Building a home server

adamibbo · 14 Feb 2009 at 09:45

lokkers said:
Alternatively, have you considered Windows Home Server? I've just built myself a fileserver using a K45 Shuttle with a 2ghz Celeron, 2gb ram and a spare 320gb barracuda. It's running whs (120 day trial), so before that runs out I plan to stick a 1tb WD Green in there and buy the full version.

Cost me £150 for the parts so far, plus ~£190 for the WD and full copy of whs in a few months time.

im interested in this too. Just got a copy of Windows Home Server and was wondering if you guys have ever experienced it.

Bry · 14 Feb 2009 at 11:17

Running itmyself:
check out my nas review here: http://www.parityservices.co.uk/tranquil/barebones2-review.html
and for excellent resources on WHS look here http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/

m_cozzy · 14 Feb 2009 at 13:00

smids said:
You guys with the HP ML servers - how much power do they draw? I'm interested in those having had a look. I've got one of those wall plug power meters - my P3 server draws about 72W on load and idles about 65W. Hoping it can match that or at least offer far greater performance per watt...

my ml110 g5 with 2 drives draws 95watts. This is averaging about 50% cpu load running 15

eek

virtual servers.

lolwtfbbq · 19 Feb 2009 at 00:36

TBH, use Linux. Nippy, quick and doesnt need new hardware. Stick a couple of HDDS in there, install ubuntu server, sudo su and then apt-get install samba. Done. You can run roundcube, fetchmail and Dovecot for a mail server and a classic LAMP server.

bit-tech.net has a linux server guide.

feeddagoat · 21 Feb 2009 at 13:27

brainchylde said:
If your aim is to learn I would invest a little more in some decent hardware and then go for OpenFiler or FreeNAS - you could even run ESXi and run a virtual windows distro with the file server manangement tools on if you so wish and point it at an OpenFiler LUN. From a storage point of view, this sort of experience is likely to be 'better' experience in a commercial environment. As other's have said - a file server basically runs itself and running ESXi will give you the ability to run a few virtual servers on one bit of hardware - you can dabble as much as you want! In work we have a few ML110's running ESXi for testing things on - I imagine that the ML115 would also work for this purpose!

Hey brainchyld. Could you explain your post in a little more detail? I dont understand some of the terms or quite what your getting at (complete noob remember lol)