Spec me a home server

AHarvey

AHarvey

AHarvey

Soldato
Joined
6 Mar 2008
Posts
10,085
Location
Stoke area
Hi all,

Looking at getting a home server setup for storage of vids, photos and our music collection. Hopefully having it all in one place will make it easier to keep tidy.

Anyway, I will be connecting it to my netgear DG834G v3 (wired) to give it access to the network. It will be accessed from the other PC's in the house that are wired to the router, a laptop and my 360 with wifi.

Anyway, suggestion on a cheap-med priced setup. No exact £ figures yet but say a max of 400.

Should I be looking at a MS or Linux OS? Any other software suggestion on running it?

Any decent guides on setting up and running a server?

Although the 2 PC's are networked I have never set them up to be able to read from each other so its all new to me. Only access the net with them.

On a side note, what back up system would you recommend and how much are we talking about?

Is CPU/Mem extremely important for a fast server, or is HDD speed more important?

Thanks for now, will probably have more questions later :D

EDIT: Currently all PCs are running XP. got an old desktop PC from work sitting in the corner, rubbish spec if I remember correctly but I am going to have a play tomorrow at trying to set it up as a server. May as well practice on a crappy PC :D
 
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I am running a Dlink DNS-323 NAS box and doing what it seems you are looking for.

The 323 has 2 drive bays and a USB connector for another external drive (ie. for NAS backup).

I use it for storing TV / movies / music and pics.

It links directly to my Windows XP machines as a networked drive and I can browse / play the files like that (it has a gigabit lan connector) and also links to my XBox 360 in the living room to stream movies via a ustream. The unit is linux based and there are lots of hacks for it. Putting fonzi's fun plug on is a piece of pie and then putting on uStream will allow streaming to the XBox360 or PS3.

I understand that other NAS devices also have this ability out of the box.

RB
 
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That gives 2Tb of storage, on 500gb drives. Basic system, and you could run Windows Home Server, or play with Linux. I tried the Linux route, but opted for WHS because we didnt get along with each other. Yes, its more money, but WHS has software RAID (Where you files are duplicated across two or more drives) automatic backups, accessible from anywhere etc. And the PSU is 80+ efficient and will easily run more. Case is a nice case too. Done a few builds with them.
 
Memory is more important in home servers to be honest. no need to buy expensive parts if you dont need them.

Whilst NAS boxes are good for storage. with a server it can do so much more.

Linux is a good option but only if your willing to put the time in. It isnt windows so any knowledge you have of windows will have to be un learnt to get on with linux.saying that learning something new is always a blast
 
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