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I was thinking to build an home server. What I focus on the most is low power consumption.

It should be able to run CentOS with a webserver, a trasmission client, host git repos, and maybe a DNS server for my local network.

Storage is not important since I already have more than one NAS.

I was inspired by this article and wanted to use it as a guideline. The case used in the article have 2x2.5"HDD bays, so i thought about 2x 320 or 500GB 7200RPM HDD, connected in RAID 1.

case: http://www.habeyusa.com/products_show.php?id=436#Menu=ChildMenu0

But, I wasn't able to find a mini-itx motherboard (in a reasonable price and power consumption range), that could support RAID.

Another option is using one single SSD, which should be more reliable than an HDD, and should use less power.

Are those two assumptions right? Is it ok for a server with that scope use an SSD (i can backup important files on one NAS, and since it'll host git repos, those will be also on 1-2 more pc).

And one more question: Is an Atom CPU capable of running a web-server, a DNS-server, and a bit-torrent client simultaneously?

Thank you in advance for the time you took reading, and for your answers.

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Currently, SSD's are still considered less reliable than HDD's but I would still recommend the use of an SSD for fast boot and low power consumption (and so would Jeff Atwood :-)

Just make sure you follow the usual recommendations regarding backups so that when it does fail you can quickly sort it out.

As for your Atom question - simple answer is yes, but under heavy load it may not do as well as a more powerful processor :-)

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  • Thank you! I had read somewhere that since there wasn't moving parts, the SSDs were more durable. For the backups, a simple shell script that compress every important folder and send it to a NAS is ok? and third, I don't think it will have to support heavy loads! thank you again for the answer, very helpful!
    – Francesco Zaffaroni
    Commented Jan 26, 2013 at 10:22
  • I originally had my server running MS Server 2008 R2 on a standard HDD, but later replaced it with an SSD for speed. One of the best IT decisions I have made yet, especially regarding remote desktop.
    – Josh Campbell
    Commented Jan 26, 2013 at 10:49
  • One more easy question: does this intel.com/p/en_US/support/highlights/dsktpboards/db-d525mw support sata SSD?
    – Francesco Zaffaroni
    Commented Jan 26, 2013 at 11:04
  • @FrancescoZaffaroni - If you end up wanting an ITX with Raid support, there are PCI cards to enable that. Also, wouldn't the server be replacing the NAS, so why offload backups there instead of internal redundancy (and maybe a USB3.0 HDD). I know your question was answered, but that part puzzled me a little bit.
    – nerdwaller
    Commented Jan 26, 2013 at 16:15
  • @nerdwaller Because I didn't know a PCI card could enable RAID. And no the server won't replace the NASes, i have to keep them to have more storage. In your opinion a SSD RAID1 is good?
    – Francesco Zaffaroni
    Commented Jan 26, 2013 at 16:45

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