Storage and VMWare Server Build

[kingswass]

wow, i typed out a huge post and my browser crashed as i hit post.

Anyway, this is my first post and I just want to say it is really great to be able to join your group here. I am sure I will learn a lot from all of you.

I was hoping I could get pointed in the right direction or get some suggestions on my next computer build. I will just bullet my ideas for the sake of not taking up a lot of time.

- As many HDDs as possible. I'm not really thinking SSDs but always up for debate.
- Looking to run windows server, then vm another installation of windows server and run a dedicated email and web server off of that. I could then VM other OS's for experimentation. I plan to have a public XP one for the room mates.
- Water Cool ?
- Vid Card with HDMI. Is there a way to input my cable tv signal through the computer and just watch it that way? Cause im sick of switching inputs all the time on my 7.1 stereo reciever.
- Media player software?? or hardware device. something with a nice interface, can play mkv's .. i'll probably get into full bluray releases at some point too

Thanks for your time

 

[-RockMan-]

wow, i typed out a huge post and my browser crashed as i hit post.

Anyway, this is my first post and I just want to say it is really great to be able to join your group here. I am sure I will learn a lot from all of you.

I was hoping I could get pointed in the right direction or get some suggestions on my next computer build. I will just bullet my ideas for the sake of not taking up a lot of time.

- As many HDDs as possible. I'm not really thinking SSDs but always up for debate.
- Looking to run windows server, then vm another installation of windows server and run a dedicated email and web server off of that. I could then VM other OS's for experimentation. I plan to have a public XP one for the room mates.
- Water Cool ?
- Vid Card with HDMI. Is there a way to input my cable tv signal through the computer and just watch it that way? Cause im sick of switching inputs all the time on my 7.1 stereo reciever.
- Media player software?? or hardware device. something with a nice interface, can play mkv's .. i'll probably get into full bluray releases at some point too

Thanks for your time

Newegg.com - MSI 990FXA-GD80V2 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
Newegg.com - AMD FX-6100 Zambezi 3.3GHz Socket AM3+ 95W Six-Core Desktop Processor FD6100WMGUSBX
Newegg.com - Crucial Ballistix 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model BLT2KIT4G3D1869DT1TX0
Newegg.com - Sentey Extreme Division GS-6500B Burton Blue Tower Case 6x Fan LED/ 4 x USB / Multi Card Reader / 4 x Fan Control / E-SATA / 6 x Removable Aluminum Bays / Screwless
Newegg.com - ZOTAC ZT-60405-10L GeForce GT 630 Synergy Edition 4GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
Newegg.com - LG Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 12X DVD-RAM 10X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA 12X Super Multi Blue with 3D Playback & M-DISC Support WH12LS39 LightScribe Support - Blu-Ray Burners
If you know how to make an external housing for DVD/CD drives with usb 2.0 or recent 3.0 connector this would work out best for you, when your friends need access to files from a dvd archive.
Everything for now, your looking at around for 409.00 is close to it, minus the hard drives and os's
Hard drive wise, personally I recommend you get normal sata hdd's, I don't recommend ssd's in your setup if you will have it on 24/7 and users going in and out of the interface all the time.
Yes, you can add a tv tuner card if you want to, check on amazon.com and see what work best for your work station.

 

[carnageX]

Liquid cooling isn't really necessary for a server, IMO.

A LOT of RAM and HDD space will be needed, especially if he's going to be doing VM's. A decent CPU would be beneficial to run multiple VM's at once. IMO, focus mainly on HDD space, and RAM.

 

[-RockMan-]

Liquid cooling isn't really necessary for a server, IMO.

A LOT of RAM and HDD space will be needed, especially if he's going to be doing VM's. A decent CPU would be beneficial to run multiple VM's at once. IMO, focus mainly on HDD space, and RAM.

Carne, I just got back in just now from alot of errands, what do you recommend for his multiple hard drive needs ?

I was going to offer up seagate hdd at 5 a piece under 500gb's.
Last time I used seagate was the end of 2009 when I had my celeron dual core.
Also, I was going to pony him up with a G34 opteron, but last I checked those motherboards sockets were bit too much. @_@
Thats why I thought I might start off with fx6100 for his small server inside a apartment or dome complex.

Oh yeah don't hit me about the name, but spider man used that every once and awhile in the old 1994-95 cartoon days. <_<

 

[carnageX]

Kinda depends if he plans on doing any kind of RAID or not. I don't recommend RAID0 for a file/web server. RAID1 would pry be best, but that would only give him half of his available storage actually usable.