The replacement motherboard for my home server has finally arrived! This is the ‘master’ post in which I’ll detail the configuration of the system, from software services to integration in the home network (MAC/WIN/LIN).
This is the server in its actual form. As you can see it is quite ‘unpleasant’ :)
atom NAS server assembled (well... almost)
The Hardware
The motherboard: asus AT3N7A-I: based upon the new combination of Intel Atom processor and Nvidia ION chipset. This little thing is capable of low power consumption and reproduction of 1080p video. Given this it will double as a HTPC, which is the segment it was designed for.
The major limitations of the board for becoming an expandable NAS server are the small number of SATA II ports (three) and the reduced expansion capabilities (a single PCI slot). The 3 RAID hard drives in the picture are attached through a SATA expansion card, which sports four additional sata ports, while the main drive for the OS and additional space is attached to the motherboard. With this configuration I have a spare on the expansion card and two spares on the motherboard. Will do some performance tests to find the perfect combination.
Then the board has gigabit ethernet, bluetooth and HDMI out. Perfect for HTPC. I tested it with XMBC and the overall system turns out to be ideal as a media center. With plenty of disk space attached it will provide an endless supply of video! cool!
A bad point of the motherboard is surely that nasty little fan that runs over the heatsink. I will have to find a way to reduce RPM, or to cut it off completely. The system must be very silent and up 24/7. It cannot be a noise machine as it currently is. I mean the fan noise is tolerable, but steady and in the long run can be annoying, at least for me. Right now – however – it is overtaken by the PSU fan, which is a cheapo one and for that very very noisy. I’ll find a way to silence that too!
The software
Everything will run upon the latest Ubuntu OS (regular version, not server, so to run XBMC or boxee). Right now I am using Karmic, which installed flawlessly off an usb drive. The only minor thing has been installation of the latest Nvidia driver: the one installed by default by Ubuntu at this point was too old and did not play well (at least at 1080p): compiz was not able to run, and the overall performance was slow and buggy. The latest Nvidia driver fixed this, but it had to be installed manually.
These are the components i’ve set up so far. Each has its own dedicated post with instructions, just click on the big buttons. If you’d like, you can suggest more home server sw in the comments!
| mdadm | Merge some hard drives into a single, speedier, bigger and more reliable drive with software RAID |
| ssh | Enable remote access to the server via any terminal of your network |
| netatalk | Share any folder of the server with macs in your network, set some networked storage to function as a drive for Leopard time machine |
| avahi | Advertise the folders served to macs so that they show up in finder |
| mt-daapd | Share music folders on the servers to iTunes in your local network |
| XBMC | Set up the best media center out there and squeeze out the power of the atom/ion platform |
The installs have been made with Karmic, so some distribution specific workarounds apply (netatalk, xbmc). If you are using a newer version these workarounds may not be applicable anymore and installing might be as simple as doing apt-get install.
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