Home Server Build (what do I need?)

I'm considering building a home server basically because I can, and because I could use the experience with network management. I think I can find a few uses for it around the home, but it is mostly just for practice and administration experience. Up until now Ive always just run 1 multi purpose rig.

Here's how I'm considering going about it. Ive got two similar boards (i intel and 1 amd) and cpu's to go with them. Both are nearish in speed and core count (near 3ghz dual core). The intel board is a dell so there wont be any OC for it. There will be little neough OC with the amd though because the cooler I have for it is weak. better than stock but still nothing to really push with. Either one can have up to 8gb of ddr2 (2gb sticks, 2 matched sets) but I could also make each board hold 6gb ddr2 (whichever board is not the server will ultimately be a HTPC in the future). The PSU's Ive got for these guys are better than diablotek, but have been seen by the forums before and arent really the most quality. I'm hoping that isnt going to be an issue because they arent really going to be taxed all that much.

I had planned on moving the WD green from my sig into the server and keeping backups there still. I'd also like to move my music and movies to the server and stream them from there. All of this is feasable... in theory.

This post is just to ask what specs I need to be able to comfortable run a home server. I dont want a bottle neck in my network, so if the low core count cpu's and ddr2 is going to be an issue then I'll have to rethink my strategy. Thanks in advance.

The hardware specifications depend entirely on what you intend to do with it. If it is purely data storage, speed of the system isn't important, and it will all come down to the hard drives and their configuration. You could go as simple as JBOD drives shared from Windows, or as complex as a ESXi host and virtual machines.

If someone made a post in the General Hardware section of the forum saying they want "a computer", we'd be asking what, exactly, they are using it for, how much they intend to spend, etc. The same applies here; it is just a different role for a computer.

Whatever you do, don't use onboard RAID.

Well like I said I kinda intend to use it as a streaming server. I am fairly comfortable with what hardware will do what. For instance I know that I wont need a wifi card because I plan to use cat5 into the router and have access from both my main rig -which is wired- and other devices-which are wireless. Id like to slim down my main rig and have less drives (and thereby less heat and power usage) , so that leaves the server for file storage and backup storage. The true overall purpose though is simply to expand my abilities and learn how to better administrate my network. All the fun/benefits of running a lean system that is properly configured-suffice to say I have some research to do in that respect. I guess I just feel that my main rig may be getting "bulky" and it would be nice to put some spare hardware into usefull service.

My main worry is that with the older memory and processor I will have trouble accessing files at a decent speed. Another major question is wether I will need to keep peripherals for this machine , or if I can just stick it in an out of the way corner and access through remote desktop or something? This little project also changes with the necessity for a monitor and keyboard. I dont want to hook up an entire system and ahve all that extra clutter. I really just want to stick the case in an out of the way place and run it from the main rig - through the network. First things first though, is whether a dual core processor with ddr2 can handle light file transfer and some media streaming without choking. The biggest transfers it should ever need to handle are images of the OS from my main rig.

Even "streaming server" is pretty generic. What will you be streaming to? Do the devices encode on the fly? How many streams do you need it to handle? How much data storage do you need? What operating systems are you familiar with or want to learn? Etc...

If the server won't need to encode media as it streams, the processor and memory don't matter on reasonably new hardware (past 8-ish years). If the server has to encode for the devices, you are going to need a lot more processing power.

To be honest I hadnt gotten that far. Im still in the imagination stage. As far as streaming needs I just want to be able to listen to music on my android phone without putting tons of music onto the local phone storage or sd card. I am planning on connecting the the AP on the router that the server will be wired to.

I dont mean to be vague, this is just new ground for me. I never had enough hardware to build a "network" before and am not really sure of what the capabilities are. Basically its not going to be anything fancy. Garden variety is what i believe youd call it

It is ok, I'm only asking these questions for your benefit to get you thinking about them. There are a lot of aspects to consider, some of which you may not have thought of. You may not have an answer or know how to answer them, but at very least you now know what you don't know. I'd start by finding out exactly what role you want the server to be in, find out the constraints (encoding on the fly, purely file sharing, etc), make a test system to see how it works, then implementing it.

Since you want to learn, this is the perfect time to "just set something up" to see how it functions. If it doesn't work, figure out what isn't working, wipe it clean and start over; no harm done. I can give you some ideas to try if you are stuck and you have my chat information if you want to ask a quick question.

When you say media, do you mean video and audio, or exclusively audio? MP3 files will basically just be transferred to the client device's temporary storage and played, so hardly taking any power from the server at all. Same with video files if the client device is doing the encoding. If the server has to do the encoding, the system you describe should be able to handle a single stream at a time, but more than that, and you'll experience issues.

My main intent is audio, but Id hate to rule out video as well. From the reading ive done since this posting Ive comee to realize that what I want is NAS with streaming capabilities (For now). You never can tell what new demands you might have for such a machine a couple months down the road. I just realized that I also have an AM3 board that supports ddr3 available for this task. Will I see a big jump in performance for my uses to go ddr3? Ill be using the same chip (cant remember what it is exactly and I dont want to dig it out to look, but 3.0+ ghz dual core)

Again, it entirely depends on what you are doing on the server. If it is just sharing files (not encoding), either system will work fine. If you have to encode, more processing power is going to help. Until you know what kind of streaming you are doing, there is no point in discussion about it.