Earlier this year we told you about a UK based company called PC Specialist that had entered the Windows Home Server 2011 market. Here at UWHS we worked with PC Specialist to build what we call the Ultimate WHS 2011 box, and here is our review.
Who are PC Specialist?
From their website:
- PC Specialist is an established and credit worthy business – we are now in our 9th year of trading and openly display a live credit worthiness check on our website, which uses data partners such as creditsafe™ and Dun & Bradstreet.
- We are one of the select few companies in the UK who are an official Intel® Platinum Technology Provider. This demonstrates that we are actually one of the larger computer manufacturers in the UK channel and that we are more than just a pretty website.
We are also an official Microsoft® Certified Partner which demonstrates our commitment to skills & training using Microsoft® products.
Available Options
One of the really great things about the PC Specialist offering is the sheer amount of options and variants you can select – from 9 different cases, to processors, hard drives, and so on. It’s certainly nice to have options to choose from.
Specifications
Here is the selection PC Specialist and UWHS made for the Ultimate WHS 2011 box:
Case
FRACTAL DESIGN ARRAY R2 Mini ITX NAS Case + 300W PSU
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600S Quad Core (2.8GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS P8H67-I DELUXE: Mini-ITX, LG1155, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Storage
1 x 80GB INTEL® 320 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 270MB/sR | 90MB/sW)
2 x 2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) : setup as RAID 1
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD + Clear Video HD Technology
Sound Card
ONBOARD 10 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows Home Server 2011 64 Bit – inc DVD & Licence
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Price
The price worked out at £936.00 including VAT and delivery.
I thought the OS drive had to be a minimum of 160 Gig ?
You can use a cfg file during installation to set certain parameters, including bypassing the 160 GB drive check, which in this case is what PC Specialist did. It doesn’t affect your install.
Just curious – why the high end cpu, the intel I7? What does that buy you on a server that say an I5 or even an I3 would not?
The main reason was to build “the ultimate WHS 2011 box” and to have a box that would last quite a while and do any task I wanted, such as streaming, video coversion, running additional applications, etc, and the small cost addition to get the fastest processor seemed in line with what we were trying to do with the article. Obviously you dont need an i7 if you are not planning on doing some of the things I mentioned.
Wonderful. What’s the energy consumption? Why do you need video and audio?
hi Ivan, audio and video are available on the motherboard, but you dont really need them. As for the energy consumption I’m afraid I dont have that information.
Hi Andrew,
I also have the same motherboard P8H67-I deluxe. After installing WHS 2011, there are 3 unknown devices and 1 PCI simple communication controller that are missing drivers. Do you know how to resolve that?
The machine came preinstalled, so I assume they just used the drivers on the CD. You could also look for Windows 2008 drivers as well.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the quick reply. I first tried with the CD that comes with the motherboard but it is some Asus software suite that only works with Win 7 (or xp, vista etc) not with WHS2011. Anyway I ran it in a Win7 OS and found all the missing items. Now its all resolved.
Thanks!
Glad it’s all sorted 🙂 As for the Bluetooth driver, it might be worth contacting Asus to see if they can help.
ops sorry for double post