So, i finally got around to building a Windows Home Server. Last week some time, while looking for something in my room, i found 2 motherboard boxes. both of which where heavy. so, being a bit courious, i opened them and found 2 full motherboards with processors, heatsinks and one having memory. one had an AMD 64 processor, the other a Dual core Intel. So, i decided since there was a dual core system lying idle, i decided to built it into a Home Server. I havent decided what to do with the other one yet, but stay tuned… :)

So, the machine i ended up building is definatly a frankinbox. it has a Dual core 1.6Gz Core 2 Duo processor (E2140), 512Mb RAM (of which, 8mb is used for the onboard graphics) and a total of 4 internal hard drives, soon to be 6. it will also get 2 external hard drives, one of which is currently connected, the other i am currently backing up the contents of.

Hard drives on Home Server

The machine has been up for the last couple of hours, and i have thrown quite a lot of stuff at it; films, music, etc. iTunes is currently relocating its library to a share on the home server, but its quite slow. not sure if the network card is a limitation. its currently got a 100mb/s nic. i have a 1Gb here and there is 1Gb in the MacPro, so, hopefully connecting both to a 1Gb switch will speed up the backup process.

Storage usage

There is some more storage to be added to this machine, using SATA and an extra USB External drive. the External drive is another 300Gb, and there is a 160 and 320gb SATA drive being added soon, which, by my calculations will bring the total to about 1.7Tb, before duplication, etc. also, some of the drives in the machine are a bit on the old side. only the 500gb is new. so, not sure about how much of that will be replaced…

Anyway, there are some things i still have to get working and to play with. these include the media sharing feature (wonder does it work with Media Center) and also getting the XBox 360 to talk to it… more on that later on…