Home servers, a general query.

Devrij

Devrij

Devrij

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After reading bugeyewrx's "spec me" thread, which I found really interesting, I started wanting a server of my own. As I attempted to justify such a project I asked myself "what does a server do that my pc does not?" and couldn't come up with an answer. I'm pretty ignorant with regards to home servers, so what do people use them for and why would I want one if I have sufficient storage in my desktop (or could add to locally it if not)?
 
I use the HP Microserver, I use this as a backup for my main machine by using Acronis to take images and have my entire movie collection on there as well.

Using Freenas 8.
 
Data Storage, Media Streamer, Backups.
Most of all they (normally - each to their own) run at very low power.

Mine does all the above on Windows home server 2011. Backups up 5 PCs and streams music and films to most rooms.

Have 6 HDDs in a high powered gaming rig kinda restricts airflow and if someone downstairs wants to watch a film my PC would have to be on. PAIN.
Server is in the study where no one can get annoyed :D
 
Why not just have a raid array in your main machine though? Obviously you might run out of ports or pci-e slots to expand your storage. Or as a separate backup in case your PSU somehow pops and kills all your drives I guess? Is that why you got your server?

I think what I'm asking is: if I have sata ports with which to expand my storage, is there a point to building a server?
 
R088ieS86 said:
Data Storage, Media Streamer, Backups.
Most of all they (normally - each to their own) run at very low power.

Mine does all the above on Windows home server 2011. Backups up 5 PCs and streams music and films to most rooms.

Have 6 HDDs in a high powered gaming rig kinda restricts airflow and if someone downstairs wants to watch a film my PC would have to be on. PAIN.
Server is in the study where no one can get annoyed :D
Click to expand...

Ah, that makes sense. So having enough machines and users using the same data would make it worthwhile. Damn, I don't have that problem :(
 
Not if no one else accesses it. If its just you then there isn't much need at all.
I got mine because I have several PCs that need backing up and needed a central place to store and access media. (the latter being more important at the time of build :))
Also RAID is no replacement for a proper backup as like you said if your PSU blows and takes out your HDDs then you'll be crying.

Their not for everyone.

If its just you thought about a NAS bay?
 
R088ieS86 said:
Not if no one else accesses it. If its just you then there isn't much need at all.
I got mine because I have several PCs that need backing up and needed a central place to store and access media. (the latter being more important at the time of build :))
Also RAID is no replacement for a proper backup as like you said if your PSU blows and takes out your HDDs then you'll be crying.

Their not for everyone.

If its just you thought about a NAS bay?
Click to expand...

I thought they were kinda the same thing :o Really showing my ignorance of all things outside of desktops here :p
 
Media streaming, backing up, storing large files on there, installing windows on my other machines (WDS) and Squid.
 
Devrij said:
Ah, now that sounds more like what I need. Does one build such a thing or are they generally prebuilts?
Click to expand...

Well my server is an old PC, but in a case with fans which produce little noise. The OS is Server 2008, but Squid runs on Debian which is being ran on VMWare, however I do aim to P2V (physical to virtual) the Server 2008 and run VMWare ESX with Server 2008 and Debian running as VMs.

For media streaming, I run TVersity which allows me to stream to PCs, Xboxes, PS3s, Wiis and iPods/iPhones.
For storing files I've just created a share and set the appropriate permissions.
To back my computers up, I've created a share on the server and use the built in backup tools for Windows 7 to back the machines up.
WDS is fairly simple to setup as well, there are plenty of tutorials around to achieve a WDS setup.
If you want to run Squid, again, there are plenty of tutorials on setting up Squid and Debian (in my case).

Be warned though, TVersity is somewhat CPU intensive as it has to encode the files in some cases so that Xboxes can stream the content, for example.
 
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Home domain for roaming profiles or similar, fed up of kids and wife loosing things. Also acts as a web server and a remote data server as well as a route to vmwares I use for work. Means I can logon with my account to any of the 6 machines in the house and so can my family and get everything they need. btw NOT using roaming profiles, but a solution thw company I work for provides.

Many reasons really for me.

I use an old HP laptop (well 3 years old) with the lid closed.
 
Hi just wondered as I'm going to invest in a new home server soon, upgrading from original WHS.

Was going to just put on WHS 2011 and that's it. Would like to be able to use:
Plex - stream media
Download - sabnzbd
Backup - cleint machines

Think that's the main stuff which WHS 2011 can do all of it.

But was thinking, would it be better to install ESXi so that I can have a few VM's

pfsense / firewall - security
freenas - data
Server 2008 - media streaming / downloads
 
I have a basic Core2-based dual-core Celeron machine (the cheap barebones setup from OcUK), along with 4GB RAM and a selection of large hard drives.

It's running Windows Home Server v1, which provides automated backups of all client PCs (there's the HTPC, my main PC, my CarPC and my mum's laptop), shared folders, a USB printer shared from the server, and I've also got stuff like uTorrent running on the server box.

All my documents/music/videos/photos/software installers are all stored on the server, and using the Drive Extender functionality (which they removed for WHS 2011 :() I have some of these folders duplicated onto multiple disks (mainly photos & documents) for redundancy in case I have a single drive failure.

The basic file-sharing etc I could have done with any OS, but the integrated automated backups of any Windows XP and newer OS without additional software is what has made it really useful. The Drive Extender has been great, I've been able to add a further 2 disks without having to think about moving my data around - my Videos share is currently over 2.4TB, and my largest disk is just 2TB, so without Drive Extender I'd have to split this share up, and/or manually manipulate data as it grows.


I don't have any devices which require any kind of media streaming/transcoding software, my HTPC runs Windows 7 Media Center which works perfectly with just a shared folder.
 
I run last years Microserver, with 3GB RAM (up from the 1 it came with), the the OS HDD moved into the optical bay so all the removable disks are storage. It's used as an SMB file share for myself and 2 housemates, handles DNS to make access to the resources on it a lot smoother, runs SABnzbd+ which kicks in at 2am-8am each day to get anything queued up, and also hosts everything for the 4 Squeezeboxes in the house. Sits under the stairs being generally quiet and not eating too much power.

Runs Server 2008 R2.
 
I'm currently running 3 servers, one is the DC for my home Domain, one is my Exchange 2010 box, and the third is my AV server which is a hyper-v server. Plus a second hyper-v client for testing.

All for home training, and licenced through the MS Plus pack.
 
It does lots, here's what mine does:

1) Hosts my own personal repositories so that I have access to my scripts anywhere via gitolite running on my own private system, I don't need github and I don't share that with anybody

2) Hosts my Zabbix server monitoring all my VM's including my 2 Rackspace systems in Dallas and London :D

3) Hosts my lab environment, currently giving me remote access to play with: Gluster // Linux Mint // Fedora 17 // XenServer // Cfengine // Boson Netsim // Sama // CentOS 6.2 // Debian 6.0.5 // Samba // Postgres 9 // MySQL // etc etc

4) It also gives me direct access to my Cisco lab as well as the Juniper firewalls I have

Its a huge advantage and a awesome resource, especially since I can get to it from work so I can try things out without using work kit.
 
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