Gb as a minimum and given the minimal price difference, plump for a 2Gb slab – whilst general home server tasks aren’t very processor intensive,  a decent amount of memory is absolutely essential if you wish to run multiple add-ins on your home server, as well as running media sharing/streaming applications. The golden rule is to work out what you want the system to do for you today, and add a chunk more for the future!

With regard to networking, many pre-built systems are coming with gigabit Ethernet ports, which is the highest speed available for wired networking. Your home server must be attached over Ethernet to your router so a fast connection is great, but make sure your router and other devices on the network support gigabit Ethernet to ensure you get the fastest speeds. If they don’t, then don’t be too concerned as your system will simply fall back to running at standard “10/100” speed, which I find is fast enough for everything I want to do with my home server, including music, video and photo streaming. If you wanted to throw multiple high definition video streams around the home you may struggle, but otherwise, you’re fine.

When it comes to selecting hard disks, then do invest here in the biggest hard drives you can afford, and if possible ensure your computer case can fit in more than one hard drive. Why? Windows Home Server has a great feature called Folder Duplication which copies the contents of your shared folders over to a second hard drive. So, if one of your hard drive fails, don’t worry, you have a backup of your shared folders on the second drive. If your home server case can only fit the one drive, then do ensure you have a number of USB ports available – plugging in an external USB hard drive will allow you to use folder duplication, as well as increasing the amount of storage available to you.

An increasing number of home server owners are seeking low powered, “green” hard drives – as home servers are usually switched on 24/7, low powered hard drives and processors can reduce the running cost of your home server. Certainly Intel’s Atom processors are proving to be a popular choice for home servers, and with regard to hard drives, Western Digital’s Green Power drives are designed to save money in operation (although check the premium you pay for the drive (compared to standard drives) doesn’t outweigh their operational savings).

Microsoft do not have a recommendation for USB or eSATA ports, but you’ll invariably find most pre-build home servers come with at least 4 USB 2.0 ports and in some cases an eSATA port to boot. Both are very useful when it comes to expanding the amount of storage available in your home server. With external USB drives reducing in price, plugging in 3 or 4 Tb of external storage is a convenient expansion option. For those thinking of using a drive enclosure (a small satellite device containing 3-4 drive bays) in the future, many of the models available on the market today work best with an eSATA connection, so an eSATA port on your home server is also a great expansion option for the future.

With your components selected, let’s now work through building your own home server!

Can We Build It? Yes We Can!

Here’s a list of hardware I’m using for the walkthrough:

An Asus Pundit P3 PH4 Barebones System
Intel Pentium D 820 Processor (2.8 GHz) Socket 775
Crucial 1Gb RAM DDR2 DIMM PC4200
LG DVD-RW [Multi Recorder]
Belkin CAT6E Cable
2 x500Gb Western Digital SATA II Hard Drives

The Asus comes with integrated graphics and sound on-board, so there’s no need to purchase a sound or graphics card – hey, don’t worry, we’re not going to be playing Halo 2 on this thing!

Step 1: Check the Voltage

Really important first step, and that is to check what voltage the barebones PC has been shipped with. There’s a small switch at the back that changes between 110 and 220 volts. Get this wrong, and kaboom! So, if you’re in a country where your electricity is 240v, then ensure the switch is set to 220v (this is not 240v, but is fine!). If your electricity system is 110v, then flick the switch accordingly with a screwdriver. Well done Asus for setting the correct voltage for us in the UK, and better still placing a large sticker over the plug socket reminding you to check the voltage. You suck however for only shipping a continental plug in the box, and not a UK plug.

Step 2: Open up the box

Undo the thumbscrews at the back of the box, and then slide off the lid. It comes out pretty easily, thanks to a metal grip at the back. You can now see inside the box.

Step 3: Remove the top bar

From the image above, you can see there’s a wide metal bar which runs across the top of the box. This aids stability when the box is standing up (and is also useful for keeping cables tucked in). To remove it, there’s a lever at one end, which you need to lift, and then you can easily remove the bar. At last, you can see the Asus motherboard in all its glory!

Step 4: Remove the Front Panel

With the motherboard now exposed and ready for plug-ins, all we now need to do to finally prep the patient is to remove the PC’s front panel (we need to do this to fit the DVD drive). This comes off really easily. Just stand the PC up, and look for three plastic catches on the open side of the machine. Lift these gently and rotate the panel to the right. You’re now left with an exposed front panel.

Step 5: Fitting the Processor

Okay, with everything open, it’s time to start slotting things in. First up is the Processor. Now, I’m always slightly panicky at this point, because you read lots about processors being so delicate that if you even look at them the wrong way, they’ll shrivel up and die in a ball of shame. Not true, as I discovered writing this guide. More later. Anyway, first thing to do is locate the socket for the processor – you’ll see a square plate with a lever next to it. It’ll probably have a dark plastic cover on it too. That’s the processor socket.

Right, see that lever next to it? Press it down and pull away slightly to unlock it, and then lift the lever to open up the protection plate. Now’s a good time to remove that plastic cover off the top of the plate too.

Here’s what you should see.

At this point, it’s probably best not to sneeze all over the motherboard, stick your fingers/cat/screwdriver in the socket to see what happens, that sort of thing. The only thing that’s going in that socket, is a processor. Here’s ours!

Here’s where I discovered that processors were a bit more sturdy that I thought – open the packaging, and you’ll see the processor and a heatsink plus fan in plastic protective packaging. Open this packaging and carefully remove the processor – I opened this packaging a little too quickly, and of course, the processor flew out and went crashing on to the table below. (I was convinced the processor would be creamed at this point, but I was lucky). Golden rule: Be careful with the packaging!

Right, holding the processor carefully at the edges with thumb and finger, place it in the socket – the socket and processor are both notched, so it will only fit in one way. Hurrah! We like design like this!

Once the processor is in place, close the protection plate with the lever, and lock the lever in place. The plate sandwiches the processor into place. Make sure you’ve got the processor the right way round before doing this!

That’s Step 5 nailed -now have a lie down to get over all the stress!

Step 6 – Fitting the Heatsink

Okay, see the big metal thing with a fan that came with the processor? That’s the heatsink. Take a look in the box the Asus barebones PC came in. Yup, there’s another heatsink in there. We’re going to fit this one, so put aside the Intel heatsink for another day. The heatsink and fan are there to extract the heat from the processor. Processors get hot, and when they get too hot, they go splat. So we have to keep them cool. We’re using the Asus one because unlike other PCs which often have multiple fans, the Asus just has the one, using a smart application called Q-Fan to control how fast it should spin depending on how hot the processor is. So, it’s big AND it’s clever, so we’re going to use it.

Here it is:

Some articles will tell you at this point to apply a little bit of thermal paste to the top of the processor to improve cooling. The Asus manual didn’t, so I’m sticking with that at this point, although I may go back and do this if I think the processor is a little hot. Your mileage may vary.

Okay, to fit the heatsink, carefully place it on top of the processor, and align the four screws at each corner to the screwholes in the motherboard. Then screw down.

Finally, and very importantly, plug the fan’s power cable into the motherboard. No power = no fan = no cooling = PC shuts itself down before the processor fries – you’ll find the socket just below the memory sockets (it’s labelled on the motherboard).

Step 7 – Fitting the Memory

Great stuff, that’s (hopefully) all the playing around with the processor you’ll need to do. Now it’s time to get the memory in place. Now, as we’re building a server, we don’t need lots of memory. The Asus Pundit can use up to 4Gb (1GB in each of it’s four DIMM sockets) but there’s no way you’ll need that amount of horsepower. We’re just going to slot in 1Gb of PC4200 memory into one DIMM slot (they’re the ones just above where you plugged in the fan).

Unpack the memory – again, be careful with it as it’s delicate – no rubbing balloons on your jumper whilst holding it, okay? Take a look at the DIMM sockets – you’ll see each socket has a white button at either end? Select the socket you want to install the memory into (any will do) and push back each of the white buttons – these are actually clips which will hold the memory in place. Carefully place the memory in the slot (it will only go in one way, again, love those notches) and given it a gentle but firm press down. You’ll know if it’s in properly, as the white clips will snap back into place and will partly cover the corners of the memory. If the clips are still at an angle – give the memory anther gentle push down until you hear a click.

Step 8 – Fitting the DVD-RW

Next up, fitting the DVD drive. Now, I purchased a cheapish DVD-RW just in case there were any files on the server in the future that I wanted to burn to DVD there and then. The main reason you need a DVD is for installing the server software, plus motherboard drivers, so a very cheap DVD-ROM may be fine, if you’re on a budget. Take your DVD drive and the IDE cable and packet of screws that came in the Asus box.

Screw in one of the screws onto each side of the DVD drive – if the front of the drive is facing you, you need the screw in the top left ad top right hole nearest the drive door. Next, plug the IDE cable into the motherboard. Do this before you insert the drive, as once the drive is in, it obscures the IDE socket. Run the IDE cable through the DVD drive hole in the case and plug it into the back of the drive. Then slide the drive into the hole in the front of the box – you’ll hear a click (thanks to those screws you put in) when it’s in properly.

Then, all you need to do is to take a 4 pin power lead (it’s one of the tangle leads coming out of the power supply) and plug it into the back right hand side of the drive. And that’s the DVD drive sorted!

Step 9 – Fitting the Hard Drives

I went for two Western Digital 500Gb SATA hard drives – three reasons for this. Firstly, I want lots of storage space for all those MP3, photos and videos that I have now and in the future. 1 TB should be fine for now. Secondly, I want the drives to be fast – SATA speeds will help get backups done as quickly as possible. Thirdly, multiple drives. Windows Home Server includes technology that duplicates your files to more than one drive – therefore, if one drive fails, your files are safe on the other drive. Hurrah! So, two drives it is.

Fitting the drives was the fiddliest part if the installation – mainly because we’re dealing with a small form factor PC, and space was a little tight. First thing to do, fit one screw (again supplied with the Asus box) into each side of each drive, nearest the front of the drive (ie furthest away from the sockets at the back of the drive). These screws will sit in runners which guide the drive into place.

Next, take one of the orange SATA cables supplied with the Asus box, and plus it into the back of one of the drives. As you’re accustomed to now, it only fits one way. Plug the other end of this cable into the motherboard (there are two attractive orange SATA sockets). Again, one way only.

Now attach a SATA power cable to the drive – like with the DVD drive, this cable is leading from the power supply. Then insert the drive into place on the runners provided in the box. If you’re fitting two drives, make sure this first one goes into the lower of the two slots! It’s fiddly as there’s lots of cables in the way, but jiggle it around, and you’ll be there.

Repeat the above for Hard Drive 2, using the uppermost slot in the box. One the drive is in place, screw in a second screw to the right hand side of the drive (towards the back) to ensure the drive rests correctly on the runner at the rear of the drive.

Hey, guess what? You’ve just built yourself a home server!

Step 10 – Reassemble the Box

So, all we have to do now, is retrace the steps we made when opening up the box.

Firstly, re-attach the front panel, by inserting the “hinges” on the right hand side into the appropriate holes and clipping the front panel back to the metal frame. Ensure that all three plastic clips are seated correctly.

Now for that bar we removed earlier – open the metal lever at the back of the box, and insert the protruding parts of the bar into the holes at the opposite end of the box. Then rest the bar down on the frame. You may need to press down a little of there are cables in the way. Click the bar into place, then close the lever – this too should click into place.

Now, slide the cover into place and do up the screws at the back, and there you have it, you’ve definitely built yourself a server!

Don’t forget to stick on your Intel sticker, and why not sing the Intel inside jingle when you do so?

Now, find a location for your server – it needs power, an Ethernet cable to attach to your router, and that’s it! I’ve tucked mine away at the side of the bookcase, well out of the way.

Step 11 – Switch On!

Okay, once it’s all wired up, plug in a monitor, mouse and keyboard and press that power button. If you see this you’re ready to rock.

That completes the second of our Get Started guides – next up, we’ll walkthrough installing and configuring the Windows Home Server operating system.