November 19th, 2007
Building a Windows Home Server - the easy way!
So, you’re thinking about building your own home server based on Microsoft’s latest OS, Windows Home Server and want some pointers as to the best hardware to use. You’ve come to the right place! Here I’m going to take a look at the components that you’ll need to put together a robust, reliable and economical home server.
Windows Home Server
The first thing that you need is a copy of Windows Home Server, and that brings us straight up against licensing difficulties. There’s no such thing as a retail copy of Windows Home Server, so you’re going to have to take the OEM route. This means no tech support from Microsoft and it also means that your copy of Windows Home Server will be bound to the motherboard that you’ll use as the basis for the system. You can pick up an OEM copy of Windows Home Server for between $169 and $189 (so shop around).
CPU and Motherboard
Once you have the software, it’s time to get the hardware sorted out. I’m going to start off with the CPU and motherboard. The good thing about the Windows Home Server operating system is that you don’t need monster hardware to run it on. 
Remember, the main purpose of Windows Home Server is to move data about, something that’s not all that system intensive. Throwing too much hardware at Windows Home Server will only waste power and generate excess heat. The Microsoft spec suggests a 1GHz CPU, 512MB of RAM and 160GB hard drive, and throwing more gigahertz or RAM at the OS makes little difference to the data transfer performance. As the basis for a system I’d suggest a modest CPU such as the AMD Sempron 3200+. You could go for something beefier like an Intel Core 2 Duo but all you’ll be doing is chucking away money so that you can chuck away more money easting electricity. Take my advice and stick with a low power consumption CPU (the Sempron 3200+ comes in 62W and 35W flavors, so try to get the 35W version if you can).
When it comes to choosing a motherboard for the home server, you’re looking for something cheap, something that doesn’t have fancy features (such as 7.1 surround sound or Firewire and so forth) and something that has plenty of connectors for hard drives (ATA, SATA or both, depending on what drives you’re going to use) and a network connector (preferably 1 gigabit). You’re also not going to need loads of PCI or PCI-e slots either since little or nothing is going to be hooked up to them. Again, don’t blow dough on fancy stuff. However, it might be a good idea to look for a board with on-board VGA (I’ll explain why later). If you got money burning holes in your pocket you might as well spend it on fireworks because spending it on a fancy board sure won’t give you a faster or better home server. Gigabit, MSI and ABIT all make boards that will be ideally suited to home server application.
Heatsink and fan
When it comes to cooling your CPU, you have some choices. You can stick with the stock cooler if you don’t care about sound levels. The stock coolers will work just fine under the stresses of running Windows Home Server. However, you might want something quieter (stock coolers are anything but quiet) and if you’ve chosen an AMD Sempron CPU you might want to check out the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro, or the Akasa AK-876
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Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
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| 11/19/07
