Re: [LUG] Home server

[Manipula <manipula@xxxxxxxxx>]

My component choice was down to power useage and flexibility. 35w CPU is a bonus. I'm wanting to build a backup/cloud/mail/web server type thing. I dont expect it to get much use but i would like to access my files from anywhere. Id also like to use webmin etc to interface with the system.

Sent from Samsung Mobile

bad apple <mr.meowski@xxxxxxxx> wrote:


On 06/04/13 23:15, Daniel Robinson wrote:
> so what would you suggest?

Fair question. Well, a good start is whatever you've got to hand.

If we put aside space, power costs and all other considerations (i.e.,
the missus/kids/etc) then anything that's spare or obtained for free is
perfect. Even if it's a piece of crap, it's probably still good enough
if you just want to play or experiment. For what it's worth, if I
already had a spare PC lying about with the exact specs you posted I
wouldn't actually throw it away, I'd upgrade it with spares if possible
and then I know several people who'd be happy to have it as a basic
family computer. I just wouldn't go out of my way or spend even Â1 to
obtain a computer that bad, if you see what I mean.

Ye olde P4s, P3s and Athlon 500MHz based beige boxes with 80Gb IDE hard
drives, 32Mb gfx cards and 512Mb of RAM we've all got lurking in our
lofts *are* still usable, they're just a bit past it for anything but
the most basic tasks - you could stick in a couple of network cards,
install a minimalistic BSD or linux firewall/router/infrastructure
distro like m0n0wall or smoothwall (I've got an indestructible Dell XPS
D333 doing exactly this, it's a 333MHz Pentium!) but most people don't
want or need that. There comes a point where for most people, a
Raspberry Pi in a case with a USB disk attached is probably the perfect
home server. Cheap to buy, cheap to run, tiny footprint and endlessly
configurable with linux.

Obviously, some people need actual servers at home - several of us on
this list seem to be using servers to run mythtv backends, weather
station monitoring, home automaton and of course backup. And a whole lot
of other stuff as well I'd imagine. I mostly work from home so I
definitely require serious hardware here, especially as I do a lot of
computationally expensive stuff (compiling and hashing mostly). For
example, just behind me at the moment is my 'old' home server, which I
chiefly use as my beer table now. It is fully plugged in and
operational, but is effectively retired and is louder and thirstier on
the juice than an actual windtunnel when it's on, so it stays off.

It's a dual socket Xeon with 12Gb of ECC RAM, a hardware RAID 1 ultra320
SCSI disk mirror for the boot volume and two battery-backed Adaptec RAID
cards with two HDD arrays, for 6Tb total. It has two redundant PSUs,
4x1Gb ethernet adaptors and runs CentOS like a champ. I inherited this
beast many years ago for free from a client and it has served me
incredibly well - but you should be able to pick up something like this
for Â200-Â500 these days though, it's hardly very special any more. In
London I still see machines like this skipped sometimes (despite the
recycling laws). I guess that this is what I think of as a 'proper' home
server, maybe slightly overkill, but I like my servers to actually be
servers, not just crappy consumer grade PCs otherwise past their useful
life. I am very, very probably in a tiny minority here though, almost
nobody needs stuff like this at home. But then why not when you can pick
it up for free or not much more?

Actually, you know what, forget everything I've written... I'm the worst
person in the world to ask for advice on home server suggestions. My
entire garage is full of computers (literally, the car lives
outside),and I have absolutely no sense of restraint when it comes to
hardware. If you listen to me, you'll end up with a 10 petaflop IBM
super running in your back garden.

Disregard that, as you were!

Regards

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