Server in a Closet

WARNING : This is a long and geeky post. It is also in English. If you don't like any of these, please press Ctrl-F4.

Well, the situation in the living room is pretty fixed : A Samsung Plasma 50'' TV, accompanied with a PS3 and an Onkyo A/V receiver with B&W MT-20 speakers. The furniture is custom-designed and manufactured in a way that any expansion is (at least visually) impossible...


... or so it seems ! Behind the sturdy cabinet there are some thru-wall holes that end inside the closet of the adjacent room ! This closet (a part of it actually) hosts the phone line, the internet router and a gigabit switch which awaits (for over a year) for something more juicy ...


How about a fully featured and economic DLNA media server ? Here are my requirements :

1) DLNA enabled (for streaming photos/music/video to PS3 - not transcoding)
2) RAID1 for data security
3) Remotely managed (no monitor/keyboard/mouse)
4) Low power consumption
5) Ready for : torrent client, FTP server, printer server etc.
6) Not more than €300

Sounds difficult, having in mind that similar NAS solutions like these are very very pricey. However, let's give it a try :


1) Motherboard ASRock N68PV-GS for €41 (Mini ATX, on board RAID, GLAN, VGA)
2) CPU AMD LE-1640 for €31 (Slow, but more than enough for streaming media)
3) 2 x 1 GB SuperTalent DDR2 800 MHz for €21 (more than enough)
4) 2 x 1 TB WD Caviar Green 32 MB cache for €158 (for total 1 TB secure RAID1)
5) 2 x 12 mm fans for €18 (it will get hot in there !)

Subtotal : €249 ! There are €51 more to spend on DIY stuff. So let's begin :

Well, we also need a PSU, but I already had an old 20pin one. No prob though, this little diamond (N68PV-GS) supported it ! Here's the initial installment (I strongly suggest a surge-protected outlet) :


Next step, motherboard mounting. Found some old metal hex nuts, marked the holes, drilled and plugged them in the wood firmly.


Mounting the motherboard was a piece of cake. Four screws did the job fine !


Where did the rest of the money go ? Well, a custom-open-HDD-rack is an excellent idea, as suggested here. Bought the materials, cut to size, drilled, riveted etc and here it is :


The idea was easily transferred to the two fans as well. It was the least I could do since the rig-in-the-closet will get hot for sure !


Here comes the messy part. All the above components (including a floppy and a CDROM) had to be mounted together temporarily, in order to tune the BIOS, format the RAID array and install Windows. The installation was flawless (even after using the ugly floppies for installing the RAID driver) !


After the above mess (not proud for that), everything useless was thrown away and, with the aid of a few wood-screws, the hardware took its final and neat form. No monitor, no keyboard, no mouse, but only ...



UltraVNC !!!

This gem is awesome. However, you first have to sign up to DynDNS.com, get your own host name and configure your router to continually renew your (dynamic) IP address (or use the excellent DynDNS updater if the router doesn't support updating). Then, install the free UltraVNC (server only), open the necessary ports in your router and here you go.

You can access the imaginary desktop of your monitorless rig from everywhere ! This includes using not only the dedicated UltraVNC client but also a simple web-browser ! The possibilities are endless...


For the record, idle temperatures with the door closed are 48 °C for the CPU and 42 °C for the 'case' ;) Pretty cool I suppose. The SpeedFan utility is highly recommended for monitoring this stuff. Not only it shows the above valuable information, but you can also configure it to alert you by e-mail or even shutdown the system when any selected parameter exceeds a threshold value (i.e. CPU temperature over 60 °C). Of course I did it, using an email account that also provides SMS notification ! Geeky !!!

For media streaming, it is needless to say that I installed TVersity. Really great for my PS3 system, since everything is already wired under gigabit ethernet. All formats supported by the PS3 are played fine. Last but not least, uTorrent is another necessary addition to the system :)

This post will continue... and here's a teaser :


Well, as I promised, here's the UPDATE (24/07/09)

Now it's time for the sugar on top; that's a graphical LCD panel displaying realtime system information, together with a power led, HDD led and a power switch, all assembled on a shelf, over the whole rig.

The necessary stuff was : a 240x128 pixel graphical LCD (GLCD) module, the parallel interface PCB (designed and built some time ago for my main desktop PC), the necessary cables, an aluminum faceplate designed in CorelDRAW and professionally laser-routed and, finally, the wooden shelf.


Since the faceplate design was very accurate the assembly of the control panel was a rather easy task !


Now comes the hard part : the wooden shelf had to be cut through and drilled for the faceplate to fit in. No problem since I am a proud owner of the most ingenious power tool ever made.


Four bolts/washers/nuts and everything is firmly in place ! Here's the back of the panel.


The only thing left is to place the shelf on the closet and plug the wires on the motherboard (power switch, power led, HDD led, USB power and parallel data cable for the GLCD).




The GLCD is running LCDStudio, a simple yet powerful driver software, displaying all the necessary system information of the media server.


The media server is now ready ! I am closing the door and let it run 24/7 !