Building a home server - Choice of components & complete installation guide

welcome to the first video from building a Home Server series the purpose of the server and other IT infrastructure will be camera surveillance file server and media consumption occasional rendering and in-house systems monitoring and control not everyone likes the cloud solutions which have limited privacy are dependent on internet speed availability and having to pay for data storage on a regular basis not everyone likes the out-of-the-box solutions which provide limited performance expandability and are very expensive some people like to do things their own way and if you're one of them then this video is for you in the first part of this video I'll be looking at the choice of the components and their limitations in the second part I'll be assembling them together into a server now the following videos from this series will focus on rate configuration OS installation networking performance testing camera setup and other activities which are necessary to get the whole server infrastructure running but that will be later before we get to the individual components let's have a look at 7 characteristics I took into consideration before choosing them reliability is the most important because you want an uninterrupted service of the server and some guarantee you won't lose your data in case of an email function or incident therefore the redundancy of key components is necessary mainly the hard drives which hold the data because if you lose them you can't get them back unless you have a backup and to be able to make a backup you mustn't lose them in the first place the longer you run any system the higher the probability of occurring errors so the error correction capability your memory is definitely welcome and last but not least the expected lifespan of components and their warranty is important when you plan on running the server for several years 24/7 because not all components are of the same quality all this translated into practical anguish means that a loose redundant hard drives and SSDs a loose also ECC memory modules and high quality components from well-known vendors with solid warranty performance means in this particular use case the ability to run multiple tasks at once with some Headroom it needs to be able to cover the load Peaks that means the situations when multiple users are using the server at once it should also allow the possibility of future virtualization which requires having enough CPU cores enough memory and disk space translate it into practical language I wanted a CPU which supports PCI Express 4.0 ECC memory modules and has enough course when it comes to noise I need the server to be as silent as possible the goal is to reach noise level which is lower than 36 decibels because it will be placed close to the living area I'll be using silent fans on the cooler case with sound dampening material and a silent power supply and a passively cool GPU goes to run 24/7 translates mainly into power consumption of the whole solution the lower the power consumption the lower the excess heat which also helps the cooling the server should consume under hundred watts in idle with all disks connected and running when something is supposed to run for 24/7 for years it is wise to use as effective power supply as possible because you don't want to pay for electricity more than it's absolutely necessary which means that you need to use titanium level power supply now to the price when you choose consumer grade hardware the prices are significantly lower than when using the commercial solutions and the same goes for the price of potential upgrades or service costs you don't get the same level of reliability but the truth is that you don't really need it for this type of use case if you have any potential downtime you don't suffer any financial losses or anyone's life is an endanger serviceability and expandability means to be able to exchange or upgrade components at will with least amount of difficulty or time needed because you'll be the one doing it you also need to think of the future upgrades so choosing a large PC case with comfortable access to all components without the necessity of taking it out of its place is something that will make your life easier it should also have plenty of space for additional hard drives and SSDs a motherboard with sufficient connectivity and PCI Express 4.0 to be future proof when it comes to dimensions it has to fit within limited space I have very limited space which doesn't allow me to use standard server cases which would require standard server rack if I had more space I would probably go for a 3u server case with 16 positions for hard drives which would make any potential upgrades even easier now let's have a look at the components individually let's begin with the obvious the amb risin 3900 X CPU it has the performance of first gen 16 cores a Draper and a TDP of 105 watts although it's more close two hundred and fifty in real-life conditions especially under full load I needed something future-proof that last me for the next at least seven years and at this price point which is currently under four hundred and fifty dollars there isn't any real competition if I had to choose a cheaper alternative I would probably opt for 3700 X that means eight cores 16 threads but I really wouldn't go any lower because if you want to use virtualization there is really no substitute for not having enough course every CPU which is supposed to run 24/7 operation it's a good cooler this Noctua and HD 15 se in four is one of the best air CPU coolers available on the market as you know I tested it against almond few weeks ago and it proved to be a worthy competitor it has soy performance while staying very quiet and the note 2 events are known for their reliability I have some in my other PC which have been running there for almost eight years without any problems so that's definitely a good thing this cooler has 240 millimeter fans and a large heat saying it probably won't fit into every case so make sure you check out the dimensions before making any purchase decisions it's cheaper than most of the water coolers but more expensive than most of the air coolers for a server most important thing is reliability so I prefer something which would be just spinning over something else which would be both spinning and pumping the liquid at the same time the water pumps have limited lifespan and the liquid can leak or potentially dry out when I was choosing a motherboard for the X 517 platform there was a wide choice one of the better equipped motherboards was this gigabyte xi7 II or a semester which has solid 14 face VR amps for powering that's likely to long last and the good connectivity it has 3 PCIe nvme M the 2 slots and two Gigabit LAN cards one of them potentially two and a half gig depending on the rest of the capabilities of the network it has of course PCI engine 4 slots which make it at least somewhat future-proof but rest of the capabilities like the RGB controls or high quality audio are completely irrelevant for this use case because it's going to be locked into a case which has no windows and into a custom rack which also has no windows so it will be completely invisible most servers in data centers use ECC memory modules since this is going to be a server although running at home I'm going to use them I know that it's going to be at a cost of performance because the rice and chips perform best when their memory modules are set to 3600 megahertz the fastest memory modules I was able to get for this motherboard where these crucial twenty six hundred and sixty six megahertz dims running at 0:19 if you ever decide to go for ECC memory modules make sure to check out your motherboard manufacturers compatibility list before buying when I was looking for a GPU for this server belt I had too many characteristics in mind first it should be completely silent therefore passively cooled and second it should have a low power consumption at idle after meeting them I was looking for a GPU which had 4k output capability as you see I ended up with pallet GeForce GTX 1050 TI which I already have a good experience with from my other PC builds so that's why I opted for it there is also a 1650 version of this one and it's probably 30% faster so that's another option I covered the thermal characteristics of this one in my unboxing video so if you're interested you can have a look at it other than that when I was choosing these Pacifico GPUs I found out that there really isn't a wide choice on the market so I opted for something I have a good experience with one of the most overlooked components in PC builds are power supplies since this is going to be a server running 24/7 operation the power efficiency and stability are the keys as you see I ended up with see Sonic prime Quattro titanium 650 watt version power supply which is able to achieve 93% efficiency it loads around hundred watts and stay silent up to 30 percent load although this is a high quality PSU there is going to be only one in this build so there is no redundancy which makes it a vulnerability it will be fed with line-interactive UPS so hopefully it will stay live for the next seven years data are the most important asset on a server therefore I have decided to protect mine with raid 1 configuration the advantage of this solution is that in case of a drive failure you can swap the drives easily without waiting for the long rail rebuild like in other raid configurations there will be one exception and that is this crucial MX 500 drive at 2 terabytes capacity which I use for temporary falls only therefore no redundancy is needed for OS installation I have decided to go with Corsair and P 510 drives at 480 gig capacity because of their endurance normally I would have gone with Samsung 970 pro-drive which is my favorite for OS installations but in this case scenario where the data need to be written continuously into a database the durability is more important these drives have 800 terabyte writes durability and this one only 600 there is of course a performance difference Samsung's faster but also a price difference these drives cost almost half as much as this one so in this case scenario the durability is more important for the standard files I have decided to go with Seagate unwalled drives at 6 terabytes capacity which are standard for nest installations when it comes to surveillance drives I've decided to go with Seagate Skyhawks at 4 terabytes capacity which I already have a good experience with from previous installations so I'll use them again this time when it comes to future expandability of the server I have decided to wait because there still an ABC agent for controller on the market and since I have a PC engine four capable motherboard I'd like to use it so I'll wait some time and see what happens because of the space and noise limitations that I have I couldn't use a standard server case standard server cases usually need to be mounted horizontally like this one and they require a rack for placement I have only 35 centimeters from the wall and I need to put it on a shelf so I decided to go with standard PC case in this case anoxia deep silence v revision B which has 11 three and a half inch drive of base and two uses 340 millimeter fans for cooling and a sound dampening material to keep it all quiet I think that's it for the source of the components for this build so let's get to it I have decided to do this part of the video in a detailed style so that even people who have never assembled a PC before can make use of it there are a couple things that need to be done before we begin with the assembly and that is to make things easier and safer the first one is getting rid of the boxes that means unpacking the case CPU GPU power supply and the CPU cooler make sure to keep all the accessories which were included close by because we'll need them the manuals can be kept separately because we will need only some of them by getting rid of the boxes I don't mean destroying them because we may find out that some of the parts are DOA or don't work properly and need to be returned to the seller so for this case the boxes need to be kept intact until we find out everything's fine the second thing we'll need is a monitor keyboard and a mouse because after we put the components together you'll need to get into the BIOS and find out whether they work next thing is a paper bin you'll need it after the installation of the CPU and the cooler because you'll be using these paper towels for cleanup and you'll need to dispose them the third thing we'll need is to make sure of the safety you'll need five things quality electric outlet which is grounded and ideally has surge protection ESD bracelet ESD gloves and ESD mat yes d stands for electrostatic discharge it is to protect you from discharging your body electricity into your components because you might damage them permanently the gloves are also for your protection because the case and the heating of the cooler may have sharp edges and you might cut yourself also you don't want to have fingerprints all over the components in case and the last thing is this plastic mat which you can buy for a dollar in Home Depot or similar shops and it is to protect you from scratching your table by the case so when you pick something big something ideally which is electrically non-conductive the fourth thing you'll need are these tools these are necessary and these are voluntary the most important is this Phillips head screwdriver with magnetic head and that's for screwing any school during the installation except for one situation and that is installation of the m22 SSDs that's what this smaller one is for this blade is for cutting any plastic straps or sacks long Phillips screwdriver was part of the accessories of the CPU cooler that's for its installation the flash drive is for installing the new bios into the motherboard because all the motherboards come with all the bios is this one is 32 gigabytes but 8 gigabytes is fine or even smaller now these tools are to make your life much easier I'm all about comfort during the installation so whenever I encounter anything that can make my life easier I start using it this small screwdriver is something that I use for opening stuff instead of my nails this Philips head screwdriver small one is for untying the thumb screws on the back of the case this is a magnet so whenever I drop any screw inside the case or anywhere else I just pick it up with this one then this tool in combination with this five millimeter nut is for tying the standoffs for the motherboard into the case really makes ton of difference these Clippers are for cutting any cables or plastic straps the electric screwdriver in combination with this magnetic bit holder that's a deadly combination once you start using it you can't go back so I can't go back the extension for this magnetic bit holder is something that I use when I can't reach somewhere the scissors are for cutting any plastic sacks or straps or paper just anything when it is to do with it and the plastic sacks are for the installation of the CPU I use it when installing the thermal compound on the surface of the CPU so we all need just one of them the last few things I haven't talked about and which are on the table is this plastic organizer box which I use for unpacking all the screws from original sacks and this tray which are used for unpacking the screws from the original case accessories to make it easily accessible and when it comes to the cables from the power supply I left inside this original sack only PCI Express cables because the graphics card doesn't have be here Express connector one last thing before we begin do not use any excessive force during the installation and do not over tighten the screws the components are very fragile you'll also see me using this electric screwdriver a lot so if you decide to use it as well make sure to check your torque settings first and try it on something else which is not so fragile before you begin using it now we can begin with the installation the first thing I'm going to do is to remove my watch because I won't be needing it and second thing I'm going to do is to take the gloves we won't be needing these cables because these are PCI Express and as I mentioned the graphics card doesn't have PCI Express connectors so I'll take it away the first thing we need to do is remove both side panels of the case so we can get inside to do that I'll unscrew these thumb screws and remove the side panel the same thing here now that we have the case fully open we can install inside the power supply it will act as a grounding device so that's why we are doing it first before we proceed with the installation we will test it with a supply power supply tester which was included in the accessories not all power supplies have this included so you might not be able to do it if yours doesn't have it but this one does so we'll do it to test the power supply we will need a 24-pin power cable which is this one I put all the other cables away we will also need this power cable so I will untie it and connect it to the power supply there is only one way of doing it and that is this way I'm also making sure that this switch is switched off and this other switch which switches the power supply into hybrid mode is switched on which means that it's in normal mode because in hybrid mode it doesn't work so now I'll connect the 24 pin power cable there is only one way of connecting it there are these notches at the back so I'll plug them one by one and now you need a power supply tester which was included in the accessories it will be connected to this 24 pin I'll take it out it looks like this there is also only one way of connecting it so we will find the notch on the power supply tester and on the 24 pin and connect them it clicks in nicely and now it's ready to be tested to do that we will need to plug it into electricity so let's do it now now I'll plug it in I'll switch on the power and as you see the fan started spinning which means that it's working now I'll switch it off because we know everything's fine and I'll unplug the power supply and we can start using it before we can install the power supply into the case we need to remove this main power cable and also what we need to do or want to do is to connect all these power cables because it would be difficult to do it after the power supply is inside the case so let's do it now now we can connect the modular power cables we will begin with the mobile axes the molex power cables look like this just for you to know what we are connecting they are used for powering older components the part which goes into the power supply is this 6 pin it is unlabeled but we know that it small lakhs and molex is also on this label on the power supply we will begin from this side so I'll connect it there is only one way of connecting it and that is with this notch down so you can do it wrong this is another one times 2 molex power cable so I'll connect it next to the first one now these are SATA cables they are usually used for powering the hard drives in the past they were used for powering CD DVD and blu-ray drives but nobody or not many people use them anymore generally they are now used mostly for the hard drives also I'll use the six pin connector to connect it to the power supply I'll do that I'll move it away for now now this is a 1 x 2 SATA power cable so that the last one I can connect there what you see here is a molex to SATA reduction cable I'm not sure whether we will need it but if we do we will need it later so I will put it away for now and last but not least are these CPU power cables the part which is connected to the power supply is the one which says PSU power supply unit and there are these 4 connectors I can connect it to so I will start from the ones which are down the part which goes to the motherboard is the one which has CPU there are these two four pin connectors which are connected to the motherboard as one but some motherboards don't require eight pin just four pin so that's where they are divided the last connector I'm going to connect to the power supply is this one and now everything is ready we can move to the next step before I place the power supply into the case I'll remove these cables away so that we have comfortable space for it also the ones which are for powering the fans then I'll remove these stickers because there is really no need for them so I'll use this screwdriver [Music] now I'll place the power supply inside the case there are these rubber stands there is not too much space but I'll manage now it's sitting there comfortably there are few important things you should know about our supply placement if you have a semi-finalist power supply like i do it is better for it if it's placed top cover upward that means facing the motherboard because the natural dissipation of hot air is upward if you have a passive or passively cooled power supply you must position it this way otherwise it will overheat if you have a normal power supply that means the fan is spinning all the time it would be better for it if you turn it the other way around that means the top cover facing the bottom of the case so that it could suck the cold air from the bottom and cool itself even better but you must make sure there holes in the case otherwise you would choke it and the last step is that if you have a heat generating component like the graphics card or RAID controller especially in the last PCI Express slot you could help cooling it by having this power supply placed this way because it could suck the hot air from underneath it outside the first thing I'm going to do is to check if the holes inside the case are aligned with the holes inside the power supply for the screws then now take the screws which were provided with the case and fill them in and now it's finished now I'll check if the power supply is still switched off it is so I can remove the power supply tester and connect the power cable and now I can plug it into electricity the case and the power supply are now grounded now it's time to ground the mat I'll connect it to the case using these alligator clips so it should be easy the met is grounded now now will ground myself so I'll use this strap you need to make sure that this metal part is touching your skin otherwise it wouldn't work and also make sure that it's tight enough that it's really touching your skin and the last thing is you need to make sure that this is turned towards the part you're going to be grounded by in this case the case so now I'll connect it and I am grounded now as well during the installation what may happen is that I'll disconnect myself because I also need to operate the camera but when you are going through the installation you should be connected at all times now it's time to have a look at the motherboard because we need to prepare it for the installation the keyboard and the mouse can stay on this table because we will be needing them but later now all tape pull the motherboard and this box because you will need the box as well and remove the motherboard from this box practically and with the books on the books of the motherboard right now but soon we will need it now I'll turn the case to its back making sure that I don't scratch the table now we can see inside the case nicely first thing we need to check if there are any installed standoffs as you can see there are no pre-installed standoff so we will need to use our own which were part of the accessories of the case in order to know where to place them we will need to look at them at the board and check it I'll take it out of its sack the motherboard has 9 holes for the standoffs every ATX motherboard has 9 so there is really no difference you also need 9 screws to screw them in but before we do that we need to check if the motherboard has a / installed IO shield this one does otherwise you would need to install this IO shield before placing it in there is a space for it and also when you're holding them at the board make sure you're holding it by the edges and you have gloves so that you don't leave fingerprints on it now I'll slide it in slowly and carefully at an angle which makes it easier and it slides into the hole now I can see where the standoffs will be placed so I can take it out now and we can begin with the standoffs installation there are several ways of installing the motherboard standoffs one of them is trying to do them in by hand which I do not recommend but let's try it for once I'll take it and try to screw it inside the hole now it goes only to a certain degree I can't fully put it in I'll try the tool that the case manufacturer provided which is this yeah that goes easier but I can't still fully screw it in so I'll try to a screwdriver yeah and now I can fully tighten it this is handy but not all case manufactures provided so you may need to use other solution and I'll try the second one this one is a little bit easier for this one I wouldn't need anything let's try the next one now this one is more difficult it doesn't want to go in fully so what I'll do I'll use this tool with combination with this five millimeter nut and screw it in in my opinion that's the most comfortable way of doing it because I have the most amount of torque in my fingers yeah this is absolutely the best way to do it so I'll continue with the rest now it's finished now I'll check if the motherboard fits in without any problems it takes just a few seconds and it's worth trying so you know everything's ready so I'll slide it in gently making sure that I'm not dragging the motherboard by the standoffs I'm trying to align this last row with the standoffs and I can already see that it's fine so now I'll take it out and we can start the installation of the CPU before we begin with the CPU installation I'll remove this plastic and I'll look to the back of the motherboard to see if there is a original backplate pre-installed it is because you'll need it for the installation of the Noctua cooler next thing we'll also need is to remove these four screws which are holding these two plastic brackets because we won't be needing them [Music] [Music] now it's removed now I'll install secure from two mounting system for the Noctua heatsink now I'll take the standoffs and put them on top of the holes of the back plate and I'll take these mounting bars and put them on top of them I'll make sure that they are put this side and I'll use the screws [Music] I'll tighten the screws and this part is finished now we can start with the CPU installation it is the most delicate part of the whole PC assembly first thing we need to do is to take this lever and put it upwards it opens the socket for the CPU now we'll take the CPU and take it out of its cover when you're holding it you need to hold it by the edges and when we look at it closely you can see that there is a little arrow in the corner and it tells us that we should position it arrow to arrow one is on the CPU socket so that's how we should put it in no force is necessary as you see it didn't make even a sound now I'll try feeling it doesn't feel at all and now I can close the CPU socket the CPU is now installed now we can install em due to SSDs I'll do a little unboxing before we begin with the installation of the SSDs we need to make sure we have standoffs and small screws for them they were part of the accessories of the motherboard so I'll bring it these are the standoffs and the screws you'll need them now first thing we need to do is to remove these two heat sinks which are held by these two screws and to remove them we'll need this small Phillips head screwdriver and I can remove the whole heatsink including the screw on the back side there is a cupboard space which is for better conductivity but we will not use it yet because we don't know if the end up to assess these are working so we will install this part later this one is still holding em due to SSDs come in several sizes this motherboard supports in these two sockets sizes from twenty to forty two to twenty to one 1022 it's the width of the drive and 110 is the length it's both in millimeters these are 20 to 80 s that means these are 22 millimeters wide and 80 millimeters long so we will need to install these standoffs into this hole which has 80 because they are 18 millimeters long [Music] now that the standoffs are installed we can put the endo two SSDs into their sockets each m2 SSD has the connector which has a key I'll show you what I mean the key of the SSD is this part of the SSD this is an M key that means this is how it looks the notch is here there is also a B key which has not here and also and be an M key which has two notches these are the M key so there is only one way of installing them and that is this way I recommend putting them at an angle inside the socket as you see it's fully in and now I'll press here really it makes no resistance at all or almost no resistance now we'll take the small screw and screw it in do not use any excessive force when it stops going don't turn anymore and they are installed now when we resumed in you can clearly see the notch on em due to socket and how the m22 SSD is installed now I'll clear the space for thermal compound application on the CPU what you'll need are these towels because there is always a mess you'll also need one plastic sack and of course the thermal compound there are many ways of installing the thermal compound on the CPU most common is the one where you make a little dot in the middle and put the heating on it and it will spread the disadvantage of this method is that you don't know exactly how much thermal compound you will need so if you put too little of it then it won't be enough and the thermal conductivity will suffer and if you put too much then the thermal compound will fall over the CPU and make a mess the method I'm going to show you today I call the dipping method and we'll be using a plastic sack for it it's one of the most accurate methods of application of the thermal compound and the advantage is that you can put only as much of the thermal compound as it's absolutely necessary and you have absolute control on how it spread on the surface of the CPU to spread the thermal compound on the CPU I'll use this plastic sack and put it on my hand to make sure I don't get dirty and I'll use my finger to spread it all over the surface of the CPU so let's start doing it [Music] now you've seen it in real time it's fully covered I really don't need to make sure that the surface is completely even because that's something the pressure of the heating world will take care of but this is really the result and it took I don't know a minute now what I'm going to do is to put this inside the sack and absolutely clean and the whole installation is finished before we begin with the remote choose installation we need to make sure of two things first if the sockets are open this is closed this is open so they are open on both sides you'll be using a dual channel memory setup and there is a scheme on the motherboard and also in the manual that tells us that if we are using only two memory modules in dual channel we need to use sockets a2 and b2 that means these two sockets so let's do it how do you position them inside the socket there is a notch here and the notch on the Remo dual we will make sure that those two match I'll need to turn it this way and insert it in the socket there are these spaces specially for it so I'll put it in gently it falls in without any problems and now all press from both sides at the same time I will press firmly and you heard the click I'll do the same thing with the other a module and the memory is installed now we can install the Noctua heating so I'll bring it on the bottom of the thing there is this plastic cover so I'll remove it and you can see that there are these two captive screws I will make sure that they'll be aligned with these two screws on the mounting bars on the socket it doesn't really matter if I put it this way or the other way they are exactly the same so it doesn't make any difference and I'll try to put them as accurately as possible on those screws on the socket and that's the first step to screw those captive screws into the mounting mechanism I'll need a Noctua provided screwdriver because it's long enough to reach in between those two towers I'll be screwing them in alternating fashion that means two rounds each until I reach complete fixation I'll use my second hand to hold the heatsink now the second one and this one and now it's finished now we can begin with the fans installation before we do that you look at the motherboard here are the CPU fan headers so when we are attaching the fans to the heatsink we'll make sure that they are positioned that their power cables are close to these fan headers second thing we need to have a look at our the positioning of the memory modules you'll need to put the fan from this side of the heatsink so that it doesn't touch the memory modules and to do that we'll probably need to reposition the fan clips upwards now we can begin with the installation this fan didn't come with the fan Clips attached so we'll need to attach them it's really easy and now the other side now it's prepared this side of the fan is the one which sucks the air from the inside and this one blows it away now I'll put it in between these two towers making sure that the power cable of the fan is on this side and here I'll use the clips to attach it it's really easy and now I'll do the same thing from the other side but this fan will be risen higher now we can have a look at the installation you can see that I have written this fan higher above the memory modules these are with low profile so I can even put this fan lower if I want to and now it's ready the last thing we need to do is to connect this PWM fan y-cable to the motherboard header it will allow us to power both fans by one connector there is only one way of connecting it and that is through this four pin connector now I'll attach it to the motherboard header and now I'll connect both four pin connectors and it's finished now we need to test if everything works properly but before we can do it we need to install the graphics card and to do that we'll use the box which was inside the motherboard box and turn it around and put this motherboard on it you need to be careful because it's heavy now now I'll turn it around and I'll take the graphics card I'll also make sure that this part is aligned with the end of the box because the graphics card will overlap now the graphics card has this PCI Express connector and we'll put it into PCI Express slot there is only one way of putting it there and that is this way and before I can do it I need to make sure that the slot is open so now it's closed and now it's open when I pull it down and I will carefully insert the graphics card in it now it's in I'll press gently and it's in I'll let it lean as it is but I'll not make any force because it's holding just just but it's enough for us to be able to get into the BIOS and test if everything works now I'll pick up the case carefully and put it on its legs so that we can connect the power cables to the motherboard I'll make sure I'm not putting it on the cables [Music] and I'll reattach now we need to plug in the keyboard mouse monitor and the power cables I'll begin with the keyboard it has a USB port if you turn it this side up that means with these two holes you can connect it to the port on the motherboard so I'll do that now I'll connect the mouse exactly the same thing now I'm going to connect the monitor it uses a display port this is how the display port looks like so I'll plug it in and now I'm gonna turn around the motherboard so that we have better access to the power cables first thing I'm going to connect are these power cables these are the eight pins for the CPU there is only one way of connecting them and that is this way so I'll put them together and try to put them in and I'll do the same thing with the second eight pin power cable also put them in these notches together now I'm going to connect this 8 pin so I'm going to turn the motherboard again and I'm going to use this 24-pin power cable also only one way of connecting it in and it is this way and everything is connected so we can get into the BIOS now I'm going to switch the power on on the power supply and the monitor and the power on the motherboard so let's do that and the power here as you see it lit up red and it looks like we are running let's see if anything shows up on the monitor I'll be pressing delete so that we can get into the BIOS and I'll also need to check if the output on the monitor is set to DisplayPort so I'll go to DisplayPort on the monitor and do we see anything or not looks like something is happening sometimes what happens is that first time you insert the memory modules it loads up and then it resets again and that's exactly what happened now so now it's asking for the boot device I didn't press delete in the second run so I'll press ctrl Alt Delete to reset it and I will keep pressing delete now until we get into the BIOS the sound suggests that we have just restarted and we are in the BIOS now it says that the BIOS has been reset please reconfigure your BIOS setup items if needed of course because this is the first run so we will need to load our optimized defaults and check everything now that we are in the BIOS we want to check out few things especially if the components that we installed are present and that's the sign that they are working you'll be able to check if they are working really properly after we get into the OS but this is just a basic check out for the overview it is best to go to the easy mode you can press f2 or click easy mode and we can see that the BIOS on the motherboard is version f11 it is a new version of the BIOS because I installed it there I will show you later how to update the BIOS the new BIOS is usually increase stability and compatibility with the components and this BIOS increases the compatibility with the RAM modules and it also improves the behavior of the chipset fan that's why I installed it it's always best to have the latest BIOS the CPU installed is raisa 930 900 x ram is 32 gigabytes under it we can see that there are 2 modules installed they are made by micron and there are 16 gigabytes each running at 20 666 megahertz both SSDs are installed as well and be 510 drives the cpu fan is running at 800rpm and the one on chipset around 1700 if you can hear me you can also hear the whole computer because it's 30 centimeters away so it's pretty quiet and that's what we wanted last thing before we power down the computer you want to load the optimized defaults because that the starting point before you begin doing anything else in the BIOS so I'll click load the optimized defaults and I'll press yes now it's loaded it's really quick and I'll press safe and exit and it will restart and start booting again so now the computer is rebooting it will try to boot from those drives but there is no OS installed so it will show up soon yeah reboot and select proper boot device so this is exactly what I expected now I'll switch off the power button on the motherboard and we can continue with the installation now that we know everything's working it's time to update the BIOS you'll need the flash drive which we prepared at the beginning of this installation we'll need to plug it into another computer and I'll show you what to do next now I'll insert my flash drive into USB port as you see it appeared on the screen what we need is a flash drive which is formatted to fat32 file system I'm going to check it by right-clicking on it and choosing format it shows me that the drive is formatted to NTFS so it will need to be formatted if you have any data on your flash drive that are valuable make sure to back them up before continuing now I'll choose fat32 as a destination file system and I'll press Start to start erasing the data it will warn me that it will erase all the data on the disk I'll press yes and now the formatting is complete when I close the window and take the drive from the USB port and put it back in it shows me that the drive is formatted to fat32 so now it's ready for the BIOS update I'll go to gigabytes website click on product then choose motherboard then I'll go to downloads and here I'll select the socket am 4 and then I'm going to select the chipset which is X 5 7 8 now I'll type in auras master which is the name of the motherboard find it and click on it now I'm going to go to support and to BIOS it will show me several BIOS versions the latest one is f11 so I'll click download to download it it will allow me to open the file so I'll do it and using File Explorer I'll open it and copy the X 5 7 a.m. a dot f11 file to my flash drive now it's copy there and as you can see the file is ready for the BIOS update the latest BIOS is now on the flash drive so I'll unplug it and I'll plug it into any USB port on this motherboard so choose for example this one now I'll switch on this computer and I'll keep pressing delete until we can get into the BIOS now we're in the BIOS so I'll show you what to do next now that we are in the BIOS we can go to easy mode we can click on it or press f2 and we can see that the actual version is f6 for this use case I downgraded the BIOS to f6 so that we can see how it's upgraded to f11 then we'll go to cue flash we can click on it or press f8 and here is a possibility to update the BIOS so I'll click on it and now it shows us what's on the flash drive we can see that there is this x5 7 a.m. a dot F 11 that's the file which contains the latest bios I'll click on it and click on this arrow now it asks us if we want to update the BIOS I'll click yes and now it is waiting for us to give it command to start updating we can click on start and now it's updating the BIOS now it will automatically reboot so this is what happens when you update the BIOS and it restarts twice it will try to boot into any operating system but there are no OS installed so I'll press ctrl Alt Delete and we can have a look into the new BIOS I'll keep pressing delete so that we can get there now we are in the newly installed BIOS you can see that it says version f11 everything seems to work fine here is the flash drive and two SSDs now I'll click load optimise defaults because that's where you start I'll click load optimise defaults yes now it's loaded so I'll press safe and exit and I'll confirm now it restarts again now I'll hold the power button on the motherboard for a few seconds and it will power down the computer the latest bios is installed now so we can switch off the power supply unplug the fresh dry and also unplug all the cables which are connected to the motherboard and the graphics card now because you'll prepare it to be put inside the case now I'm going to disconnect the graphics card because we will need to get to the m22 SSDs so that we can install the heat sinks on them now we need to remove the stickers from the SSDs [Music] and now we can install the heatsinks now I'll take the heatsinks remove the protective material and place them on the SSDs on the socket I'll make sure that eg things goes to its original position because they are not exactly the same [Music] before we continue with the installation what we need to do next is to check if there aren't any leftover plastic on the motherboard because it would prevent the heat dissipation and it would be difficult to remove it after it's in the case and the second thing we need to do is to take the power cables to eight pins and to 124 pin and put them through the holes in the case and prepare it for the motherboards installation and now it's ready so we can take the case and put it on its back now I'll reconnect the power cable making sure that the power supply is still switched off and I'll also reconnect my bracelet so that I'm grounded before I'll place the motherboard inside the case I'll put there this piece of plastic which I cut from the mat it is sitting on and it is to prevent them at the board from scratching because I will not place it on the standoffs right away now I'll place it inside the case slowly and gently making sure that I am not scratching anything now that I have more space for my hand I'll connect the eight pin power cables to the motherboard now the eight panes are connected we can take the plastic from underneath the motherboard now we can place them at the board into its final position we are making sure that the standoffs and the holes in the motherboard are aligned now I'll take the motherboard screws which were part of the accessories of the case and screw them inside the holes [Music] [Music] [Music] and it's finished now we can connect the 24 pin power cable which is this one now it's time to connect this 140 millimeter fan it uses this 3 pin power cable and I'll connect it to the cases special cable which can power up to 3 fans which are manually controlled from the front panel of the case I will leave it like this for now but I'll tidy the cables later next in line for connecting are these 240 millimeter fans power cables which are at the front of the case I'll connect them to the second circuit of the case which can also power three fans at once and which can be manually controlled while there is no graphics card installed yet we can use this opportunity and connect the SATA cables with the motherboard there are these four SATA cables provided I'm adding these two because I have five SATA hard drives and I'll use three of these and these two I'll connect these two to the surveillance drives [Music] I'll start from these connectors the way you connect it is this way upward and I'll start from the bottom one [Music] [Music] and now the last one to connect the cables from the case it is best to consult the manual and using this scheme and the provided G connector which was part of the accessories of the motherboard I'll connect them to this header if you are wondering how to connect the cables to the G connector there is a arrow here which signifies plus then you can look at the G connector find the plus here and you know how to connect it and it clicks you do the same thing with other connectors I have connected the cables to the G connector and now I'll connect the G connector to the motherboard header there is only one way of connecting it and now it's in now I'm going to connect USB 2.0 ports one of the connectors is filled so make sure you don't force it into the header and insert it in the right way now it's connected now I'm going to connect the last USB 3.0 cable which will be connected to the motherboard from the case there is also one space which is filled which is this one in the corner so make sure to put it in the right way and now it's connected when it comes to HD audio cable I am NOT gonna connect it because this PC is going to be a server so no one will be listening to any music so it wouldn't make sense but if I wanted to connect it I would put it into this board here [Music] to power 340 millimeter fans from the case I'll use this molex connector from the power supply I'll connect it to this power cable which is from the case it powers all 340 millimeter fans both circuits and I'll connect it this way there is only one way of connecting it sometimes what you need to do is to look at the positioning of these two cables inside and make sure they are perfectly aligned with the connector sometimes it takes longer that's why not many people like molexes before we can install the graphics card we need to remove these two slot covers because the graphics card is dual slot [Music] [Music] now I'll place in the graphics card I'm going to position it this way down into the slot and I'm also making sure that these notches go in here slide it in gently press and it's in now I'm going to tighten it with the screw and I'll use the second one as well [Music] now it's secure now we can take the case and turn it to its vertical position you need to do it carefully now I'm going to unpack the hard drives part of the accessories of the case where these screws for three and a half inch hard drives and these mounting frames I'll place the hard drives into the mounting frames and screw them in from this side let's do it I'm going to make sure that the holes of the mounting frame and the holes of the hard drive are aligned [Music] [Music] now I'll screw it in I'll use these screws for two and a half inch drives [Music] now that the drives are ready we can start placing them into the drive base inside the case now we can connect the drives I'll begin with an SSD and place it into the top of the drive bay because that's the space where the three and a half inch drives can fit only with difficulty so this is the best way to use it I'll press and it clicks in now it doesn't have to make this sound so when I put another drive in I'll use these clips and now I'm going to load the rest the drives are loaded now and before I start connecting them with the SATA cables and the power cables it requires a little bit of thought because you don't want to have the cables crossed or not being long enough so I tried this out of making this part of the video which is the best configuration and I found out that the best way to connect them is starting from the bottom to the top and starting with SATA connectors so that's where I'm gonna start now the bottom drives are the surveillance drives so I'll use these yellow SATA cables it was my choice it's not something that's necessary to do now I'm gonna connect the iron wolves I am now going to use these 90 degree connectors and the last is the SSD now I'm gonna use these power cables and I'm going to be in begin with this small one and I'll put it into this dry I have measured the length of this cable so that it can power even the drive which would come underneath it and this power cable has four connectors so I'm gonna use it for the rest of the drives I'll start from the button as well drives are now connected but you can see that the cables are overlapping so I may need to press them inside a little bit and how to also do some cable management so that it's more tidy inside but overall it's really not bad as it is right now so the adjustments will be very small there is another thing I want to talk about and that is the positioning of the connectors of these drives I position them this way on purpose normally they should be turned the other way but I want to have full access from one side not only to be able to take the drives out for service reasons but also to connect and disconnect the connectors if I put them inside the other way I would need to have both side panels of the case open when servicing them and that's exactly what I don't want so this is Optimo this is how it looks without any special cable management just how we did it I put two cables different way but that's all now I'll do a few tweaks I don't think it requires me to explain it you may do better job than me when managing the cables just the goal is to make this space without any cables so that the airflow can go to the cooler but other than that there is really nothing special about it I'll use these velcro straps which were provided with the case and the power supply they might be handy it's good to use these instead of the hard ones because you might want to reposition the cables later and you won't need the Clippers to untie the cables also at the back of the case there are four holes which I'll fill with these rubber covers trying to show you these rubber covers that's like a minor thing and when it comes to the back of the case really not much cable management is necessary I may tie these two cables to this back panel but that's all this case is one of the best when it comes to the inside positioning so that's why I chose it and it was one of the easiest installations I have ever done inside this case so I can really recommend it and now I'll do the cable management this is how the final result looks like as you can see not many changes formate i used seven cable straps to tie the cables together and i bent this cable so that I can close the case when it comes to expandability I have several options I can put a special reduction so that for more three and a half inch drives could be added here this drive cage can hold six two and a half inch drives or three three and a half inch drives horizontally and here I can add three more two and three and a half inch drives now there is plenty of space for airflow really no obstructions here which is the goal because of airflow is necessary to keep the temperatures down when we look at the back you can see that I used four straps to tie the cables to the back of the case the area for hard drives is very clean no obstructions for airflow and no cables even here these two cables are for 240 millimeter fans which are at the front I'll show you how they look because we didn't go through this they are also very easily serviceable I just press like I wish all the cases had this possibility so I'll show you you just open the door for it and you can get to the 140 millimeter fans and exchange them so I'm gonna close it and that's pretty much it what I wanted is something that is easily serviceable really looks are not important it will be closed in a custom rack and not be visible at all so really something that doesn't require hard work is the goal [Music] and it's finished the first part of the series is over but next one is coming in the next part I'll look at rate configuration and OS installation I'll go through several scenarios which are important because you need to know how to service the server when there is some failure or something bad happens in other parts of the series I'll look at networking camera setup and other activities which are necessary to get the whole infrastructure running that especially for those who skip the intro and went to the build itself immediately and if you have any suggestions let me know in the comments below I'll give it a thought I cannot promise I'll do it but maybe it will happen who knows thank you for watching and I hope to see you next time [Music]

Channel: Martin's Lab

Views: 36,359

Keywords: Building a home server, server, home server, how to build a PC, PC build guide, assembling a PC, Building a PC, AMD Ryzen 3900X, Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master, Noctua NH-D15 SE-AM4, Installation of the CPU, Installation of CPU cooler, Installation of Noctua, How to install CPU, How to install CPU cooler, Seagate Iron Wolf, Seagate Seahawk, ECC RAM, Crucial MX5OO, Corsair MP510, Thermal compound application, Thermal paste application, Nanoxia Deep Silence 5, home server build

Id: qB31vdRlIHg

Length: 104min 22sec (6262 seconds)

Published: Thu May 14 2020