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Help with home server setup

B

Banshee763

n00b
Joined
Nov 20, 2012
Messages
24
Hello everyone,
This is my first post on this forum, told to check it out by a friend and sure glad I did.
I'm looking to build a economical home server, just to store files to share between a couple desktops and laptops. I have really no knowledge of server building but know my way around a CPU pretty well. Here is the hardware that I currently have I'm looking to use:
Intel q9550 core2quad
Biostar g41d3+ main board
Vengeance DDR3 ram (8gig)
2 2tb WD green hdd's
120gig intel ssd

I'm looking for setup options, software options and any other info that might be helpful.
Thanks for looking
 
Ok, understand now. The reason I was asking is because I already have all the hardware listed and a nice place for it in the top of my azza fusion 4000 case. Rather use what I have than have to purchase additional components.
 
Banshee763 said:
Hello everyone,
This is my first post on this forum, told to check it out by a friend and sure glad I did.
I'm looking to build a economical home server, just to store files to share between a couple desktops and laptops.
Click to expand...
If all your doing is sharing and storing files, Windows by itself does that pretty well with its built-in sharing tools. Homegroups in Windows 7 make it even simpler.

Now if you are wanting to do anything more advanced such as nightly backups, hosting a website or remote FTP, etc., then you may need other software.
 
If you already have all that hardware just sitting around you need to look into some linux distros that will fit your needs.

What all do you plan to do with the home server besides file sharing?

UPNP, transcoding to a ps3, ITunes compatibility?

Check out Amahi home server to get some ideas.
 
Your options are pretty wide really.

Arguably the easiest solution is to install some form of Windows. It could be Win7/Vista/XP/2000/Server whatever you have lying around...or can aquire.....
From there after the OS is installed share it via homegroup with the LAN. With this option you are in a very familiar environment. It can run your favorite Antivirus software, you can remote into it and make it your main P2P application host. Run other familiar software and services such as encoding or optical media burning. Stuff you would rather your main box not do.

If you want to get a lil bit crafty you can try some of the mentioned linux based NAS distros.
While they work really well at sharing files, they lack the flexibility of a full on OS.

If you want to get even craftier, and this is my personal recommended approach. Have a try at Virtualization. Install ESX 5.1 to the box. Then use whatever OS you like in a virtual machine. This opens doors to a lot of extra options that you might like tinkering with.

Whatever path you choose I recommend two things....get a UPS, make a file backup plan. Nothing more horrible than data loss.
 
1 tip I can give you hopefully before you start is that those green drives are HORRIBLE in servers. They will slow down to a crawl. Not even sure if linux server supports advanced format. Even jumpered in winxp mode they are still WORTHLESS for home server drives. I've fought for 3 years with EARS and EADS green drives and the conclusion everywhere is use them as external backup drives, or secondary hdd's in a regular pc running win7+

I'd look into Windows 8 as a home server if you are insistent on using them. At least that will support the advanced format. Still a bad idea though.

Grab 2 WD red drives for a raid setup and keep the greens out of a storage pool and just keep backups or something on them.

I seriously cannot stress this enough... DO NOT USE ANY GREEN DRIVE IN A HOME SERVER.
 
Not even sure if linux server supports advanced format.
Click to expand...

No differently than a modern Windows OS. Although linux would prefer that the drive did not lie (since linux does work sectors that are not equal to 512 bytes) to it and instead report that the sectors are 4096 bytes instead of 512.

On top of that. Most drives currently in production are these "advanced format" 4K sectors that report they are 512 bytes so its not like you have a lot of options to escape that. Although I believe the toshibas (that were really hitachis) are not 4K sectors.
 
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slash1 said:
I seriously cannot stress this enough... DO NOT USE ANY GREEN DRIVE IN A HOME SERVER.
Click to expand...

Why not?

Yes, they aren't suitable for hardware or software RAID (unless they are green RE drives) or ZFS (unless they stop lying about advanced format) but they work fine if they have the opportunity to spin down.

I've got 5 1.5TB EARX drives with ~12500 hours, and three 1TB EADS with 22000 hours on them. No reallocated sectors yet. The drives are in a flexraid box. I've had pretty good luck so far.

When I download over FTP or SMB from my server it gets to the max speed of the drive. (80-90mb/s read)
 
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Appreciate the info. I didn't even know that WD made a red HDD. Guess ill have to sell the 2 greens I have and buy reds. I just started assembling the tower yesterday. Is it worth putting the OS on a ssd for a server? I just wonder if it make that much of a deal?
 
I would pick up a copy of Windows Home Server 2011. You can get it for cheap, it's the same familiar old windows interface, offers cloud service, and remote video and music streaming (although not really all that great). You can get the OS for less than $50 and I think I've seen it as low as $30. You can easily load SkyDrive on it and access every file on that computer if you're away from home as well. It's probably the easiest and simplest solution without having to learn a new OS. For your needs I think it would work great.
 
Is windows server a stand alone operating system or is it an application for windows? Also is there any software that needs to be installed on the other systems in the network?
 
Stand alone OS. You don't need to install anything else on the other systems. Your server will show up under the systems in your network. Again, it's really simple. The only problem is that it's EOL in 2016 as MSFT will stop supporting it then because of Windows Server 2012 Essentials. Of course WS2012E costs $425 so that's not really an option. For basic file sharing, streaming within network, and backing up computers in your network WS2011 will get the job done.
 
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