Home file server/comp?

geowal19

geowal19

geowal19

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Joined
19 Nov 2008
Posts
661
Location
Peterborough, England
I have seen a few cheap rack mounted servers on a popular second hand auction site for just around £50. Spec:

1 x Xeon 2.8GHZ 64Bit CPU(800mhz bus) Installed
2GB DDR2 Memory Installed
NO CD
NO Sata HD
1 Drive Caddy
Dual Port Ethernet

Not bothered about the speed it'll just be connected to a network for filke sharing around a homegroup of comps and watching movies and listenin to music. I will buy a larger HDD. Is this a good deal or would there be a cheaper option?
 
Yeah you probably don't want a rackserver unless you have a basement or garage that is sound proof!

Be better off getting some cheap parts and building a Windows Home Server based box.
 
I was thinking of putting it in the loft actually! I will be adding it to my rack then move it to loft
 
You'll be able to hear a 1U server anywhere in the house if you put it in a loft. If you've never been near one before, they approach vacuum cleaner levels of noise even on idle.

Building a better (read: silent) machine is a better option.
 
There is a previous thread here, that I think has already covered where this thread is leading.

Unless you have somewhere fairly cool and soundproof-ish then as has been suggested, building your own may be a better approach.
 
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Depending on the make/model of chassis some of these 1U boxes use exceptionally fast but small fans, which are LOUD!

Also, an attic is a good place during the winter as its cold but during the summer it would be quite warm.
 
It will be loud and resonate like crazy, and god held you if a fan or drives bearings go.

Get a 4U box, 120mm fans on low revs (like a PC) and just move the hardware if you like. Drill, rubber grommets and some glue and you can do it.
 
SMN said:
It will be loud and resonate like crazy, and god held you if a fan or drives bearings go.

Get a 4U box, 120mm fans on low revs (like a PC) and just move the hardware if you like. Drill, rubber grommets and some glue and you can do it.
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Sounds like a lot of work for a box to chuck some mp3s and photos on!

The single hard disk WD mybook 1tb box in my loft does all the just fine, handles streaming and backups too.
 
iaind said:
Sounds like a lot of work for a box to chuck some mp3s and photos on!

The single hard disk WD mybook 1tb box in my loft does all the just fine, handles streaming and backups too.
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I agree. I use WD mybook too and no probs with it tbh. Streaming photos, music and such it's surely better just to setup and normal p2p network without the need of a server.

If you want to spread your data over more than one HDD then just back up on your PC or by more than one network HDD. My advice anyway! :D
 
Sp00n said:
I wouldnt trust a single hard drive to store all my data tbh
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Well it depends on the importance you place on the data - I couldnt care less if I loose my MP3 collection as I can restore them from my ipod anyway. Stuff like documents and photos are on my laptop and on the NAS anyway.

Plenty of dual HD solutions out there that are designed for home use, rather than wasting time on enterprise/business gear
 
Sp00n said:
I wouldnt trust a single hard drive to store all my data tbh
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Why? - if you don't have it backed up elsewhere you're a bigger fool and hdd failure rates aren't very high so you're essentially guarding against a single failure mode (hdd failure) while having no protection against enclosure failure (I had a dual drive enclosure fail a few years ago), fire, accidental deletion, etc

Dual drives is a false sense of security unless you're using it with a backup solution, in which case the only benefit of dual drives is the reduced (in this case non existent) recovery time. Given that drives don't fail that often, is it really worth the up front and ongoing costs of dual drives?
 
I couldn't afford an LTO drive to backup all of my data so the critical stuff gets backed up and the rest stays on RAID, backing up data is a given and if you dont then you deserve to lose the data.

Enclosure failure isn't going to be the be all and end all, lots of controllers can rebuild arrays from foreign disks especially if its like for like.

Yes I agree "dual drives" is a false sense of security, but I would rather have a couple of layers of backup rather than just one, and my point still stands, I wouldn't trust a single drive with all of my data.
 
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