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On Tue, 18 Dec 2012, Neil Winchurst wrote:
On 18/12/12 11:00, Kai Hendry wrote:I didn't know whether to put this question as a new thread or not, but anyway. Several times recently I have heard mention of having a 'home server' which it seems this is all about.Get a decent ISP who can assign a netblock? ;) http://www.aa.net.uk/broadband-home1.htmlSo can anyone explain to me why someone would want to and what are the pros and cons please? I have already had a look around the internet, as so often by ending up more confused than ever.
Having a server just means a handy place to keep all your stuff. You can then access it from any device you own. The devices can then be light weight (or lighter) as the server is then there to hold the data - so the server has the big noisy disks and fans, and UPS and be kept in a cupboard under the stairs while your desktops can use SSDs, fanless motherboards, PSUs, and so on.
Well that's what we (mostly) do in Drogon towers - the Desktops have smallish SSDs in (quiet, low power) and mount the bulk of data off the server(s) via NFS. When not in the office, I can even VPN in and mount the data remotely, however the issue then is the outgoing bandwidth of my Internet conection - currently 1.2Mb/sec.
Don't forget backups though, but that applies to anything, server or not.You could use "cloud storage" for backup, but it tends to be expensive for what you get, however it's handy for off-site backups of sorts.
You could even use "cloud storage" for your "server", the advantage then is that someone else is looking after it (but don't forget backups), the disadvantage is that you then rely on the Internet to get access to your data - and remember it's upload speed thats going to be the bottleneck ther - storing a 2GB video for example may well take several hours... (and meanwhile, if you don't have any traffic management, your internet line will be more or less saturdated and impossible to use)
Gordon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq