Home Server Help (First one)

Clipsey · 22 Oct 2015 at 21:09

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

Clipsey · 23 Oct 2015 at 14:21

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 · 23 Oct 2015 at 15:15

Steveocee said:
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 ?

Clipsey · 27 Oct 2015 at 00:09

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 · 27 Oct 2015 at 14:18

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!

Clipsey · 27 Oct 2015 at 19:03

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.

Clipsey · 28 Oct 2015 at 03:07

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.