Minecraft Server Upgrades

Once again I've fallen woefully behind on keeping telefpreen updated with new content. I could say that it's the fault of going back to school for a master's degree, or the fact that I've been spending a lot of time working in my garage (I recently acquired a first generation Mazda Miata and have been fixing it up), but the fact is I just haven't had much inspiration from the tech side of things recently. I had a backlog too, but all that stuff just doesn't seem particularly relevant or interesting anymore.

Anyways, I digress. After running the "Low Budget" Minecraft server for a short while, we identified some problem areas, and a number of players made some very, very generous donations to make it a seriously top notch setup! Imagine my surprise when Amazon packages started arriving with stuff like an SSD, more RAM, and a Corsair closed loop CPU cooler!

The big issue in many Minecraft servers isn't the speed of the CPU or the ram allocation, it's actually the hard disk's ability to read and write "chunks". Chunks are the basic terrain unit of Minecraft, and to keep resource demands in check a player will only ever have a certain radius of chunks loaded around them. The more chunks you have being modified or generated, the higher the demand on the hard disk because those portions of your world are getting read from (and any changes saved to) the server's map file. An quick demonstration of this is to start a new world and have a few players go into creative mode and start flying in opposite directions. The server will grind almost to a halt- the RAM isn't used up, the CPU isn't breaking a sweat, but the hard disk is getting hit with so many read/write requests that it just plain can't keep up!

Imagine my delight, then, when a brand new 60GB Kingston SSDNow drive arrived! On top of that, a matching stick of 4GB Kingston RAM, a Corsair H55 CPU cooler, and a set of Corsair AF120 quiet case fans meant that the server was in for a seriously cool overhaul, all thanks to generous players!

Back to the upgrade bench it went, and the installation was rather uneventful considering how easy everything is to hook up. Here it is looking fancy on the workbench:



Once it was all buttoned up, I reinstalled the OS onto the SSD and got the server back up and running. Even with more fans running than before, it was far quieter. The bigger RAM allocation meant that I could allocate a full 4GB to the Minecraft process and have tons of overhead, and the CPU cooler meant that even running a 24/7 instance of Minecraft the CPU temps rarely climb north of 32° C. The biggest single difference, though, was the SSD. Whereas before a few players wandering could lead to a reasonable amount of chunk loading lag, now it took a concerted effort and a few nuclear TNT explosions to generate the same type of latency.

All in all, I'd say it was a great success!

The amended system stats are now as follows:
Cooler Master N200 Case
Asus M5A78L-M LX3 Motherboard
AMD FX4130 CPU
Corsair H55 CPU Cooler
8GB Kingston HyperX blu DDR3 1600 RAM
Corsair CX430M Power Supply
MSi Radeon HD6570
1x Kingston SSDNow 60GB Solid State Drive
1x Western Digital 320GB Hard Drive

Another System Build for 2013: Low Budget Minecraft/Media Server

What originally started as idle speculation and a bit of research turned into another system build for 2013. I had $325 in spending money set aside, and I was curious to see if one could build an acceptable HTPC and Minecraft server out of such a tight budget. It wasn't going to be easy by any means, but it seemed feasible with a little bit of clever shopping. I had three perfectly good 320GB Western Digital HDD's from 2006 laying around simply collecting dust, and Black Friday deals were approaching, so I had a good head start.

The first step was deciding what to put it all in. I wanted something that would be reasonably easy to work on, but compact at the same time- a micro ATX mid tower seemed like my best option because there were no HTPC cases that really stood out to me as a great deal, and ITX boards tended to be a bit more pricey. I actually considered a number of cases, like the Corsair 350D and the BitFenix Prodigy (mATX version)- The 350D because of how much I like my 650D, and the Prodigy because of the hype surrounding it and how intriguing it looked. Both cases came with rave reviews but I ultimately had to pass them up in favor of something less expensive. After all, they both weighed in at around $80 to $100, which would cut pretty deep into the budget. After reading up on a number of the more budget friendly cases, I decided to use a Cooler Master N200, which seemed to strike a good balance between having the features I was looking for and keeping the cost down.

Next up were the guts of the machine, and the very essential selection of the CPU and motherboard. I considered trying to squeeze a Haswell i3 into the budget, but there was simply no way it was going to happen. During my Black Friday shopping, though, I came across a deal that was just too good to pass up- an AMD FX4130 bundled with 4GB of Kingston HyperX blu DDR3 1600 RAM, all for $106. A price like that made my decision far simpler, and since I hadn't yet built a system with an AMD processor, I figured a little variety would be nice. There was a basic FM3+ motherboard from Asus on sale as well, the M5A78L-M LX3. The only real complaints I could level against it would be the fact that it only has 2 fan headers, and that using a UEFI BIOS has spoiled me. Landing within the budget had to take priority, so those were minor issues that I could easily live with given the $45 price tag.

The last details to sort out were the power supply and a modest video card. I allowed myself a bit of luxury by going for the Corsair CX430M as opposed to the plain CX430. The modular cable system, in my mind, is a must have for any system build, lest the whole thing turn into a colossal cable management nightmare. Even though the CX430 is only "semi modular," it ultimately is a non-issue since you'll always be using the 24-pin and CPU power anyways. In regards to the video card, all I really needed was enough muscle to be able to play full 1080 HD videos- a passively cooled video card would have been nice, but I found a nice Radeon HD6570 from MSI that didn't look like it had too obnoxious of a fan, and despite being a 1GB DDR3 version, was more than enough processing power for decoding 1080p and then some, as well as having an HDMI output.

All told, with some clever shopping I got all the parts necessary for $317 including shipping! (What sorcery, I actually came in under budget!)

So, how well did it turn out? For the price point, I'm very pleased with the results.

The Cooler Master N200 case is a really great budget case. Though I could certainly tell that it was "made to a price point," overall I'm quite happy with it. Features like tool-less drive bays and fancy cable management grommets are nice, but not necessities in my opinion, so their absence was not a negative. Cable management was reasonable, but like many cases the back side panel could have used a fraction of an inch more room to make it less of a pain to fit.

It all went together with a minimal amount of fuss, and it happens to look rather slick on top of that:

 

Recap:
Cooler Master N200 Case
Asus M5A78L-M LX3 Motherboard
AMD FX4130 CPU
Stock CPU Cooler
4GB Kingston HyperX blu DDR3 1600 RAM
Corsair CX430M Power Supply
MSi Radeon HD6570
2x Western Digital 320GB Hard Drives