Hello people so Iv got a spare system and want to turn it into a server - I think. I would like - large centralised storage - got 3-4 external hdds that need to be condensed into one. - place for precious data such as family pics n vids along with important documents. - remote access to the data while my dads away at work and me at university. - place for movies / torrent downloads / ability to stream to my devices. - I would like easy access to the data. currently its a large chore getting some old embarrassing family vids and pics on a display. I would like this to be easier. - separate logins for my siblings and ability to keep certain data read only. avoiding accidental erasing of files. my spare pc is intel g2020 2.9ghz dual core pentium 4gb ram msi motherboard - think its a H67 chipset corsair 430w psu I was thinking about grabbing a fanless gpu with hdmi support, some hdds for the data storage and an ssd for the operating system. I was thinking about using raid 5 but not using a controller card due to the expense and also due to using large 3-4tb hdds and less of them (max 4) server will be housed in the lounge in a cupboard near my tv and the hdmi and ethernet cables are in the wall ready to go. I need help selecting what software (windows home server 2008 r2 or whs2011 or something else entirely) to use and if my hardware is up to scratch for my requirements (i3? more ram? controller card?) which to be honest I dont know are even possible. thanks in advance for the guidance oh great ones (bows down) to clarify main uses are - crucial centralised data storage which I will also backup to cloud storage manually - smaller non crucial media storage with torrent download - access and remote access to data (via TV, Laptop or Tablet) - login ability for siblings and parents to add files would prefer the ability to add drives as I go but dont mind saving up and buying them all upfront
There's no home server 2008 just 2011. Should tick all the boxes you are after and is a steal for £30. You can get away with drive extender addins which will pool all the available drives together for redundancy and capacity
Subscribing because I too am looking at moving back to a server. Have you looked at the linux/bsd options? I'm tempted by FreeNAS myself, that would also tick all of your boxes I think.
i have read alot of opinions saying i should split nas storage and htpc instead of combining them. people are saying the noise created by a raid array wouldnt be managable near a tv. therefore 2 setups are required. one zero noise htpc and another nas for storage.
I didn't get the impressions that there were any htpc plans for this build. Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
I think I could get away with keeping this as a storage server and using a chromecast and my nexus 7 to playback the media from it. or I could get a Htpc to connect to the storage server shakeyjake - I want something that i can store data on but also access it via the TV and tablets in the house.
Thought as much. Pretty much every server OS and application will allow some sort of streaming or sharing service, or you can just map the drives to appear on your htpc. The proper technology to do so is know as dnla, but like I said you could simply share the folder across the network.
If it helps when it comes to media streaming best to look into XBMC and Plex. These two are both fantastic for streaming media, including family videos. XBMC requires a little more configuration than plex I have found (talking 15 mins extra) Both have apps for android and apple tables/smartphones
That I can't say as i have only run tests on an 2500k but in a couple months time i will be attempting to run it all on a microserver. I will say that xbmc is just file shares though so should pose no issues
plex looks alot better then xbmc for me. with the downloading of the data regarding the movies and music etc. xbmc just outputs whatever you have.
It should be fine, I run a server here, although it is an older HP and server, not a pentium, I would guess that it will be fine. Obviously more ran is better, but 4 GB is sufficient. Hell I ran an Ubuntu server with 1gb that worked fine for plex. Ubuntu is a powerful yet confusing beast, but if you can make the time to learn the basics should do you nicely. Otherwise whs should suffice. Plex is great for streaming, xbmc is also equally good from what I hear. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
I use windows home server for streaming all my data. I use xbmc on a raspberry pi in most rooms and I map the drives on the xbmc install. I also use plex to stream when I'm not at home. Media Center Master (MCM) is software I couldn't live without, it organises my data and fetches all the metadata, banners and backdrops for my media, it makes everything look great. Edit: I also have MySQL installed on whs and xbmc writes and reads from the database, it keeps all xbmc content centralised (I don't have to update each xbmc install) and I can pause a film in one room and continue watching in another.
I use WHS 2011 in a HP Microserver. It has 6 drives in total, a 60Gb SSD system drive, and 5 hard drives giving 18TB of storage. I have tried FlexRAID but went with Stablebit Drivepool which will pool the drives together and provide duplication for the files you want to protect, so I use it on Pictures and Documents. It is very easy to manage and add user shares, etc. I stream from this server to local clients, so a Openelec box in the living room, a WDTV box in the bedroom, my tablet anywhere in the house, two Logitech squeezebox radios. It also runs a FTP server, sabnzbd and sickbeard. I also run Crashplan from the server which backs up to an external hdd and the cloud. Would recommend for you something similar, WHS2011 and pooling software with duplication. For your question regarding adding files, if it is local easily managed via adding shares. Remotely my server does run it web connect software which you could use it that way or people could FTP in but you must make sure to secure that well.
I'd vouch for some form of Windows Server edition. I currently run Windows Server 2008 R2 having previously run Windows Server 2003 for a long time. I've also run many iterations of FreeNas and others but have always ended up wanting more functionality than they offered and found windows the best platform for this. An SSD in a server seems a bit overkill if you are going to leave it running all the time. Since the only boost you'd see is in startup times and an SSD would always be drastically limited over the network. For a server your spec looks more than adequate depending on what you want to do. Obviously if you are going to be transcoding video then something more powerful might be needed but for a simple file server running Active Directory and remote access then what you have will be plently. I currently host my home server on a celeron D with 2gb ram and even that can flood 70% of my gigabit LAN and serve all of my 4 clients with HD encodes simultanously without issue. Windows server 2008 r2 is also a rock so long as you don't install any incompatiable software. I only have to reboot it when patches are released. You can also do detailed permissions and inherited permissons to stop sibilings deleting things and / or reading things they shouldn't. I can vouch for XMBC as well. I run it on two of my client machines and you can also use almost any android (possibly iOS, but i wouldn't know) device with it to browse your entire library, watch trailers or as a unversal remote. The nexus 7 works particular wonders with it. Most good media centre remotes also work well with it. If you are uploading sensitive information to the cloud to be backed up I would consider encrypting it first. I personally have a batch file on the server which runs during not in use hours to compress and encrypt all files to be backed up into the cloud using winrar. That way it should stop any evil doers even if they do hack you cloud provider for gaining access to your files.
thanks so much for all the info guys i will be reading up for weeks about it. think i should buy the hdds and give it a go.
the build currently stands at -intel G2020 2.9Ghz -4GB ddr3 -3x3TB seagate drives - msi b75 motherboard - corsair 430w psu the server will be located in a cool attic room on the second floor of my house. the entire house is cabled so be feeding down to virgin media superhub on first floor and then a Asus dual band router on ground floor. I will be using windows home server with Plex running. The main TV has a Chromecast and I will be using this to access media files from the server. If anyone can spot any issues with this setup I would be grateful also if anyone knows what a intel dual nic could add to this project that would help
Sounds about ok. I have had three different servers each hosting A version of WHS. For playback I have an Apple TV2 that has been jailbroken and runs XBMC. No transcoding just file access. When using WHS 2011 I have been using Stablebit drivepool. Have noticed slow down on all machines when using stable bit drivepool. HP E495 Media vault, with both WHS and WHS 2011, worked ok, but machine began to run into trouble when trying to run additional services. HP ML115 G6 WHS 2011, Ran fine normal slow down i now associate with using SB drivepool. HP NL54 WHS 2011, again runs ok, have separated my other services so this purely just shares a couple of folders. Currently, the EX495 is running DSM and handles my downloading duties, pxeboot and sharing of utils etc. NL54 is purely sharing my media and the ML115 is running Esxi for devy stuff. Am considering a reshuffle in the nea future.
