Built my own...http://norman.walsh.name/2009/10/15/builtMyOwn12352009-10-15T21:31:15-04:00NormanWalsh2009Norman WalshAnother geekdom right of passage: builing my own box.As I noted
back in June, I've
always wanted to build my own box. Now I have.I don't, in retrospect, claim to have learned what “the right answer” is,
but here's the answer I arrived at:AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition CPUI was more than a little amused at the discrepancy between the
size of the CPU and the size of the aluminum and copper monstrosity that sits on
top of it to keep it cool:ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 790GX HDMI ATX AMD motherboard4 x G.Skill 2GB 240-pin DDR3 1600 memory4 x WD Caviar Green 1TB SATA hard drivesLG Black 8x BD-ROM 16x DVD-ROM 40x CD-ROM SATA LightScribe burnerAPEVIA ATX-AS680W-BL 680W ATX12V/EPS12V SLI power supplyXCLIO Windtunnel ATX Full Tower caseI was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to assemble. The documentation
was clear and complete, the parts all well labelled; it went together without
a hitch.(For a few more pictures, see
Custom
Build 2009 on
Flickr.)
I decided to run bleeding-edge
Ubuntu 9.10 Server beta
on it. It's not that I wouldn't like to try
Solaris and
ZFS, but…the days are short and the list of projects
is long. Installing Ubuntu is just that little bit easier. Ubuntu 9.10
installed flawlessly.The ASUS motherboard includes a video controller and assorted other
controllers. It claims to do RAID,
but a little investigation reveals that
it's fakeraid
so I abandoned it. Instead, I setup software RAID. The first disk
is the boot disk, the remaining three provide 2TB of disk in a RAID5
configuration.The case, for all those monstrous fans, is pretty quiet, but not silent.
I still think the server might get relocated to the basement, except that
I worry about the higher humidity.Anyway,
MarkLogic Server is up-and-running and as soon as I get my
Micro-blogging backup configuration
ported over, I promise I'll write that next installment…