Windows Home Server 2011 Build

We recently traded our trusty Synology Disk Station NAS box for a Windows Home Server built from scratch. We wanted a low powered system with room for up to six hard drives. The entire build was cheaper than many of the high end NAS boxes you can buy. We selected components that would offer fast processing for file transfers while conserving as much power as possible so that it could be left running 24/7. The following is the list of parts for this build. Let us know what you think.

Home Server Build

Case – Lian Li PC-Q25 – $120
Motherboard – ASUS E35M1-I – $125
Memory – G-Skill ECO DDR3 1333 4GB – $32
PSU – SilverStone ST50F-P 500W – $80
OS Hard Drive -Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB (WD3200AAJS) – $43
Storage Hard Drives  – 2x  Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB (WD5000AAKS) – $100
OS – Windows Home Server 2011 OEM – $53

Total Cost: $553

The choice to use the Lian-Li PC-Q25 was not a difficult one at all. The only other case that we really liked that offered enough storage options for our build was the Fractal Array R2. That model comes complete with a 300W PSU that would have been more than enough for our build, but the PC-Q25 allowed us to use a SilverStone ST50F-P 500W that we already had and reduce the build cost.

The ASUS motherboard that we picked for this build worked out perfect. The E35M1-I uses AMD’s integrated Dual-Core Processor E-350 with AMD Radeon HD 6310 Graphics. This server will be running headless (no monitor attached) most of the time, so integrated graphics will save on our budget and power consumption. This board is also the only one we could find at the time that had six SATA ports to connect all of our hard drives and still leave an upgrade path for future drive installs. The system does not have an optical drive installed. We installed the operating system with an external DVD drive, but placing the install files on a USB flash drive is also an option. More pictures of the final build coming soon…

*Image credit – ASUS