Hey, I’ve recently acquired a server-grade board that has quad NICs and all that good stuff. It has a built in SAS/SATA controller and a total of 14 ports for terabytes upon terabytes of storage. My question is, though, what on earth can I do with this system?! The board is an ASUS P9D-4/L if memory serves me rightly. I want to run some kind of useful server on it, be it to host some stuff locally or to automate my house - anything from the lighting to CCTV to controlling sprinklers... There’s a lot of potential, I’d imagine, though I haven’t a clue where to start with it. I have a 24 port switch that I am curious to see if it supports network bonding for fast transfer speeds. I’ll have to mess with it at some point as it is a managed switch. Help, please!
Seems like it would be great as an Unraid system, then on that you run a few virtual machines, one as a NAS to make use of the storage, one as a router as suggested by @Ice Tea to make use of the IO, using it to define QoS in your home network. The things I'd do with some bits-of-tech (hah!) that I can not afford / are too far down the priority/necessity list.
