First Storage Server, need tips.

martinmsj

martinmsj

[H]ard|Gawd
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Mar 3, 2005
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Alright, I'm tempted to go make a cheap storage server. I sent about 3 hours reading into it without even noticing. Torn up on a few things.

Goal:
Storage server for back ups , file access, print sharing.

How I imagine using it:
Basically to play movies. In addition to storing files, I would like to use it like we do at my job. Basically at my job when pc's aren't working we re-image them from our ghost server. I would love to be able to image a PC and just re-image when it isn't working right. Otherwise have personal files on the server.

Just for simplicity, would be to just store files and play back movies.

Yea, that is a lot.

Software:

Need this to be as cheap as possible. Thinking Linux is my solution. I've honestly only used Linux when I was taking a course called Operating Systems and working with Nachos. Basically I was just programming in C. (Shudder)


Hardware:

Nothing fancy. Software Raid. Thinking Raid 1 just for redundancy.
I currently am trying to sell an Intel Mobo (D945PSN) and CPU (Pentium D 820.)
I have some DDR2 PC4200 ram laying around (2GBs.) Also, a 430W power supply. I could use this.

For hard drives I would pick up some cheap sata drives.


Anyways, how much work am I looking at here? Right now my only direction is downloading the Fedora Distro and looking into Samba that I read was required somewhere.
 
martinmsj said:
Need this to be as cheap as possible. Thinking Linux is my solution. I've honestly only used Linux when I was taking a course called Operating Systems and working with Nachos. Basically I was just programming in C. (Shudder)
Click to expand...
I'd recommend Ubuntu for a simple-to-install Linux distro. Lots of support, lots of people using it, lots of simple howtos for interesting things you can do with it.
martinmsj said:
Anyways, how much work am I looking at here?
Click to expand...
For a start, not very much. Installing Linux has gotten tremendously easy and gratifying. You can get services up and running quickly, and there are lots of things you can add on: HTTP serving, BitTorrent, remote access with ssh, the list goes on.

The only thing that you'll have to work a little bit for is backing up Windows machines. If you want a full OS-level backup of a Windows box, you'll want to look into a tool from this list or something similar. You might also consider just backing up the files that are important to you---documents, save games, home movies, whatever floats your boat.
martinmsj said:
Right now my only direction is downloading the Fedora Distro and looking into Samba that I read was required somewhere.
Click to expand...
Samba on Ubuntu is easy.
 
While setting up ubuntu and file sharing with Samba is easy. and free.

IMO $100 is worth it for the backup system, and remote access that WHS brings to the table.

Remote access through TS gateway vs. SSH is a completely different experience. WHS brings remote access to all machines not just the server.
And it has a preconfigured website for remote access to the content on the server, the server, and the computers connected to the network.

You talked about an imaging server.
WHS has that built in.
I dont keep a computer image more than 2 months.
When I need a new install, I just boot to my recovery partition, it connects to my server and I choose what I want, has my programs and everything installed and ready to go.

Try that with Ubuntu, and tell me how satisfied you are.

Ubuntu is free, and you can do just about anything.
However you can do the same stuff on WHS, but a million times easier and faster. To me thats worth the small price.

Theres a 120 day trial you can download from Microsoft cost nothing so really what do you have to lose?
 
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