What do you use your home server for?

[booyaka]

E2160
2gb ram
6450 ATi
5tb storage.

All generally used for a torrent box/XBMC/steaming/squeezebox server/backups etc. Sits in my garage so can't hear it at all. All hard wired cat5 into 16 port gigabit switch for all the other stuff, main pc, ps3, amp, tv, blu ray, etc etc.

 

[db2431]

I use my n40l with W7 64bit to share movies, tv shows and music,Run Calibre server on to share books.I run VMware Workstation 9 to vm Xubuntu so I can run tvheadend with 3 dual tuners, allows you to play or record every freeview channel at the same time.Also gets used as XBMC client when somebody is in the room.Will soon be used for CCTV cameras too.

 

[Baggins_451]

Not true, you can download just Hyper-V for free, it'll only run Hyper-V and can't be modified to do much more, just like ESXi.

M$ have made big improvements of late in Hyper-V, unfortunately their Linux support (from what I've seen thus far is still lacking.)

Not accurate, the core version is free so you will be managing the server from a command line unless you have another workstation/server to use. I have seen at least one GUI for the core version of Hyper V but it wasn’t free, there may be others.

 

[Ice_Black]

I have a HP Microserver with 1 x 250GB HDD, 2 x 1TB HDD's, 8GB of RAM, soon to be testing 16GB and need to upgrade the drives at some point.

USB drive loaded on the motherboard and I run VMWare ESXi 5.0 for home use and for labbing stuff/testing stuff from that USB stick

Currently have 6 VM's set-up (so far), not all switched on at the moment though but have switched most of them on all at once, the host is only set to load VM1 and VM3 on start-up, the other ones are only needed to be started when I want to use them.


---------

VM1: Windows Server 2008 R2 - This is my main server which I use for downloading, FTP, controls some user accounts, backup server using Symantec Backup Exec, SAB NZBd+ server and remoting on to when I am out and about an, also use it for doing the admin from VSphere client when I am working remotely and to administer VM backups using Veeame

VM2: Ubuntu Server - Dedicated Newsnab server although I havnt used it and updated it in a while (just for backup just incase usenet sites are closed) - Private use only

VM3: FreeNAS - My NAS storage for file storage and sharing

VM4: XP LAB Workstation - Simple XP workstation to use alongside the below lab servers

VM5: Windows Server 2008 R2 - LAB Server for testing when I carry stuff out and test systems for clients from my side business

VM6: Windows Server 2003 - Another LAB server for the same purpose


Soon going to be creating more server VM's to build a virtual lab environment for Active Directory and Exchange

When you download files from SAB NZBd on VM1, do you move/copy files to VM3 FreeNAS?

Wouldnt that be slow?

 

[HarryPainful]

Windows 2012 box with SabNZBD+, Sickbeard, Couchpotato and Hyper V running.

Virtual machines:

AD Domain Controller, 3 Exchange 2010 boxes (DAG) and a FreeNAS box that manages my Mac Time machine backups.

Plus anything else that I want to spin up to play with, the above machines are on 24/7 though.

 

[DJMK4]

When you download files from SAB NZBd on VM1, do you move/copy files to VM3 FreeNAS?

Wouldnt that be slow?

Yeah is a bit slow, I'm probably just going to bulk it up in to one VM most likely anyway, freenas was more of a test as if not used much of it in the past

Not sure if there is a way around the speed issue, off the top of my head i can't remember what the transfer rate was but it was a bit tedious to say the least

 

[Jay Blizzay]

I have a colocated server mostly for newsgroups etc

 

[gavind]

Just an FTP server. So I have my virtual disk accessed online.

 

[Audigex]

I've not got mine set up yet, but the plan for my HP Microserver is

3 or 4x 2TB
4GB RAM
HD6450

Running (if I can work out how to do it neatly and with the power I'll have):
- XBMC (as an Airplay and DLNA client)
- DLNA server
- A greyhole storage pool
- DHCP/DNS etc
- VPN
- Owncloud and general NAS usage, possibly with an FTP to the same folder if it then syncs nicely
- And ideally a couple of small VMs for development test servers - VPS sized stuff with MySQL/PHP etc.

Although I'm not sure if I'll be taxing it too hard - it's a lot of services, but I'm only ever likely to be using 1 or 2 at a time.

 

[dfarrall]

Just whacked plex media server on mine now - Amazing software!

 

[cokecan]

HP Microserver N40L running Server 2012 on a spare 64gb SSD with storage spaces enabled on 2x2TB drives.

All my media is stored on here (photos, lossless CD rips etc) and is shared around to all my devices.

XBMC also runs on this connected directly to my AV amp and projector while Plex runs in the background for streaming duty. As noted in the other thread, the N40L can't quite cope transcoding 1080p content with a high bitrate in Plex and ends up buffering every few seconds. Aside from that is is perfect.

I have been particularly impressed with storage spaces. I used to run Server 2008 R2 with a Hyper-V VM of Server 2012 RC that had my 2x2TB drives connected directly as a resource to the VM and storage spaces configured in that. Since I moved to Server 2012 as the main OS and ditched the VM I was pleasently surprised to find I literally had to just mount the existing storage space in my new Server 2012 build and everything was as I left it in the pool.

 

[GodAtum]

Own build 4U server I have ESXi running:

• Windows Server 2012 Essentials running as my domain controller
• FreeNAS running as my home storage system. This is connected to by DC to allow for AD authentication. There is 1 iSCSI disk (1TB) as a dedicated Windows Server backup disk and 1 CIFS share (2TB) as my network share.
• Ubuntu 12.04.2 running my websever.
• Windows Server 2012 Standard with Exchange 2013 running as my email server.
• Untangle security appliance
• ownCloud as my cloud storage server

Untitled by GodAtum, on Flickr

 

[Oh Ed not again.]

N40L upgraded to 4GB, 2x 3TB WD Reds, NV GT610, internal USB IR receiver mod.

Running Ubuntu 12.10, XBMC (HDMI into telly), SabNZBd/Sickbeard etc., Time Machine server for Mac Mini upstairs over AFP, samba serving out shares to PC.

 

[badcompany]

got a spare q9550 and 4gb ddr is it worth using as a home server (file/media/vpn)?

 

[Subliminal Aura]

got a spare q9550 and 4gb ddr is it worth using as a home server (file/media/vpn)?

Overkill unless you're using it badly

Saving energy is my main concern so I use the htpc in my sig. It's primarily on demand sleeping most of time - no access to services for 10 minutes and it goes to sleep. 15mins timeout on the main drive / 5 mins on the archive

media (on demand main server)

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Dual celeron/SSD/4gigs/2x2TB drives
XBMC
Filestore / samba
sick/sab/couch/torrentflux
apache/xcache/php/drupal/nodejs old fashioned LAMP crap for development
git/cvs/svn
local email cache forwarding to c8 (smartcache)
Since it's now on demand.... munin/nagios/puppet/cacti are now redundant
Virtual xserver and vnc for when if I need to download something big off the web and don't want to run the expense of running on my main power hungry rig

c8 (24/7 cheap android tablet)

Flashed to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
1.2ghz arm/350meg/8gig class 10 SDcard ~ 2-3Watts power consumption
sickbeard wakes media on demand to push new finds
backs up all the router configs and itself by waking media
nodejs/redis (primary) apache/xcache/php (legacy)
energy/temperature monitor and x10 home automation/heating lighting etc (self written)
sits on my bedside so I can flick through status reports or change the hot water/heating schedule
primary mail relay for the home network
e-sniper your auction friend
Virtual xserver and vnc ... a little redundant but is there if I need it
Network/home monitor
Remote commands can be sent via email as I wanted stateless control eg open router ports/turn on vpn etc

Both are administered through ssh or through x-forwarding

 

[SaltandSauce]

Those running FTP sites, I hope they're SFTP.

Has anyone got a useful guide to setup SFTP? I'd love to get this up and running on my machine since it's now running 24/7. After a little hunting around, I found the following two links, but I'm not entirely sure if these are sufficient:

http://www.maketecheasier.com/setup-ftp-server-on-home-computer/2012/01/26

http://www.upenn.edu/computing/help/doc/ftp/filezillasftp.html

Since I've got a little free time once I finish work later on today, I wouldn't mind getting this up and running. Obviously security is vital so I'd have to implement SFTP.

 

[SaltandSauce]

When you download files from SAB NZBd on VM1, do you move/copy files to VM3 FreeNAS?

Wouldnt that be slow?

I can't speak for the user above, but I certainly found it incredibly slow copying fairly large files across virtual machines or even onto a USB pen. I'll be interested to hear what the other user has got to say.

 

[Subliminal Aura]

Communicating with my server via email....

 

[MasterPlan1]

That is pretty awesome, what are you using for that?

 

[Subliminal Aura]

That is pretty awesome, what are you using for that?

Services I've written in perl, nodejs, shell and C