Server setup

DataVampire

DataVampire

DataVampire

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Herefordshire
I have finaly finished building my mini server. it will be home use.

This will just be used as my server.

List of hardware i have used

Case

BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Cube Case

Motherboard

Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155)

Cpu

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge)

Ram

Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

Looking to upgrade it to 16gb x2 8gb next week.

Power supply

Coolermaster GX 750W PSU

Storage drive

3 tb samsung

Os drive

250gb

I have also a 120gb samnsung ssd i can use, not sure how to use this though.

External storage

3tb western digital usb 3 drive.
Various 500gb externals and 250 externals, i was hoping to use one of the 250gb usb externals for a backup for the server.

Video

Some realy old 256mb ati card

What is the graphics like on the 2600k via th emotherboard like ?


What i want to use the server for

We have around 5 pcs contantly on x2 xbox 360s wii a few laptops, various phones a busy modern family.

Centilized backup of pcs.
Pushing email to various computers
Centalised virus scaning or pushing of updates ect.
Video streaming to xboxes and a dlna tv when we get it, (tv has wifi ect ect)
music streaming the same as video
centalized file sharing and storage
centalised programs, such as office ect on the server and everyone having accses to it ?
games server
Webhosting- hosting my own websites including my own dns
and a ton of other things
teamspeak server ect or somthing similar

The operating systems i can use are

Windows server 2008 r2 web edit with sp1
windows server 2012 standard

Please dont mention windows home server 2011, i dont think it has enough oompth and tbh it looks more like a toy.

Im willing to learn and put the hardwork into getitng it up and running, i firmly believe a proper server os is the way forward.

Is there any linux oses wich can do the above ?

The only problem i can see using server 2012 is there is not many tutorials around where as server 2008 there are quite a few
 
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Use ESXi free and put server 2012 standard on top.

For Centralised backup, check out UrBackup - easy to use.

For sharing videos, basic SMB shares from Windows are easy as pie to set up. You may find the video isn't smooth when a few people are using it due to the single hard drive you have, you could look into RAID too.

Centralised office requires licensing to do, not sure what to suggest for that.

For games, you can choose to run the dedicated servers inside Windows or in a separate linux Virtual Machine (using ESXi). Both are good to learn the ins-and-outs of.
Web hosting: you can install IIS inside Windows or learn how to install a LAMP stack (in linux), and then play around with nginx and Varnish.

If I can think of more things. I'll edit this post. :)
 
Have you thought about Server Essentials 2012 ontop of ESXI? It has a lot of the features of Standard plus centralised backup and security management. Plus it's a lot cheaper!

For a web server I currently use Ubuntu server with LAMP running Virtualmin and Joomla CMS.

As for tutorials try the Microsoft virtual labs.
 
GodAtum said:
Have you thought about Server Essentials 2012 ontop of ESXI? It has a lot of the features of Standard plus centralised backup and security management. Plus it's a lot cheaper!

For a web server I currently use Ubuntu server with LAMP running Virtualmin and Joomla CMS.

As for tutorials try the Microsoft virtual labs.
Click to expand...

Im not paying for the os i got them free(legit) via Dreamspark

i have now got windows 2012 datacentre free also as well as

windows server 2008 r2 standard
windows server 2008 r2 enterprise
windows server 2008 r2 datacentre

There are plently of ways to get software free, its jsut a shame i dont knwo what do with them or knw which woudl be the best to use.

That is why im using them as they are free
so i would much rather use them, as i will be learning on the way.

But please keep th eposts comming
 
Just to point out a little irony here....

You have bought desktop hardware designed for overclocking for a server and you have listed WHS 2011 (based on Windows Server 2008r2) as seeming like a toy ... just saying :)

Hardware wise you probably would have been better of with an E3 v2, a C204 / C206 based motherboard (Supermicro X9SCM - MATX or Intel S1200KP - mITX spring to mind) and some ECC ram (the S1200KP also takes non-ECC ram). It would probabaly come in around the same sort of costs if both were bought from new and would most likely be more energy efficent.

Ok, going forwards....

The two main benefits of the i7-2600K are the overclockability and the better graphics. As you are building this as a mITX platform I would save the single PCIe slot for something more important than a cheap video card. The i7 onboard video will happily cope with a generic servers video duties.

If you are obtaining the software for free via microsofts various programs then take a look at Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard or advanced. It comes with Exchange, sharepoint, remote access, client network backup, WSUS etc.

For your storage you have, if I have read this correctly;
1x 250GB SATA (boot / OS).
1x 3TB SATA (Storage).
1x 120GB SSD (undecided).
1x 3TB external USB3 drive (undecided).
??x 500GB External drive (undecided).
??x 250GB External drive (undecided).

Have a think about installing on to 2x 250GB drives in a raid 1 configuration. Should your boot drive fail then your server is down until you can replace it and restore from backup. Adding a second 250GB drive will cover this and the Gigabyte motherboard supports raid 1 setup.

My SBS 2011 install is at about 97GB at the moment inc user files (under 1GB), my business stuff (2-3GB) and family photos (maybe 5-10GB) but not our media (movies, music etc). I am backing up to a 2TB external USB drive and expect it to last me quite a while. The 3TB external will last you a long time or the 500GB external as long as you check on it monthly for space. The 250GB would worry me concerning running out of space or not having backups going back very far.

I also take snapshot backups to other external drives which are just straight copies of my most important data every now and then so maybe the external 250GB can be used for something like that.

Office can be installed on a server and shared to client machines with the relevant licenses.

SBS 2011 alows you to remote desktop via the web interface to any client Win Pro or above machines for remote use over the internet. It also has the Webmail and shared calendar etc of Exchange. You can create internal and external websites and a sample internal site is setup for you as part of the install process. DHCP, DNS and Internet domain setup can be configured as part of the post install tasks (Internet Domain setup has a few requirements). It also comes with WSUS so you can update any Win Pro or above clients from a central download and patch repository.

It is a great and well priced product for small businesses and it is a shame MS are going to EOL it . I will be using it for my business server at home for a long time yet.

Just remember you are asking a mITX machine to do an awfull lot of tasks, some quite specialised, over the two Realtek lan ports and with a max of 16GB ram.

Whilst I think ESXi is a fantastic product, as I am sure many already know, the 16GB limitation on this mITX board, the dual Realtek lan ports and the single PCIe slot for all these requirements maybe a push. I know I had speed issues with SBS 2011 on 8GB of ram on ESXi previously.

RB
 
I don't know why everyone chimps over ESXi so much - Hyper-V is a very capable product.

Install 2012 and Hyper-V, and then you can run as many VMs on there as you wish. The support for Linux on Hyp-V has improved significantly since 1.0.
 
MasterPlan1 said:
I don't know why everyone chimps over ESXi so much - Hyper-V is a very capable product.

Install 2012 and Hyper-V, and then you can run as many VMs on there as you wish. The support for Linux on Hyp-V has improved significantly since 1.0.
Click to expand...

Has Hyper-V removed the requirement that you need Win Pro or above in order to install and use the client management tools ?. I know that was an immediate turn off for me when I frist tried it.
 
They have added *loads* of PoSh commands for it, and created a PoSh web console, but yes - you do still need this, but tbf - who *isn't* using Win Pro\Ult\Ent these days?
 
MasterPlan1 said:
They have added *loads* of PoSh commands for it, and created a PoSh web console, but yes - you do still need this, but tbf - who *isn't* using Win Pro\Ult\Ent these days?
Click to expand...
I can't name a company that isn't running on at least Pro, simply because you need it to join a domain.

@DataVampire, use Windows Server 2012 Datacentre, forget about ESXi in this case. You can have unlimited Windows VMs to play with, which is nice.
 
MasterPlan1 said:
They have added *loads* of PoSh commands for it, and created a PoSh web console, but yes - you do still need this, but tbf - who *isn't* using Win Pro\Ult\Ent these days?
Click to expand...

In the business world or in the home ??

A lot of people who are trying virtualisation are trying it for home setups and the majority of people on these Overclockers forums do not manage custom virtualisation setups for companies. Unless you are expecting people to only ask questions who are responsible for a companies virtualisation setups ....

This is one reason for ESXis popularity, it can be used by enthusiasts without the need to pay for a business edition of Windows. If the Windows Hyper-V client didn't require a business version of Windows I think it would be a much stronger challenger to ESXi. As it is, it has limited it'self to the business market which is a real shame.

RB
 
But as mentioned, people on this forum are probably using Windows 7 Ultimate\Pro, or maybe even Windows 8 - which are all capable of using Hyper-V management tools, and tbf - if you're serious about learning M$ products\labbing, you should have a TechNet subscription (or in this guys case, DreamSpark)

And in all honesty, with the price of being legit with Windows 7 Pro\Ultimate you might as well get a TN sub anyway.
 
Well thank you for the posts so far guys, keep them comming.

Some intesting points being posted.

I have accses to the operating systems as posted on here, wich i will remind you is

Windows server 2008 r2 standard 64bit
Windows server 2008 r2 Enterprise 64 bit
Windows server 2008 r2 Datacentre 64 bit
Windows server 2008 r2 web 64 bit
Windows server 2008 r2 web with sp1 64 bit

Windows server 2008 Standard with sp2 32bit
Windows server 2008 Enterprise with sp2 32 bit
Windows server 2008 Datacentre with sp2 32bit

Windows server 2008 Standard with sp2 64bit
Windows server 2008 Enterprise with sp2 64bit
Windows server 2008 Datacentre with sp2 64bit

Windows Server 2012 Datacentre 64 bit
Windows Server 2012 Standard 64 bit
Windows Server 2012 Enterprise 64 bit

Not to mention various SQL servers oth 2008 and 2012(althoguh im sure i dont need any of them)

I have not even seen the small buisness ed dso i have no idea about them sorry, i realy wanted the essentials wich they claim is the new home server with more oomph but alas i cannot get that free for some strange reason. and btw yes i have a dreamspark account.

Other than that im still undecided on what to do.

From what you guys are saying virtulisation seems to be the way to go. again not sure. form this i gather i woudl use one computer and then run virtual oses on them, but doesnt this require a lot better hardware than i have got ?. as for the vidio card im using surely it would be better than using a onboard chip for streaming hd ? or am i wrong in that ?. again that was my reasoning behind that. as for exsi im sure i watched a tutorial on youtube, but it siad it requires a raid setup, i do not habve any hds to make a raid up with so surely thats out of the way now ?

Anyhow keep the sugestions comming this is fasinating and i dontwant to commit to anything yet.

Edit:Sorry i forgot to mention i am indeed using windows 7 pro 64bit.
 
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Go with Windows Server 2012 Datacenter, if you feel the need to play with Windows 2008 R2 you can install the Hyper-V role and run it in a VM.

And your hardware is more than adequate for running VMs, I can run 6 idle VMs on my machine (the i5) and not notice a blind bit of difference to my performance (as in, I can play WoW happily whilst doing so)
 
Thank you very much , gues sil be formatting, i presume i can use windows homercer 2011 and a linux doing it this way and only having one hardware ?
 
MasterPlan1 said:
But as mentioned, people on this forum are probably using Windows 7 Ultimate\Pro, or maybe even Windows 8 - which are all capable of using Hyper-V management tools, and tbf - if you're serious about learning M$ products\labbing, you should have a TechNet subscription (or in this guys case, DreamSpark)

And in all honesty, with the price of being legit with Windows 7 Pro\Ultimate you might as well get a TN sub anyway.
Click to expand...

Your comment was that you didn't know why ESXi was so popular. I have given you a reason. The reason is not restricted to people who use this sub forum.

I find it a bit of a stretch to assume people are all using Windows Pro or Ultimate at home if they are in this forum. I know people who hate using any sort of MS Windows software at all. I only changed due to starting my own business last year and so moving on to HP server hardware in my home office. Getting the Solution Provider Action Pack to go with my MS Partner account allowed me access to Win SBS 2011 which has most of what I want built in. It also gives access to Win 7 Pro / Enterprise upgrades as as they are required for remote machine backup it seemed prudent to upgrade. Before that, non-pro versions have been more than adequate for the home environment for the last 20 odd years.

Back on track...

Both ESXi and Hyper-V will do the job, although it is worth considering using a separate machine for the network domain controller so it is not knocked out if you have a problem or need to reboot your vHost.

RB
 
Thank you very much guys for ht ehelp so far, i know you dont have to yoru all very kind, espcialy someoen like me who is very new to all this.

I am now in the process of installing windows server datacentre 2012 64 bit. and would liek to know if there is anything i should be doing as soon as i have finished installing it. i would like if possible to put my server in its spot with no keyboard/mouse and monitor asn use remote desktop , how woudl i go about installing this so i can jsut remote into it instead of sitting in front of it.
AS i have said thnak you for ht ehelp thus far. this is why i joined overclcoker sin the first place. the ehelp you get from her eis second to none.
 
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