Home Server Help (First one)

[Clipsey]

Hi,
So been meaning to get one of these setup for a long time now.
Finally bought a ThinkServer (TS-140) and a couple of 4TB drives.

So now what?
Basically want it up and running 24/7 at home with these capabilities:
Setup some kind of home network
Access easily from laptops, phones, Smart Tv's etc within the home
Data will supply my HTPC at home for watching movies, plus other devices around the house etc.
Would like to be able to have remote access to it (from work etc) so I can manage everything.


So with that in mind, how do I go about doing that?
Win10?

Thanks for the help.
Items should arrive Monday

 

[swain90]

Windows (of some variety), Shared Folders for accessing your files and TeamViewer so you can remote in from anywhere.

In regards to your drives do you need any sort of RAID for redundancy?

 

[Hellsmk2]

Depends how much you want to tinker. For the above any variant of Windows would do.

If you're a little more adventurous, you could install ESXi free and run it headless. That way you're not just restricted to Windows, and could have a bit more fun building different servers/ desktops for different services.

 

[Steveocee]

Any OS you like with Plex server and simple disk shares would do what you want. FreeNas, Linux server variant or any Windows would do.

With two 4TB HDD's I wouldn't look at RAID at all, just have 1 as your main "disk" and the other as an internal backup. Maybe a small(ish) SSD for OS.

 

[meandu229]

Depends how much you want to tinker. For the above any variant of Windows would do.

If you're a little more adventurous, you could install ESXi free and run it headless. That way you're not just restricted to Windows, and could have a bit more fun building different servers/ desktops for different services.

I would definitely try out ESXi. Means you can have a few boxes for things that you need/want to be up 24/7 like file shares and a few to tinker with and play. Also being able to revert to snap shots and such is pretty brilliant.

 

[Clipsey]

Thanks guys, I'll have a look at ESXI and see how easy it all is. I've never had something like this, so windows might be the easiest way.
I've read about plex, and from what people say might also be an easy configuration.

Is setting up raid easy?
I have 5 sata ports so can expand when necessary. Could order 2x 4tb drives and set a raid up that way? As one drive is for back up and one is used, is that correct?

 

[Clipsey]

Any OS you like with Plex server and simple disk shares would do what you want. FreeNas, Linux server variant or any Windows would do.

With two 4TB HDD's I wouldn't look at RAID at all, just have 1 as your main "disk" and the other as an internal backup. Maybe a small(ish) SSD for OS.

I have other spare HD drives, would it be a good idea to use one of them. I have a SSD on the way, but was going to use that for an upgrade on the HTPC. Would the server see much of a performance increase with an SSD? Considering it'll be on 24/7 ?

 

[Little_Crow]

Another recommendation for ESXi here. If the server motherboard has a USB port, then you can install and boot ESXi from a Memory stick.

RAID is a bit trickier. It's not too difficult to setup, but you'll need to check the RAID chipset is on the VMWare compatibility guide.
You may setup a RAID volume but then not be able to see it in ESXI.

A quick look at the TS-140 specs and a bit of googling suggests RAID on that server is not supported in ESXi, but without knowing the chipset model it's impossible to be sure.

 

[Hellsmk2]

Thanks guys, I'll have a look at ESXI and see how easy it all is. I've never had something like this, so windows might be the easiest way.
I've read about plex, and from what people say might also be an easy configuration.

Is setting up raid easy?
I have 5 sata ports so can expand when necessary. Could order 2x 4tb drives and set a raid up that way? As one drive is for back up and one is used, is that correct?

ESXi is very simple to install and configure. It's also so popular that you'll find blogs, documentation, forum posts, etc detailing just about every config you could ever want to to.

You'll still end up running a Windows VM on it the same as you would if you installed that as the primary OS, but having ESXi underneath it opens up endless options for tinkering with other OSs (which by proxy means you'll learn a heck of a lot more and have much more fun).

Assuming the server you have bought has onboard RAID, it should be as simple as hitting the right F button during boot POST and creating a RAID array with the drives you've got. You'd want RAID 1 for what you've described above. You'll probably also find that ESX will happily exist with whatever onboard raid controller you server comes with (just google ESX+ raid controller - someone will have a guide for making it work). "Unsupported" is very different from "will not work" on a home server.

 

[Steveocee]

Could order 2x 4tb drives and set a raid up that way? As one drive is for back up and one is used, is that correct?

No, that's just RAID 1, writes the same data to both, that's just redundancy. There is no real backup there. RAID is not a backup (repeat until it sinks in).

Ideally if you wanted RAID1 you would have two drives of equal size in the array and then an additional drive of the same size as a backup.

If you are ordering 2 drives PLEASE don't stick them into RAID1 and think your data is safe. What if the RAID controller fails? Data gone.

 

[Hellsmk2]

No, that's just RAID 1, writes the same data to both, that's just redundancy. There is no real backup there. RAID is not a backup (repeat until it sinks in).

Ideally if you wanted RAID1 you would have two drives of equal size in the array and then an additional drive of the same size as a backup.

If you are ordering 2 drives PLEASE don't stick them into RAID1 and think your data is safe. What if the RAID controller fails? Data gone.

This. RAID 1 mirrors one disk/ set of disks to another disk / set of disks of the same size. If one drive fails, your server will be safe long enough for you to replace the failed drive(s) with any luck.

If all disks fail or your raid controller dies - your data is gone.

Standard backups would still be sensible; however, RAID 1 is still better than no RAID.

 

[swain90]

RAID 1 is still better than no RAID.

I don't mean to be "that guy", but how can RAID1 be better than no RAID?

Surely if there's a possability of the controller failing the OP would be better with 2 separate disks which are then synced via some sort of software/batch file?

The reason I ask is that I've just setup RAID1 on my HP Server and after reading the above comments I'm inclined to set them back up as just single disks which are mirrored via a batch file of some sort.

 

[Steveocee]

I have other spare HD drives, would it be a good idea to use one of them. I have a SSD on the way, but was going to use that for an upgrade on the HTPC. Would the server see much of a performance increase with an SSD? Considering it'll be on 24/7 ?

Server will be faster, more responsive, more resilient and core services will run smoother. Depends what you are serving but anything other than hard data storage should be on an SSD IMO.

This. RAID 1 mirrors one disk/ set of disks to another disk / set of disks of the same size. If one drive fails, your server will be safe long enough for you to replace the failed drive(s) with any luck.
If all disks fail or your raid controller dies - your data is gone.
Standard backups would still be sensible; however, RAID 1 is still better than no RAID.

I was with you until the last sentence. By doubling the amount of spinning disks you are increasing the chances of a failure, throw into the mix the raid controller as well as some can be a nightmare to get set up correctly.

If it was me and I had the choice and I only had 2 drives the same size for data storage. It would be JBOD with rsync running on cron to keep perfect symmetry between them.

 

[swain90]

Thanks for the reply.

After reading the above I think I'm going to get rid of my RAID1 setup and stick with 1x 120GB SSD for OS and then leave my 2x WD 3TB as single disks and just mirror the data.

 

[Clipsey]

Just got ThinkServer and 2x 4TB disks delivered.
Picked up a 240GB SSD drive for the install etc over the weekend to make things a littler snappier.
Just going to read up more on ESXi etc to see if needed.

Thanks again. Will probably post a few more questions over this week when setting up

 

[Clipsey]

Installed SSD and 2 x hd's late last night and ended up going with Win10.

Question, so to start, didn't recognize my 2 spare drives, figured out going into disk management, setting up 'new volume' on one and that's all good. However, the other spare drive has 3 partitions already which I can't seem to delete, edit or whatever to give me a nice big blank 4tb drive?
I can creat two new volumes (and leaves maybe 1/5 still partitioned off). But I just want one large empty disk? Any ideas?

Also, I did a quick play of a .mkv (3gb file) and was stuttering really bad. Cat5 connection to router, which is stored on an external drive.
Will try transferring to new drives tonight and streaming to HTPC and hopefully everything will be ok, as everything should run smooth as butter!

 

[Hellsmk2]

If I've read your question correctly, I'd assume it's because you initialized the disk using the MBR partition table instead of GPT. GPT allows partitions above 2TB, whereas MBR is limited to 2tb (or 2.1... can't quite remember).

You can set this via the disk management snap-in (start - run - diskmgmt.msc). You'll have to reformat the disk to get the option again.

As for the playback, I'm assuming your external drive is USB2? If that's the case, you should see a big performance increase moving it over to the WDs.

 

[Clipsey]

Thanks man, I'll check this evening.
Yes, I think when setting up the ThinkServer it may have partitioned one of the drives. Just seemed weird why I couldn't format it within the disk management window.

 

[Steveocee]

Installed SSD and 2 x hd's late last night and ended up going with Win10.

Question, so to start, didn't recognize my 2 spare drives, figured out going into disk management, setting up 'new volume' on one and that's all good. However, the other spare drive has 3 partitions already which I can't seem to delete, edit or whatever to give me a nice big blank 4tb drive?
I can creat two new volumes (and leaves maybe 1/5 still partitioned off). But I just want one large empty disk? Any ideas?

Also, I did a quick play of a .mkv (3gb file) and was stuttering really bad. Cat5 connection to router, which is stored on an external drive.
Will try transferring to new drives tonight and streaming to HTPC and hopefully everything will be ok, as everything should run smooth as butter!

Thanks man, I'll check this evening.
Yes, I think when setting up the ThinkServer it may have partitioned one of the drives. Just seemed weird why I couldn't format it within the disk management window.

As Hells has pointed out, it's probably you have the disk set into MBR which is why it's carving your disk up into multiple partitions. Once into GPT it'll partition into 1 large drive. In disk management try right clicking the drive letter part and you can choose to set it to GPT. Reboot and it shoudl come up so you can repartition as 1.

 

[Clipsey]

I feel like this should be something simple

Anyway, it doesn't seem to let me do basically anything in Disk Management. Not sure if it already tried to separate into some kind of Raid or whatever when installing everything with the Lenovo DVD before Win10 installed?
Got me stumped.