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Hardware Open source alternatives to Windows Home Server

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by brumgrunt, 19 Jul 2012.

  1. phuzz

    phuzz This is a title

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    Your first step in setting up a backup strategy is to get an external HDD, plug it in, and drag and drop any files you think are important on to it.
    You can get much more advanced, but just having a second copy of important data will really help when (not if) you computer goes tits up.
    Then come and ask in the Hardware forum and many people will help you come up with a better backup strategy.
     
  2. edzieba

    edzieba Virtual Realist

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    Don't forget Windows 8 as a WHS replacement. With Storage Spaces and ReFS you handle the disk pooling end of things, and DLNA/uPnP is still handled by WMP. These being the two most-used features of WHS, Win 8 is probably sufficient for many users.
     
  3. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    Amazimgly i cant go and buy win8 yet..that and freenas is well free
     
  4. Mastax

    Mastax Purveyor of the travel companion.

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    I'm running an amahi server, which hosts network drives that I have set as the default windows 7 library locations. I also moved over all of the important data from individual computers. Rather than backing up whole computers, I'm just backing up files. Then I'm running the crashplan, google music, transmission, google drive, etc. uploaders on the server, along with media servers and the like.
     
  5. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    I was concentrating on the 'easy' distros - i.e. the stuff where you just stick a CD in and reboot. Amahi needs you to set up a Linux server already, then install Amahi on top (which, I'll grant you, isn't actually much more difficult if you follow the instructions.)

    If you're comfortable with a roll-your-own solution then I'd agree that Amahi on top of Ubuntu is a good way to go.
     
  6. Ryun

    Ryun What's a Dremel?

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    This is a great article and all but personally I'm going to be using WHS 2011 until it is irresponsible to do so, or is incompatible with the majority of the OS's in the house. So the choices presented here may very well be irrelevant when I do have to pick a new server OS.

    Kinda like when how I'm going to be using Windows 7 for a long time coming.
     
  7. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    True, but short of inventing a time machine and seeing what choices are popular in 2026, this was the best I could offer.
     
  8. faugusztin

    faugusztin I *am* the guy with two left hands

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    Did you actually look at performance of Storage Spaces and ReFS ? With parity drive performance takes a nose dive (read 30MB/s max), the drives cannot be accessed separately like in drive pooling...
    In short, Storage Spaces/ReFS is pretty much on-the-fly expandable software RAID with not so good write perfomance.
     
  9. Ryun

    Ryun What's a Dremel?

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    Absolutely, what were you thinking NOT making a time machine? =P

    Seriously though, I didn't know about these choices before so again good article (bookmarked it for 2026 viewing). If nothing else I'll have a good baseline when that time comes.
     
  10. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Meh, I'll build it tomorrow.
     
  11. faugusztin

    faugusztin I *am* the guy with two left hands

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    Nope. Yesterday. Like
     
  12. Risky

    Risky Modder

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    Isn't it pretty much what we had with Drive Extender in WHS1?
     
  13. faugusztin

    faugusztin I *am* the guy with two left hands

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    And that makes 25-30MB/s write speed acceptable how ?
     
  14. Risky

    Risky Modder

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    I'm just saying I don't have a massive problem with the write speed on my WHS1 box. I haven't taken a look at any detailed analysis on SS/ReFSperformance but I'd be interested to see how it looks.
     
  15. apexwm

    apexwm What's a Dremel?

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    It's too bad that many have been locked in to WHS over the years, and based on Microsoft's track record they would prefer to leave customers hanging rather than treat them as customers. But regardless, the solutions posted here are very good. Right now I use a CentOS 6 server running on a Pentium III 667 which does a wonderful job. Even though it's just for home use, it is nice not having to mess with security patches once a month. Linux is meant to run for hundreds of days uninterrupted and is most commonly used on supercomputers, so it's definitely suited for home use.
     
  16. Cleggmeister

    Cleggmeister Of reasonable knowledge...

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    Probably the best and most comprehensive article in ages, right on the money Gareth.

    Nicely cues up an article on clients/renderers in a domestic network - music and video streamers, etc...? That's up my street for sure, what say everyone else?
     
  17. dark_avenger

    dark_avenger Minimodder

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    I personally use unRAID which I have found to be good, fair bit of community writing plugins, etc for it as well.

    Looked at Amahi and may have to give it a bit more of a try as it looked pretty good as well.
     
  18. dancingbear84

    dancingbear84 error 404

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    Last night I installed Linux server 12.04, plex media server and then amahi. After a mild panic when I realised the server had taken over dhcp duties and the server static IP was in the dhcp range I called it a day and had a beer or 2. I'll pick up the potential IP clashes again tonight, ideally I would just change the IP of the HDA, but I suspect it won't be that simple. It never is. So far, I'm quite impressed with it though, I'm quite excited about playing with the drive pooling stuff.
     
  19. faugusztin

    faugusztin I *am* the guy with two left hands

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  20. dancingbear84

    dancingbear84 error 404

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    Thanks for that, I ended up turning of DHCP on the router and letting Amahi do it. I guess I will create a new HDA and reinstall it later. It is a bit of an oversight not allowing the HDA to change its IP but I guess there is a lot of back end stuff going on that uses it.
     
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